bakpao's puzzles

    A hybrid between Kurotto and Shimaguni. I was playing around with some shading hybrid ideas today, and liked this puzzle enough to post here. Difficulty: 3/5 Rules (Classic rules from Puzzle Rules ) Normal Shimaguni and Kurotto rules apply. When two regions border a kurotto clue, but not each other, they are allowed to contain the same amount of shaded cells. Kurotto: Shade some cells so that clues represent the total size of the orthogonally connected areas of shaded cells that share an edge with the clue. Clued cells cannot be shaded. Shimaguni: Shade a single group of orthogonally connected cells in each region. Shaded groups may not share a bold border. Each region must contain at least one shaded cell, and no two adjacent regions may contain the same number of shaded cells. Play on penpa: https://git.io/JyBFE

This year has been great for me in terms of setting. I've reflected a bit in my previous post , but something I didn't touch on there was the fact that I've also been writing for various sources, including WCPN , Topple  and a few more upcoming projects. One of my favorite experiences was writing for IPC 2021 . Being invited to write for this championship felt like a huge validation of my work and greatly motivates me to continue writing more puzzles. This post showcases the puzzles I wrote for the tournament, in order of appearance through the rounds. While this post only showcases my puzzles, each and every one of the puzzles in the IPC was of exceptional quality, and if you haven't yet, I strongly recommend checking out the other puzzles as well. The championship was filled to the brim with quality puzzles by some of the greatest puzzle constructors out there. Whether you're novice or experienced, speedsolving or solving casually, there's bound to be somethi

    A hybrid Tapa / LITS puzzle When updating my spreadsheet with all my puzzles yesterday, I noticed I was at exactly 299 puzzles set. Another milestone about to be reached. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to do something for it, and having some free time, I naturally spent the rest of the day working on something a bit larger and celebratory.  To reflect, that's about 250 puzzles created in 2021, so far. Around 5 every week. 62 unique genres and 6 giants. Those are numbers I am extremely happy with and hope I can get to keep up into the new year.  Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Normal Tapa and LITS rules apply. Clues cannot be shaded. Tapa: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. LITS: Shade one tetromino of cells in each region so that all shade

   A hybrid puzzle linking a Tapa and LITS together. This was mostly experimental and is on the easier side , but still solves cutely. Difficulty: 2/5 Rules (For standard tapa / LITS rules, refer to this document ) Normal tapa rules apply in the left grid Normal LITS rules apply in the right grid No cell can be shaded in both grids Solve on penpa

    A classic Stitches puzzle. We had been playing a bunch of generated puzzles in the CTC Discord server, and I decided to try and handcraft one. Difficulty: 3/5 Rules Connect each region with all its orthogonally adjacent regions with exactly two stitches. Stitches connect two orthogonally adjacent cells across different regions together. Stitches cannot overlap. Clues outside the grid give the total number of stitch endpoints in that row or column (each stitch has two endpoints). Use lines (recommended mode Composite 'lineox') to draw stitches for answer check to work. An example puzzle and solution from www.puzzle-stitches.com can be found here:  https://i.imgur.com/BZjcQaN.png Solve on penpa

    A Variant Parquet puzzle. This was another setting exercise in a genre I'd never seen before. Difficulty: 3/5 Rules: Shade one of two bordered areas in every thickly outlined region to form a single contiguous area of shaded cells. No 2x2 region can be entirely shaded, and no loops can occur in the singly contiguous area. Solve on penpa