bakpao's puzzles

    This is a 30x30 Loop puzzle, combining 9 different genres. This puzzle was created over the course of a couple of weeks in June 2021.  While not matching the amount of posts on my blog - this is in fact the 100th puzzle I have set so far. A milestone I didn't want to let pass unnoticed, so I decided to combine as many genres from my favorite puzzle genre category as I felt comfortable with into one giant puzzle. It contains Masyu, Shingoki, Balance Loop, Country Road, Maxi Loop, Ovotovata, Yajilin, Regional Yajilin and Castle Wall.  Setting this puzzle was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have had along my journey, and I definitely look forward to writing many more of these sorts of puzzles. While there is certainly room for improvement, I am incredibly proud of the end result and I hope you enjoy solving it. I am also very much indebted to Prasanna Seshadri for extensively testing the puzzle and offering useful advice, amidst a hundred ot...

    A set of 4 puzzles, linked through Mastermind clues. I created this puzzle on 27 June, 2021. This is a revised  version of my entry to a speedsetting competition hosted on the CTC Discord, in which the original puzzle I created took 3rd place. We were prompted to choose at least two of the 4 genres which appear in this puzzle, and link them through Mastermind clues of our choosing. The original puzzle was made in around 90 minutes. I was doing really well, but resolving the Aqre nicely proved to be a challenge, due to my limited experience both solving and setting the genre, resulting in a puzzle that I was mostly satisfied with, but ultimately left a sour taste, as I knew I could do better with the Aqre grid. Today I revisited it and tweaked it, and the end result is much nicer to walk through.  Difficulty: 3/5 Normal aqre, kurotto, nurikabe and tapa rules apply. (Not listing all the rules here, they can however be found in Eric Fox' Puzzle Rules ). Additionally...

    A classic Yajilin puzzle. I created this puzzle on 27 June, 2021. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from Eric Fox' Puzzle Rules ) Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of all the remaining empty cells. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the number of shaded cells in a straight line in the indicated direction. Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?yajilin/b/15/15/0.n0.k32i23d23h103.11c34g120.a0.22i310.c41h314.h31c430.h3.34d314.h32e320.c41j220.a0.13k210.21c13i14d35b0.k31b0.n

    A Variant Sashigane puzzle. I created this puzzle on 21 June, 2021. It was my entry for a speedsetting session in the CTC Discord, in which we were tasked with creating a Sashigane puzzle in which exactly one cell in the grid is unused, in 40 minutes. Difficulty: 3/5 (Classic rules from Eric Fox' Puzzle Rules ) Divide the grid into regions of orthogonally connected cells. Each region must be an L shape with a width of one cell. Arrows must lie at one end of an L and point toward the bend. Circles must lie at the bend of an L, and if one contains a number, the L it’s inside must contain the indicated amount of cells. Additionally, exactly one cell in the grid is unused. It is up to the solver to identify which cell. Solve on penpa

    A classic Seramik puzzle. I created this puzzle on 17 June, 2021. The reason for choosing this puzzle type is very simple, I prompted Prasanna with a puzzle type for me to set, and he challenged me to set a puzzle I had never seen or heard of before. The result is this puzzle, which was created in a little over an hour. Difficulty: 2/5 Shade in cells so that all 16 possible configurations are seen in the outlined 2x2 squares. Painted cells of different regions may not be adjacent to each other. Numbers outside indicate the length of consecutive black cell groups in order from that row or column. Solve on penpa

   A Tapa (Palindrome) puzzle . I created this puzzle on 13 June, 2021. It was my entry to a speedsetting session in the CTC Discord, taking 2nd place out of 13 entries. Difficulty: 3/5 (Classic rules from GM Puzzles ) Shade some empty cells black to create a single connected wall. Numbers in a cell indicate the length of consecutive shaded blocks in the neighboring cells. If there is more than one number in a cell, then there must be at least one white (unshaded) cell between the black cell groups. Cells with numbers cannot be shaded, and the shaded cells cannot form a 2×2 square anywhere in the grid. Additionally, there are palindrome lines drawn in the grid. The pattern of shaded and unshaded cells is the same when read from either end of the line. Solve on penpa

    A classic Araf puzzle. I created this puzzle on 9 June, 2021. Difficulty: 4/5 (rules from GM Puzzles ) Divide the grid into some regions formed of edge-adjacent squares. Each cell is part of one region, and each region should contain exactly two given numbers. Each region must have an area that is strictly between those numbers (This means, for two number clues A and B with A < B, the area C fulfills A < C < B). Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?araf/8/8/p45h7h44h87l8j2l3-10gabi5icbo

    A loop mashup containing elements of Yajilin, Masyu and Slitherlink. I created this puzzle on 7 June, 2021. This puzzle was my submission to a 90m speedsetting session in the CTC discord, themed around Ghost Train mashups (that can be found on LMD most recently,  here  in round 8). This entry got second place in the contest.  We were presented with a selection of rules which we could build our puzzle around, in the category number placement, shading and loops. I settled for a hybrid construction that most resembles yajilin, but combines slitherlink and masyu elements and digits to add an extra spice to the traditional shading. The full briefing as presented to us at the time can be found  here . Difficulty: 3/5 Draw a single closed, non-intersecting loop, following regular Masyu and Slitherlink rules.  Each row and column must contain the digit 1 once. 1s cannot touch orthogonally and cannot be shaded. The loop cannot pass through cells filled with...

