hutt's puzzle dump

 I've been getting stuff done this month, but it's the sorts of things that are part of something larger that I may want to wait for. For example, the writing project is over 85% complete. I also recently hit the first milestone for a large puzzle project I started early this month. I'll make a post for it soon after triple-checking for uniqueness. Speaking of milestones, three days ago, the blog hit a combined 10k post views! Thank you all for checking out my puzzles! It feels nice to be neither obscure nor well-known in this field. For this post, I've decided to include puzzles I've shared to two other sites but for some reason or another have not shared here yet. These Narrowfence puzzles were made on the last day of May. They also appear with credit in part five of the creator's paper puzzle collections . The links use different shapes from the original puzzles due to constraints of the editor. I found the logical techniques of this genre to be fresh yet int...

 On the post for the Dungeon Map puzzles, I mentioned that I thought the checkered tiles would be an interesting variant for other puzzles. The latest PuzsqWave theme inspired me to try it out on a few genres. The first three were also transcribed in the Kudamono editor on 7/20/25, although the Yajilin uses a different interpretation; admittedly, the way the variant was implemented in the editor makes more sense than my interpretation. Aqre Kudamono   penpa Choco Banana Kudamono   penpa Nurikabe Kudamono   penpa Yajilin penpa

 I had the good fortune of noticing this was a new puzzle type on the Puzzle Square home page only about a day after the first one was posted there. I really like how Kurarin feels new yet natural. The clue type synergizes nicely with the inherent constraints of a loop.  These first four puzzles were made on 6/26: https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/7/8/i2j4g8r4zh84h8o8h8h2zh2m https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/8/6/k1p2z2g422gc2z2p3l https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/7/7/n8g4gcmct8p4hcs4n8r https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/8/8/o8h4gcn8cm2l2h8g8zi4gcg2l2n48n8g8h8o These next four puzzles were made on 6/27, have only gray clues, and are notably more difficult: https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/8/5/n8h8h8n8h8h8n8h8h8n8h8h8m https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/7/9/s222222u82l2zi2h2h22222zi2j2h2h https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/8/8/t8o82g2m2j8g8i2i2t2j8g8g8g2l82g2g8p8j8n https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?kurarin/10/10/p8m8q8222h8s8g8g8g8g2x2k2j8g8g8i2k2x2j8g8g8s822g2g8q8g8k8...

 Recently, I decided to revisit pzprxs to see what had been added. Since the last time I checked was before the latest merge to puzz.link, there were plenty of new types for me to explore, most of which I hadn't heard of before. One in particular that I underestimated at first was LIX Loop. The example in the rules was pretty straightforward to approach like a Yajilin until the ending deductions, so I started to appreciate the nuances of its logic while constructing this doppelganger. These puzzles were both made yesterday. https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/8/8/e31d11i41e31a41m31l31c11b11a https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?lixloop/8/8/e32d12i42e32a42m32l32c12b12a

 I recently remembered a puzzle that I don't believe I'd shared here for some reason, which led me to realize that I may have accidentally skipped over a few other puzzles when mirroring the older puzzles here. The following puzzle was shared on 9/20/2023 and was originally intended to be in a hypothetical update to Stencil. It did not make the cut because it was a fundamentally different puzzle genre and I wanted to be consistent, but I still think the idea has some merit to it. Draw horizontal and vertical bars which bisect tiles (such as those in Amibo) which connect to form a single loop that doesn't branch between cells or cross itself. This is functionally equivalent to a normal loop through cells where the corner pieces are replaced with intersections, except for the fact that corners cannot be adjacent unless they are adjacent in the loop, in which case the loop would branch into itself. For example, in this puzzle, some intersections have already been marked and th...

 Nothing to see here, just an ordinary Castle Wall ;)         (made on 2/26/25) https://puzz.link/p?castle/6/6/00.02.02202202102304.043d043e042e042e042e

 I suppose this is what I should expect to happen if I focus entirely on long-term projects and day-to-day obligations. While I haven't been posting much at all here, I do have a few puzzles I haven't shared here yet and I've been making progress on other things. I've practically dropped the fan project, which might end up being for the best, and most of my efforts in my current three personal projects of late have been brainstorming aspects other than puzzle design. I can at least say I'm excited for these projects and would hate to leave any of them unresolved. Lately I've been getting the impression that I'm walking a tightrope between the past and the future, and I'm trying my best to stay focused on the present despite temptations to leer too far to either side. Balancing has always been something I've found difficult. Variant rule: The loop passes through the same number of tiles in every row, and the same number of tiles in every column. https...

