or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Twin Islands
Rules: Standard Nurikabe rules.
Answer String: Enter the length in cells of each of the black segments (the unnumbered, connected “ocean”) from left to right for the marked rows, starting at the top. Separate each row’s entry from the next with a comma.
Time Standard: Nurikabe Master = 1:00, Expert = 3:00, Novice = 10:00
Solution: PDF
First in a series with puzzle solving tips. This time, TomTom solving tips for last week’s hard Thursday puzzle.
People always ask me how to solve puzzles and fast. My first answer is practice, practice, practice! My second is notation, notation, notation! After that, I say learn how to construct interesting puzzles and run through more involved logical deductions than most puzzles tend to have. In this column I intend to dissect some of our Grandmaster Puzzles with such interesting properties and at the same time reveal ways I look at puzzle styles that might help out in the future. This week’s topic is the Thursday TomTom, advertised at medium-hard difficulty, that few solvers beat in an expected time. While it shouldn’t need saying, SPOILERS AHEAD!
I hope you enjoyed the first week of Grandmaster Puzzles. To some this may look just like a new home for my old blog. But this is actually the start to a large project I’ve dreamed of for awhile, to get more “puzzle” books published and improve the ecosystem for logic puzzle construction in the west where computer-generation is still the name of the day.
Eventually there will be a Sunday puzzle here. It will be bigger and better (but not necessarily harder) than any other puzzle during the week. But for the first many weeks, as I introduce some of the styles I’ll be publishing soon, Sunday will be the day for the Doctor’s Note. This will also be the right spot for you to comment in any way you want about the site such as new features you’d like to see (like a place to enter your time with your solution, or a page for leaderboard tracking). The site will continue to improve while the quality of the puzzle content stays as high as it can be. This will become the community for logic puzzle solving and I’d appreciate your likes, tweets, +1s, or other links to this page to help the community grow.
A big thank you goes out to Dave Millar, of Perplexible and The Griddle fame in the world of puzzles, for his help designing this website. Most of the images inside the frames are mine. But the rest is mostly him. He took some sketches from my puzzle notebooks and made a memorable blog theme. And he loaned some of his own API code to start our answer checking system which will get better as we go along.
So, what did you think of the first week of Grandmaster Puzzles? This week certainly had a very broad range in difficulty, but I expected both Sudoku and TomTom to be pretty familiar puzzles compared to what is coming. Next week will be a little more gentle, still with six quite interesting puzzles but two new styles.
–Dr. Sudoku
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: “Rhyming clues” – almost all clues here in this TomTom are presented with identical neighbors.
Rules: Standard TomTom rules. Range is 1-8.
Answer String: Enter the 8th row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 8th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: TomTom Master = 12:00, Expert = 36:00, Novice = 2:00:00
Solution: PDF and solving video.
Editorial note: If this is the third TomTom you’ve ever seen (just trying to solve these puzzles this week), please do not attempt it. Go through a couple of my earlier examples in the “Thomas Snyder Outdoes the NYT KenKen” series instead. This is a very difficult “Saturday” puzzle in line with the hardest content of my old blog. Next week I’ll return with much easier puzzles in two new styles on Monday/Tuesday.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Besides symmetry, an exclusively logical theme that will be revealed during the solve.
Answer String: Enter the 3rd column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 7th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Sudoku Master = 5:00, Expert = 15:00, Novice = 50:00
Solution: PDF and solving video.
Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: TomTom for 1/3/13; there are also a few interesting and unusual logical deductions to be found.
Answer String: Enter the 2nd row from left to right, followed by a comma, followed by the 6th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: TomTom Master = 4:30, Expert = 13:30, Novice = 45:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Advice on solving this puzzle has now been posted in “Ask Dr. Sudoku #1“.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Missing Digit? (opus 2); this avant-garde sudoku poses the question “Is there a 5 in the grid or not?” It is similar to an earlier work by Dr. Sudoku first displayed at the Silicon Valley Puzzle Festival where a different digit, 8, was missing in the same way.
Answer String: Enter the 1st column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 4th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Sudoku Master = 4:00, Expert = 12:00, Novice = 40:00
Solution: PDF
Note: This puzzle may seem a bit hard for a Wednesday puzzle, but it is a fun, narrow solving path puzzle with a refreshing theme. The “Time Standard” at this site is used to tell you how hard a puzzle will be, even when the day of the week might be slightly off. Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: “After #1, what’s next?” Many people wondered what would come after post #1 yesterday. Today’s TomTom puzzle is one literal answer, but who knows what the future actually holds?
Rules: Standard TomTom rules; use digits 1-5.
Answer String: Enter the 1st column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 5th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: TomTom Master = 0:40, Expert = 2:00, Novice = 6:40
Solution: PDF
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Countdown to 2013 – this theme is primarily visual, unlike Dr. Sudoku’s earlier Countdown sudoku theme here.
Answer String: Enter the 3rd column from top to bottom, followed by a comma, followed by the 7th column from top to bottom.
Time Standard: Sudoku Master = 2:10, Expert = 6:30, Novice = 21:00
Solution: PDF
Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Welcome to the new puzzle blog from Thomas Snyder, aka “Dr. Sudoku”, 3-time world sudoku champion and author of many books of puzzles including “The Art of Sudoku”. Here you will find a range of logic puzzles including number placement puzzles (such as Sudoku and TomTom), object placement (such as Battleships and Star Battle), region division (such as Fillomino and Cave), shading (such as Nurikabe and Tapa), path/loop (such as Slitherlink and Masyu) and many more.
Puzzles will get progressively harder throughout the week, so there will be easy puzzles for beginners on Monday and Tuesday to start the week and much harder puzzles by Friday and Saturday. Eventually there will be a random mix of many puzzle types every week, but as I start I will focus on two types each week, with Sudoku and TomTom leading the way. Puzzles will typically post at 9:00 AM Pacific Time.
This puzzle blog will have a few unique features. First, I want to actively track (and reward) the puzzle solvers. At the bottom of each post is a “solved” button. If you enter the correct answer string, your solution will be logged in. Eventually there will be leaderboards, contests, and prizes for people solving the puzzles. So if you solve the puzzles, log your success here. Mark your favorite puzzles too. So if a lot of solvers for example like TomTom over other styles, then you’ll see more of them here — and more TomTom books published.
Each puzzle has a “difficulty” posted too. This is just a recommendation from the expert/World Puzzle Championship level solvers who have helped test all the puzzles. The time has three values: the “Master” time, and then an “Expert” time (3x) and a “Novice” time (10x). Whatever level solver you are, these ratings should give you a sense of how hard a puzzle might be, and also give you a real sense of how well you are solving if you want to time yourself. But don’t start the stopwatch if you are just here for fun!
For any puzzle you really like, click on the tags to the left for more examples. Besides the posted puzzles, I will be releasing books with all of these puzzle styles. For Sudoku and Sudoku Variations and TomTom I already have books available for purchase. For the other styles, new titles like “The Art of Puzzles” will be coming soon.
This will be an exciting project, and I hope to see you visiting here a lot in the future. And if you have any recommendations for new puzzle styles, or want to make your own puzzle contributions here, just email me to start a dialogue.
Rules: The puzzle in this post is in the GMPuzzles logo. This is a Wordoku with a repeated letter so follow standard sudoku rules with a slight twist.
Time Standard: Sudoku Master = 2:30, Expert = 7:30, Novice = 25:00
Answer Check: USING CAPITAL LETTERS, enter the 8th row from left to right, followed by a comma, and then the 5th column from top to bottom (e.g. “GMPUZZLES,GMPUZZLES”)
Solution: PDF