Our recent week of Sudoku puzzles is gathered together in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. Many more original Sudoku puzzles (that have not been on our blog) can be found in our e-store at this link including our popular The Art of Sudoku series and the Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
Our next week of puzzles features Balance Loop puzzles.
We’ve just published our third volume of the Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly series. This title contains sixty puzzles across these genres: Thermo-Sudoku, Skyscrapers, Battleships, Cross the Streams, Kuromasu, and Balance Loop. Go to the link above to purchase the book PDF file. This marks two books released in two weeks after our Starter Pack 2: Tapa title was launched last Sunday.
Our past week of “Starter Pack” Variety puzzles is in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More easy puzzles for people learning new puzzles can be found in our store.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
Our next week of puzzles features Slitherlink and variations, which will also be a theme for an upcoming puzzle book later this spring.
I wanted to start some of our 2022 updates for the year by sharing this draft schedule for our books, with most detail set for the first six months of the year. We are continuing our Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly and Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series that we launched in 2021, and also starting a new, accessible puzzle series of “Starter Packs” for people to get into some of our different logic styles. In the same style as the Intro to GMPuzzles books, these Starter Packs will contain ~30 puzzles for ~$1.50 and all puzzles are from 1-2.5 stars in approximate difficulty. Eventually, as we release these books, we will also rebuild the web flow for these styles so that there is a way besides the “blog” to learn about the puzzles, how to use Penpa, and so on.
Book list:
1. Shading Variety Collection by Prasanna Seshadri (January)
2. Starter Pack 1: Fillomino by Grant Fikes (February)
3. Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes 5 and 6 (Tight Fit Sudoku and Consecutive Pairs Sudoku) (early March)
4. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 3 featuring Thermo-Sudoku, Skyscrapers, Battleships, Cross the Streams, Kuromasu, Balance Loop (late March)
5. Starter Pack 2: Tapa by Serkan Yürekli (April)
6. Slitherlink and Variations 2 (April)
7. Tapa and Variations 3 (May)
8. Starter Pack 3: TomTom by Thomas Snyder (June)
9. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 4 featuring Even/Odd Sudoku, Japanese Sums, Minesweeper, Nurikabe, Pentominous, Castle Wall (late June)
10. Masterpiece Sudoku Mixes 7 and 8 (July)
11. Starter Pack 4: Slitherlink by Takeya Saikachi (late July/early August)
12. Loop Variety Collection 2 (August)
13. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 5 (September)
14. TBD title (October)
15. Starter Pack 5: Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn (October)
16. TBD title (November)
17. Starter Pack 6: Jigsaw Sudoku by Thomas Snyder (December)
18. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly 6 (December)
The eighteen book schedule is ambitious but lets us diversify the kinds of titles and different puzzles we are publishing while also taking up new goals like getting Penpa/digital solving forms of these by sometime this year.
Not on the “official” list, but part of projects I am working on separately, are releases containing our old patron puzzles including our “Giant” puzzles, starting a Giants annual book, and rereleasing some of my older books of sudoku variants and TomTom puzzles. There is also a very different but interesting puzzle collection book that has been stuck in editing that we hope to get out.
Paired with this schedule, we have also started to look at how easily we can set up a “subscription” in our book store to automatically release these titles to people who want to have all books in a given series like GPQ or who want all books that we publish.
Later today we will be releasing two new parts of our Masterpiece Sudoku Mix series, as well as details on a “Cyber Monday” week sale for our puzzle books. As another Thanksgiving Holiday bonus, we finished digitizing four more puzzle styles in our backlog for solving with Penpa-Edit. The new additions are Cave, Castle Wall, Balance Loop, and Statue Park. We are now over 1,150 total puzzles digitized, over half of our website.
Our past week with Tapa-Like Loop puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More Tapa-Like Loop puzzles can be found in the Tapa-Like Loop Collection by Prasanna Seshadri.
The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:
This next week will feature a variety mix with “one grid, two puzzles” where the clues in each grid can be solved in two different ways. We’ll post the first puzzle style at 9 AM PT and the second style at 9 PM PT, but solvers can try to guess what style is the second puzzle in the time between postings. Some will be more obvious than others. And while the 9 AM puzzles will follow our usual Monday-Saturday difficulty progression, the paired puzzles will not. There will also be a Sunday Stumper next week with a seventh puzzle in this set of pairs.
