AkashG23's Puzzle Locker

No new puzzles?   Another "puzzle night" (i.e. a speed solving competition) happened on  Deckardv 's puzzle server. I participated and placed... 7th out of 22. Definitely better than my previous placement , and definitely higher than where I thought I would place. This time, there were some more familiar puzzle genres, as well as a theme of "Missing Information". Again, I won't show the actual puzzles here (because I didn't make them), but I'll describe and show my experiences for them. If you want to see the puzzles, they're on Deckardv's puzzle server. Puzzle 1: Star Battle \ Time: 9:46 \ Placement: 8th First, there was a 10x10 star battle with 2 stars. However, five of the regions were combined into one "mega-region" containing 10 stars. It had some interesting logic with the mega-region. Puzzle 2: Word Snakes \ Time: 18:09 \ Placement: 8th Next up, a Word Snakes! However, there were some missing letters that formed two eight-let...

 I participated in a "puzzle night" (i.e. a speed solving competition) on Deckardv 's puzzle server! I didn't do that well, but here are some of my experiences. I placed 25th overall out of around 35 competitors, which was a bit disappointing for me, but not too bad for my first puzzle night. I felt like I had some fun solving the puzzles. There were only 5, consisting of both familiar and unfamiliar genres. I won't show the actual puzzles here, but I'll show my thought processes and experiences for them. Puzzle 1: Word Snakes \ Time: DNF \ Placement: 32nd Word Snakes is a genre where you have to find words on a grid, similar to a word search. However, the words are all paths instead of just horiz./vert./diag. lines. I got thrown off by a word that wouldn't fit any other words but eventually found the correct solution. Unfortunately, I was a few seconds too late to have my completion time counted. Puzzle 2: Gerrymandering \ Time: DNF \ Placement: 32nd Gerr...

This was my puzzle for Memeristor's Caterdokupillar! It's a 6x6 sudoku with a few variants, and also my second sudoku if you count  Mysterious Pink Lines (15)  as a sudoku. But what will I do for my 25th puzzle on this blog? Well, I've worked on it for quite a bit. It's pretty big, but not as big as  Winds of Aeolus (14) . However, the genre is the same. Maybe I'll make a 9x9 sequel to this puzzle... Creator's time:  4:25.1 Rules:  Standard Sudoku rules apply. Variant 1: German Whispers Lines (6x6) \ Adjacent digits on a green line must differ by at least 3. Variant 2: Kropki Pairs \ Digits separated by a black dot have a 1:2 ratio, while digits separated by a white dot are consecutive. Variant 3: Look-Air Hybrid \ Cells with a hexagon act as look-air clues. The final grid must be shaded in such a way so that it forms a completed look-air grid. Look-Air rules: Shade some cells so that each orthogonally connected area of shaded cells is in the shape of a square. ...

 I measure difficulty using a scale different from the CTC server. The two scales are comparable. This scale is inspired by the osu!  difficulty scale and the MODS server's scale. My scale goes from 0  to 14  on normal puzzles, with higher difficulties representing harder puzzles. Yes, the scale goes above 14, but this blog rarely has a d15 or higher puzzle. Attached for each difficulty is an approximate real-life comparison in mathematics. d0 \ The easiest a puzzle can get. This difficulty is generally reserved for some joke puzzles or really easy example puzzles. These puzzles practically require no effort whatsoever. \  Real-Life Comparison: Addition and subtraction with integers d1 \ Most example puzzles fall in this difficulty. Puzzles here are almost never made as a joke, but are harder than d0 puzzles.  This difficulty includes puzzles that many people, puzzle solvers or not, will find pretty easy. \ Real-Life Comparison: Multiplication and division ...

When I posted this on the CTC discord, I only got 9 testers (not including myself), at the time of writing this. I didn't feel that it was enough to post the puzzle here or add it to the discord archive, but then I remembered  Winds of Aeolus  also didn't have a lot of testers (though it was probably due to the length and size of the puzzle). When this puzzle was first posted here I started to think I under estimated the difficulty for once (but only by 1 or 2 points). Well, now it’s a d7 instead of a d6. Creator's time:  2:42.3 Rules:  Standard Look-Air Rules \ Shade some cells so that each orthogonally connected area of shaded cells is in the shape of a square. Clues represent how many of the five cells forming a cross around the clue (including itself) are shaded. Two shaded squares of the same size may not have a vertical or horizontal line of unshaded cells between them, unobstructed. Variant 1: No Divide \ All unshaded cells form one orthogonally contiguous are...

help there's a given digit that I'm too lazy to remove Creator's time:  2:10 Rules:  Standard Skyscrapers Rules \ Place a number from 1 to N into each cell so that each row and column contains every number from that range with no repeats, where N is the side length of the grid. A clue outside the grid represents how many cells in the corresponding row or column contain a larger number than all cells before it in that row or column from the direction of the clue. Difficulty : 5/14 Online interface (puzz.link)

I need to be more creative in naming puzzles... Creator's time:  1:27 Rules:  Standard Double Choco Rules \ Divide the grid into regions of orthogonally connected cells, each containing a connected group of white cells and a connected group of gray cells, with the property that the shape of the white cells is identical to the shape of the gray cells, allowing rotations and reflections. Clued cells must belong to a region containing the indicated number of white cells and the indicated number of gray cells. Difficulty : 4/14 Online interface (puzz.link)