Whoops, I haven't posted here in a while (as I say way too often). I have made some puzzles since my last post! You just can't see them yet, tee hee.
Regardless, here's a Tapa I doodled a few days ago. This was also posted to PuzSQ, but it got drowned in a sea of puzzles so quickly 😟.
Tapa (Line) puzzles tend to be quite difficult, because the Line restriction creates many unexpected and sometimes scary consequences. This puzzle was specifically designed to flow nicely and be fairly easy overall.
Rules: Classic Tapa rules apply. Additionally, no four consecutive cells in a row or column can be shaded.
This puzzle type is a Tapa variant invented by Mitchell "DireKrow" Clarke two years ago. It allows for some interesting logic not seen in normal Tapa puzzles.
Rules: Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells along the length of rope attached to the clue, not necessarily in order. No 2×2 region may be entirely shaded.
Next up in the Logic Puzzle Open unused puzzles tour is this Tapa construction. Originally intended to be the Tapa 1, I think? I don't entirely remember. This puzzle may have just been forgotten about during test construction. It has a cute visual theme, but the solve path is not entirely special; I like the ones that appeared on the contest better.
Whoa, a Tapa on this blog! It's been a while.
I'm not entirely sure why, but I can be quite picky about clue variety in Tapa. For example, in this puzzle, every clue consists of two numbers. The grid looks prettier to me this way. Other than that, not much to say.
Hi, have a Tapa! (Two posts in one day? Whoa!)
I actually wrote this back in July, when PANFOPCWHTTAPA was just a floating idea (and closer in difficulty to the GAS series of Sudoku puzzles in the Cracking the Cryptic discord server). When we decided to actually start P-TAPA production, the difficulty changed from "genuinely approachable" to straight up "beginner", and this was deemed too hard for the contest. However, it's still good enough, I think, to post on this blog, so here it is!
Breaking from the usual numbering system on my blog to dump the puzzles I made for PANFOPCWHTTAPA! This was a contest I and a few other constructors from the CTC Discord created over the past month or so; these puzzles were intended for beginners, and I think we succeeded for the most part.
Have another Tapa (Line) puzzle! These are notoriously difficult to construct for me. I think my style, especially with lots of clues around the perimeter, is to resolve the outside and then have the line constraint push into the middle of the puzzle. Unfortunately, more often than not, this results in puzzles that break with no prior warning. The line constraint is just too powerful. (Indeed, at first I only had the perimeter clues and/or a clue at the center of the ellipse. I only managed to construct a successful puzzle when I placed extra clues at the foci instead.)
Standard Tapa rules apply. Additionally, no four consecutive vertical or horizontal cells may be shaded.
Next up on the docket is a 2-star Tapa (Islands) puzzle. I was surprised to see a Tapa variant appear so early in the week. The only Tapa variant I've constructed before is a Tapa (Line), so this was a struggle to get working/unique. Also, Tapa puzzles are pretty tricky to rate on GMP, since Serkan is a Tapa specialist, so Tapa ratings might be a bit lower than they should be.
The end result is a puzzle that I like, but may be a bit off the mark when it comes to difficulty or quality. Ah well, such is the risk that comes with trying a challenge like this 🙂.
Rules: Standard Tapa rules. Also, similar to Nurikabe, each Tapa clue cell is part of an island of horizontally and vertically connected white cells and the area of the island must be one of the numbers in the clue (as an example, if a clue is 1 5, then the island containing that clue must be either 1 cell or 5 cells large). Islands are allowed to touch diagonally, and there may be islands without any number clues in the grid.
Nice to finally create something that wasn't intended to go to GMP :)
Classic Tapa rules apply. Additionally, no four consecutive cells vertically or horizontally can be shaded.
Made this last night, but wanted to wait for testing. Super happy with it! I thought there was a part that seemed a bit unfair, but testers in the CTC Discord felt that the puzzle was reasonable, so yay 😀
Normal Tapa rules apply. Additionally, no four consecutive cells in any row or column can be shaded.
Yesterday, another speedsetting event took place in the CTC Discord. The idea this time was to construct a Tapa (Palindrome) puzzle, which is a variant seen in TVC, among other places. While I did not participate in the event itself, my goal is to construct such a puzzle eventually.
In the meantime, here's a Tapa puzzle.
