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Our first 2020 week of puzzles can be found in this PDF and the solutions are all grouped in this PDF and have been linked to the individual posts.
This week’s video talkthrough is for Elyot Grant’s interesting Fillomino puzzle.
Next week we will be featuring Sudoku puzzles including some variations.
It is great to be back, which means we met our goals of relaunching our e-book store alongside our weekly web puzzles. For the whole month of June, we have a 20% discount on all titles in the shop (automatically applied at checkout) so please check out the store if you want to purchase some puzzle PDFs.
There are more updates to come later in the year as we strive to improve the GMPuzzles community experience. One of those areas to is expand our Sunday content, including a return of our “Ask Dr. Sudoku” column. One topic we will plan to discuss soon is related to a comment from this week’s Star Battle puzzle — how should we integrate electronic solving options to our web posts and books. If you have other questions or suggested topics for us, please share as comments and we’ll select some for future posts.
We also are overdue to post our “Best Puzzles of 2019”, and we will start that next Sunday with our Best Sudoku of 2019. But as an early preview, and as the extra solution video for this week, we wanted to link to one of our very best (and trickiest) puzzles of 2019, this Fillomino from John Bulten from January 2019. In case you missed it, please try it now; tips if you get stuck are in the solution video below.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)
Theme: Repeated Groups
Author/Opus: This is the 1st puzzle from guest contributor Elyot Grant.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: V for Victory
Author/Opus: This is the 281st puzzle from our managing editor Serkan Yürekli.
Rules: Standard Kakuro rules. Also, a white circle between two cells shows that the digits in those cells are consecutive (i.e., they differ by 1). A black circle shows that the digit in one of the cells has twice the value of the other. If there is no circle between adjacent cells, neither of these properties holds. (Note: between 1 and 2, either a white or a black circle can be given.)
Difficulty: 4 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view):Grandmaster = 4:30, Master = 7:00, Expert = 14:00
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use the tab key to alternate between shading and number entry modes)
Theme: Mirror
Author/Opus: This is the 67th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster John Bulten.
Rules: Variation of Nanro. Label some cells with numbers to form a single connected group of labeled cells. No 2×2 group of cells may be fully labeled. Each label number (including black given numbers) must be equal to the total count of labeled cells in that bold region, and all bold regions contain at least one labeled cell. The given numbers in gray indicate how many cells are labeled in that region (but not necessarily which cells are labeled). When two label numbers are orthogonally adjacent across a region boundary, the numbers must be different.
Difficulty: 2 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view):Grandmaster = 1:45, Master = 3:00, Expert = 6:00
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools in linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)
Theme: No Numbers
Author/Opus: This is the 163rd puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Murat Can Tonta.
Rules: (Standard Balance Loop rules.) Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through all circled cells. All white circles must have equal segment lengths on both sides of the circle before turning. All black circles must have unequal segment lengths on both sides of the circle before turning. Numbers indicate the sum of the segment lengths on both sides of the circle.
Also, see this example:
Difficulty: 1.5 stars
Time Standards (highlight to view):Grandmaster = 0:40, Master = 1:30, Expert = 3:00
Note: Follow this link for other Balance Loop puzzles and this link for other less common Loop variations. More Balance Loops can be found in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli and in Balance Loop by Prasanna Seshadri and Murat Can Tonta.
Sunday is going to be a day when we feature solution videos to our puzzles. Today we’re pleased to have a video for this morning’s Consecutive Pairs Sudoku from Cracking the Cryptic / Simon Anthony.
Also, we have just relaunched a new version of our e-store for our puzzle PDF books, which should be much easier to use with more payment options, cart functionality, search functionality for authors and genres, notifications when PDFs are updated, …. Note that the old accounts / passwords will not work here but we can share prior purchases with you if you need to grab the downloads again.
We’re still doing some visual improvements as many of our books never had covers or online examples. We will likely highlight one old title each week with sample puzzles while we update the catalog.
For the whole month of June, we will have a 20% discount on all titles in the shop (automatically applied at checkout). So this is a great time to catch up on any past collections from GMPuzzles that you may have missed. And please tell us if you run into any issues with the new store.
Tomorrow marks the official restart of daily puzzle content here. The first week will feature a variety mix of puzzles across six genres, and later weeks in June will focus on Sudoku, Star Battle, and Pentominous puzzles. We have some other updates we’ll be rolling out alongside launch, including an update to our e-store, and more detail will be coming on that over the next day. For now, enjoy one last teaser puzzle with a countdown theme.
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)
Theme: Countdown to 1
Author/Opus: This is the 358th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.
Rules: Standard Consecutive Pairs Sudoku rules although this puzzle is formatted with bars and not dots for a different visual effect. (If a gray bar is given between two adjacent cells, then the two numbers in those cells must be consecutive. Note not all gray bars are given; adjacent cells without a bar may contain either consecutive numbers or nonconsecutive numbers.)
Solution:PDF; a solution video is also available here.
