Puzzle 315: Polyominous 34
Housepets! is a webcomic about housepets (natch). The website's favicon is depicted in this puzzle..
Puzzle 314: Crowd Nine 6
I crafted this puzzle a month ago. Why did I wait until puzzle 314 to post it? I really had no rational reason to.
Contest 1 Results: Attack of the Four Puzzles!
The deadline for Attack of the Four Puzzles! has now passed. I received 31 entries -- apparently, it's significantly easier for my readers to solve puzzles than to make them. 23 entries contained the correct answer, which can be seen here. (To avoid depriving readers of the chance to solve the puzzles themselves -- even though the contest is over -- I have chosen to link to the image rather than embed it.)
I have numbered the correct entries from 1 through 23, and used random.org to select the winner. The winner is. . . James Marshall! An email has been sent to James Marshall to inform him of this. Congratulations, and stuff! Many thanks to all who entered!
More detailed results (which include spoilers) can be found in a comment I've made on this post.
I have numbered the correct entries from 1 through 23, and used random.org to select the winner. The winner is. . . James Marshall! An email has been sent to James Marshall to inform him of this. Congratulations, and stuff! Many thanks to all who entered!
More detailed results (which include spoilers) can be found in a comment I've made on this post.
Puzzle 312: Seek and Spell 7
This Seek and Spell puzzle contains 15 geographical locations that start with A, including Alberta, a province in Canada (where people stereotypically end every sentence with "eh?"), Abilene (the Texas city in which I was born), and Atlanta (home of the CNN headquarters, which I actually visited once when I was younger -- I got to see a real live green screen that weathermen stand in front of!). This puzzle's freaking A, man!
Puzzle 309: Ripple Play 3
One week remains before the deadline of my Attack of the Four Puzzles! contest. If you like solving puzzles, and haven't entered the contest already, I suggest you do. You'll have LOTS of puzzles to solve if you are fortunate enough to win. :)
Puzzle 307: Ripple Play 1
For a puzzle that revolves around numbers, you'd think there'd be some, I dunno, actual numbers in this one. (It's actually not terribly uncommon for this kind of puzzle to contain no givens, although to me, it seemed at least 60 times trickier to compose than to actually solve. Maybe I'm just a newbie. :) )
Rules -- Ripple Play
Also known as Ripple Effect or Hakyuu Kouka.
1. Place a single positive integer in every empty cell.
2. Every region of the grid must contain consecutive numbers starting at 1, up through the number of cells in that region. (For instance, a 4-cell region must contain the numbers 1 through 4.)
3. Any two occurrences of the same number in one row or column must have at least that number of other cells between them. (For instance, two 2's in the same row or column must have at least two other cells between them.)
2. Every region of the grid must contain consecutive numbers starting at 1, up through the number of cells in that region. (For instance, a 4-cell region must contain the numbers 1 through 4.)
3. Any two occurrences of the same number in one row or column must have at least that number of other cells between them. (For instance, two 2's in the same row or column must have at least two other cells between them.)
Contest 1: Attack of the Four Puzzles!
Do you want to win high-quality logic puzzles imported from Japan? The Attack of the Four Puzzles! contest might be your opportunity to do just that! The four short sections below explain all of the details.
How to enter:
This contest consists of a four-part logic puzzle (below). To participate in the contest, solve the puzzle, obtain the final answer from part iv, and e-mail the answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Only one entry is allowed per person; however, if you believe your answer is wrong, you may change it at any time before the deadline. The deadline is two weeks from the time the contest started (that is, October 20, 2009).
How to win:
After the deadline has passed, the winner will be randomly selected from all of the entrants with the correct answer. Therefore, to win, you must both be skilled enough to solve the puzzles before the deadline, and lucky enough to be picked. (But even if you're not lucky, hopefully you'll have had fun solving the puzzles, right? :) )
Prize:
The winner will receive his or her choice of either 3 of Nikoli's Pencil Puzzle Books, or any 1 or 2 Nikoli books whose prices total at most 2100 yen (see this link for a list of all of the books Nikoli has available). Each Pencil Puzzle Book contains about 96 puzzles of one particular type, which is great if there's a certain puzzle type you particularly want to focus on; if you'd rather have a wider variety of puzzles available, books like the Penpas Mix series, the Puzzle Box series, and the Puzzle the Giants series will satisfy your needs perfectly. Either way, you win! :) When you win, provide me with your mailing address and which books you'd like; I'll pay Nikoli to have the books shipped directly to you.
Terms:
By entering the contest, you agree to the following terms:
a) You are prepared and willing to provide me with a mailing address in the event that you win. (In return, I agree not to use your mailing address for any malicious purposes, such as sending junk mail or other undesired things.)
b) You are prepared and willing to wait several weeks for the books to arrive from Japan (this contest is mostly for fun, anyhow -- and high-quality puzzles are worth the wait, right? :) ).
