Puzzle A Day

I write and post a new puzzle every single day. I'm trying to get practice in writing different puzzle styles. Comments and Criticism Appreciated.

[puzzleaday]

Nurikabe Absurdly Long Period of Time Puzzle #4: I’m Back!

After essentially a month off, I am back and going to try and get back into the groove of writing these puzzles. So here it is, nurikabe puzzle number four and the only real theme is that none of the clues are along the edge and they form sort of two reverse check marks.

If you need a reminder on how to do these puzzles read below:

For those who have never solved a nurikabe puzzle I’ll try to give an explanation of the rules. The goal is to color the grid so that every cell is either black (water) or white (land). All the black cells in the gird must form a single contiguous piece (all connected orthogonally) and not contain any pools that are 2x2 areas that are all filled with black. All the numbers in the grid must be part of white celled islands that have that number of white spaces all connected orthogonally. Every white cell in the gird is part of one single numbered island (set of white tiles).

For those who are confused, sites like this and this can help give a better sense of the rules. These sites can also have other nurikabe puzzles that you can solve interactively to get a sense of how these puzzles work. I specifically have solved many of theses puzzles at www.puzzle.nurikabe.com to get a sense of the type of solving needed for these puzzles.

Hope you enjoy having these puzzle back! Let me know what you think!

[puzzleaday]

Nurikabe Week(s) Puzzle #3: Two 11s, Eleven 2s and Two 1s:

Here it finally is, the third of my five nurikabe puzzles. This one is a 10 x 10 grid containing two large clues in the center and a whole bunch of small clues on the outside.

If you need a reminder of the rules read the following quote:

For those who have never solved a nurikabe puzzle I’ll try to give an explanation of the rules. The goal is to color the grid so that every cell is either black (water) or white (land). All the black cells in the gird must form a single contiguous piece (all connected orthogonally) and not contain any pools that are 2x2 areas that are all filled with black. All the numbers in the grid must be part of white celled islands that have that number of white spaces all connected orthogonally. Every white cell in the gird is part of one single numbered island (set of white tiles).

For those who are confused, sites like this and this can help give a better sense of the rules. These sites can also have other nurikabe puzzles that you can solve interactively to get a sense of how these puzzles work. I specifically have solved many of theses puzzles atwww.puzzle.nurikabe.com to get a sense of the type of solving needed for these puzzles.

Hope you enjoy today’s puzzle!

[puzzleaday]

Nurikabe Week(s) Puzzle #2: Filling in the Center

Because of other things getting in the way and the fact that it happened to be really hard to write this puzzle, I missed posting a puzzle for the last two days. So contrary to what I said on Tuesday I’m going to be posting this Nurikabe puzzle today and then another three Nurikabe puzzles next week (probably split Monday Wednesday Friday but who knows) in order to round out the five Nurikabe puzzles. 

Today’s puzzle is a 12 x 12 nurikabe puzzle with the theme being that all the clues are congregated towards the corners leaving the center of the puzzle completely empty. 

If you need a reminder on how to do these puzzles read the quote below:

For those who have never solved a nurikabe puzzle I’ll try to give an explanation of the rules. The goal is to color the grid so that every cell is either black (water) or white (land). All the black cells in the gird must form a single contiguous piece (all connected orthogonally) and not contain any pools that are 2x2 areas that are all filled with black. All the numbers in the grid must be part of white celled islands that have that number of white spaces all connected orthogonally. Every white cell in the gird is part of one single numbered island (set of white tiles).

For those who are confused, sites like this and this can help give a better sense of the rules. These sites can also have other nurikabe puzzles that you can solve interactively to get a sense of how these puzzles work. I specifically have solved many of theses puzzles atwww.puzzle.nurikabe.com to get a sense of the type of solving needed for these puzzles.

Since there are only going to be three puzzles next week I'm planning to start posting the solutions to the previous puzzles along with some thoughts on how I constructed them. I’ll probably do one of those a day.

Hope you enjoy today’s puzzle! Have a nice weekend!

[puzzleaday]

Nurikabe Week Puzzle #1: As Easy as 1,2,4

I’m back from my vacation and we’re jumping right back into the swing with a week of nurikabe puzzles (also known as Islands in the stream or cell structure). Since I missed yesterday that means one day this week there will be two puzzles since I like keeping with patterns.  

