Rules: Draw a single non-intersecting loop vertically or horizontally through some cells. The loop must visit each bold outlined region once. The number of cells visited in each subsequent region along the path of the loop must alternate between X and Y (X and Y are constants that generally are to be determined).
Theme: The Big and the Small
About: XY Loop was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2021 and debuts today.
Statistics say this is the 500th post. What better way to mark it than this delectable construction?
Rules: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells are connected and no 2×2 square is completely shaded. Cells with numbers cannot be shaded. Each group of connected unshaded cells forms an island; islands can touch each other diagonally. Each island must contain exactly one given number, and that number indicates the size of the island. Each island also pairs up with one other island - the islands within a pair are connected through a corner. Such connections are exclusive - islands from any of the pairs never touch a third island outside the pair.
About: Binary Island Systems was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2021 and debuts today.
Rules: Draw a single non-intersecting loop vertically or horizontally through some of the cells. Some edges are marked either bold or dotted - with each category following either of two sets of rules - one set requiring the loop to use exactly one of the two cells on either side of the edge, and the other set either requiring the loop to use both cells or neither. The edge-ruleset mapping is not given and has to be determined.
About: Binary Loop was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2021.
Rules: Fill in the square grid of side N, with digits 1 to N+1, so that each digit appears exactly once in each row and column. One cell in each row and column contains two digits, while all other cells contain one digit each. The clue in each outlined cage indicates the result of a mathematical operation applied successively to each of the digits (and a two-digit number formed by joining two digits in a cell, if any) in the cage, starting from the largest to the smallest for division and subtraction. The operation may or may not be given in the cage, but at least one of the four operations must apply. Digits can repeat within a cage.
About : This variant of TomTom was invented by Anurag Sahay.
Vladimir Burik has reclaimed the Puzzlerium Optimization Championship as he registered a third win. Coming off a setback in the last edition, the Ukrainian came very close to a clean sweep, losing out on just one puzzle as the last edition's champion Gerhard Richter produced what is possibly the optimal construction of the "Pentomino Fortress". Vladimir impressed with a 39-pointer (is this optimal?) construction of the "Interior illumination" puzzle.
Detailed results can be found in this spreadsheet. Best solutions follow. A better construction is possible on "Six ways" (326 points, displayed at the end of the post).
"Interior Illumination" and "Skyscrapers (Exclusive)" were found to be the most liked puzzles.
Rules: Place a number from 1 to N into each cell of the square grid so that each number appears exactly once in each row and column, where N is the length of the square's side. In this variant, the clues inside the cages are removed, and the new clues indicate the result of one of the four arithmetic operations (+,-,x,/) applied to the results of the operations inside the first two cages encountered when looking in the direction of the clue. Results are always integral. When an operator accompanies a given, it means that operator has to be applied.
About : This variant of TomTom was invented by Anurag Sahay.
Rules: Some circles of two or more colors are given (the puzzle above has circles of two colors). Draw a single non-intersecting loop vertically or horizontally through all cells. If two circles of different colors are visited successively(without any empty cell between them), the loop must turn both immediately after and immediately before visiting those circles.
About: Convoluted was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2021.
Rules: Fill in every outlined area with numbers 1 to N without repition, where N is the number of cells enclosed in the area. Arrows indicate all directions with the closest cell containing the number in the clue cell. Equal numbers cannot share an edge.
About: Myopic Numbers was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2018.
Rules: Some water moleules are hidden in the grid. Each molecule is a trimino with the letter 'O' in the center and two 'H's in the ends. Locate all the water molecules in without overlapping, such that.every trimino includes at least one given letter. Then, draw a single loop through all cells. No two adjacent cells along the path of the loop may contain the same letter.
About: Aqua Loop was conceived by Anurag Sahay in 2021.