Puzzle 417 (Nurikabe)

This is a Nurikabe puzzle.

Puzzle 417

Puzzle 410 (Nurikabe) [Cipher]

This is a Nurikabe puzzle, with a twist. Some numbers have been replaced with letters. Same letters represent same numbers, and different letters represent different numbers. The assignment of letters to numbers is up to you to determine.

Puzzle 410

This is (probably) not a return to the weekly posting yet; it’s a one-off I made before the WPC and wanted to post.

When a call for making a puzzle to decorate the US team shirt went out, I made this, while motris made this. As can be clearly seen I wasn’t thinking a whole lot about aesthetics in making mine, so there was a clear deserving winner for getting put on the shirt. Still, the puzzle came out well and is worth posting.

On another note: is everyone else seeing the gridlines as not showing up in the scaled thumbnail above in a very ugly way? It happened to Space Probes in my USPC set too. Geez, after over 3 years this is the first time I’ve been really upset with how WordPress is treating me.

Puzzle 407 (Nurikabe) [Line]

This is a Nurikabe puzzle, with a twist. It is not allowed to have five consecutive black cells in a row or column. The usual Nurikabe restriction that there can be no two by two squares of black cells is waived and no longer applies.

Puzzle 407

Sorry for the unannounced break last week. A second Wednesday puzzle will be posted 12 hours from now to compensate. My summer work is winding down now, so I hope to avoid having to do this again in the near future.

Puzzle 402 (Nurikabe)

This is a Nurikabe puzzle.

Puzzle 402

Update 5/23/2012 6:07 AM ET: Fixed a minor two-solution error on the right side.

Puzzle 395 (Nurikabe) [Domino]

This is a Nurikabe puzzle, with a twist. It must be possible to tile all of the shaded cells by nonoverlapping 1×2 dominoes.

Puzzle 395

I got sent this nice variation idea by Jack Brennen.

Puzzle 384 (Nurikabe) [Pairs]

This is a Nurikabe puzzle, with a twist. Every region of unfilled cells must contain exactly two numbers (instead of one) and have total size equal to the sum of the two numbers.

Puzzle 384

I had to cheat symmetry a little bit on this one. Oh well; this was hard enough to construct as it is.

Many of you may be aware that my team (Manic Sages) won the MIT Mystery Hunt this past weekend. I’m hoping to contribute quite a bit to next year’s hunt, both logic puzzles and non-logic puzzles. I don’t anticipate any delays in my blog posting (whether the Wednesday puzzles or packs); the most likely compensation is that I’m probably not going to be writing as many LMI tests this year as I hoped I would.

Puzzle 381 (Nurikabe/Tapa) [Mastermind]

This is a Nurikabe / Tapa Mastermind puzzle. Solve the left grid as a Nurikabe and the right grid as a Tapa. The gray numbers between corresponding rows represent Mastermind clues. If one were to superimpose the two solutions (without rotation or reflection), the gray number in a row tells exactly how many squares are shaded in both grids.

Puzzle 381

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Puzzle 369 (Nurikabe)

This is a Nurikabe puzzle.

Puzzle 369

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Puzzle 362 (Nurikabe)

This is a Nurikabe puzzle.

Puzzle 362

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Puzzle 348 (Nurikabe) [Line]

This is a Nurikabe puzzle, with a twist. It is not allowed to have five consecutive black cells in a row or column. The usual Nurikabe restriction that there can be no two by two squares of black cells is waived and no longer applies.

Puzzle 348

(Click for larger size)