 Of course this puzzle type was scheduled for a day that was a relatively large prime number! Multiplication Link reminds me of Balance Loop in that both puzzles require turning on the numbers and allow selecting from a range of possible segment length pairs, although, by merit of having more fine-tuned options, Multiplication Link feels like a better idea than the hypothetical Addition Link due to requiring a lot less clues to make interesting puzzles. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=21x7&L=(24)0(19)3(12)3(4)27(6)11(12)7(12)44(6)7(4)11(24)27(12)6&G=multiplication-link https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=12x12&L=(12)0(1)7(1)16(1)3(12)7(2)2(1)5(1)9(1)5(1)9(1)4(1)4(9)12(9)7(9)20(2)9(4)12(24)1&G=multiplication-link

 The spice in the puzzle has heated up since yesterday! While ice tiles aren't necessarily an uncommon sight in paper puzzles, I believe the twist that separates Fire Walk from Ice Walk is currently unique to its puzzle type. Setting puzzles for this felt hard to control at first because it tends to have more room to breathe more often than Ice Walk, but I think I managed to carry over some lessons from the latter when making the reprisal. The rule about double-turns being inside the loop may have originally been intended as a convention to force uniqueness (as it would be difficult to do so on most multi-cross patterns without this rule), but the rule itself does lead nicely to puzzles exploring whether a potential double-crossing would be inside the loop, so it doesn't necessarily feel contrived. https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?firewalk/6/6/0k1go2g03m1g6h1n2h6p https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?firewalk/12/9/002ssh5499fub0io4n7000ci9i-18zs9zh9zpci9i-18i I wouldn't be surprised if t...

 I think this ruleset strikes a great balance between accommodating ice logic (compare to Icebarn and Icelom) and clues that count path lengths between the special tiles (compare to Fire Walk and Water Walk), resulting in a puzzle type that feels just controlled enough to often be comfortable to both set and solve while still leaving the door open for intriguing logic. https://puzz.link/p?icewalk/7/5/0r2a8r0u1g2g8u https://puzz.link/p?icewalk/12/8/002ssl549p4ea2its000ci8i-18zzzzm https://puzz.link/p?icewalk/12/12/003vshh4c932fvjvshh4c932fvg00zj3g1g1h2g2g3t1g1h2g2zo4i8g8j4g4m8h4i8g8g8u4n

 As the name may suggest, this puzzle type is the complete antithesis to Slitherlink. In doing so, it breaks a lot of new ground in its potentially cursed structure while inviting parallel logic that tends to dive deeper into deductions involving sets. The first puzzle here is a normal Slitherlink to compensate for having so few yesterday (and also to make the second puzzle feel a tad disorienting). https://puzz.link/p?slither/8/8/121212171cg17121cg121c1c121cg12121ch1712121ch https://puzz.link/p?lither/8/8/121212171cg17121cg121c1c121cg12121ch171cj1c https://puzz.link/p?lither/12/6/8811bi8811b8dm83111311182221113111811122cj11b

 Slitherlink might be one of the first paper puzzle types I encountered formally (after nonograms). Earlier this year, I cracked open a puzzle book I remembered liking that has some of these and noticed that I had left several of the puzzles incomplete despite previously having a decent understanding of common patterns; upon looking back, it occurred to me that several of the deductions I was missing involved a cool idea of set theory applied to gridpoints along a diagonal. In this way, I think Slitherlink can be versatile and have a bit of a learning curve (which doesn't shoot off into the clouds via penalty theory).  Unfortunately, I've been quite busy and didn't manage to set very many puzzles for it today. That being said, I think the variant puzzle I devoted most of my time to today is one of my favorite puzzles I've ever constructed. Maybe it's for a similar reason that I think a lot of my variant puzzles from 2022 were great? Nevertheless, I feel like I uncov...

I think Masyu might be the only puzzle type for which I've seen a warning to new solvers that it's easy to accidentally make a mistake in the logic. It does eventually become easy to recall generally how the clues work and there are some common patterns that can be identified. For me, Masyu is one of a few puzzle types that hold the special distinction of either being very straightforward or nearly impossible to approach. I imagine the latter category involves some logic regarding high densities of straight lines that I'm unfamiliar with. https://puzz.link/p?mashu/12/3/030003300030 https://puzz.link/p?mashu/15/6/i620i1093110931i620i4009c00000 https://puzz.link/p?mashu/15/9/000003g07i620093g17i6i0093g07i000001060000090 (The following puzzle appears to have broken at some point, but I've decided to keep it on this page legacy purposes.) Variant: Every question mark follows the rules of a pearl. https://puzz.link/p?mashu/v:/12/12/i02k13003990110036070i0910000000i020i20i030...

