bakpao's puzzles

Like ìn 2021, I was invited to write puzzles for the Indian Puzzle Championship again this year. This was a great experience last year and writing for 'official sources' such as the IPC and Pulze  continues to be one of my favorite parts of puzzle setting, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity. This year I supplied 6 puzzles, which can be found in this post, in order of appearance throughout the rounds. This post only contains the puzzles I wrote for the contest. Unlike last year, when IPC took place online, the full sets aren't available for free, but instead can be obtained for a small price which helps LMI cover the costs incurred to organize the live event and continue to organize them in the future.  The full set contains all the puzzle rounds, each of which are stacked with high quality puzzles by fantastic authors, as well as bonus content like the PR Playoff puzzles and a giant interconnected puzzle gift. If you are able to, I highly recommend purchasing the full...

  Another Rassi Silai variant, and probably the last one for now, since the contest is coming to a close soon. The past few have all been hybrids, so for this one I wanted to do just a standalone variant. It was hard to come up with a variant that fit well, but I think I landed on something pretty neat in the end. The ambiguity aspect makes for some tricky, thinky deductions, so careful notation is crucial for this one! Difficulty: 3/5 (Classic rules from Puzzle Rules ) Normal Rassi Silai rules apply, except exactly one cell within each region remains empty. (Normal rules:  Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally.) Play on penpa https://tinyurl.com/ybhdsw2f

   Still having fun with the Rassi Silai variants and hybrids. Here's what's probably my favorite of the bunch (perhaps even over last year's Star Battle one). A symmetrical grid (finally managed one!) with plenty of logical variety. Difficulty: 3/5 (classic rules from Puzzle Rules ) Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally. Clues indicate how many of the edges the clue covers are crossed by the path.  Play on penpa https://tinyurl.com/yc8kywdx

I've been playing around with various constraints to add on to Rassi Silai, in light of the Rassi Silai contest happening on LMI right now. These are two variants  that I think combine well with the genre. Setting the Skyscraper one gave me a particularly hard time. I'm not sure if I was just a bit out of it or if it's actually hard to construct a decent puzzle using this mechanic, but in the end I managed to set something I was happy with.  Difficulty: 2.5/5 for both Rules (classic rules from Puzzle Rules ) Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally. For Icebarn: A  path cannot turn on an ice cell, can cross itself on an ice cell and must visit all ice cells in its region. Ice cells cannot be endpoints. For Skyscraper: N umbers outside the grid show the number of separate path segments visible in that direction. A segment of len...

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 Variant Rassi Silai puzzle. I created this puzzle on 6 August, 2021. Difficulty: 3.5/5 (Classic rules from Eric Fox' Puzzle Rules ) Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally. Additionally, each row and column contains exactly two endpoints of paths. Solve on penpa

   Two classic Rassi Silai puzzles . I created both on 29 July, 2021. The first puzzle was more an attempt at creating a functional puzzle than anything else, the second puzzle I tried harder and turned out logically much more interesting. Difficulty: 2/5 for the first, 3/5 for the second (rules from Eric Fox' Puzzle Rules ) Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally. Solve on penpa Puzzle 1:  https://tinyurl.com/ysj535eh Puzzle 2:  https://tinyurl.com/ysaz8wyq