Prasanna is celebrating two milestones this week and we will have two special large puzzles. The first one here recognizes Prasanna’s 200th submission on GMPuzzles, and combines three of the styles where Prasanna has written books for our e-store.
(view directly for a larger image)
or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; while solution checking is not enabled, if you are comfortable with the different tool selection options you should be able to fully solve the puzzle in this mode too.)
Theme: Linking 200 cells
Author/Opus: This is the 200th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.
Rules:
Grids 1-2: Follow regular LITS rules. Between the two LITS grids, the corresponding white cells can never both be shaded, while the corresponding gray cells must be identical in the three 200-shaped regions.
Use the LITS solutions and your ingenuity to discover the needed constraints for Grids 3-4. For Grid 3, you will find that some gray circles must change color to white or black.
Grid 3: Follow regular Balance Loop rules. Additionally, the loop must cross itself if it passes through a gray circle. The loop must go straight throught the gray circle both times; in one direction the path behaves as if the circle is white with equal loop lengths, and in the other direction the path behaves as if the circle is black with unequal loop lengths. It is not required that the loop pass through all of the gray circles (but it must pass through all white and black circles). (See also the image below.)
Grid 4: Follow regular Yajilin rules.
When taken together, the grids yield a short final answer! Send this (less than five character) string to hiddencontest at gmpuzzles dot com by March 14th, 2021 to be eligible to win an e-book by Prasanna Seshadri. The contest is now closed and results summarized here.
Difficulty: 5 stars?
Solution: PDF
Last week’s set of Balance Loop puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. If you enjoyed these puzzles, our latest ebook Balance Loop by Prasanna Seshadri and Murat Can Tonta was just added to our web store with 55 puzzles including 34 regular Balance Loops, 20 variations across five styles, and one giant hybrid at the end.
Again I have made solving videos in Penpa-Edit for all of the Balance Loops from this week so check these out if you are still learning this interesting puzzle style:
This upcoming week features TomTom puzzles as well as two surprises from Prasanna Seshadri (including one coming very soon today that will be our first “contest puzzle” in awhile).
Last week’s set of Star Battle puzzles is collected in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. If you enjoyed these puzzles, look for more Star Battles in our store.
Now that I’m routinely checking all our puzzles in Penpa-Edit and playing with solving interfaces, I once again filmed my solves for all the puzzles in the week which may offer different tips on Star Battle and also show some of the custom interfaces that can be used during solving. (Getting edge/border notation to be a default and not just a custom option is still a goal).
This upcoming week features Balance Loop puzzles, and at the end of the week we will add a new Balance Loop e-book by Prasanna Seshadri and Murat Can Tonta to our e-store. We’ll may also have another Sunday surprise or two coming up so stay tuned.