S ince I accidentally dropped my bag while wading westward, I spent most of today trying to clean it up using the isolated freshwater lake by the northwest of this plot of land. The floor was muddy enough that the bag got quite grungy. It took a while to remove the dirt from the hidden crevices. Rules: Draw a loop along the edges of cells.  Numbers are Product Bag clues: they must be inside the loop and reveal the product of the lengths of the row and column they can see within the loop.  Circles must be outside the loop but are next to the loop on three sides; all possible circles are given. penpa link

 Taking physics classes inspired me to try and find a new way to incorporate physics into a paper puzzle. While other genres like Stostone, Aquarium, and Dosun-Fuwari use gravity in the sense of objects settling as far down (or up) as they possibly can, I wanted to go a bit more complex by introducing torque. What better base type to use for balancing than a Balance Loop? I like how the logic turned out; it may feel like heavy bifurcation near the end but I prefer to see it as mathematics. made on 8/23/24 Solve this Balance Loop such that, assuming gravity is downward and that segments have standard, uniformly distributed mass, the loop would balance on the provided edge at the bottom, without having to fall onto it first. (Gravity exerts torque on each individual edge segment according to the number below it. The sum of torques on the left should equal the sum of torques on the right.)

 I found out about the USPC through the Thinky Puzzles Discord and decided to try solving it this year, just to see what puzzle competitions are like. I found it to be very fun, despite having both slight nervousness and overconfidence before starting. The puzzle types introduced some new concepts to me I was surprised I hadn't seen before, especially the integration of Scrabble-like crosses in lieu of shaded squares in logic puzzles. One concept that I felt like expanding on after the competition was inspired by the choice to have a set of four puzzles each reliant individually on either the sum, difference, product, or quotient of the lengths of perpendicular runs or lines. It occurred to me that while I was familiar with mystery operation puzzles through KenKen and Math Path, I had not seen a mystery operation that related to perpendicular lines. I started making this ruleset using only the four basic operations in a sort of variant Balance Loop, before realizing that the Balanc...

 made on 4/22/24; uploaded on 4/27/24 https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/10/10/e32v21f32c21u12c32f42v32d https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/10/10/b25zb44zi32u13e1.d https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/10/10/42b2222e42t2222e32i32t32i32o1212c made on 3/27/24 https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/11/7/c23n23zj21d11o11 made on 9/14/23 https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/11/11/41i20m0.b11b22z21e33z20b14b0.m13i32 Very proud of the starting logic in this one This is the first page where I've decided to try recycling old pages. The page which contained the older puzzle will be deleted shortly after this one goes up. I'm hoping this process will help consolidate puzzles of the same type and situation while also making sure newer puzzles reach the front of the line.

This genre reminds me of Yajilin, but feels more flexible. The addition of two arbitrary directions leads to different styles of logic in both. I also find Implicit Directors slightly easier for me to set because placing a new clue doesn't add new solutions.  made on 3/30/24 https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player.html?W=7x7&L=(4)21(3)20&G=implicit-directors https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player.html?W=7x7&L=(4)1(1)8(2)18(1)1(2)19&G=implicit-directors

 made on 3/14/24 https://puzz.link/p?snakepit/7/4/3h4g59zg5600001000 https://puzz.link/p?roundtrip/6/6/26n42524l625 Tacircle: Shade some circles that are centered on grid vertices and have integer radius length. Circles must be contained entirely within the grid and cannot overlap squares with clues. Numbers represent the combined area of all circles that touch the corners of the clue's square, divided by pi. Numberless clues must touch at least one circle. Circles may be adjacent but there must be only one unshaded region. 

 Some of the puzzle blogs this blog was inspired by have a habit of numbering the puzzles. While it does convey a sense of how much I've made, I've found myself not really caring about the numbers, and I get the feeling solvers won't really care either. I don't plan to make a 500-puzzle special or anything like that because I may have already hit that benchmark. Numbering is ambiguous when initials are included, when some pages have multiple puzzles (I can think of at least one with hidden puzzles) and when considering the puzzles I made before joining the internet. I also have plans (though they may fall through) to do some slight reorganizing of the blog to make it more intuitive to explore and slightly more novel by design. Cutting numbers seems like an easy way to streamline.  It seems unfitting to make a blog post without a puzzle, so I've prepared a Balance Loop on this theme. You may want to warm up with this one: https://puzz.link/p?balance/4/4/01r01 The fol...