The “Puzzlerium Optimization Championship” returns on the 8th of April with its fifth edition. Anyone interested can put their skills to test in a competitive setup.
Furthermore, an excel workbook will be available for most of the puzzles to download and work with. More details to be available when the competition starts.
This post concludes the "Nurikabe Special" series.
The converse of this variant uses the distinct islands constraint and can be a tad more intuitive at times.
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 area of the island in number of cells. Also, all islands of the same size must be identical to each other.
These are times when humanity is paying dearly for the seeds narrowminded ancestors have sown. There is unnecessary bloodshed and suffering in the name of religion today, not only in the battlefield but also in areas with no international conflicts. It is therefore necessary that the straight-thinking and responsible citizen of the modern world recognize this and denounce anything that can cloud minds, much less glorify it. Religious symbols are what they are - just figures - do not impart power or determine which geography, community, or individual makes greater strides.
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 should contain two given numbers and the area of the island in number of cells should be between those two numbers.
"Binary Island Systems" is an interesting variant of Nurikabe that combines both diagonal touch and no-touch flavours effectively.
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 area of the island in number of cells. Also, each island is diagonally adjacent to exactly one island.
About: Binary Island Systems was invented by Anurag Sahay in 2021.
The next four puzzles are focused on Nurikabe - a shading puzzle first published this month of March decades ago.
Theme: Tilted crown
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 that indicates the number of cells inside the containing island.
Rules: Fill in the cells with digits from 1 to 9 so that no digit repeats in any row, column or bold outlined region. Find three-digit numbers formed by digits in consecutive cells in the directions the arrows point to. Numbers always begin in grey shaded cells. All such numbers are strictly consecutive, ignoring numbers containing zeroes (for example, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133 is an acceptable set of numbers). If a shaded cell does not contain any given arrows, you are required to find the directions of all possible arrows.
About : This variation of Sudoku is due to Anurag Sahay.
Wars fought over religion preferences are commonplace and forgotten easily. Yet, it is as much hilarious that a mounting humanitarian crisis has its roots in, of all the problems facing humanity, a religious agenda peddled on a brilliant pretext.
Lamentable is educated people justifying acts of terrorism and war on unmoderated social media just so not to betray their political inclinations.
Whilst none of the innumerable variants of the oldest manufactured instrument known to humankind will salvage its creators, it is time to check out today’s fine construction of a Four Winds variant.
Rules: Draw horizontal or vertical lines in any of the upto four directions starting in each clue cell. One cell in each outlined region cannot be used. Lines do not overlap or intersect. The sum of lengths of all lines emanating from a clue cell add up to the number in the cell. Given ‘x’s indicate forbidden cells.
The crisis underway can arguably be compared to the horrific pandemic of the last two years. Even if not, it could be a precursor to a much larger humanitarian disaster that might show up in the form of another pandemic resulting from an unprecedented exodus, not to mention an ecomonic meltdown. It is incredibly disconcerting to know that civilians, foreigners, expats, children and the elderly are taking up arms to try and stop the carnage. While a fleet of potential solutions are there to help end the Ukraine conflict - and none of them have actually made any difference - I, meanwhile, contend that nothing brings people together better than Sport can. If one can champion the cause of peace, sanity and freedom through common interest, why not?
Rules: Each different letter represents a different number from 0 to 9 (leading zeroes in two-digit numbers are not allowed) and same letters represent the same number. Find the correct match for each letter to then solve the TomTom puzzle:
Fill in the square grid of side N, with digits 1 to N, one digit per cell, so that each digit appears exactly once in each row and column. The clue in each outlined cage indicates the result of a mathematical operation applied successively to each of the digits 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.
