Mark Sweep's puzzles

Recently I had the pleasure of creating the daily contest  Nurimisaki Nomad  on Logic Masters India, which you can actually still solve casually when it's finished. Many puzzles that I wrote did not make it into the contest, mostly because I got too familiar with Nurimisaki after solving almost the entire puzzlink database, meaning many puzzles were based on patterns that are not trivial at all to newer solvers of the genre. Thanks a lot to test solvers Botaku and PixelPlucker for making me realize that in time, such that I could add some more puzzles that are relatively beginner friendly to the actual contest. Anyway, there are still two leftover puzzles that I'd like to show, an All 4s puzzle that I replaced by another one in the contest because of difficulty, and a Shuriken themed puzzle. The latter one I was actually very happy with, it's just that it can be a very frustrating puzzle if you don't know where to look. Enjoy these puzzles! Rules Shade some cells so th...

While I really enjoy the logic this variant has to offer, it is sometimes a pain how restricted a grid already is by placing just a few circles.  Rules Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells that passes through every circle. The loop must turn on black circles and travel straight through the cells on either side. The loop must go straight through white circles, and turn in at least one of the cells on either side. No two consecutive straight line segments may be the same length. Solve online

All these stairs would make for quite the bumpy road. Rules Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells which passes through each region exactly once. A number in a region represents how many cells in the region are visited by the loop. Orthogonally adjacent cells across a region border may not both be unused. Solve online

Here is a Heyawake (technically Heyawacky) themed as the sudoku variant Windoku. The break-in might be a bit tricky to find, but should fall apart smoothly afterwards.  Rules Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and the remaining unshaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Numbered regions must contain the indicated amount of shaded cells. A line of consecutive unshaded cells may not cross more than one bold border. Solve online

Rules Divide the grid into regions of orthogonally connected cells. Each region must contain exactly two circles and have an area that lies between the two numbers in the circles, exclusive. Solve online

Five cells and pentominous are obviously quite similar in a way. Hence this hybrid. Enjoy! Rules Divide the grid into regions of five orthogonally connected cells so that no two regions of the same shape share an edge, counting rotations and reflections as the same. Letter clues must belong to a region with the pentomino shape associated with that letter (see here ). Number clues indicate the number of edges around the clue, including the border of the grid. Solve online

One of the most well known Tapa variations. This puzzle has a bit of a tricky start. 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 in the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue. There may not exist a run of more than three consecutive shaded cells horizontally or vertically anywhere in the grid. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded . Solve online

This combination felt quite natural while setting it. Hopefully that translates well to the solving experience. Enjoy! Rules Draw a non-intersecting loop along some of the edges that passes through every circle. The loop must turn on black circles and travel straight through the cells on either side. The loop must go straight through white circles, and turn in at least one of the cells on either side. Numbers represent the number of edges drawn surrounding the clue (up to four). Solve online

These puzzles were made for a speed setting contest on the CTC Discord server. The assignment was quite simple: create 3 puzzles from 3 out of 5 listed genres, in a time period of 75 minutes. To challenge myself, I tried to share elements between the puzzles (the givens and the regions). Due to time pressure near the end I had to use an online solver to make sure the Nurikabe would be unique with the same numbers as the Double Choco, which actually caused the Nurikabe to be very hard to solve logically. Hence, I spent some time since then to find a more enjoyable Nurikabe, although this did make the Double Choco somewhat harder. Anyway, I have shared the old versions below as well if you're interested. Enjoy! Rules LITS Shade one tetromino of cells in each region so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Two tetrominoes of the same shape may not share a bold border, counting rotations and reflections as the same. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Double Cho...

Enjoy this classic puzzle after all the variants I published recently. Rules Within each region, draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells. No two cells in the grid containing endpoints of paths may be touching one another, not even diagonally. Solve online