nr. 986 - Graffiti snake

Here is a practise puzzle for the LMI Marathon test.

Graffiti snake:

Paint some cells black to create walls. The numbersoutside the grid indicate the lengths of blackenedcell blocks in the corresponding directions, in order; as in a Paint By Number puzzle. If there is more than one blackened block in a row or column, theremust be at least one white cell between the blocks. After all black cells are determined, a snake should travel through all the unoccupied cells,moving horizontally or vertically without touchingitself, even diagonally. The head and the tail of the snake are given in circle.

 

How to solve Fifty-fifty?

Here is some solving tips for the Fifty-fifty type. I will show them through the practise puzzle.

Tip 0:
When a hexagon contain 3 painted or 3 empty cells we can fill the remaining cells.

Tip 1:
When 2 hexagons meet (they have 2 common cells) AND one of them has 2 empty cells from the 4 non-common cells AND the other one has 2 painted then we can mark remainin non-common cells.

With these 2 tips we can make a lot of steps in the practise puzzle.

First we can use the Tip0, then we can continue the solving with Tip1.

Then we can apply the Tip 0 and Tip 1 again and again.

 

etc.

Tip 2:
This is the extension of Tip1. It needs 4 hexagons, on hexa in the center and 3 other which have 2 painted cells from the non-common cells. (Green area.)

In this situation we can't paint any cells in the center, but we can mark empty the remaining cells of the 3 outer hexas.

Most of the fifty puzzles contain hexagon(s) with 3 painted cells. but this isn't always true.

In this situation the Tip 2 provides starting point. For instance we can start the solving of the practise puzzle with this tip:

Conclusion:
These are the most relevant solving tips for this type. We use the tip 2 rarely but it is also important.
My suggestion that search the places where you can apply Tip 0 and Tip 1, and when there is no more try to apply Tip 2.

Good luck for everybody on the Marathon.

nr. 987 - Fifty-fifty

Puzzle Marathon starts on LMI next Friday. I created a puzzle for the competition and now I publish a practise puzzle for those who doesn't know this type really well, yet. And those who loves this puzzle type. :-)

Rules for Fifty-fifty

Answer key: Starting with A, for each letter, enter 1 if the triangle is painted, 0 otherwise. (This is same with the answer format of the competition.)

Answer:
1101001111

Rules: Fifty-fifty

Paint some more triangles so that every equilateralhexagon that consists of six small triangles has three painted triangles and three white triangles. 

 

 

 

nr. 988 - Tapa Distiller

This is the last puzzle of the Tapa week. I choose a bit special Tapa for today. Basically this is a hard variation, but I waned to create a relatively easy puzzle.
If you want some hard puzzle from this type please visit the following links:
Para's Puzzle Site
TVC IV, TVC X
 
Rules for Tapa
 
Rules for Tapa Distiller
Clues of four separate puzzles are given in one grid. Distribute the clues to four grids and solve each puzzle. The cells with clues do not overlap, each clue cell should be fully visible in one grid only.

nr. 989 - Total False Tapa

Friday's puzzle is a Total False Tapa. You can see in the Tapa Variations List that this was my idea. But I can't say that this is my invention. Because I've never created any puzzle and I didn't tested the rules until now.  The only exception was the sample puzzle which I sent to Serkan, but it has more solutions...

Nevertheless this puzzle seems elegant,  the creating was a challenge. But the solving method isn't really nice. In general, I think it is better to create a puzzle which isn't symmetric and isn't nice but the solving is fun, not just the creating.

Rules for Tapa

Rules for Total False Tapa

Follow Classic Tapa rules. Additionally all clues are wrong. Both the given digits as the amount of given digits is wrong. Correct clues can't contain zeros.

nr. 990 - Easy as Tapa

Unfortunately, I arrived at home really late yesterday. So I publish 2 Tapas today.

Let's see the first one. The rules of this puzzle isn't exactly same with the puzzle with same name. For instance here and here. But somewhere I saw this version, but I don't know right now where*, so I couldn't find the correct name.

Rules for Tapa

Rules for Easy as Tapa
The numbers outside the grid indicate the clue cell first seen from the corresponding directions, and the clues have to be in the first not painted cell.

*Edit: I got a letter from Prasanna Seshadri, this Tapa variation is his idea, and I solved his puzzle when I tested his puzzles for 24HPC.

nr. 991 - Tapa Odd-Even

Today I publish a harder puzzle.

Rules for Tapa

Each outlined cell represents Tapa clues to be filled in. Cells that contain more than one digit are divided into that many regions. Grey regions should contain even digits (nonzero) and white regions should contain odd digits.

nr. 992 - Hexa Tapa

Today I publish a Hexa Tapa. It is a simple variation, but there will be some more difficult Tapa, as well.

Rules for Tapa

Rules for Hexa Tapa:
Follow Tapa rules. Additionally painted cells cannot form three hexagons meeting in a point.
There are no wall segments on cells containing numbers.

nr. 993 - Tapa filler

Monday's puzzle is a Tapa filler.

I really like this variation, but I've never created it before.

Rules for Tapa

Rules for Tapa filler

Create a continuous wall of digits; at most one digit per cell. Filled-in cells cannot form a 2×2 square. Number/s in a cell indicate/s all digits on its neighbouring cells; each digit appearing as many times as itself. In the case of identical-digit groups around a clue cell, groups cannot be edge-to-edge neighbours (e.g., the 2-2 clue on the example).

 

nr. 994 - Tapa

Tapa week

The Tapa Variation Contest has been postponed. I'm a bit disappointed. Maybe I'm not alone. So I will publish some Tapa variations next week. And now here is a standard Tapa puzzle.

Rules for Tapa

Rules: Tapa

Paint some cells black to create a continuous wall. Number/s in a cell indicate the length of black cell blocks on its neighbouring cells. If there is more than one number in a cell, there must be at least one white cell between the black cell blocks. Painted cells cannot form a 2x2 square or larger. There are no wall segments on cells containing numbers.

Example