UK Puzzle Association

I had a bit of a nightmare for this one. Despite getting the tricky start on Unordered Pairs I somehow missed the existence of one of the other clues and had to make a guess after being stuck for a long time. Coded Pairs felt arduous and I managed to break the Fortress twice before eventually solvin...

I think, even if this puzzle could be presented in a way that made the regions clear, I would argue against its inclusion on the grounds that it is entirely equivalent to classic sudoku and this presentation of classic sudoku amounts to nothing more than a gimmick.

This variant (with these exact regions) is pointless, because it's completely equivalent to classic sudoku. Take the yellow cells as the top-left 3x3 box of a classic, the red cells as the top-middle, the green cells as the top-right, the pink cells as the middle-left etc. Then all cells which were ...

(Throughout this post, "standard solving techniques" refers to singles, line-box interactions (pointing/claiming) pairs, triples, quads, X-Wings, swordfish and jellyfish) In my oppinion, someone who claims to be a sudoku champion should be able to solve all 9x9 standard sudokus, even with quite diff...

Aside from my frustration (at myself!) for being extremely slow to spot the Deja Vu rules (I spent approximately 30 of the 90 minutes not actually solving sudoku...), thank you David for some lovely puzzles and a fun contest! I'm especially impressed by how the Deja Vu concept didn't detract at all ...

Hi Adam, Aside from some obvious initial moves, the starting point I used for the Fillomino during the contest was to count the given 4s. There are plenty of them, and only 5 possible different shapes. You can work out which ones connect, and make some deductions about which shapes can or cannot go ...

I also found the mirror terminology confusing. In my reading of the rules, I think you can, instead of thinking about mirrors, simply say that the "mirror clues" refer to the number of intersections at which the laser turns instead of going straight. This includes at the boundary of the grid. The on...

One additional question from me: in Set Square, will the numbers outside the grid necessarily be integers? If so, is it valid for intermediate results to be non-integer (e.g. 2 / 6 * 3 = 1)?

Am I missing something in the rules for Fillomino (Different Shapes)? The example puzzle seems not to have a unique solution - one can replace the 4 and 3 polyominoes from the lower-left corner of the given solution with a single 7 polyomino without appearing to break any of the constraints. I think...

There's currently a discrepancy for the points value of the Shikaku between the instruction booklet (15pts) and the answer page (14pts).

Thanks very much! When I submitted the Thermo Sudoku with 15 seconds remaining, I didn't realise just how important it would be!

The password is on the answer submission page - it will be revealed when you press "Start Contest".

As regards the bonus points, am I correct in my understanding that a solver who submits correct solutions to 15 puzzles and also makes a random guess at the 16th will score the partial bonus of 2 points per minute saved, but a solver who submits 15 correct puzzles and makes no attempt at the 16th wi...

The link to this thread from the contest page is currently broken - there's an incorrectly-escaped ampersand in the URL.

Excellent resources - thank you! I can see that there's a whole world out there to be discovered...

Thanks for your welcome, Alan! I'm very glad to hear that there are plenty of competitions happening all the time. Are details of them often posted in this forum, or is there a handy list of places to look?

Well, hello there! My name is Sam, and I've been solving Sudoku in one form or another since I, like many, found one in a newspaper in 2005 and got hooked. I'm a total stereotype - a geeky computer programmer with a maths degree who loves Sudoku - so feel free to blame me and my ilk for some of the ...

Thanks to all involved in running these competitions! I'll be a first-time Sudoku entrant this year, the previous two contests having unfortunately fallen during weekends when I was on holiday or disconnected from the internet. I've immensely enjoyed the puzzles from previous years and look forward ...