AkashG23's Puzzle Locker

 So the title of this puzzle kind of looks like a cryptic clue even though I'm not trying to make it a cryptic clue (literally just look at the puzzle) This puzzle has two of the constraints from the "green" puzzle I mentioned in  Synergia (41)  (which got rated on LMD as I'm writing this lol). And this puzzle has a smile! And the thumbnail has a cat that'll probably make you happy!!! Also nothing new from uni other than trying to learn asymptote code to add graphs to my notes Creator's time: 7:43 Rules:  Normal 9×9 sudoku rules apply. Variant 1: German Whispers \ Adjacent digits along a green German Whispers line must differ by at least 5. Variant 2: Killer Cages \ Digits in a killer cage do not repeat and sum to the value in the top-left corner. Difficulty : 6.0/14 Online interface (SudokuPad)

If I had made this a few days ago this would've been a practice puzzle for a certain puzzle night-like event that I am going to post about later because as I'm writing this that event isn't over yet And also uni classes have started for me! But there's a bit of a lore moment I wanted to share --- I started taking AP Calc AB/BC about 3 years ago (HS sophomore). And I felt good about myself with this path until this random kid in my applied linear algebra (can't really say too much without leaking what uni I'm going to) started talking about how last year (?) a high school junior allegedly took this class I'm taking this semester. ok akash this is a puzzle blog not a college blog stop talking about uni stuff you're boring the people who actually want to see puzzles Creator's time: 0:17.7 Rules:  Missing Middles (2) Rules \ Find the two letters that replace the blanks for each set of letters. See the bottom of the puzzle for an example and how answer ch...

So a while ago, I made three personalized puzzles for a few of my IRL friends (one each). One was for someone I knew for more than 12 years and had a few basic constraints. The second was for someone I was friends with for roughly 2 years as I'm writing this, and had a green theme because their profile picture was green. But the third was my favorite of the three, even though I had known this puzzle's recipient for shorter than the other two friends. This third puzzle included a few basic constraints, as well as a unique one that I might have invented --- tennis balls (added because this person plays tennis). But as much as I want to post those puzzles here, I can't post any of them (not even the ones I like) because they spelled out the recipients' names with lines (like german whispers, renban, etc). So here's another puzzle with the tennis balls constraint (and also dedicated to the recipient of the 3rd puzzle I mentioned above) because... why not?  Also I like t...

Well now you know how a Word Snakes puzzle looks. Anyways, this puzzle isn't part of the "Hunt 4" project, but rather a different one called "Hunt 3." Here is an example puzzle that used 6-letter words. The solution to the example puzzle is here . Creator's time:  1:22.3 Rules:  Word Snakes (9) Rules \ Each darkened letter is the start of a word that in this puzzle is 9 letters long. The words snake outward from that starting letter, connecting only orthogonally. Once a letter is used, it may not be used again in another word. Diagonal connections are not allowed. In this puzzle, the unused letters spell out a 9-letter word in reading order. Difficulty : 5.5/14 Online interface (Penpa+)

 "Akari" is actually pretty close to "Akash" because you only have to change the last two letters by one index each. Creator's time: 2:06 Rules: Standard Akari Rules \ Place lights into some empty cells so that every cell is illuminated. Lights illuminate the cell they’re in as well as all cells seen in a straight line horizontally or vertically, not obstructed by a black cell. Lights may not illuminate each other. Clues represent the number of lights in the (up to) four cells surrounding the clue. Difficulty : 7.0/14 Online interface (puzz.link)

It's pretty hard to deduce the theme of the "Hunt 4" project I mentioned in the last post from just looking at puzzles 37, 38, and 39 (which will be the last of the "Hunt 4" puzzles for now). Creator's time: 3:57.0 Rules:  Standard Crystal Mine Rules \ Draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of some cells connecting the two arrows. The path must pass through every crystal (diamond), but must not pass through all four cells in any 2x2 area of the grid. Difficulty : 7.5/14 Online interface (Penpa+)