Puzzle 377: Tatami For Now 2

Making this puzzle symmetrical was a real pain in the butt.

Puzzle 376: Tatami For Now 1

No comment.
Rules of Tatami For Now

Rules -- Tatami For Now

Tatami For Now was invented by the Japanese puzzle company Nikoli (under the name Tatamibari). The puzzle is based on tatami mats, a traditional Japanese flooring; it is considered bad luck to have four tatami mats sharing a corner.

1. Divide the grid into rectangles (squares count as rectangles) along the grid lines in accordance with the following rules.
2. Every piece must contain exactly one symbol (+, -, or |).
3. Every piece containing a + must be square. Every piece containing a - must be wider than it is tall. Every piece containing a | must be taller than it is wide.
4. No four pieces may meet at a corner.

Puzzle 375: Quad-Wrangle 15

Puzzle 375! Hooray! Are you tired of 31x45 puzzles yet?

I honestly can't think of anything to say for this puzzle, so instead I'll use this space to encourage the reader to get Firefox, and then get the Personas extension! Nothing says "I'm a blogger who cares too much about customizing his browser" quite like having Mario and Luigi on one's browser. If you don't customize your browser, then you're just a square! (Or a rectangle.)
Rules of Quad-Wrangle
(click to enlarge)

Monday Mutant 2: Pearls of Wisdom (jigsaw)

Monday Mutants is a series in which I will attempt to experiment with "mutant" puzzles. These could be existing puzzle types with an unusual change in the rules, hybrids combining elements from multiple puzzle types, or puzzle types neither invented nor popularized by Nikoli.
In this Pearls of Wisdom puzzle, you must assemble the grid from the given pieces before you can solve the puzzle. None of the pieces may be rotated, and no two pieces may overlap; the pieces will fill the entire grid. The thick borders on the pieces must coincide with the perimeter of the grid. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Puzzle 374: Room and Reason 23

Can you guess what year I made this puzzle in? Here are three hints:
a) The year is very cleverly concealed in the puzzle.
b) It's the same year that motris created this puzzle (which, incidentally, is quite a bit more difficult than this one, and possibly more interesting).
c) I threw this puzzle together 10 minutes ago, inspired by motris's creation above.

Puzzle 373: Streaming Content 28

I would like to take this time to shamelessly promote my Monday Mutants series, a weekly series I've just begun which will be more experimental in nature than my usual puzzles. You may like the change of pace -- or you may find them convoluted and uninteresting (although I'll try as much as possible to avoid that!). Famed Sudoku master Thomas Snyder, who got a preview of some of my Monday Mutant puzzles before the series officially launched on this blog, took the time to promote the series on his own blog, so you know it must be good. :)

Monday Mutant 1: Polyominous (inequality)

Monday Mutants is a series in which I will attempt to experiment with "mutant" puzzles. These could be existing puzzle types with an unusual change in the rules, hybrids combining elements from multiple puzzle types, or puzzle types neither invented nor popularized by Nikoli.
In this Polyominous puzzle, there are no given numbers; instead, there are inequality signs in the grid. Each inequality sign must point from a larger polyomino to a smaller one. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Contest 2 Results: Attack of the Four Puzzles II!

The deadline for Attack of the Four Puzzles II! has now passed. I received 27 entries, 24 of which 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 24, and used random.org to select the winner. The winner is. . . Marcin Mucha! An email has been sent to Marcin Mucha to inform him of this. Congratulations, and many thanks to all who entered!

More detailed results (which include spoilers) can be found in a comment I've made on this post.

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