And The Winner Is...

Well, here it is, the results to the first ever Puzzle Valves Challenge. Our winner for the chance to have his puzzle featured on this very blog is.... Fred Coughlin of PuzzlePicnic fame! Proving it can be done on a totally symetrical 7x7 masyu which meets all the requirements and more! Congratulations and stay tuned for more challenges!

4 Puzzles For The Price of 1

Well, it's true I could have put them in seperate posts, but ah... what the hey, here it is 4 puzzles in 1 post happy puzzling!
By the way if you're wondering it goes Sudoku, Nurikabe, Heyawake, Fillomino!

Bill Please!

Three people check into a hotel. They pay £30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is £25 and gives £5 to the bellboy to return to the people. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that £5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets £2 and gives £1 to each person. Now each person paid £10 and got back £1. So they paid £9 each, totalling £27. The bellboy has £2, totalling £29. Where is the missing £1?

LITS, the windmill

Well, I'm back agian with this LITS. Now LITS is named afer the shapes use L, I, T and S so surely SLIT would be better, I mean at least slit is a word, right? Anyways, if the wondering why I've called it the mindmill then try solving it, it'll have you going around in circles!

Fillomino, hide and seek

Well, I've finally cracked it, after about twenty attempts (no really!) I've finally come up with this lovely little fillomino. Good Luck!

Authors Note

The area with the middle nine really was a tough nut to crack, the variety of the givens limited me so much that at one point I almost gave up, but this puzzle uses some really nice logic so I went with the nine for reasons that will become obvious upon solving.

Masyu, Boxed in?

Well, I don't think I seen a masyu quite like this before, you'll see what I mean when you come to solve it. By the way, entries have been recieved for the competition, and the winner will be announced next week, for a chance to have your puzzle on this site, follow the link below.

Don't delay time's almost up!

http://puzzlevalves.blogspot.com/2010/02/maysu-trial-puzzle-valves-challenge.html

Greater Than / Less Than Sudoku now in 8x8 form!

Yeah well, I haven't posted one of these for a while so I decided to throw one at you today, don't expect it to be easy, but effort makes the reward of solving it all the more sweeter, right?

BTW, as Greater Than / Less Than is a pain to write out each time it'll be GTLT in future

Heyawake, and a Valentine's Day message

Well, Happy Valentines day to all who celebrated it yesterday, hope you all lovebirds had a good time. Still, now with that over we can get back to the toil as they say here in England. I don't know if Americans know that saying, post me!

Anyways, if you're not so busy then maybe you can give this Heyawake a go, it's easy if know the trick!

A 10x10 Nurikabe, how hard could it be?

A lot is the answer to that rhetorical question, especially if you solve it using the traditional method.

I seriously mean this, good luck!

Hitori - True

Hitori Concept - 5 minutes
Hitori Structure - 15 minutes
Hitori Extras - 1 minute


A timeless puzzle, then go somewhere else, this is Hitori!

Masyu Competion Update

Right, well I've had a laugh today concering my challenge (http://puzzlevalves.blogspot.com/2010/02/maysu-trial-puzzle-valves-challenge.html). Now when I said there was not size limitations, I kinda thought that a minimum size would be sought, (eg. 8x8). However, upon opening my e-mail box today I found these...

Oh, and before I recieve any comments, remember this person is in the lead at the moment!

Fillomino 6 of 1...

Well ain't this nice all of your clues handed to you in 2x3 blocks, I'm so good to you ain't I!

It's called LITS, remember the name

Well it took a little longer than I thought it would but at last it's finished, just don't get lost in the maze that is this network of shapes!

A Special Heyawke

Well my attempts at a symetricallly arranged Heyawake have yielded this puzzle a nice puzzle, easy in parts, not so easy in others, with no shortcuts past the... not so easy bits, it should prove a challenge in a small package!

Authors note
This puzzle was a hard puzzle to design. Although I could whip out a decent design quickly, getting it so that people had a bit of a challenge whilst solving proved to be quite hard, at least if it were to be a puzzle of any difficulty at all!

Oooh, Torodial Sudoku

OK folks here's a challenge for you, a torodial sudoku, if you haven't solved one of these before then I recommend giving the much easier one attached to the rules a try first! These, like sudoku, have 1-9 in each row and column and nonet, but unlike sudoku they wrap around the sides of the grid!

Good Luck, you're gonna need it!

Link to Rules; http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=269895411422622247&postID=2322236166154412759

Maysu Trial - Puzzle Valves Challenge

I've decided to start and challenge you, the puzzler to a trial today. The first one is going to involve Maysu type puzzles. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it is to design two Maysu puzzles of any size and layout, that follow this constraint.

Puzzle 1: Has to be made up of all black dots
Puzzle 2: Has the same number/placement of dots, but this time they are all white

Can it be done, that's for you to find out.

For this particular puzzle I'm not setting a deadline. The competition is over when I receive enough entries and the best will be featured here on this blog.

All entries are to be sent to me directly at puzzlevalves@hotmail.co.uk

That's it for now, good luck!

Fillomino, Third Time Lucky!

Well after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at a fillomino I've come up with this. A small yet intriguing puzzle that is designed to test your path making ability. Good Luck!

By the Way, a big thankyou to mathgrant who has kindly pointed out where I went wrong before, so if you're reading this, then cheers!

Also a link to his site can be found on the links tab.