#18: Tally Loop

Tally Loop was published on Kudamono earlier today. I created this genre and a few puzzles in January this year. It's a bit silly and kinda hard to set, but I think it has some fun to it. Here are three puzzles I've made back then.

Rules

Draw a loop through centers of some cells that visits all given clues. Numbers on each loop segment must sum up to the segment's length.

Small example:

Solve in Penpa

#17: Clueless Shimawake

I generally don't tweak my puzzles after the first draft, but this time I tried to accomodate some of the CtC testers feedback and see how much I can improve it. There were remarks about a cryptic and unintuitive step, and it took three iterations to make the puzzle smooth enough while keeping most of the interesting logic intact. I should learn to do this with my puzzles more often.

Rules

Standard Heyawake rules. Additionally, any two regions that share a border must contain different numbers of shaded cells.

Difficulty: [★★★☆☆]

Solve in Penpa+

Solve on PuzzleSquare (Penpa+)

#16: Guide Arrow

 Standard Guide Arrow rules.

Difficulty: [★★★⯪☆]

Solve on PuzzleSquare (puzz.link)

#15: Cave

 Standard Cave rules.

Difficulty: [★★★☆☆]

Solve on PuzzleSquare (puzz.link)

#14: Takeoff (Masyu)

 Standard Masyu rules.

Difficulty: [★★★☆☆]

Solve on PuzzleSquare (puzz.link)

#13: Aqre

Rules

Standard Aqre rules.

Difficulty: [★★★☆☆]

Solve on PuzzleSquare (puzz.link)

#12: Clueless Heyajilin

While we're on the topic of Yajilin combos, here's a recent one. I hadn't seen this one before, and the interaction is quite fun even without the clues. Enjoy!

Rules

Standard Heyawake+Yajilin rules. In case you're not familiar, here's the breakdown (simplified for the lack of clues):

• Shade some cells in the grid. No two shaded cells may be orthogonally adjacent.
• There cannot be a horizontal or vertical line of unshaded cells that goes through 2 or more region borders.
• Also, draw a single non-intersecting loop that goes through all unshaded cells.

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Solve in Penpa

Solve on PuzzleSquare (via Penpa)

#11: Vertigo Yajilin (bonus)

I can't really complete this mini-series without an epilogue of sorts. =)

For the 2024 CtC Secret Santa event, about two months after I was done posting my Vertigo puzzles, I received a gift puzzle that was a nice combo of Vertigo and Yajilin. The author Piatato never really released the gift puzzle itself, but they recently published a similar one on LMD, to very positive responses. I invite you to browse Piatato's LMD page for lots of quality original puzzles.

After receiving such a sweet gift, I knew I had to try and set this one myself. The experience was nerve-wrecking, and the resulting puzzle is (and I'm not putting this as a spoiler, as a cautionary measure) really hard. I encourage you to go through the Vertigo series (1, 2, 3), and also Piatato's puzzle above before you try this one. Have fun!

Oh, and on the topic of Secret Santa, I'd like to eventually post about the gift I made myself. It's quite a bit to unpack though, and I'm not ready to do another series just yet. =) There's always the future though, and in the meantime stay tuned and enjoy!

Rules

Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the number of shaded cells in a straight line in the indicated direction.

Draw a single loop travelling orthogonally through the centers of all empty cells. The loop may visit some cells twice, but must travel straight through such cells each time. The loop can not otherwise self-overlap or self-intersect.

While travelling along the loop, all 90 degree turns must have the same direction (all left or all right).

Difficulty: [★★★★⯪]

Solve in Penpa

#10: Vertigo Part 3: Expert

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

These are the last and the hardest puzzles I have in my Vertigo backlog. I encourage you to try easier puzzles in earlier posts if haven't done them yet. Help yourself to spoilers in square brackets, [like this].

Rules

Draw a single loop travelling orthogonally through the centers of all empty cells. The loop may visit some cells twice, but must travel straight through such cells each time. The loop can not otherwise self-overlap or self-intersect.
While travelling along the loop, all 90 degree turns must have the same direction (all left or all right).

#9: Vertigo Part 2: Advanced

Part 1 here

Let's continue with Vertigo, getting into slightly harder territory. Spoilers (hints and difficulty estimates) are hidden in square brackets, [like this].

Quick reminder about the

Rules

Draw a single loop travelling orthogonally through the centers of all empty cells. The loop may visit some cells twice, but must travel straight through such cells each time. The loop can not otherwise self-overlap or self-intersect.
While travelling along the loop, all 90 degree turns must have the same direction (all left or all right).