Puzzle 500: Polyominous 48

In lieu of a Monday Mutant, I present to you. . . puzzle 500! You thought Fillomino-Fillia was my magnum opus? Think again! At 64x50, this is my largest puzzle to date! Needless to say, it took an incredible amount of time to construct this beauty. (Speaking of time, Back to the Future is an awesome trilogy, as I have discovered in recent weeks.) I have truly come a long way since puzzle 1.

Now, wait a minute. Some of you may be wondering why I never posted a 31x45 Polyominous as one of my previous giants. Well, the answer is simple: in Nikoli's publications, a Polyominous the Giant is 23x37, and my arbitrary adherence to Nikoli's standards for puzzles in the numbered "puzzles" series (as opposed to Monday Mutants et al.) means I only post puzzle genres Nikoli's made, in sizes Nikoli's made. 23x37 is hardly an adequate size for a celebration on this blog, don't you think? However, Nikoli has published 64x50 Fillomino puzzles on at least three occasions, including in volumes 123 and 134 of Puzzle Communication Nikoli, and in a now out-of-print Puzzle the Giants volume, making that size completely fair game.

Special thanks to Thomas Snyder, who set aside 1 hour, 31 minutes, and 45 seconds of his time to make sure this puzzle had a unique solution before it was posted here. I am incredibly honored to have the respect of such an amazing constructor and solver. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to send Thomas Snyder a puzzle and getting the time of day from him, much less his opinion on it. (In fact, I believe some of the people who ended up being ripped to shreds on Grant's Review Corner contacted him first. . .)

Edit: Okay, apparently, Blogger and Picasa handle images taller or wider than 1600 pixels in ways I don't like for the purposes of this post. I was able to find a way to link to the full 1797x1405 version of the picture, but you might be asked to download it instead of being able to view it in your browser. A small sacrifice, but it works.

Rules of Polyominous

(click to enlarge)

Puzzle 499: Tetra Firma 31

This is puzzle 499, which can only mean one thing: the next puzzle is going to be 500! What could I possibly have in store for this milestone? Only MellowMelon and motris know, and I highly doubt that they're going to spoil the surprise for you! You'll just have to wait.

Rules of Tetra Firma

My 24th birthday cake!

Time for another long overdue picture!

Can't wait to turn 25!

A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest: long overdue minor update!

So what exactly did the winners of A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest win?

Puzzle 498: Pearls of Wisdom 48

No comment.

Rules of Pearls of Wisdom

Monday Mutant 84: Cross the Streams / Tetra Firma

Shade in tetrominoes 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. No two congruent tetrominoes may share an edge, even if they are rotated or reflected versions of each other. 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. 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.

Puzzle 497: Quad-Wrangle 22

No comment.

Rules of Quad-Wrangle

Puzzle 496: Quad-Wrangle 21

No comment.

Rules of Quad-Wrangle

Puzzle 495: Circumnavi-Gates 18

No comment.

Rules of Circumnavi-Gates

Monday Mutant 83: Polyominous (cipher)

In this Polyominous puzzle, 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. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

MellowMelon recently held a contest to see who could correctly attribute the authorship of the most puzzles out of the 18 puzzles in Fillomino-Fillia, and Projectyl (Mike Sylvia), to whom I previously dedicated a Totally Awesum, won with 16 points. Given that he thought MellowMelon wrote the hard Cipher Fillomino (I actually wrote both of the Ciphers on the test), I am very eager to see how he reacts to finding out that I created this puzzle, as well. (By the way, Projectyl, I authored both this puzzle and the hard Cipher Fillomino from the test. When MellowMelon sent you a preview of the puzzle, he said nothing about actually being its author. Haha! I'm such a delightful prankster! I wonder what ridiculous antics I'll be up to next. Will I temporarily use an ugly color scheme on my blog and claim that I'm no longer posting puzzles?)

Monday Mutant 82: Polyominous (non-consecutive)

In this Polyominous puzzle, no two horizontally or vertically adjacent cells may contain two consecutive numbers. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Nonconsecutive Fillomino was a variation we had to cut from the test because we felt that all of the other variations we had covered a wider variety of skill sets.

And that concludes this series of my reject puzzles from Fillomino-Fillia! Be sure to check out MellowMelon's reject series, too!

Monday Mutant 81: Polyominous / Quad-Wrangle

In this Polyominous puzzle, every region must be shaped like a rectangle. (Thus, the puzzle is similar to a Quad-Wrangle puzzle, but without the restriction that every region must contain exactly one number, and with the restriction that regions with the same area may not share an edge.) The rules are otherwise unchanged.

I constructed three Shikaku Fillomino puzzles for Fillomino-Fillia, of which this puzzle was considered by me to be the median in difficulty level. I didn't think it was possible to make a Shikaku Fillomino much harder than this one; MellowMelon proved me to be dreadfully wrong, and my hardest puzzle was relegated to being a preview as a result.

Puzzle 494: Polyominous 47

Now that Fillomino-Fillia is over, it's time for a long overdue look at the puzzles I made that didn't get used in the test!

I constructed four classic puzzles for the test, and MellowMelon had constructed five; when choosing which four to actually use on the test, we decided that we'd covered enough of a range of difficulty levels that it came down to which ones were the most artistic. My puzzle themed around the mathematical constant e (by the way, kudos if you saw this theme before I mentioned it on my blog just now!) was thus deemed more suited for the test than the puzzle I used as a preview and the puzzle below.

Rules of Polyominous 

Monday Mutant 80: Streampunk / Tetra Firma

Shade in tetrominoes 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. No two congruent tetrominoes may share an edge, even if they are rotated or reflected versions of each other. 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 3" means the cell shares a corner with four black cells which form a group of three cells and a single separate cell. Cells with numbers cannot be black.

Fillomino-Fillia is over, and MellowMelon is hosting a contest where you can try guess the authorship of each of the 18 puzzles. Check it out!

Fillomino-Fillia has begun!

I've mentioned it before, and Palmer Mebane and I have previewed it – now Fillomino-Fillia has actually begun! You have approximately 47 hours and 37 minutes from the time of this post (I didn't plan ahead like Palmer and have this post prepared beforehand :[ ) to visit Logic Masters India, download the password-protected puzzle booklet, log in, and start the test. Then you will have 120 minutes to solve as many of the puzzles as possible. See how you compare against puzzle solvers all over the world! Also, good luck and stuff!

Fillomino-Fillia Preview Series: Shikaku Fillomino

This is a Shikaku Fillomino (AKA Polyominous). In addition to the usual rules, every polyomino must be shaped like a rectangle.

Answer entry: Enter the units digits of each square in the marked rows and columns, from left to right for rows and from top to bottom for columns.

Highlight to see the answer: 1545342144 2212444444

Fillomino-Fillia Preview Series: Cipher Fillomino

This is a cipher Fillomino (AKA Polyominous). 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.

Answer entry: Enter the units digits of each square in the marked rows and columns, from left to right for rows and from top to bottom for columns. In Cipher Fillomino, answers providing either the letters or substituted units digits will be accepted.

Highlight to see the answer: 4444666266 5512525555 or AAAALLLRLL GGURGRGGGG

Don't forget to check out MellowMelon's blog for the other half of the preview series! I'd be remiss not to remind you of this, since he's been reminding his readers of this blog's existence constantly during this time. :)