Monday Mutant 78: Streampunk

Shade in some cells black such that the black cells are all connected to each other through their edges, and no 2x2 cell area within the grid contains all black cells. Numbers in a cell indicate the sizes of the orthogonally contiguous groups formed by black cells sharing a corner or an edge with that cell. For example, "3" means that the cell shares a corner or an edge with three black cells, and they form a single group, whereas "1 2" means the cell shares a corner with three black cells which form a group of two cells and a single separate cell. Cells with numbers cannot be black.

Before you complain about me featuring a "classic" puzzle type (a modern classic, mind you, but a classic nonetheless), I quote a post of yore: 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. Also remember that in the weeks after that post, I played around with several variants on said "classic" puzzle.
Two of my Cross the Streams puzzles have been published in Akil Oyunlari! I encourage you to get a copy of the magazine so you can see them. Don't let the Turkish language daunt you; the magazine's LiveJournal is devoted to making the puzzles as navigable as possible for English speakers. :)

Monday Mutant 77: Proof of Quilt / Battleships

Ten ships (as indicated below the grid: one four-cell ship, two three-cell ships, three two-cell ships, and four one-cell ships) are hidden in the grid. The ships may be rotated from the orientations shown (without changing the numbers), but may not overlap or occupy cells which share a corner or an edge. A number to the right of a row or below a column indicates how many cells in that row or column are occupied by ships. These ships also function as black cells in a Proof of Quilt puzzle, and the numbers on some of the ship segments function as they normally would in such a puzzle. None of the black cells already present in the grid are part of the ships. Locate the ships and solve the Proof of Quilt puzzle.

This could be my strangest Monday Mutant in a long time.

Grant's Review Corner: Volume 6

At approximately 3:00 AM local time on May 2, 2011, I received this e-mail:

Hi,

[Our company] has just launched [another crappy app] - which is an unique Sudoku app for the iPhone. The way it differentiates from all other Sudoku games is the fact that it is three dimensional and brings in an unique combination of fun of spinning dials and sliding pieces with number puzzle.

We noticed that you have been writing about other Sudoku puzzles and thought this app would be of interest to you. We would request you to write a review for this app for your readers. You can download the app for Free at [link to the "Pro" version of the app that costs money, as opposed to the free demo version].

For your convenience we have also attached with this email the official press release and the screen shots of the app along with this email.

In case you need any other information to publish a review for [another crappy app], we will be glad to help you with the same.

I may need to rename "Grant's Review Corner" "Grant's Annoyed Rant Corner".

Puzzle 493: Streaming Content 35

No comment.

Rules of Streaming Content

Monday Mutant 76: Battleships (minesweeper)

Ten ships (as indicated below the grid: one four-cell ship, two three-cell ships, three two-cell ships, and four one-cell ships) are hidden in the grid. The ships may be rotated from the orientations shown, but may not overlap or occupy cells which share a corner or an edge. A number in a cell indicates how many of the cells sharing a corner or an edge with that cell are occupied by ships. Cells with numbers cannot contain ships. Find the ships.

Combining Minesweeper and Battleships is probably one of the most ironic things that's ever happened in the realm of puzzles, since in Minesweeper, you want to avoid hitting mines, but in Battleships, you want to hit the ships.

Contest 4: A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest

On May 26, 2011, I will turn 24 years old. As has been traditional for the past several years, I will celebrate this event by adding new Nikoli puzzle books to my collection, a tradition which always gives me a bit of a rush. One tradition I will not engage in, though, is the singing of a particular song (yeah, you know the one). What song would I prefer to hear instead? Read on, and you could find out. . .

How to enter:
This contest consists of a single puzzle (as opposed to the four puzzles that my contests usually have – a shocking change of pace, I know). To participate in the contest, simply send the final answer in an e-mail to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com. Only one entry is allowed per person, but you may change your entry at any time before the deadline, 11:59 PM (Central time) on May 25, 2011. The winners will be announced on my birthday, May 26, 2011.

How to win:
After the deadline has passed, four winners will be randomly selected from amongst the people who submitted the correct answer. (If fewer than four people submit the correct answer, then all of them will be winners.)

