I contributed one round of puzzles to this year’s 24 hour puzzle marathon in Budapest. Solvers had 100 minutes time, with a target of roughly 800 out of 1000 points for the best solvers. You can download the full booklet, or go through them individually (with a bit of commentary) below.
LITS (rules) Just a medium hard LITS to prepare for the LITS+.
LITS+ (rules) I tried to make this a diverse set, with increasing difficulty. For both this and the following Geradeweg, I decided to put a couple of puzzles in so that getting used to the type could be worth it.
Geradeweg (rules) An easy triangle-themed one, a trickier but smaller twisted-symmetric one, a broken theme (but see the first Nurikabe), and a hard 24-themed one.
Nurikabe (rules) A small but tricky one with a broken theme (but see the third Geradeweg), and a larger one with a diagonal-pairs theme that’s the first Nurikabe I’ve constructed if memory serves.
Latin Tapa (rules) This started out as a nicely themed word puzzle, but I should have known that the latin square restriction was going to make constructing one hell. I’m not sure about the type, it feels a bit overspecified, but I decided to keep it in because it’s one of the few puzzles you can just work your way through.
Sudoku (rules) Something easy.
Thermo-Sudoku (rules) Something hard. I might post the original version with fewer givens at some point.
Row-Kropki Pyramid (rules) Something different. The variant works quite well I think.
Slither Link (rules) This was added at the stage where I thought my round was long enough and maybe too tricky. Though it probably doesn’t quite qualify as easy either. Also an introduction for the following puzzle.
Liar Slither Link (rules) Another one from the hard category. Probably my favourite in the set. Second least solved with two solvers.
Tightfit Skyscrapers (rules) Unfortunately I had to break the symmetry in the clues, though to start out the inherent asymmetry of the grid interacts with the symmetric clues nicely.
Double Back (rules) S-theme (the plain 3×5 S is not possible in a Double Back puzzle).
Word Loop (rules) Some real word puzzles, finally! This is the puzzle I wrote that solver for. That’s right, don’t try to prove it unique.
Word Search (rules) More words. The gods of Crawl.
Curve Data (rules) Pentomino theme. And the only puzzle that no-one solved. I wonder if anyone tried?
Slalom (rules) Something standard for a change. It accidentally came out quite pretty.
Compass (rules) Two easy puzzles, and very different. I really like the puzzle type.
I liked the Curve Data very much. Took me about five minutes to stumble onto the idea and then about five more to see exactly how it must be implemented. I can easily imagine how it could seem unsolvable if you don’t see the trick, though.
On to the other puzzles…
I liked LITS+
Having several puzzles going from easy to hard was a great idea.
I’ve been working my way through this set at the speed of a puzzle or two a day, and everything that I’ve solved thus far has been awesome :) In particular, I absolutely loved the Liar Slitherlink (and I don’t remember seeing na bcravat gung fcnaf sbhe yvarf before). Thank you!
The centre of the largest LITS+ is very nice. :)