To remind you of the rules I quote myself from a month ago:

For those who have never solved a nurikabe puzzle I’ll try to give an explanation of the rules. The goal is to color the grid so that every cell is either black (water) or white (land). All the black cells in the gird must form a single contiguous piece (all connected orthogonally) and not contain any pools that are 2x2 areas that are all filled with black. All the numbers in the grid must be part of white celled islands that have that number of white spaces all connected orthogonally. Every white cell in the gird is part of one single numbered island (set of white tiles).

For those who are confused, sites like this and this can help give a better sense of the rules. These sites can also have other nurikabe puzzles that you can solve interactively to get a sense of how these puzzles work. I specifically have solved many of theses puzzles atwww.puzzle.nurikabe.com to get a sense of the type of solving needed for these puzzles.

The original theme for this puzzle was to have one island each of all the numbers from 1 to 10. However I wasn’t able to fit the number 3 in so it basically seems like I can’t count. 

Hope you enjoy today’s puzzle and remember you can always send any questions to my ask box.

[puzzleaday]

Vacation

I'm going away on vacation this week and will therefore not be able to post any new puzzles this week. I'll still be writing puzzles but can't format them well for the international. Next week I'll be back and posting new wonderful puzzles. Keep puzzling!

[puzzleaday]

Star Battle Week Puzzle #5: I Give it 3 Stars

For the final puzzle of Star Battle week I decided to try and make a star battle puzzle with three stars. The result is the monstrosity above and the largest puzzle I have written so far as a 13 x 13 grid. For those who have forgotten I quote myself:

The goal In these types of puzzle is to place stars in some spaces on the grid so that each row, column and bolded region contains the indicated number of stars (in this case 3). Stars cannot touch one another not even diagonally.

Even though the puzzle seems large, the requirement of having 3 stars per region actually makes it very constrained. In fact this is almost the smallest possible grid for a three star puzzle. Because of this fact, I think the puzzle is rather easy even though it is really large.

This puzzle brings star battle week to a close, I hope you have enjoyed them and please let me know what you think.

I will actually be away on vacation next week and therefore unable to post puzzles but I have something else planned which I’ll let you know in a post over the weekend.

Have Fun!

[puzzleaday]

Star Battle Week Puzzle #4: Better Late than Never

“Today’s” puzzle goes back to the start battles with only one star in a 6 x 6 grid. Quoting myself as a reminder on how to solve this puzzle:

The goal In these types of puzzle is to place stars in some spaces on the grid so that each row, column and bolded region contains the indicated number of stars (in this case 1). Stars cannot touch one another not even diagonally.

I tried for a long time today to see if I could create a star battle puzzle in which all the regions are the same size. Since the board is N x N that means that each region would have N spaces. However, after trying multiple times over different grid sizes I just couldn’t get regions that were all the same size to work. 

In the end to get the above puzzle to work I needed to make it so there are two regions each of 5, 6 and 7 units which really isn’t special at all.

Either way, enjoy solving the puzzle and hopefully I’ll post the last of the week earlier than this one.

Have Fun!

[puzzleaday]

Star Battle Week Puzzle #3: Stars staring STAR

Puzzle number three for this week is another 2 star puzzle though this time the regions spell out the word “STAR”. As a reminder on how to solve this I quote myself from yesterday:

The goal In these types of puzzle is to place stars in some spaces on the grid so that each row, column and bolded region contains the indicated number of stars (in this case 2). Stars cannot touch one another not even diagonally.

Unlike yesterday’s puzzle this one is rather easy but I still enjoyed writing it so I hope you enjoy solving it. 

Enjoy!

[puzzleaday]

Star Battle Week Puzzle #2: Double the stars, double the fun

For the second star battle of the week, I decided to try and write a two star, star battle puzzle.  This means that every row column and region contains two stars. However, two stars still cannot touch each other even diagonally which is the biggest key to solving this puzzle.

This puzzle turned out to be probably harder than I intentioned so don’t worry if you have a hard time with it. However I can assure you that there is only a single solution to this puzzle. 

Hope you enjoy the puzzle and let me know if you have any questions or comments.

