Genre Spotlight 60: Mukkonn Enn (Puzzles 378 and 379)

Today's genre is Mukkonn Enn, first appearing in WPC 2017 as an instructionless puzzle. Prasanna Seshadri refined the genre (e.g. made it a full loop) and changed the name to Mukkonn Enn for its 2022 GrandmasterPuzzles debut.  I've seen this type for a while but never got around to making one.  Acting on those hunches is what this spotlight series is about, right?

Rules: Draw a single, non-intersecting loop that passes through the center of all cells, including clue cells. Each clue cell is divided into four sections. If a number is present in a section and the loop travels in that direction, then the number represents the length of the straight loop segment in that direction, measured from the clue cell to the cell where the loop turns. If the loop does not travel in that direction, then the number means nothing.

                 

Genre Spotlight 59: Circles and Squares (Puzzles 376 and 377)

Today's genre is Circles and Squares, a recent-ish shading genre developed by Discord user Anonymus25.  It's a good example of a numberless genre that manages to do some really interesting things.

Rules: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area and each orthogonally connected area of unshaded cells is in the shape of a square. Cells with black circles must be shaded, and cells with white circles must not be shaded. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded.

          

Genre Spotlight 58: Grandstands (Puzzles 374 and 375)

Today's puzzle is Grandstands, a genre originally invented by Martin Ender a few years ago.  For some reason, I thought Hempuli constructed this type, but it seems I got Grandstands confused with Sentinel View.  This genre is pretty neat.  It wears its Canal View inspirations on its sleeve but does enough differently to count as its own thing.

Rules: Draw a non-intersecting loop that travels orthogonally through the centers of cells. Number clues indicate the total length of straight line segments which start in a cell orthogonally adjacent to the clue and extend away from the clue.

          

(Example by Martin Ender.)

Genre Spotlight 57: La Paz (Puzzles 372 and 373)

Today's genre is La Paz, a genre invented in 2022 by shye.  This is the third genre in this series that has combined dynasty shading with a region constraint.  I wonder how much more potential this combination has, given how uncommon it seems to be in general.

Rules: Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and divide the remaining unshaded cells into two-cell regions. Clued cells cannot be shaded. A clue indicates the number of shaded cells which lie entirely within the same row or column as the region containing the clue.