2019/09/13 – Battleships (Minesweeper) (+ puzzle page)
2019/08/31 – Tapa (Easy as) (+ puzzle page)
2019/08/24 – Fillomino (NC) (+ puzzle page)
2019/07/04 – Cave and Kurotto (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2019/06/14 – LITS (+ puzzle page)
2019/05/11 – Yajilin (Strict Transparent) (+ puzzle page)
2019/05/10 – Battleships (Minesweeper) (+ puzzle page)
2019/04/20 – TomTom (No Touch) (+ puzzle page)
2019/03/16 – Statue Park (+ puzzle page)
2019/03/15 – Fillomino (+ puzzle page)
2019/02/16 – SSS (Sundoku Snake Shape) (+ puzzle page)
2019/02/15 – Transporter (+ puzzle page)
2019/01/19 – Fillomino (+ puzzle page)
2018/12/14 – Inner Coral (+ puzzle page)
2018/12/12 – Galaxies and Tetrominoes (+ puzzle page)
2018/11/24 – Nurikabe Loop (+ puzzle page)
2018/11/21 – Nurikabe (+ puzzle page)
2018/10/12 – Consecutive Pairs Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2018/09/08 – Pentopia (+ puzzle page)
2018/08/03 – LITS (+ puzzle page)
2018/07/07 – Kakuro (+ puzzle page)
2018/07/06 – Cave (+ puzzle page)
2018/06/09 – Araf (+ puzzle page)
2018/06/08 – Thermo-Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2018/05/12 – TomTom (+ puzzle page)
2018/03/16 – Double LITS (+ puzzle page)
2018/02/14 – Consecutive Pairs Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2018/01/20 – Statue Park (+ puzzle page)
2017/12/27+29 – Minesweeper (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2017/12/17 – Cross the Tapa (+ puzzle page)
2017/12/02 – Tapa (Different) (+ puzzle page)
2017/10/07 – Snake Pit X (+ puzzle page)
2017/09/13 – Cross the Streams (LITS) (+ puzzle page)
2017/09/02 – Pentominous (Borders) (+ puzzle page)
2017/08/19 – Killer Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2017/08/05 – Double Kakuro (+ puzzle page)
2017/07/22 – Tapa (Hex) (+ puzzle page)
2017/06/28-29 – Spiral Galaxies + 2x (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2017/06/15 – Nurikabe (Yajisan-Kazusan) (+ puzzle page)
2017/06/01 – Pentosnake (+ puzzle page)
2017/05/12 – Castle Wall (Hex) (+ puzzle page)
2017/04/12+15 – Double Yajilin (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2017/03/25 – Starship Battle (+ puzzle page)
2017/03/11 – Tapa (Visionary) (+ puzzle page)
2017/03/04 – Fillomino (Symmetry) (+ puzzle page)
2017/02/10 – Cave (+ puzzle page)
2017/01/27 – Masyu or Balance Loop? (+ puzzle page)
2017/01/13 – Pata (+ puzzle page)
2016/12/10 – Fillomino (Kropki) (+ puzzle page)
2016/11/12 – Statue Park (+ puzzle page)
2016/11/05 – Minesweeper (Even Rows/Columns) (+ puzzle page)
2016/10/23 and 2016/10/21 – Tight Fit Sudoku (Classic and Killer) (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2016/10/08 – Roller Coaster (+ puzzle page)
2016/09/30 – Pentominous (Star Battle) (+ puzzle page)
2016/09/17 – Japanese+Latin Sums (+ puzzle page)
2016/09/10 – Fillomino (Symmetry) (+ puzzle page)
2016/08/27 – Castle Wall (+ puzzle page)
2016/08/17 – Gapped Kakuro (+ puzzle page)
2016/08/06 – Slitherlink (Large-Square) (+ puzzle page)
2016/07/29 – Yajilin (+ puzzle page)
2016/07/22 – Canal View (+ puzzle page)
2016/07/09 – Thermo-Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2016/07/01 – Masyu (Regional) (+ puzzle page)
2016/06/10 – Star Battle (Small Regions) (+ puzzle page)
2016/05/13 – Yajilin (Transparent) (+ puzzle page)
2016/04/28 – Cross the Streams (Windows) (+ puzzle page)
2016/04/16 – Range (+ puzzle page)
2016/04/09 – Killer Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2016/03/17 – Ripple Effect (+ puzzle page)
2016/03/12 – Slitherlink (+ puzzle page)
2016/02/27 – Arrow Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2016/02/18 – Kurotto (Windows) (+ puzzle page)
2016/02/13 – Double Kakuro (+ puzzle page)
2015/04/02 – Snake Egg (+ puzzle page)
2015/03/26 – Fillomino (Symmetry) (+ puzzle page)
2015/03/21 – Skyscrapers (+ puzzle page)
2015/03/14 – 2D Top Heavy Number Place (+ puzzle page)
2015/03/05 – Yajilin (+ puzzle page)
2015/02/13 – Balance Loop (+ puzzle page)
2015/02/07 – Kakuro (Hex) (+ puzzle page)