Prize:
I'm not telling you what the prizes are. Gwa ha ha! I will only say that their monetary worth will surely not be as great as their worth as souvenirs of having celebrated my birthday. :)

Terms:
By entering the contest, you agree to the following terms:
a) You agree not to discuss your entry with any other entrants or potential entrants until the contest is over.
b) You agree 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.)
c) You agree to wait patiently for your prize to arrive, without moaning or kvetching, especially if you don't live in the continental United States, since it takes longer for things to ship from Texas to other countries, or to Alaska or Hawaii.

Now that you're done reading all that, here is the one-part contest puzzle. Good luck! :)

---

Only Part: Polyominous

Solve the Polyominous puzzle below (rules of Polyominous):

Transfer the units digits of the numbers in the lettered cells to the corresponding boxes in the URL beneath the images. (For example, if the cell with the letter a has a 2 or a 12, then box a in the URL will have a 2.) This URL will lead to a page on AllMusic; the song on this page was the inspiration for this contest.

For the final answer, you may submit either the URL obtained from solving the above puzzle, or the title of the song obtained from said URL. Send your answer to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com to enter A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest.

Edit: I reserve the right to accept "close enough" answers at my discretion; I will consider the full URL, the URL without http:// and/or www., just the "t#######" part of the URL, or even just the seven-digit number by itself as correct, as well as minor misspellings of the title. However, URL's with two digits transposed or a single wrong digit, as well as completely wrong titles, will not be counted as correct.

If you submit both a URL and a title, and I notice that they don't match up, I will notify you of this. If you don't change your answer before the deadline, I will ignore the title and just check the URL (so if your URL is correct and your song title is preposterously wrong, your answer will be counted as correct).

Monday Mutant 75: Crowd Nine (equations)

In this Crowd Nine puzzle, all of the outlined equations, when read from left to right or from top to bottom, must be true when the grid is filled in. Perform operations in reading order (for example, 3-1+2 is 4, not 0, and 1+2×3 is 9, not 7). The rules are otherwise unchanged.

As previously announced, MellowMelon and I will be co-authoring a test for Logic Masters India in the coming months. What kind of content can you expect on this test? Take a look.

Grant's Review Corner: Volume 5

I would like to open this review by confessing a horrible secret. This secret is so horrible that I suspect most of my readers, and an even greater percentage of my real-life friends, will desert me upon learning it. Nonetheless, at the risk of alienation, I believe it is necessary to get this out of the way.

I genuinely like Justin Bieber's song "Baby".

I dislike it when people solicit me to review their things, particularly things which I believe to be crap. Who am I to judge what is crap, after all, when I enjoy listening to the song that, prior to the release of "Friday" by Rebecca Black, had the highest number of "thumbs down" votes of any YouTube video? If there's anything to be gathered from the prevalence of computer-generated Sudoku puzzles, which I believe to be artless crap, in the highest-selling publications, it's that my opinion even on those things which I am most passionate about don't always align with the vox populi. Don't get me wrong; I believe that computer-generated logic puzzles are capable of being legitimately entertaining, which is why I have been on occasion obsessed with getting high scores in Everett Kaser's Sherlock, and why I am a fan of Link-a-Pix by Conceptis, the company with perhaps the most consistently high-quality pictures in their picture-forming logic puzzles. I do, however, find that handmade puzzles are generally more capable of being masterpieces as opposed to entertainment. Additionally, there are times when I think that something is crap (or occasionally the opposite), but am unable to articulate why in any way that resembles a proper critical review.

Thus, I wasn't eager to get e-mail last month:

Puzzle 492: Spirits of Serpentine 5

Hope you're not an ophidiophobe. For even more snake-filled action, check out this short tool-assisted video!

Rules of Spirits of Serpentine

Monday Mutant 74: Circumnavi-Gates (non-congruent gates)

In this Circumnavi-Gates puzzle, there are no numbers; instead, you may not pass through two congruent (equally long) gates consecutively. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

 ERRATUM: This puzzle had multiple solutions before. It shouldn't anymore.

Puzzle 491: Straight and Arrow 34

In precisely 42 days, I will turn 24! Yayyyyyy!

