This is a free “warm-up” puzzle; Season 4 subscribers will see today’s main puzzle in the same style posted at 9:05 AM PT.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: Hex Pairs

Author/Opus: This is the 518th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Cave rules. (The puzzle is on a hexagonal grid and cells now see in a maximum of six possible directions.)

Difficulty: 2 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 2:30, Expert = 5:00

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for classic Caves and this link for Cave variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Cave Puzzles to get started on. More Cave puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Week 8 Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

This is a free “warm-up” puzzle; Season 4 subscribers will see today’s main puzzle in the same style posted at 9:05 AM PT.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: A Huge Gap

Author/Opus: This is the 298th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Murat Can Tonta.

Rules: Standard Cave rules. Also, the shaded cells (outside the cave) cannot form a 2×2 square anywhere in the grid. Additionally, an even number of cells in each row and in each column must be inside the cave.

Difficulty: 1.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:15, Master = 1:45, Expert = 3:30

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for classic Caves and this link for Cave variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Cave Puzzles to get started on. More Cave puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Week 8 Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

This is a free “warm-up” puzzle; Season 4 subscribers will see today’s main puzzle in the same style posted at 9:05 AM PT.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: Doubled Partners

Author/Opus: This is the 517th puzzle from Thomas Snyder, aka Dr. Sudoku.

Rules: Standard Cave rules.

Difficulty: 1.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 1:15, Expert = 2:30

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for classic Caves and this link for Cave variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Cave Puzzles to get started on. More Cave puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Week 8 Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

This is a free “warm-up” puzzle; Season 4 subscribers will see today’s main puzzle in the same style posted at 9:05 AM PT.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to shift between shading mode and the linex mode where left click+drag draws lines and right click marks X’s)

Theme: Square

Author/Opus: This is the 497th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Grant Fikes.

Rules: Standard Cave rules.

Difficulty: 1 star

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 0:25, Master = 0:45, Expert = 1:30

Solution: PDF and solving animation.

Note: Follow this link for classic Caves and this link for Cave variations. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Cave Puzzles to get started on. More Cave puzzles can be found in these books in our e-store.

Note 2: Comments on the blog are great! For a more interactive discussion, please also consider using our Week 8 Discussion post on the GMPuzzles Discord.

You must be logged in with the appropriate subscription to view this content.

Region Division puzzles made up a total of 64 posts, and had some of the highest rankings of all of our puzzles making this an incredibly tight category.

One puzzle with a very high FAVE/solver ratio was this creative “Infinity!” Araf from Serkan Yürekli:

(view image directly for larger form)

While many of our best Cave puzzles were contained in our ebooks this year, Thomas Snyder’s Product Cave from January garnered a lot of Favorite votes:

Fillomino puzzles closed out our favorites of 2014. Arguably the best puzzle of the year was a giant Fillomino “Dear John” from Grant Fikes that went out to our patrons in April; these votes just cover our web puzzles though.

Tapio Saarinen made a cute Fillomino out of just tiny digits:

Guest contributor Robert Vollmert created a really challenging Checkered Fillomino with some interesting discoveries inside as well:

Closing out the best Region Division puzzles of 2014 were a pair of Cipher Fillomino from Palmer Mebane. Palmer’s not had a lot of interest in puzzle construction over the last couple years, but whenever he returns with new ideas they have been fantastic. Quoting from his email that submitted these two: “This is not really a return; just a couple good ideas that were too good (in my head) to leave undone.” While Tic-Tac-Toe got a lot of Fave votes, the C Major theme earned the most for Region Division puzzles and tied (with the TomTomTom and a puzzle to be named tomorrow) for Puzzle of the Year:

These best puzzles have been gathered in this PDF.

You must be logged in with the appropriate subscription to view this content.

We’ve just published our second Starter Pack, this one by Serkan Yürekli features 30 easy-to-medium Tapa puzzles for solvers getting started with this shading puzzle style. There is a page with penpa-edit links for all thirty puzzles for solvers that want to try these Tapa puzzles out online. Our upcoming week of puzzles will feature six puzzles with “starter pack” type difficulty from six different genres including Tapa.

Our past week of Cave puzzles is in this PDF and the solutions are in this PDF. More Cave puzzles can be found in our store.

The daily solution videos are on the posts and linked below:

Happy New Year to our GMPuzzles fans!

For those that missed it, we just released Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 2, a collection of ninety-six puzzles across six genres: Isodoku, Kakuro, Statue Park, LITS, Cave, and Slitherlink.

This next week will again be “off” from regular puzzle posts. But we still plan to post some different kinds of content and updates. We intend to share our Best of 2021 puzzles, make some updates to Penpa-Edit, grade our 2021 Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and share our 2022 OKRs and book plans.

Coming in just before the end of 2021, we’re releasing our second quarterly mix of puzzles. Grandmaster Puzzles Quarterly: Volume 2 comes in at over 150% the size of the first volume, with a total of ninety-six puzzles across six genres:

– 12 Isodoku and 4 Isodoku (Consecutive Pairs)
– 12 Kakuro and 4 Kakuro (Hex)
– 12 Statue Park and 4 Statue Park (Half and Half)
– 12 LITS and 4 Easy as LITS
– 12 Cave and 4 Cave (Product)
– 12 Slitherlink and 4 Slitherlink (Sheep and Wolves)

As you’d expect from us, this collection includes a set of really elegant puzzles from twenty-one of the world’s best authors. We’re already working on volumes 3 and 4 (planned for publication in March and June of 2022) and will have more info on 2022 book plans and possible subscription options in the coming weeks for all of our 2022+ books. For now, we wish you a Happy New Year and hope you consider purchasing this excellent collection of logic puzzles as a way to start 2022 off in a great way.