AkashG23's Puzzle Locker

Deckardv  hosted another "puzzle night" (speed setting competition) on his puzzle server! I participated and placed... 5th out of 27 participants! (the "purple zone"). My goal was the "blue zone" or higher, so I'm glad I accomplished that! If you're wondering why I'm using these "colored zones", here are my names for each zone and their associated rankings (they are numbered this way in Deckardv's server): 1st - 3rd : Podium 4th - 5th: Purple Zone 6th - 10th: Blue Zone 11th - 20th: Green Zone 21th and below: Red Zone This night was titled "See Example", and the description implied instructionless puzzles, Since I didn't make the main puzzles, I won't be posting them here. If you want to see them, they're on Deckardv's puzzle server. Puzzle 1: Instructionless Loop I - "Number Loop" \ Time: 12:24 \ Placement: 9th First, up was a loop-based instructionless puzzle similar to Touch Slitherlink. Ther...

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)