bakpao's puzzles

   We regularly host speedsetting sessions in the CTC discord. The concept is simple: a host sets a prompt - usually a (pool of) genre(s), a theme or other constraint - to work with, participants then set a puzzle around that prompt in the allotted time, usually one hour. Judges then solve all the puzzles and decide their top three favorites, which are declared the winners! These are always fun events. Not only do they encourage me to set genres or constraints I normally wouldn't, there's also a strategic element involved where you have to make rapid decisions on what genre to go with, grid dimensions, theming - all before and while setting a functional, interesting puzzle. An hour seems like quite some time, but more often than not I find myself battling against the clock. The puzzles that I write during speedsets tend to not be published anywhere other than in Discord, even though they can be quite nice. They're not as refined as my usual puzzles, but that's the charm...

    Happy birthday and happy 500 puzzles to me! Here's a loop mashup to celebrate. I kind of made things very difficult for myself with the PGP R4 mock puzzle set I made last weekend. While updating my spreadsheet with all my puzzles afterwards, I noticed I was extremely close to 500 puzzles set. What's more, it's also my birthday today and I turn 27, which also happens to be my favorite number. Too many milestones and reasons for celebration, meaning I couldn't really pass up the opportunity to set something for it.  The problem, however: I only noticed this last Wednesday, and I was to leave for Spain on Friday, where I currently am to enjoy a long overdue holiday. I had to be on standby for work on Thursday and do the usual holiday preparations, so there really wasn't much time to set a puzzle.  Luckily I still managed to find a few focus hours and came up with this puzzle which I'm decently happy with. No doubt in my mind that if I had more time, I would...