Unnamed Counting Loop Puzzle
I've been taking the idea of making a book a bit more seriously recently. I think I could get away with compiling a ton of puzzles from the blog if I exercise quality control and organize it well, both in terms of solving difficulty and conceptual topic. Something I recently realized could make a logic puzzle book unique is an introduction that builds up the foundational logic of different types from the ground up. Perhaps it starts with easy Simple Loop strategies and moves on to entrance counting and parity arguments, then sidesteps to talk about minimums and maximums in set-based puzzles. XO Loop feels like the best contender for a first puzzle in the book because of how simple and scannable it is for a loop puzzle and the realization that XO Loop can be used to express Simple Loop. At some point, I considered adapting XO Loop to tie in the idea of minimums and maximums, and the result is a genre that I don't think I've seen before despite its simplicity.
Although I'm stocking up on plenty more, the following three puzzles were shared yesterday to showcase the concept.
Rules: Draw a loop. If a number appears in the grid, the loop must pass through exactly that many cells containing that number.
