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. :)

Fillomino-Fillia Preview Series: Odd-Even Fillomino

This is an odd-even Fillomino (AKA Polyominous). In addition to the usual rules, the odd numbers must form a single polyomino, and the even numbers must similarly form a single polyomino.

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: 9142436235 1999913315

Long-time readers may recall the first odd-even Polyominous on this blog, where the odd-even parity of each cell was given from the outset. This incarnation allows the odd numbers and the even numbers to interact more (by which I mean at all).

Fillomino-Fillia Preview Series: Classic Fillomino

This is a classic Fillomino (AKA Polyominous), operating by the classic rules.

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: 8887771445 7772272554

You may notice that this image looks different from my usual images. That's because it was created by MellowMelon using a program (although the puzzle represented by the image was, of course, lovingly crafted by yours truly). This is how all of the images will look on the test, meaning you won't be able to tell which puzzles I made and which ones MellowMelon made, drastically increasing the difficulty of the test! (Or. . . not. :) )

Fillomino-Fillia!

In October of 2010, I had my first taste of solving puzzles in a competitive environment, thanks to the 20/10 Puzzle Decathlon, a well-written test by grandmaster Thomas Snyder which was hosted on Logic Masters India. As exciting as the whole experience was, I am even more excited to announce that this coming weekend, as I have hinted at previously, fellow logicsmith Palmer Mebane and I will present Fillomino-Fillia, a test on Logic Masters India consisting entirely of Fillomino puzzles (including a bevy of variations). I hope you will choose to participate in this test.

To participate, you will need to register an account on Logic Masters India. Download the instruction booklet and (when it is made available, which I'm told is usually a day before the test starts) the password-protected puzzle booklet. You may choose to start the test at any time during the weekend of June 4 and June 5 (note that this is GMT, so participants in the US, for example, will have between late June 3 and late June 5 to begin the test). When you do, the password to unlock the puzzle booklet will be given to you, and you will have 120 minutes to print out and solve as many of the 18 puzzles as you can. Each puzzle is worth a varying number of points, roughly corresponding to its difficulty; the harder the puzzle has been judged to be (based on the opinion of the authors and the test-solvers), the more points it's worth. When the 120 minutes have expired, you can see how well you performed, and how you compared to other contenders.

Some words of advice based on my experience:
* Read the freaking instruction booklet. When you're an idiot like me, you have no idea how much having your mind as prepared as possible to the puzzle booklet's contents will help you perform better on the test, until you've made the mistake of starting the test without such preparation.
* Check your answers as you enter them! Improper checking of my answers definitely cost me some points. In particular, I wish that I had notated the grids more than I thought I needed to for the purposes of solving quickly, to make it easier to check my answers.
* Practice! Over the next few days, and in lieu of my usual Monday Mutants post, MellowMelon and I will be posting practice puzzles of the varieties you'll see on the test. (It'll be like having several Monday Mutants instead of just one!) Use them to your advantage to sharpen your mind and to prepare yourself for the test that is to come.

Also check out the LMI forums for more discussion regarding Fillomino-Fillia!

Contest 4 Results: A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest

The clock striking midnight on my 24th birthday signals the end of A Cleverly-Titled Birthday Contest. In this contest, solvers were tasked to make geometric order out of a Polyominous grid; when the puzzle is completed, the units digits of the numbers in seven cells can be placed in the blank spots in a URL leading to the AllMusic webpage on a certain song; solvers had to supply the title of the song, or the URL of the webpage. Naturally, now that the contest has ended, my readers, particularly the ones who found time to submit entries, are probably interested in seeing the results.

Warning: the following results contain spoilers (obviously)! If you wish to solve the contest puzzle yourself, please do so before reading on!

Monday Mutant 79: Streampunk (all 3's)

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 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. A 3 or a clue with a 3 in it has been placed in every white cell that could legally contain one.

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.