hutt's puzzle dump

 constructed offline on 8/16/25 One number has been misplaced and really applies to a different region. https://puzz.link/p?akichi/v:/13/13/i64pj6cpj601j6cpj6cpj2cpj6cpj60gvts00g03vvnvu002007futro00g01rv0l1g23l4g5g6k789j

Seeing the name of the latter genre reminded me of the former, which inspired this doppel. Constructing it ended up being a puzzle in itself due to how Tile City tends to require lots of small regions somewhat near each other whereas Number City tends to need large regions near small ones. https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?tilecity/6/6/3jvs9cui09dmzj https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?numcity/6/6/zv3jvs9cui09dm

 While trying to translate the variants of 14 Minesweeper Variants into Heyawake variants was a fun challenge, at times I had to re-interpret the variants in new ways to align with how Heyawake works. To be clear, this isn't a bad thing and likely made the Heyawakes feel fresher than they would otherwise, but I still felt as though, if I wanted to make a more complete series, I should choose another paper puzzle that could accommodate all the variants of both games nearly verbatim. Specifically, I had the following criteria in mind: It must be a pre-existing genre (not named Minesweeper), ideally one people know about. I searched through the Kudamono editor's list first because I could use the built-in variant support for some of the puzzles, but I wasn't opposed to sifting through pzprxs as a second resort. Luckily, I didn't end up having to resort to reading the Dictionary. It must be a cell-shading puzzle or otherwise have a satisfying binary-cell interpretation. For...

 This genre was invented by thejonymyster. The first four puzzles in this post were made on the nineteenth; the last one was made today. Rules: Shade some cells in the grid. Shaded cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent. All unshaded cells must form one orthogonally connected region. No 2x2 section may be left entirely unshaded. All shaded cells must form one connected network via knight moves.

 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 just made this while thinking about interpreting a three-dimensional puzzle with two-dimensional cross-section rulesets. I'm pleasantly surprised it worked out to only need one clue. penpa link (answer check) Solve the Skyscrapers puzzle in such a way that each digit counts the amount of squares that should be shaded in that digit's position in the five incomplete shading puzzles below. A square may only be shaded if it is also shaded in the puzzle immediately to its left, with the exception of the leftmost puzzle, which is entirely shaded. Each layer uses a different puzzle type from the layer candidates. No clues or given edges have been revealed for the shading puzzles. All rulesets can be found at  https://pzprxs.vercel.app/list.html

 I recently filled up one of my graph paper notebooks. This inspired me to go back through the notebooks I used before that one to see if I had any cool old puzzles lying around that I had forgotten about. The following puzzles were probably drawn in late May 2022, except the rightmost puzzle here was re-clued today to avoid what might've been a nonuniqueness. I have suspected that I first came up with this puzzle idea as far back as 2016, making this the ultimate recycling of my ideas. These puzzles do use a slightly adapted ruleset, but I think it's better than the original rules. Shade some cells to form walls, such that the unshaded cells form rectangular rooms. Then, connect the rooms by drawing hallways in the pre-marked light gray cells. A hallway is either a straight line or a turn which connects two rooms. All rooms must be connected through the hallways. The letter "h" has been used to represent chairs, which cannot be shaded.  penpa link (no answer check)

This is the project I've been teasing! You could call this page a devlog. I've tried not to spoil too much. Since every post here should include a puzzle, I've put the link to the project at the bottom.      This all started about two years ago. I had an idea for a puzzle game where the player solved paper puzzles with input methods restricted by the tools they had available. These tools, called stencils, would be used for solving the puzzles as well as marking the puzzles on the grids. This led to me trying to create a language suited for describing puzzle rulesets. It would have to be nuanced enough to describe complicated ideas, but simple enough to be conveyable to the player.      Stencil was a short game and did not take very long to create. It was especially convenient that I did not need to program because I had decided to present Stencil in a folder system. The main reason for doing so was because progression could be locked behind password-protect...

 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

 This was originally shared on 6/3/24. It's one of my favorite metapuzzles I've ever made, but I suspect I didn't post it here before because I thought I'd repurpose it for a later project, which I chose not to do. Here are two shading puzzles with similar clue layouts but completely different rulesets. As for the rules...  clears throat and sifts through notecards Whoops! I... uh... accidentally dropped them. Which rules went to which puzzle again?

