Rules: LITS

Colour a shape of 4 orthogonally connected squares in each black bordered region so that all coloured squares form a single contiguous area. This area can't contain any 2x2 coloured squares. Two identical shapes in different regions can't touch eachother by a side. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape.

nr. 985 - Masyu

Here is another practise puzzle.

Masyu:

Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through all circled cells. The loop must go straight through the cells with white circles, with a turn in at least one of the cells immediately before/after each white circle. The loop must make a turn in all the black circles, but must go straight in both cells immediately before/after each black circle. 

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.