Puzzle 399 (Castle Wall)

This is a Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 399

One difficulty I have in constructing Castle Wall is that the inside/outside clue information often plays a fairly trivial role. I tried to do a lot more with it here. Consequently, this one is rather tough.

Also, this is advance notice that Puzzle 400 won’t be anything too special. The kind of energy I need to create a large/complex milestone puzzle is being channeled into the packs and next year’s mystery hunt. Speaking of packs, volume 3 is likely to be out in the next couple of weeks.

Puzzle 383 (Castle Wall)

This is a Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 383

Puzzle 365 (Castle Wall) [Anti-symmetric]

This is a Castle Wall puzzle, with a twist. None of the clue colors are given initially. For each symmetric pair of clues, exactly one is inside the loop (white) and exactly one is outside the loop (black).

Puzzle 365

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Unrelated to this puzzle: if you’re a Fillomino fan, you will enjoy this puzzle from Anderson Wang, a regular USPC/LMI competitor and someone I’ve met in real life through math contests. His other content is worth doing too, but that one stands out.

Puzzle 360 (Castle Wall)

This is a Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 360

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Puzzle 355 (Castle Wall)

This is a Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 355

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Puzzle 307 (Castle Wall) [Hexagonal]

This is a Castle Wall puzzle on a hexagonal grid. In addition to the usual rules, the loop may not make any sharp turns that form 60 degree angles.

Puzzle 307

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DA-DA-DA-DAAAAH!

Unfortunately I missed pulling an April Fool’s day joke-on-a-joke last Friday. I could have told you these were coming up and none of you would have believed me. But at the time I didn’t realize I would finish the programming this soon. Oh well…

Puzzle 300 (Loop of Death) [Unique]

This is a Loop of Death puzzle, a unique type. Almost all of your favorite (and unfavorite) loop puzzles have been combined into a single type. Detailed rules, along with an example, follow below the image and comments.

Puzzle 300

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3/20/2011 5:22 AM ET – Fixed a goof in the far bottom right corner that resulted in no solutions by a minor change to the regions. You probably found this contradiction if you made any progress at all in that area. My apologies.

As far as my marathons/unique puzzles go, my guess is this is probably tied for the easiest – size has something to do with that – but I could be completely off in either direction. Of course, this still means it is going to be really hard.

Grid size is 29 by 29 squares. This means 30 by 30 for the vertex clues, although I never used any of the edges. From that, I’m sure some of you are going to figure out what puzzle I paid homage to in constructing this one, but I’ll leave to you all to guess.

Melon’s Puzzle Zoo has ended

Around the time of this posting, LMI is no longer accepting score submissions for the contest. Below is a link to the puzzle booklet, the same as the one on LMI without the password. There is also a PDF that has all of the puzzles on the test together with their solutions (don’t open if you don’t want to see them yet!), as well as some brief comments from myself about the puzzles. Mostly I pointed out the tricky innovative logic the puzzle had, if any — and for the adults there almost always was some.

Puzzle PDF
Solution PDF

Puzzle 290 (Castle Wall / Masyu)

This is a Castle Wall / Masyu hybrid puzzle.

Puzzle 290

Part 9 of 12 in the Melon’s Puzzle Zoo preview series.

Answer Entry: Some squares are marked with letters. For each letter in alphabetical order, determine how many of the nine squares bordering the lettered square, including the square itself, are used in the loop. Enter these digits in alphabetical order by letter.

Highlight to see answer: 648583

Puzzle 282 (Castle Wall)

This is a Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 282

Part 1 of 12 in the Melon’s Puzzle Zoo preview series.

Answer Entry: Some squares are marked with letters. For each letter in alphabetical order, determine how many of the nine squares bordering the lettered square, including the square itself, are used in the loop. Enter these digits in alphabetical order by letter.

Highlight to see answer: 776567