[puzzleaday]

Star Battle Week Puzzle #1: PUZZLE

Welcome back to a new week of puzzleaday. This week I’ll be writing star battle puzzles. As a reminder on how to do these puzzles I quote myself from earlier:

The goal In these types of puzzle is to place stars in some spaces on the grid so that each row, column and bolded region contains the indicated number of stars (in this case 1). Stars cannot touch one another not even diagonally.

I haven’t been able to find a good site that gives a better explanation for these types of puzzle with a good example. However this site gives an example with solution for a clearly much harder star battle puzzle that has 2 stars per row,column and region. It also gives a short history of this puzzle type for people who are interested in that.  If someone finds a better online source to help people get started with this type of puzzle let me know.

My goal for constructing this puzzle was to have some of the region shapes spell out letters to the word PUZZLE. If you look all the regions besides the two on the right side approximate the shape of one of the letters.

However this was very hard to do in order to get a solvable puzzle and in trying to get this theme to work I ended up probably making the puzzle a lot easier than I expected. So those who are used to these types of puzzles will probably solve this one very quickly.

Hope you enjoy the puzzle!

[puzzleaday]

Skyscraper Week Puzzle #5: Rectangular Additive Skyscrapers

The final puzzle of the week is very similar to yesterday’s in that it is a 5 x 7 skyscraper puzzle. However, instead of giving the the number of building seen, the clues on the side indicate the sum of the buildings seen. So if a row from one side is 4,3,7,2,1,5,6 the number on the left side would be 11 instead of 2. 

Just incase you need another reminder here’s my explanation from yesterday:

The goal is to fill the n x m grid with building that range in height from 1 to m (The larger number which is 7 in this case) with no building height repeating in any row or column.

Additionally, the numbers on the side, tell you the sum of the heights of the buildings which are visible from that vantage point. Specifically taller skyscrapers block the shorter building behind them. Using just this combination of info it is possible to fill in the entire grid.

For a better explanation and cool 3D pictures explaining this type of puzzle check out this link.

This puzzle brings an end to skyscraper week, let me know what you thought of the puzzles. Next week brings a different puzzle type. Hope you enjoy!

[puzzleaday]

Skyscraper Week Puzzle #4: Rectangular Skyscraper Puzzle:

After posting yesterday’s puzzle I realized that all my skyscraper puzzles had been squares, which got me thinking about whether or not it’s possible to create a rectangular skyscraper puzzle. The puzzle above is the result which is a 5 by 7 puzzle. 

Because the grid is no longer square the rules are a bit different which I’ll describe now by editing the text from previous posts

The goal is to fill the n x m grid with building that range in height from 1 to m (The larger number which is 7 in this case) with no building height repeating in any row or column. 

Additionally, the numbers on the side, tell you how many buildings are visible from that vantage point. Specifically taller skyscrapers block the shorter building behind them. Using just this combination of info it is possible to fill in the entire grid.

For a better explanation and cool 3D pictures explaining this type of puzzle check out this link.

The most important thing is that because there are more columns then rows, a given column will be missing two numbers. Therefore, for example, you can’t assume that a column has a 7 because some of the columns won’t have it.

Hope you enjoy this puzzle, and if there is any confusion or questions my ask box is open.

[puzzleaday]

Skyscraper week Puzzle #3: No Internal Clues

Today’s puzzle is a 6x6 skyscraper where the only real theme is that I didn’t have to use any internal clues to make it so that there was only one solution. Hope you enjoy! 

As another reminder, here is how to solve these puzzles:

The goal is to fill the n x n grid with building that range in height from 1 to n (6 in this case) with no building height repeating in any row or column.

Additionally, the numbers on the side, tell you how many buildings are visible from that vantage point. Specifically taller skyscrapers block the shorter building behind them. Using just this combination of info it is possible to fill in the entire grid.

For a better explanation and cool 3D pictures explaining this type of puzzle check out this link.

[puzzleaday]

Skyscraper week Puzzle #2: Attack of the 3s

This puzzle is late, and I know it. Hopefully I’ll do better tomorrow. As a quick reminder for those who didn’t see it yesterday here’s how these puzzle works:

The goal is to fill the n x n grid with building that range in height from 1 to n (5 in this case) with no building height repeating in any row or column.

