bakpao's puzzles

The rail pools were some of my favorite puzzles in WPC, so I felt like writing another one for myself. I wasn't going to go for the empty middle initially but the original clue layout I chose made it almost resolve uniquely already, so I tweaked it a bit until it worked out. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of all cells. Clues represent the different lengths of the straight line segments that are at least partially contained within the region. Each number within a region must be represented by at least one line segment. Play on pzprxs https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?railpool/10/10/m123n124w12t145s23zy34zk12p123qcd8l0k0o1g3050l2m6bqk5o3000000o3k5bq

I participated in WSPC for the first time last week!  Having entered the competitive solving scene somewhere late 2020/early 2021, this moment finally became a reality after almost 2 years of living up to it . I now look back at one of the most wonderful weeks I've had in a long time, where especially meeting people I'd been looking forward to meeting for so long and getting to make many new friends were  the most memorable parts for me. I got 56th in sudoku and 42nd in puzzles. Lower than expected in sudoku, much higher than expected in puzzles. I suppose it makes sense, as my preparation was very heavily focused on puzzles. I was on the B team for both events because of a poor performance in the Dutch championships earlier this year, but managed to get 3rd NL in sudoku (beating 2 A team members) and 2nd in puzzles (beating all members except Bram, who was miles ahead of all of us). A couple of really silly mistakes cost me a couple spots in the overall leaderboard, but looki...

  It feels challenging to construct a balanced puzzle in this genre. I wanted a break-in without using trivial clues and a solve that didn't fall apart right afterwards, while maintaining a double clues theme all the way around the edge. The puzzle went through a lot of iterations, but ultimately I think it came out quite nice. Fun fact - many different values work in the center to give the puzzle a unique solution. I also like how 9 resolves, but felt the 5 was more suitable. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Shade some cells so that all areas of orthogonally connected shaded cells are rectangular and all areas of orthogonally connected unshaded cells are not rectangular. A clue represents the size of its group of shaded/unshaded cells. Play on pzprxs https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?cbanana/11/11/g33k44g4h33g66h44o4g4m6h4m6l5l6m4h6m4g5o65h44g44h6g55k44g

Just a small and fun little chained block that I wrote last night because I couldn't sleep. The layout, the almost full symmetry, it all came together quite nicely in this one. Difficulty: 2.5/5 (rules from  Puzzle Rules ) Shade some cells such that each connected group of shaded cells contains exactly one clue. Clues must be shaded, and indicate the size of their group of shaded cells. Each group of shaded cells must be connected by a corner to at least one other, forming networks. Two shaded groups belonging to the same network may not have the same shape and size, counting rotations and reflections as the same. Play on pzprxs  https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?chainedb/9/9/3m3j4k4k4r2i3r2k2k4j5m5

While I usually don't post classic puzzles supported on puzz.link to my blog, I already tweeted a similar puzzle recently, so I figured this would fit best on here (hence why it's on penpa only - puzz.link links on this blog get picked up by puzz.link). The other puzzle is visually less appealing but had some different logical steps I wanted to showcase. After finishing that one, I decided to try the full layout as well, to see if I could make that work too. The result is this puzzle, which is visually more striking and has a completely different solve path and solution. It's very possible this exact idea/layout has been done before, in which case feel free to let me know - I couldn't find any in a quick search. If you're having trouble breaking in - here's a hint ( ROT13 ):  guvax tybonyyl - ubj znal frtzragf ner erdhverq ng zvavzhz cre frg bs qvntbany pyhrf gb fcyvg va/bhg cnevgl? Difficulty: 4/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Draw a non-intersecting loop through...

It's been a while since I did a hybrid, so here's a new one! I like how well Linesweeper works for hybrids and will probably do some more combinations with other loop genres for the next few posts. Difficulty: 3/5 (base rules from Puzzle Rules ) Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some empty cells.  Masyu: The loop passes through every circle. The loop must turn on black circles and travel straight through the cells on either side. The loop must go straight through white circles, and turn in at least one of the cells on either side. Linesweeper: Clues represent how many of the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue are used by loop. The loop cannot pass through the clues. Play on penpa https://tinyurl.com/2gcjezal

I wrote this puzzle a few months ago - my first experience writing the genre. I kept it on the backlog for a while, but with the implementation of the genre over on pzprxs, now seems like a good opportunity to release it. There was a bit of discussion about whether rows/columns  are allowed to be unclued to indicate no  information given, or need to have a wildcard. There seemed to be arguments supporting both sides, but no clear consensus. While the implementation (now) allows for both options, I think my stance for this genre in particular is that because wildcards exist, they should be given, rather than not give any clue at all. Even if zero r/cs are completely pointless and even if for this puzzle it kind of breaks the aesthetic. Difficulty: 3/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Clues outside the grid represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded...

There have been a few really nice unequal lengths slitherlinks lately, and I wanted to try setting one for myself. It's not quite as minimal a grid as some of the recent ones, mostly because of the clue theme I chose (I did manage one, but it made the solve very repetitive), but I think this still came out quite a fun puzzle. Difficulty: 2.5/5 (rules from Puzzle Rules ) Connect some pairs of orthogonally adjacent dots to form a single non-intersecting loop. Clues represent the number of edges drawn surrounding the clue (up to four). No two consecutive straight line segments may be the same length. Play on penpa https://tinyurl.com/2pqgdkll

This genre keeps drawing me back in - it's so much fun to set and solve. After two relatively straightforward ones, I tried  writing a bigger and harder one this time. I'm particularly fond of the ending (hopefully you'll figure out why)!   Difficulty: 4/5 (rules from  Puzzle Rules ) Shade some cells such that each connected group of shaded cells contains exactly one clue. Clues must be shaded, and indicate the size of their group of shaded cells. Each group of shaded cells must be connected by a corner to at least one other, forming networks. Two shaded groups belonging to the same network may not have the same shape and size, counting rotations and reflections as the same. Play on pzprxs  https://pzprxs.vercel.app/p?chainedb/14/14/3m8v5k3g1l5i2i3q6q6p2i3i4r5i4i6p4q2q4i4i4l4g4k4v2m3

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...