Rules of Straight and Arrow

Monday Mutant 73: Process of Illumination (orthogonal or diagonal)

In this Process of Illumination puzzle, the given numbers may represent either how many light bulbs are in the orthogonally adjacent cells to that cell (as usual) or how many light bulbs are in the diagonally adjacent cells to that cell. (A given number may also represent both of these quantities if they are the same.) The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Puzzle 490: Quad-Wrangle 20

After you're done wrangling these quadrangles (or before, if you wish), check out this quad-run of the first four Super Mario Bros. games (including the game known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan and The Lost Levels elsewhere). This quad-run aims to beat all four games using the exact same series of button presses. As a tool-assisted run, this series of button presses was not achieved by a person playing the game in real time as the games were meant to be played, but through the use of emulators with savestates, slowdown, frame advance, and other tools; see this topic for more information before crying "hax!" or "cheater!".

Rules of Quad-Wrangle

Monday Mutant 72: Cross the Streams (odd/even)

Shade in some cells black such that the black cells are all connected to each other through their edges, and no 2x2 cell area within the grid contains all black cells. In a normal Cross the Streams, numbers to the left of a row or above a column represent the groups of consecutive black cells which are in that row or column. For example, a clue of "3" means the row or column has three consecutive black cells, and a clue of "3 1" means that the row or column has a group of three consecutive black cells followed by a single black cell, separated by at least one white cell. However, in this puzzle, all odd numbers have been replaced by O's and all even numbers have been replaced by E's. A question mark (?) represents a group of consecutive black cells whose size is unknown; an asterisk (*) represents any number of unknown groups of black cells, including none at all.

Grant's Review Corner: Volume 4

While my TI-80 Alan has died, thankfully my iPhone is still alive, so I shall be reviewing an iPhone app today! I'll be reviewing the logic puzzle app "Bananagrams".

So I start up a game, and I'm given this:

A bunch of letters? I don't get it. What are the rules of this logic puzzle? Am I supposed to rearrange them? Alphabetically seems to be the most logical arrangement for letters, so I do so:

Unfortunately, the game does not seem to like this arrangement:

What the hell is this about a word list? What the hell are the rules? This logic puzzle app does a poor job of explaining the rules. Avoid Bananagrams like the plague.

Sorry that the review was so short, but seriously. . . .

Monday Mutant 71: Adam's Grapple

Draw a single loop that connects the grid cells. The loop may only travel horizontally or vertically, and never diagonally (so all turns are of 90 degrees). The loop may only turn at the centers of grid cells, and may not cross itself or branch off. The loop must pass through and turn in every numbered cell, and each number represents the length of each of the two line segments which meet at that cell.

With apologies to Adam Wood.

Puzzle 489: Pearls of Wisdom 47

No comment.

Rules of Pearls of Wisdom

Monday Mutant 70: The Inner Limits / Quad-Wrangle (cipher)

In the The Inner Limits puzzle on the left and in the Quad-Wrangle puzzle on the right, the given numbers have been replaced by letters; all instances of a particular letter represent the same number, but two different letters must represent different numbers. (This applies whether the letters are in the same grid or not.) The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Monday Mutant 69: Battleships

Ten ships (as indicated below the grid: one four-cell ship, two three-cell ships, three two-cell ships, and four one-cell ships) are hidden in the grid. The ships may be rotated from the orientations shown, but may not overlap or occupy cells which share a corner or an edge. A number to the right of a row or below a column indicates how many cells in that row or column are occupied by ships. Cells with wavy lines are "water" cells which cannot contain ships. Find the ships.

Monday Mutant 68: Pearls of Wisdom (total / minesweeper)

In this Pearls of Wisdom puzzle, there are no clues inside the grid. Instead, you are to both draw a loop and place black pearls and white pearls in every cell that could legally contain one. A number represents how many pearls are in cells which share a corner or an edge with the cell containing the number; the loop may not pass through a cell containing a number.

My most sincere apologies for this week's Monday Mutant being late; I already have at least one other Monday Mutant prepared, though, so this lateness won't be repeated next week. :)