2015/01/31 – Even/Odd Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2015/01/24 – TomTom (+ puzzle page)
2015/01/16 – Unique Clues Tapa (+ puzzle page)
2015/01/10 – Battleships (+ puzzle page)
2014/12/27 – Pentopia (+ puzzle page)
2014/12/17 – Battleships (+ puzzle page)
2014/12/13 – Cross the Streams (LITS) (+ puzzle page)
2014/12/05 – Cipher Fillomino (+ puzzle page)
2014/11/28 – (Prime) Cave (+ puzzle page)
2014/11/22 – Pentominous (Cipher) (+ puzzle page)
2014/11/15 – Castle Wall (+ puzzle page)
2014/11/08 – LITS (+ puzzle page)
2014/10/31 – Jack-O’-Lantern Thermo Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2014/10/24 – TomTom (+ puzzle page)
2014/10/17 – RoundTrip (+ puzzle page)
2014/10/04 – Pentomino (+ puzzle page)
2014/09/27 – Tapa (+ puzzle page)
2014/09/18 – Pentominous (+ puzzle page)
2014/09/12 – Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2014/09/06 – Tapa-Like Loop (+ puzzle page)
2014/08/28 – Pentominous (+ puzzle page)
2014/08/23 – Killer Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2014/08/15 – Kuromasu (+ puzzle page)
2014/08/08 – Sum Skyscrapers (+ puzzle page)
2014/08/02 – Repeated Neighbors Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2014/07/24 – Nanro (+ puzzle page)
2014/07/12 – Nurikabe (+ puzzle page)
2014/07/04 and 2014/07/06 – Star Battle (+ puzzle page 1 + email only = no puzzle page)
2014/06/24 and 2014/06/27 – Cross the Streams (B&W Partially Inverted and Pentominoes) (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2014/06/19 and 2014/06/21 – Word Nurikabe and Cipher TomTom from IPC (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2014/06/13 – Transparent Tapa (+ puzzle page)
2014/05/31 – Slitherlink (Portal) (+ puzzle page)
2014/05/22 – LITS (+ puzzle page)
2014/05/08-09 – Araf (+ puzzle page 1 / 2)
2014/05/03 – Heavy Dots (+ puzzle page)
2014/04/19 – Ripple Effect (+ puzzle page)
2014/04/12 – Checkered Fillomino (+ puzzle page)
2014/04/05 – Audio Cross the Streams (+ puzzle page)
2014/03/28 – Outside Nurikabe (+ puzzle page)
2014/03/21 – Sudoku (+ puzzle page)
2014/03/07 – Slitherlink (Sheep and Wolves) (+ puzzle page)
2014/02/27 – Cave (+ puzzle page)
2014/02/14 – Fillomino (+ puzzle page)
Here are all of our book collections in publication order, available for purchase at our e-store!
62. 30th World Puzzle Championship Puzzle Files (November, 2023)
61. 16th World Sudoku Championship Puzzle Files (November, 2023)
60. GMPuzzles Subscription for Season 1 – A Fresh Start (July, 2023)
59. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 6, edited by Serkan Yürekli and Thomas Snyder (December, 2022)
58. Loop Variety Collection 2, by Ashish Kumar, Murat Can Tonta, Prasanna Seshadri, and Serkan Yürekli (December, 2022)
57. Starter Pack 5: Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn (October, 2022)
56. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 5, edited by Serkan Yürekli and Thomas Snyder (September, 2022)
55. Slitherlink and Variations 2 by Matej Uher (August, 2022)
54. Starter Pack 4: Slitherlink by Takeya Saikachi (August, 2022)
53. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 8: Shape Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (August, 2022)
52. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 7: Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (August, 2022)
51. Starter Pack 3: TomTom by Thomas Snyder (July, 2022)
50. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 4, edited by Serkan Yürekli (June, 2022)
49. Tapa and Variations 3 by Zoltán Horváth and Serkan Yürekli (May, 2022)
48. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 3, edited by Serkan Yürekli (April, 2022)
47. Starter Pack 2: Tapa by Serkan Yürekli (April, 2022)
46. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 6: Consecutive Pairs Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (February, 2022)
45. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 5: Tight Fit Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (February, 2022)