    A classic Regional Yajilin puzzle. I created this puzzle on 6 June, 2021. Difficulty: 2/5 (rules from Eric Fox' Puzzle Dictionary ) Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of all the remaining cells. Numbered regions must contain the indicated amount of shaded cells. https://puzz.link/p?yajilin-regions/12/12/106g2593kraaj6aimpe4l20b040r017u0gebgcb7v6hgejg83v406og122g212111i22g231g13g

    Another Masyu puzzle with a twist. I created this puzzle on 3 June, 2021, for the June monthly puzzle prompt in the CTC discord. The prompt was themed around dedications, and as I maintain the bot that does most of the heavy lifting behind the scenes in the server, I thought it would be cheeky to post a puzzle 'as the bot'. Difficulty: 3/5 (Regular Masyu rules from GM Puzzles ) Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through all circled cells. The loop must go straight through the cells with white circles, with a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before/after each white circle. The loop must make a turn in all the black circles, but must go straight in both cells immediately before/after each black circle. Additionally, identical letters must have identical loop path characteristics (i.e.  follow one of six possible paths, or be an unused cell). The same loop path characteristics cannot be used by different letters.  You can draw the loop pat...

    A classic Masyu puzzle on a hex grid. I created this puzzle on 2 June, 2021 , as a little bonus for the speed-setting event that also spawned my Masyu (Clone) - #10. The host was originally going to do a hex theme, but switched last minute to clone. I decided to take the challenge after the main course was done. Difficulty: 2/5 (Regular Masyu rules from GM Puzzles ) Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through all circled cells. The loop must go straight through the cells with white circles, with a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before/after each white circle. The loop must make a turn in all the black circles, but must go straight in both cells immediately before/after each black circle. For turns, both obtuse and acute angles are allowed . Solve on penpa  

    A Masyu (Clone) puzzle. I created this puzzle on 2 June, 2021, as part of a speed-setting event hosted on the Discord server. I did not manage to get my puzzle working within the hour we had to set it, so I spent some more minutes tweaking it and submitted this as an unofficial entry. Difficulty: 2/5 (Regular Masyu rules from GM Puzzles ) Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes thr ough all circled cells. The loop must go straight through the cells with white circles, with a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before/after each white circle. The loop must make a turn in all the black circles, but must go straight in both cells immediately before/after each black circle. Additionally, there are sets of clones in the grid. The loop will have the exact same configuration in each of the clones on the grid, without rotation/reflection. Clone cells can be empty too.  Solve on penpa

    A classic Kurotto puzzle. I created this puzzle on 2 June, 2021. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from GM Puzzles ) Shade some cells so that each circled number represents the total count of shaded cells in connected groups sharing an edge with that number. Cells with circles cannot be shaded. Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?kurotto/10/10/g0l8ham6i.g6g0j6t.j4t.j2g4g6ibm9hal.g

    A classic Country Road puzzle. I created this puzzle on 29 May, 2021. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from GM Puzzles ) Draw a single non-intersecting loop in the grid that enters and exits each bold region exactly once. If a number clue is given in a region, that number indicates the exact number of cells used by the loop in the region. Unused cells cannot be orthogonally adjacent across different regions. Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?country/12/12/4s6ndj8iorsml2p8llbdekqu9504hq8lvi2bt54jun8vv95nsi88c05g4g3i2i1i25o4g

    A classic Balance Loop puzzle. I created this puzzle on 1 June, 2021. Difficulty: 2/5 (rules from GM Puzzles ) Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through all cells with circles; the loop may either go straight through or turn at each circle. All white circles must have loop segments of equal length extending from both sides of the circle before turning. All black circles must have loop segments of unequal length extending from both sides of the circle before turning. Numbers, where given, indicate the sum of the loop segment lengths on both sides of the circle. (Note that the total counts are not affected by other circles being crossed before turning.) Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?balance/8/8/i00j8g11g0o01j1010j01i1k1g00g1j11i

    A classic Firefly puzzle. I created this puzzle on 1 June, 2021. Difficulty: 2/5 Draw non-branching, non-intersecting lines that start and end on circles, with a black point on exactly one of its ends. Numbers in circles count the turns made by the line on its black point. All circles are connected by lines. Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?firefly/8/8/b3.f25c1.b1.c13a42d22c3.b3.d32a2.c4.d2.h111.b13

    A classic Firefly puzzle. I created this puzzle on 11 May, 2021. Difficulty: 2/5 Draw non-branching, non-intersecting lines that start and end on circles, with a black point on exactly one of its ends.  Numbers in circles count the turns made by the line on its black point.  All circles are connected by lines. Play on puzz.link https://puzz.link/p?firefly/8/8/f42a12i13b22b25n24b21b12f33b22a32f