 The second puzzle here was originally posted exactly one year ago and the first puzzle here was made today. I don't think a name has been suggested yet, so I've decided to name it unofficially in this post. This puzzle type was invented by yakaki. Shade some cells and divide the board along edges into regions. Every region contains exactly one clue and has 180-degree rotational symmetry about its clue (like in Tentaisho). Numbers reveal the amount of cells within the region that are shaded. Every mass of orthogonally connected shaded cells also has 180-degree rotational symmetry, about some arbitrary point per mass.  Variant: Percentage clues reveal the percent of cells within the region that are shaded.

 These were originally made back in March and posted as screenshots. I finally got around to transcribing them today. Dungeon Map has the special distinction of being the first paper puzzle that I know of that includes special tiles that act as both shaded and unshaded. These tiles would be a great variant for other puzzle types as well. However, neither of the puzzles below use the checkerboard tiles, causing them to rely on special-case techniques. Puzzle 1 (9x9-13) Puzzle 2 (7x7-7)

 So... the project is pretty much complete! I think I succeeded in making something grand that explored many concepts without overstaying its welcome, although not everything came together as I planned. For example, I assumed that paper draped around a cylinder would allow the viewer to see half of it at once, since the "front" and "back" could be almost the entireties of two semicircles, but it somehow turned out to be significantly less than that, which felt a bit like being inside a house of leaves. At least I was able to learn how to use Paint. The project is going to release publicly in about a week from today; I'll make a page for it when that happens. The following puzzles were made on 5/5/25, but I forgot to post them then, so I decided to save them for this page. Tapa Tasquare Choco Banana Kurodoko Square Jam

 I had this idea last year and very nearly forgot about it entirely. I'm glad this genre flows as easily as it does, because it took me about as long as I was hoping it would to set it. https://puzz.link/p?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

 Probably not my twelfth Aqre, but rather made around midnight on February 12th: https://puzz.link/p?aqre/7/7/000c631go07u000000cc12

     I hope I haven't discouraged anyone by my inactivity here. I've been busy working on several things, including the big projects I alluded to earlier. I'm losing hold of the motivation to pursue the fan project, and I've encountered (and partially surpassed!) some blockage regarding a novella since I've encountered a break in the storm that needs to be choreographed, but I hesitate to approach the remaining project since it's the one that would most likely take the longest to completely construct. At least I found the time to make another levelpack, though the map title may come across as an unintentionally poignant metaphor.      Lately I've been spending most of my free time solving puzzles rather than setting, though I've also started watching Taskmaster to fill the late hours when I'm empirically less likely to make unique puzzles. I did make a set of  three   Mirroring   Tiles  on the tenth to keep myself from getting too rusty,...

These were made between 11/28/24 and 12/1/24 while exploring the idea of giving shaded regions bounding boxes. I really like how the logic ended up having depth to it: these puzzles rely on some special theory that I don't think applies to any other puzzle I've seen before. Rules: Shade some cells and divide the grid into rectangular regions such that each rectangular region is the smallest possible grid-aligned bounding box for each orthogonally-connected mass of shaded cells. (That is, the shaded cells in each region collectively touch every edge of the region but are never adjacent to the shaded cells of other regions.) Numbers reveal the area of the shaded mass in the same box and cannot be shaded. The first has been solved in the picture below as an example. penpa link

These were made on September 19th, 2024, inspired by a puzzle that used this subset of the rules, as an attempt to show that this setting restriction can still involve interesting solving theory. https://puzz.link/p?aquapelago/10/10/.h.h.h.z.h.k.z.k.h.z.h.h.h./ https://puzz.link/p?aquapelago/9/6/g.g.o.r.w.g.g.k

I found this year's advent calendar to be both a good challenge and a neat learning experience for me. This puzzle is my second advent capstone. Since last year's had several nonunique elements within it, I really hope (but cannot guarantee at the moment) that my Christmas gift this year has only one solution. That would be a Christmas miracle! (Edit: It's 4/28/25 and while re-solving it I found a small nonuniqueness in the fifth section. It can be resolved by adding a double-? clue to r5c23.) Regardless, I had lots of fun making it, and I hope it's just as fun to solve! Laurel: https://tinyurl.com/2xod85us Solve the grid in its entirety as a Tapa, where each question mark stands for a single piece of a clue. Additionally, each 5x5 (or in one case 10x5) section contains variant rules that may change or override clues, add additional constraints to their local shading, or even add a second layer of input type: 1. Christmas Lights This section, being composed of shaded an...