Puzzle 250 (Nurikabe) [Marathon]

This is a Sunday Nurikabe marathon. That is, it is a very large and very difficult Nurikabe puzzle.

Puzzle 250

I have some unfortunate news. With the exception of a total eight days of break, this blog has had one puzzle go up every day for over 200 days now. Tomorrow that will end. There will likely still be updates to this blog, but they will be much more sparse, perhaps around once per week. (and obviously puzzle difficulties will no longer be aligned with the days of the week)

The primary reason is that there are a number of puzzle-related projects I have been wanting to do for months. None of them were things I could find the time to do concurrently with keeping up the schedule on this blog. In addition, although my idea well is not dry, for logic puzzles like these it is not at the depth it used to be, and there are several that I’m putting in reserve for the aforementioned projects.

It doesn’t help that with every post here my publishing standards increase. A lot of time recently has been spent starting or making puzzles that I threw into the reject pile, ones I may have been happy to use in the past. Added with the time spent on puzzles that do go up, that’s an enormous investment.

I should also note that I may begin to put up some additional posts without puzzles. This will be exclusively a puzzle blog, but I may share many of the things I’ve learned about puzzle solving and construction, and some of my philosophies regarding them.

Thanks a lot to everyone who read, solved, or commented here. We’ll still be going, just not as strong as before.

Puzzle 150 (Double Back) [Marathon]

This is a Sunday Double Back marathon. That is, it is a very large and very difficult Double Back puzzle.

Puzzle 150

OH! That’s where puzzle 149 went! I suppose you have two puzzles you can do now, either a 12 by 12 or a 50 by 50. Have fun!
Note: At 4:40 PM ET, this was updated to fix something in both puzzles. Only the area around the purple arrows in the middle was changed, so you probably won’t have to restart the Double Back. My apologies.

Puzzle 100 (Akari) [Marathon]

This is an Akari marathon. In particular, it is a very large and very difficult Akari puzzle.

Puzzle 100

100 cells by 100 cells. I hope you find this puzzle enjoyable. It has some patterns and configurations I have yet to see in any other Akaris (although I certainly haven’t done all of them in existence).

You may find solving easier on this smaller image. It’s up to you which one to use.

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There won’t be a puzzle tomorrow. Monday will be the beginning of the puzzles on this blog being organized by difficulty by the days of the week, in the same way a lot of other puzzle publishers do it. The details are on this blog’s About page.

Puzzle 50 (Castle Wall) [Marathon]

This is a Castle Wall marathon. In particular, it is a very large and very difficult Castle Wall puzzle.

Puzzle 50

Grid size is 50 by 50, which is fitting since it is puzzle 50. Enjoy!

That said, I must be a masochist to have a super huge celebration puzzle be a Castle Wall, which is much harder to make in large sizes than something like Slitherlink, whose clues and solution are local in nature. But I did manage to do it, so I guess it doesn’t matter.