Now that you're done reading all that, here is the four-part contest puzzle. Good luck! :)
Part i. Polyominous
Solve the Polyominous puzzle below (rules of Polyominous), and then answer Question i:
Question i: How many 1's are there in the solution (including the ones given at the outset)?
Part ii. Straight and Arrow
Solve the Straight and Arrow puzzle below (rules of Straight and Arrow), and then answer Question ii:
Question ii: What is the total number of black cells in the two indicated columns?
Part iii. Process of Illumination
Solve the Process of Illumination puzzle below (rules of Process of Illumination), and then answer Question iii:
Question iii: How many light bulbs are there in the solution?
Part iv. Seek and Spell
The numerical answer to each of the above questions is an integer between 1 and 26, inclusive. For each answer, find the corresponding word in the list below:
1 ALPHA
2 BRAVO
3 CHARLIE
4 DELTA
5 ECHO
6 FOXTROT
7 GOLF
8 HOTEL
9 INDIA
10 JULIET
11 KILO
12 LIMA
13 MIKE
14 NOVEMBER
15 OSCAR
16 PAPA
17 QUEBEC
18 ROMEO
19 SIERRA
20 TANGO
21 UNIFORM
22 VICTOR
23 WHISKEY
24 XRAY
25 YANKEE
26 ZULU
Solve the Seek and Spell puzzle below (rules of Seek and Spell), replacing i, ii, and iii with the words corresponding with the numerical answers to Question i, Question ii, and Question iii, respectively.
The seven letters in the shaded cells, taken in reading order (a, b, c, d, e, f, g), form the final answer. (These letters may or may not spell anything.) Send this final answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com to enter the Attack of the Four Puzzles! contest.
How to enter:
This contest consists of a four-part logic puzzle (below). To participate in the contest, solve the puzzle, obtain the final answer from part iv, and e-mail the answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Only one entry is allowed per person; however, if you believe your answer is wrong, you may change it at any time before the deadline. The deadline is two weeks from the time the contest started (that is, October 20, 2009).
How to win:
After the deadline has passed, the winner will be randomly selected from all of the entrants with the correct answer. Therefore, to win, you must both be skilled enough to solve the puzzles before the deadline, and lucky enough to be picked. (But even if you're not lucky, hopefully you'll have had fun solving the puzzles, right? :) )
Prize:
The winner will receive his or her choice of either 3 of Nikoli's Pencil Puzzle Books, or any 1 or 2 Nikoli books whose prices total at most 2100 yen (see this link for a list of all of the books Nikoli has available). Each Pencil Puzzle Book contains about 96 puzzles of one particular type, which is great if there's a certain puzzle type you particularly want to focus on; if you'd rather have a wider variety of puzzles available, books like the Penpas Mix series, the Puzzle Box series, and the Puzzle the Giants series will satisfy your needs perfectly. Either way, you win! :) When you win, provide me with your mailing address and which books you'd like; I'll pay Nikoli to have the books shipped directly to you.
Terms:
By entering the contest, you agree to the following terms:
a) You are prepared and willing to provide me with a mailing address in the event that you win. (In return, I agree not to use your mailing address for any malicious purposes, such as sending junk mail or other undesired things.)
b) You are prepared and willing to wait several weeks for the books to arrive from Japan (this contest is mostly for fun, anyhow -- and high-quality puzzles are worth the wait, right? :) ).
Now that you're done reading all that, here is the four-part contest puzzle. Good luck! :)
Part i. Polyominous
Solve the Polyominous puzzle below (rules of Polyominous), and then answer Question i:
Question i: How many 1's are there in the solution (including the ones given at the outset)?
Part ii. Straight and Arrow
Solve the Straight and Arrow puzzle below (rules of Straight and Arrow), and then answer Question ii:
Question ii: What is the total number of black cells in the two indicated columns?
Part iii. Process of Illumination
Solve the Process of Illumination puzzle below (rules of Process of Illumination), and then answer Question iii:
Question iii: How many light bulbs are there in the solution?
Part iv. Seek and Spell
The numerical answer to each of the above questions is an integer between 1 and 26, inclusive. For each answer, find the corresponding word in the list below:
1 ALPHA
2 BRAVO
3 CHARLIE
4 DELTA
5 ECHO
6 FOXTROT
7 GOLF
8 HOTEL
9 INDIA
10 JULIET
11 KILO
12 LIMA
13 MIKE
14 NOVEMBER
15 OSCAR
16 PAPA
17 QUEBEC
18 ROMEO
19 SIERRA
20 TANGO
21 UNIFORM
22 VICTOR
23 WHISKEY
24 XRAY
25 YANKEE
26 ZULU
Solve the Seek and Spell puzzle below (rules of Seek and Spell), replacing i, ii, and iii with the words corresponding with the numerical answers to Question i, Question ii, and Question iii, respectively.
The seven letters in the shaded cells, taken in reading order (a, b, c, d, e, f, g), form the final answer. (These letters may or may not spell anything.) Send this final answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com to enter the Attack of the Four Puzzles! contest.
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