{"id":2926,"date":"2014-01-01T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/?p=2926"},"modified":"2014-12-30T19:05:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T03:05:20","slug":"best-2013-object-placement-puzzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2013: Object Placement Puzzles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we start to celebrate 2014, let&#8217;s look back at some of the best object placement puzzles from the last year. This genre involves placing things into a grid, usually with specific touching rules driving the bulk of the logic. We had 39 puzzles in this genre last year, and one runaway winner for best puzzle. First, the very good (but not the very best) in the category:<\/p>\n<p><a href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/from-the-foxgers-den-7-battleships-yajilin\/>Battleships (Yajilin)<\/a> was one of Grant&#8217;s early contributions here and, with a set of battleship pieces in the grid as Yajilin clues was quite clever and well received. (The doubled battleships aspects of the theme pushed it into the object placement and not loop categories.)<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130319-Battleships-Yaji.png\" alt=\"Battleships (Yajilin) by Grant Fikes\"><\/p>\n<p><a href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/dr-sudoku-prescribes-94-battleships\/>Shipping Lanes<\/a> from May was also highly rated. This Battleships puzzle was actually one of two created with this title\/general theme in 2013; the other was kept for The Art of Puzzles (and if Dr. Sudoku ever gets his act together to publish this you&#8217;ll get to see it too!).<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130508-Battleships-ShippingLanes.png\" alt=\"Battleships by Thomas Snyder\"><\/p>\n<p>Amongst regular-sized Star Battles, Tom&#8217;s <a href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/detuned-broadcast-11-star-battle\/>Throwing Star<\/a> from September was a recent puzzle with a fair amount of favorite votes (or favourite votes, as he&#8217;d have us spell it).<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130918-StarBattle-ThrowingStar.png\" alt=\"Star Battle by Tom Collyer\"><\/p>\n<p>The super-sized <a href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/dr-sudoku-prescribes-125-star-battle\/>Clown<\/a> from August got a good number of votes too among the Star Battles, over a quarter of the solvers who finished it marked it a favorite which is the best ratio in the category.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130817-StarBattle-Clown.png\" alt=\"Star Battle by Thomas Snyder\" width=500><\/p>\n<p>But the puzzle with over 50% more votes than any other, the one that certainly went most outside the box in the category, was Grant&#8217;s <a href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/from-the-foxgers-den-14-star-battle-corrupted-regions\/>Star Battle (Corrupted Regions)<\/a>. I&#8217;m sure you had the same reaction I did to reading the rule &#8220;Each region must contain some number of stars other than 2, including possibly no stars at all&#8221; &#8212; there&#8217;s no way that will work. And then it does. It may be a one-off puzzle, but it is the Best Object Placement Puzzle of 2013.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130412-StarBattle-BadRegions.png\" alt=\"Star Battle by Grant Fikes\"><\/p>\n<p>This <A href=https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/2013-BestObjP.pdf>PDF<\/a> contains the Best of Object Placement category for 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we start to celebrate 2014, let&#8217;s look back at some of the best object placement puzzles from the last year. This genre involves placing things into a grid, usually with specific touching rules driving the bulk of the logic. We had 39 puzzles in this genre last year, and one runaway winner for best [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[26,45,81],"class_list":["post-2926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bestof","tag-starbattle","tag-battleships-2","tag-bestof"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Best of 2013: Object Placement Puzzles - The Art of Puzzles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Best Object Placement Puzzles of 2013 are announced on GM Puzzles. Did you manage to solve all of these during the year? If not, here is your chance.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Best of 2013: Object Placement Puzzles - The Art of Puzzles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Best Object Placement Puzzles of 2013 are announced on GM Puzzles. Did you manage to solve all of these during the year? If not, here is your chance.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Puzzles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-01T17:00:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-31T03:05:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.gmpuzzles.com\/images\/puzzles\/130319-Battleships-Yaji.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"drsudoku\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drsudoku\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@drsudoku\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"drsudoku\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"drsudoku\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/16f28006b2b31c98ce6d8d1affd60275\"},\"headline\":\"Best of 2013: Object Placement Puzzles\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-01T17:00:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-31T03:05:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":325,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/images\\\/puzzles\\\/130319-Battleships-Yaji.png\",\"keywords\":[\"starbattle\",\"battleships\",\"bestof\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Best Of ...\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/\",\"name\":\"Best of 2013: Object Placement Puzzles - The Art of Puzzles\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/01\\\/best-2013-object-placement-puzzles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/images\\\/puzzles\\\/130319-Battleships-Yaji.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-01T17:00:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-31T03:05:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.gmpuzzles.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/16f28006b2b31c98ce6d8d1affd60275\"},\"description\":\"The Best Object Placement Puzzles of 2013 are announced on GM Puzzles. 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