I had not intended to have a repeat author for a Sunday Surprise so soon, but Craig Kasper sent along a really nice surprise sudoku to mark the US National Championship we’ve been focusing our attention on all weekend. See if you can find your way through to the very end.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: That US national championship happening this weekend; speaking of which, congratulations to the top finishers at the US Puzzle Championship, whomever you turn out to be.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules. Also, the regions are irregularly shaped; instead of numbers, use the letters in “I’D GOLF, MAN” once in each row, column, and region.

Answer String: Enter the letters in the third column, from top to bottom, followed by the letters in the seventh column, from top to bottom. USE CAPITAL LETTERS.

Solution: PDF

A few weeks ago Giovanni P. asked what our visitors might think about “other puzzles.” His question was specific to word puzzles, but this week I put the question to the test when I posted our first “Puzzle Hunt” puzzle. The Monday puzzle was not announced as such. Instead it was meant to just look like an April Fools joke. But it already has the most FAVEs of any puzzle on the site. So what are “Puzzle Hunt” puzzles and what was really going on with that word search?

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PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Guess the author?

Rules: Variation of standard TomTom rules. In these puzzles, the five numbers to enter are not 1-5. In each grid, there are five unknown integers that the solver must determine.

Answer String: Enter the 3rd row from left to right in the left puzzle, followed by a comma, followed by the 3rd row from left to right in the right puzzle.

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 1:00, Master = 1:30, Expert = 3:00

Solution: PDF

**While this was initially not a numbered opus in this author’s work, we are calling it #47 for our site count.

When I originally was planning to launch the site, I had a 60+1 puzzle roll-out in mind. In this puzzle set, I would introduce many of my styles from the past, particularly sudoku, and also write a lot of styles I’m planning to publish in the future. All of those roll-out puzzles have now been released, even if I only have recorded solvers for the 60 announced puzzles and none so far for the +1. That “puzzle” is not at all hard to solve once you find it, but that’s the challenge!

I’d love to hear your feedback now that the full set is released on which were your favorite puzzle types or even your favorite puzzles, so I can consider how to focus going forward. Which type(s) that did not occur would you like to see in the future? The Art of Puzzles will feature challenges in five general genres: Number Placement (TomTom and Skyscrapers), Object Placement (Battleships and Star Battle), Shading (Nurikabe and Tapa), Region Division (Fillomino and Cave), and Loop (Masyu and Slitherlink). And — while this is commercially risky in many people’s minds — it will have no Sudoku puzzles at all. So over the coming weeks, there will be fewer (but not zero) sudoku puzzles on this site as the puzzle styles in The Art of Puzzles get even more focus. And there may finally be a few variations on puzzles, but I won’t be publishing variations until the sequel!

I’ve gotten some questions about how I can keep up with posting so many puzzles every week. Well, I plan to take a little time off now. I have not written any puzzles for this week. But I hope you still visit to solve the puzzles that are here that you might not yet have completed — or found — and anything else that might pop up too. This is the end of the beginning, but the next chapter will be even more incredible.