hutt's puzzle dump

    Much like last year, I spent most of this month busy with things other than puzzles. However, I did still manage to finish the writing project, which I'm feeling proud of despite getting the impression that it's very difficult to deduce a majority of the answers. I also just found out about the Logic Pad online preview branch today, so I've ported all the puzzles from the post there except for the Smores. Progress is going slowly on the second part of my latest puzzle project. At least I've tried to slice it so I don't bite off more than I can chew.     I'll be planning for October soon. While last year I checked the list a week beforehand out of sudden inspiration, I plan to check it this year as soon as it drops because I expect to be busier and I only barely put out Navigator on time. Hopefully this will also give me more time to come up with a fitting meta since the prompts might not be themed this year.     This year, I've been prioritizing making ...

 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

 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...

 On 7/13/25, beekie invented a crossword-inspired Pentominous variant where certain rows and columns must contain intact words hinted at by clues. I managed to finish constructing a somewhat thematic puzzle the following day. https://puzz.link/p?pentominous/v:/10/10/zzzzz 3 Across: In a restless manner, or what the pieces have to do in this 10-by-10 Pentominous grid? (8) 9 Across: The most visible part of an iceberg (3) 2 Down: Completely satiated (4) 4 Down: Opposite to the direction this entry reads (2)

 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

 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.

 The following puzzles were made between the 23rd and 25th of May. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the first person to think of this idea, but I really like how this variant contains logic involving both the meanings of the numbers and copied digits. Normal sudoku rules apply. Lines protruding from diamonds count the distance in squares that can be traveled in that direction from the diamond to find a digit that matches the digit in the diamond. If multiple lines are attached to one diamond, combine the effects of all its lines into one displacement. For example, in the picture below, if the digits on the lines are correct, then the two cells marked in red must contain the same digit: (Note: the answer checker will only care about normal sudoku rules. You'll have to ensure manually that you've correctly satisfied the diamonds.) Puzzle 1 (4x4) Puzzle 2 (4x4) Puzzle 3 (4x4) Puzzle 4 (4x4) Puzzle 5 (4x4) Puzzle 6 (6x6) Puzzle 7 (6x6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 It's been a busy month, both in terms of work I've had to do and the quantity of puzzle solving. I highly recommend Skeptical Mario's "Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair": it's huge and it's hard, but the difficulty curve builds up the concepts nicely and it's structured so that the player never has to reset too much progress if they make a mistake and always receives feedback if they complete sections correctly. I've put the writing project on hiatus so that I can focus all my energy into the larger project over the summer. I hope to complete it in May or early June, so that I can publicly release it mid-July. Currently, the project is at least half-complete. The largest bottleneck for the near future is making MS Paint look good, but the final section is what's making it difficult for me to set a precise timeline. The following puzzle was made on 4/17/25 and was inspired by a conversation about fog and other methods of obscuring information in p...

 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...

 Teeth was created by thejonymyster for 1D1P. It's a variant minesweeper that incorporates rule deduction for its clues. Because it allows exporting board seeds and has a clue type that doesn't require digging anything to reveal, it's possible for a board to be completely solvable without guessing, which isn't usually guaranteed. I've collected all the deducible board links I've openly shared and copied them here. You can start playing without a seed at  https://thejonymyster.neocities.org/Teeth  to learn the rules first. Board 1 Board 2 Board 3 Board 4

 I'm glad I wrapped up the megapuzzle yesterday because I spent practically all day working on these. LITS is a fairly common puzzle type in online databases despite not being present in any puzzle books that I can think of, other than Nikoli collections. The ruleset is very versatile, allowing for minimums, maximums, impossible patterns and forced connections and disconnections between regions, all without number-oriented clues. https://puzz.link/p?lits/12/12/pk9tmd3i1j00g081cucun4jokp8651hm6vhg3s0007vqso4690ue60 https://puzz.link/p?lits/12/12/ki9nnrkjo10007hbp9f0602840g2qp04l3fqvvv51g7k5e343vv670 SLICY shows that transferring the rules of LITS onto a hexagonal grid shakes up the logic more so than most other shading puzzle types. I find that vertices matter more than long-distance connections, compared to LITS. https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=6x6x1&SIE=3ERERERDR7EREREUERDWDWDWD49ERDRE17ULULUL&G=slicy https://pedros.works/paper-puzzle-player?W=8x8x1&SIE=15EU...

 Nikoji is an old favorite of mine because of how easy it is to incorporate themes through words and phrases. The overall logic for solving a Nikoji tends to fall into one of two categories; both types of puzzles are included here. Both of these puzzles were created on graph paper, so the variant rule in the second was originally unintentional. I wouldn't be surprised if this first one has already been made before. It might be harder than the second. https://puzz.link/p?nikoji/7/2/eh9hbfhah9 Variant: The N region is a rotated version of the Z region, and thus will throw an error for having the same shape. https://puzz.link/p?nikoji/v:/12/14/bgfkem45r3j9ag-10j5rdr2h6h-10-15-1a-1ac5g5hfg-13-11-151-125h-12h-15r-12r-14jag-10gai5r5q9ej

 Both of today's genres were new to me until I browsed the advent calendar. I had seen Coffee Milk before on puzz.link's puzzle type list, but it's obscure enough that I never tried setting any and probably didn't solve many until recently. Despite similarities between their appearances and input method, the two rulesets tend to explore entirely different ideas. The premise of Coffee Milk interests me, but it seems difficult to set a logically hard puzzle because the ruleset is a bit loose: it's easy to miss a potential connection, divide groups differently, or completely ignore a gray circle that's expected to contribute. Thus, the puzzle I made for it today is meant to be easy. https://puzz.link/p?coffeemilk/12/7/b1b..b222a11a.b.c21a1d.c2b2c.c1c1b.d2c1a.d2d1a....a2b I also enjoyed learning about Milk Tea, although I'm actually not that good at it because it often asks for a method of scanning I'm not well-versed in. On occasion, it lends itself natural...

 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...

 Sudoku is probably the most well-known paper puzzle. The base rules are very easy to understand. The grid size is often constrained to a square with less than a hundred cells, yet countless volumes have been filled with classic puzzles and brought to bookstores. I find it nice to solve a classic one every once in a while, but what really appeals to me about this type is its ability to act as a canvas for a ton of fantastic variant puzzles. Whereas classic sudoku might start to feel stale while solving tens in a row, variant sudoku always stays fresh and continues to deliver brand new logical ideas. I'm reminded of my #A25 collection. I intend to make a megapuzzle for #A50. 4x4 Classic (f-puzzles) 12x2 Samurai (penpa) 6x6 Arrow and Thermo (f-puzzles) 6x6 "Missing Products" (penpa)