Puzzlerium Tour: Skyscrapers

As the player from Puzzlerium recovers from an arduous trek, he is now handed another taxing task, that of erecting several skyscrapers in the neighborhood. Feeling for him, I assured him that it wasn't going to be so hard. 

This is also the first number placement puzzle on the series.

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. Each number represents a skyscraper of its respective height. The clues outside the grid indicate how many skyscrapers can be seen in that direction; smaller skyscrapers are hidden behind higher ones. 

Puzzlerium Tour: Tolerance Trek

It is believed that tolerance tests produce great results. This is a loop/path genre that combines a maze-like clue style with the usual loop. If the LITS variant was an aesthetic low, this puzzle makes me (and I hope the consumer too) only happier.

The lone and tested soul inhabiting Puzzlerium is now handed another tolerance test - the task of completing a dangerous trek - while abiding by a set of constraints. As he crosses each terrain, the terrains grow longer, and the trek murkier, so to speak. Is help in sight? Read on to know what the constraints are.

Rules: Draw a loop that visits all but one of the outlined regions (terrains). Which region will be left unvisited will have to be determined as a part of the solve. The loop cannot intersect itself or pass through a cell more than once. The loop also cannot pass through a region more than once. Along the path of the loop, the loop has to use consecutively increasing number of cells in each subsequent region visited, like 1, 2, 3, 4... and so on upto N-1 and then back to the first region, where N is the number of regions. Bold edges can't be crossed through when both cells on either side of the edge are in the same region.

  About Tolerance Trek: Invented by Anurag Sahay in 2020, Tolerance trek debuts with this post.

Puzzlerium Tour: LITS (Dead end cells)

Only now did I stumble upon a recently published LITS puzzle on GMPuzzles, and decided to write this puzzle to further annoy the commenter. 

                                  

Rules: Solve this using Standard LITS rules. The letter 'D' indicates a shaded cell that is also a dead-end cell of the tetromino that occupies the cell.

Puzzlerium Tour: Bending Scrabble

 

Rules: Enter all the words from the given list, to form a crossword. Words may not repeat and must be read across or down. Words may bend, but not more than once. Words cannot bend in the cells where they intersect with other words.  

About Bending Scrabble: Invented by Anurag Sahay, Bending Scrabble debuts with this post.

Puzzlerium Tour: Lossless Loop

Rules: Draw a loop that visits all of the outlined regions and all of the given circles. The loop cannot intersect itself or pass through a cell more than once. If there is no given circle in a region, the loop must visit that region exactly once. If there are one or more circles in a region, the loop must enter and exit the region as many times as the number of circles given, and must pass through one circle in every visit. The number of cells within the region containing a circle, used by the loop before passing through the circle, must be equal to those used after passing through the circle (including none).

  About Lossless Loop: Invented by Anurag Sahay in 2019, Lossless Loop debuts with this post.

Puzzlerium Tour: Evasive Masyu

I didn't really work on anything based on the Linesweeper style of givens in recent years - what I can recall best - so considering that I am the harbinger of Linesweeper-like puzzles, including "Linesweeper" which was apparently inspired, I thought it was best to finally try something again. Hitherto, I don't know of any Masyusweeper, not at least with the exact ruleset that today's puzzle brings. Therefore, I believe that I can claim originality. I started constructing trying not to create an obvious break-in, but nonetheless, this one has shaped up into one with a delicious logical path.

Rules: Draw a single loop that passes orthogonally through the centres of cells, and does not intersect itself or enter the same cell more than once. The loop may either go through the pearls or not.  When it visits a pearl, the following rules apply: The loop must go straight through the cells with white circles, making a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before or after visiting each white circle. The loop must make a turn in all the black circles, but must go straight in both cells immediately before and after visiting each black circle.

  When it does not, the following rules apply: 

For pearls of each color, the number of neighboring cells used by the loop must be equal to the number given on top of the puzzle grid.

About Evasive Masyu: This is a variant of Masyu, a Nikoli puzzle. Evasive Masyu debuts today with this post.

Puzzlerium Tour: Thermo Sudoku

 I can't thank opt-pan enough, whose Penpa I have been using liberally to draw the graphics. 

If you are looking for easy Sudokus that do not need you to employ any advanced techniques whatsoever, today's puzzle is for you. I have used the same theme that was used in the Hex Slitherlink a few days ago. Although I prefer symmetry in my constructions, including Sudokus, which I rarely write, I tried a rather random layout that is anything but symmetric.

Rules: Fill in the cells digits from 1 to 9 so that no digit repeats in any row, column or bold outlined region. In each of the thermometer shapes, digits must increase strictly from the rounded bulb to the flat end..    

Puzzlerium Tour: Irregular Hex Slitherlink

Although the puzzle is on a smaller, if not much smaller, than usual hex grids, I hope that the theme does not lose itself in the solve. Nothing remarkable is happening in this puzzle except for the theme, which is really why I am publishing this puzzle. On hex grids, Slitherlink works in a tad different way, in that, each cell has 2 more surrounding edges, and consequently a few more neighbors than in square grids. Secondly, as there are only 3 grid edges meeting at a point, there is really no possibility of two different subsections of the loop "meeting at a point" - usually a very useful meta logic in square grids to see that the move is wrong. 

Rules: Draw a single closed loop by connecting neighboring grid points along the grid lines. Each numbered cell or irregular group of cells indicates how many of its bounding edges are used by the loop.

About HexSlithehrlink:  Slitherlink was invented by Nikoli puzzles. Several of its variations have been explored since, some of them being Hex, Sheep and wolves, False clue, Polygraph, Irregular and more.

    

Puzzlerium Tour: Estate Lawns

Rules: Shade in some cells, so that all of the unshaded cells form a single region of contiguous cells. Numbers in bold outlined regions indicate how many blocks of contiguous unshaded cells (including unit cell blocks), ignoring unshaded cells in other regions, are in that region. Such unshaded cell blocks in different regions cannot be of the same size when they are touching each other orthogonally through region borders.

About Estate Lawns: Invented by Anurag Sahay, Estate Lawns debuts with the above puzzle. 

    

Puzzlerium Tour: Perfectland

Perfectland is as much a region division puzzle as it is a path puzzle. I reckon it comes closest to "Cave" in its feel. Instructions get slightly on the longer side, but it is only comforting that some Nikoli puzzles have instructions that are longer than this.

Rules: 

1.The grid contains symbols of three kinds, each representing living spaces. The task is to divide the grid along the gridlines into regions that enclose exactly one instance of each of the three symbols, so that a straight line path can be drawn in each region that visits each of the symbols without having to branch out, and starts and ends in one of the symbols. Some region borders may already be given.

2. No region may fully enclose any 2x2 areas of cells. In each region, there must be at least one cell not visited by the path (representing unused areas), and all such cells in the entire grid must be connected in a single group.

3. Unused cells cannot be scattered within a region - all of the unused cells in a given region must be connected in a single group. 

About Perfectland: Invented by Anurag Sahay, Perfectland was first published in 2020 (see example below to better understand how it works).