Additionally, the numbers on the side, tell you how many buildings are visible from that vantage point. Specifically taller skyscrapers block the shorter building behind them. Using just this combination of info it is possible to fill in the entire grid.

For a better explanation and cool 3D pictures explaining this type of puzzle check out this link.

The theme for this puzzle is pretty obviously 3s and it was a lot of fun trying to create a puzzle in which all the clues were 3s. I’m a little saddened that I need the extra clue in the center for there to be a single solution but it adds a cool amount of symmetry to the puzzle.

I’m posting this right now so it’s just barely still August 4th on the East Coast. Enjoy!

[puzzleaday]

Skyscraper Week Puzzle #1:

Unlike the past two weeks where every different day has been a different type of puzzle, for the next however many weeks, I’m going to do a different sort of puzzle each week to try and get more practice at each of the individual types of puzzles. This week I’m doing skyscrapers puzzles. 

As a reminder on how to do these sorts of puzzles, I’ll quote myself from two weeks ago:

The goal is to fill the n x n grid with building that range in height from 1 to n (57 in this case) with no building height repeating in any row or column.

Additionally, the numbers on the side, tell you how many buildings are visible from that vantage point. Specifically taller skyscrapers block the shorter building behind them. Using just this combination of info it is possible to fill in the entire grid.

For a better explanation and cool 3D pictures explaining this type of puzzle check out this link.

Unlike the previous puzzle there is also a number in the grid to help make this puzzle have a unique solution. 

Theres no specific theme for this puzzle but it does have those pairs of 6,5 and 4 decreasing going counter-clockwise. And I’m just noticing that including the clue in the grid every number from 1-6 is represented either once or twice.

Sorry for posting this puzzle up so late, but it’s still August 3rd in the entire US so I haven’t yet failed at posting a puzzle every weekday. Tomorrow’s skyscraper puzzle should be posted earlier in the day. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or criticism. 

[puzzleaday]

Puzzle #10: Kakuro

For the final puzzle of the week, we have what is considered the mathematical equivalent to the crossword puzzle, Kakuro or Cross Sums as it was originally coined. The goal of the puzzle is to put a single digit from 1 to 9 in each white square so that the sum for each across and down entry is correct as written in the green boxes. The number above the diagonal line refers to the across sum directly to its right while the number below the line is the down sum for the boxes directly beneath it. A digit can only be used once in any given sum.

Wikipedia once again gives a better explanation and some useful solving techniques. This site and numerous others have puzzles of this type you can solve online since this type of puzzle is many times more well known than all the other ones I have written so far. 

When creating this puzzle there were two things I specifically aimed for. First of all Kakuro puzzles usually have rotational symmetry so made sure that was the case when making the initial grid. The other thematic thing that most people won’t notice is that I made every single 2 cell sum be a different number and have all the possible 2-cell numbers except for 10. I think it allows people to see how the different numbers can be used differently or similarly to one another.

Kakuro puzzles are fairly difficult to write, especially for someone like me who it not actually that good at solving them. Therefore the puzzle might be a lot harder or easier than I think it is. Remember to let me know if you have any comments, questions or critiques. I hope you enjoy the puzzle and have a good weekend!

[puzzleaday]

Puzzle #9: Masyu

Today’s puzzle is another path logic puzzle known as a Masyu (which translates to evil influence in Japanese). Similar to the Slitherlink puzzle last Thursday, the goal is to draw a single closed loop. In this case it’s a single closed loop that that goes through all the cells with white or black circles. The line can’t go diagonally. When the line passes through a white circle, it must proceed straight through the circle but turn immediately in a least one of the two adjacent squares. When the line passes through a black circle it must make a 90 degree turn but it cannot turn in the square immediately before or after that turn. Using just these rules it is possible to draw the full loop.

Wikipedia has more information and some solved examples to help make these rules clearer. The nikoli site has some sample puzzles to help you get the hang of these types of puzzles. 

I tried really hard for this puzzle to have inverse symmetry so that there is a circle of the opposite color in the rotationally symmetric position. However, as I reached the end of writing the puzzle I found that there were two nearly identical solutions and I needed the extra clue to give the puzzle a single solution. This disappoints me slightly because I really wanted that symmetry, also I think the extra clue makes some of the logic easier than I originally wanted.

Hope you enjoy today’s puzzle!