44. Starter Pack 1: Fillomino by Grant Fikes (February, 2022)
43. Shading Variety Collection by Prasanna Seshadri (January, 2022)
42. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 2, edited by Thomas Snyder and Serkan Yürekli (December, 2021)
41. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 4: Outside Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (November, 2021)
40. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 3: Arrow Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (November, 2021)
39. Star Battle 2, by JinHoo Ahn and Murat Can Tonta (November, 2021)
38. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 1, edited by Thomas Snyder (September, 2021)
37. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 2: Thermo-Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (August, 2021)
36. Masterpiece Sudoku Mix 1: Even/Odd Sudoku, edited by Serkan Yürekli (August, 2021)
35. TomTom, by Ashish Kumar, JinHoo Ahn, Murat Can Tonta, and Serkan Yürekli (July, 2021)
34. Loop Variety Collection, by Ashish Kumar and Murat Can Tonta (April, 2021)
33. The Art of Sudoku 2, edited by Thomas Snyder (March, 2021)
32. Balance Loop by Prasanna Seshadri and Murat Can Tonta (February, 2021)
31. Araf by Serkan Yürekli (January, 2021)
30. Star Battle by JinHoo Ahn (December, 2020)
29. Killer Sudoku by Serkan Yürekli (December, 2020)
28. Kurotto by Prasanna Seshadri (November, 2020)
27. Plenty o’ Pentominous 3 by Grant Fikes and Murat Can Tonta (November, 2020)
26. Yajilin Battleships by Serkan Yürekli (November, 2020)
25. Tapa and Variations 2 by Serkan Yürekli (May, 2020)
24. Plenty o’ Pentominous 2 by Grant Fikes and Murat Can Tonta (February, 2020)
23. Yajilin by Murat Can Tonta and Prasanna Seshadri (November, 2019)
22. The Puzzlemasters’ Workshop, edited by Thomas Snyder (June, 2019)
21. Skyscrapers by Ashish Kumar (March, 2019)
20. Nurikabe by Ashish Kumar (November, 2018)
19. Castle Wall by Serkan Yürekli (October, 2018)
18. Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli (August, 2018)
17. Statue Park by Murat Can Tonta (July, 2018)
16. Fill o’ Fillomino 2 by Grant Fikes (June, 2018)
15. A Number o’ Nanro by Prasanna Seshadri (May, 2018)
14. The Art of Puzzles 2: Double Trouble, edited by Thomas Snyder (April, 2018)
13. Plenty o’ Pentominous by Grant Fikes and Murat Can Tonta (March, 2018)
12. Battleships and Variations by Serkan Yürekli (July, 2017)
11. Slitherlink and Variations by Serkan Yürekli (April, 2017)
10. Colossal Cave Collection by Roger Barkan (January, 2017)
9. Logic Puzzles 101 by Grant Fikes (December, 2016)
8. Snake and Variations by Serkan Yürekli (December, 2016)
7. Kakuro and Variations by Serkan Yürekli (September, 2016)
6. Tapa and Variations by Serkan Yürekli (July, 2016)
5. Tapa-Like Loop Collection by Prasanna Seshadri (March, 2015)
4. Fill o’ Fillomino by Grant Fikes (November, 2014)
3. LOTS O’ LITS by Grant Fikes and Prasanna Seshadri (July, 2014)
2. The Art of Puzzles, edited by Thomas Snyder (June, 2014)
1. The Art of Sudoku by Thomas Snyder (April, 2012)
Over the last week we’ve added two e-books to our store: Plenty O’ Pentominous 3 by Grant Fikes and Murat Can Tonta, and Yajilin Battleships by Serkan Yürekli. Please check them out if you are interested in some fun puzzle challenges.
Our most recent week of Balance Loop puzzles can be found in this PDF and the solutions are all grouped in this PDF and have also been linked to the individual posts.
We have a solving video for four of this past week’s puzzles. First are solving videos for two of the regular Balance Loops, starting with the Forgotten Numbers by Grant Fikes:
and another video for the Even Diagonally puzzle by Prasanna Seshadri:
We also have solving videos for the two harder variations to close the week. This includes the Balance Loop (Skyscrapers) by Murat Can Tonta:
and the Balance Loop (Star Battle) by Serkan Yürekli:
This upcoming week will feature a variety mix of puzzles from across six different genres.