I was tired of having no backlog, and tired of being a perfectionist. So on Saturday, February 25, I embarked on an ambitious challenge: 9 Hours, 9 Puzzles.
This was a significant reach — I didn't recall the last time I'd made half that number in a day, and I often find it aversive to write one or two. But I was invested in succeeding. I didn't do it in nine straight hours — I'm not that crazy; instead I had a morning, afternoon, and evening session, with each session consisting of three hours with 15-minute breaks in between. (Except for the morning session, where I ate breakfast in the 45 minutes between the first two sessions.) But when the nine hours were done, I had nine puzzles made! And more miraculously, I even liked them. Therefore, my current plan is for them to compose Issues #104, #105, and #106, though I'll probably make some revisions before airing them. Anyway, the products of the morning session are today!
But first Puzzles fordle Progress, my regular proper wordle. Today's comes from MajaDB, and it's a bit unusual but empirically not too difficult: solve
Now for the puzzles!
I was pretty energized when I woke up, and did the first hour 15 minutes earlier than I was planning to. I put on folklore, got out my whiteboard, and made this King's Tour!
The second hour gave life to an Arrow Sudoku, my first variant sudoku in awhile. I made it with Rangsk's great extension for f-puzzles. It took the full time, but I got there! In revisions, I added an additional arrow which is not required for uniqueness but smooths out the end of the solve a bit — who likes maybe getting stuck at the end! Probably no one.
Printable PDF / online with CTC / online with f-puzzles / original, slightly harder version for those of you who like maybe getting stuck at the end (online with CTC)
The third hour was the most hectic to that point. I was planning to create a puzzle type similar to Building Blocks but structured differently, but with the time I had, I simply couldn't make it work. So halfway through with nothing to show, I quickly put together this standard Building Blocks puzzle, which I think paints a picture of this moment.
(Note: It’s relatively common that one or two of the above links will be wrong due to carelessness from me. If you find an error, let me know! It’s possible that I’ve fixed it on puzzlesforprogress.net, or that you can deduce the correct link.)
