UK Puzzle Association

Just a quick reminder that the UKPA Skyscrapers Contest is about to start. It's open right through to next Tuesday. Good luck to everybody planning to take part. Hoping for lots of happy finishers. Please don't discuss the actual puzzles until the contest is over.

Well done Freddie and Neil. I hate loop puzzles and this was one of the most miserable experiences I have had in a long time. Like Adam and Matthew, I have no idea what is going on with a lot of the puzzles. Some I only solved by pure luck e.g. the funny Country Road one. The remaining puzzles are i...

This is the discussion thread for the upcoming UKPA Skyscrapers Contest. UK and international competitors are welcome. Because there is a Puzzle GP round on the same weekend, the competition window is slightly wider than usual. Dates: Thursday 25 February 2021 - Tuesday 2 March 2021 Duration: 2 hour...

I thought Mark and I had both done very well. But kudos to Sam and Tom for speedy test-solving. There were some great puzzles in the set. I particularly liked how the Average Arrow solved as I was dreading it beforehand. I struggled timewise with some of the standard variants - particularly Antiknig...

Sam, the one with the 123s on the diagonal.

This is certainly possible. It is not at all a difficult constraint to satisfy. I have found a solution in under 5 minutes.

I also enjoyed these. I forced myself to solve them logically. Very slow on one puzzle where the penny didn't drop for a while. Another puzzle was a work of pure evil - right up my street.

Neil,

I set one of those at the airport. Just replace 6 by N where N is the size of the grid. It works quite well for N equals 7 or 8. I didn't go any further than that. I tried to set a puzzle called ALAN! but that wasn't working out too well.

Thanks to Tom and Sam for an outstanding set of Sudokus. Hard to fault any of them, but my favourite was the Diagonal. Had to solve it again afterwards to fully appreciate the lovely logic.

No comment.

I think the larger Group Sums appeared on CtC as well. Lovely puzzles, Sam. I took my time and solved them all logically. May not have spotted all the tricks, but very good fun during lockdown.

Sam, thanks for putting these puzzles together. I haven't tried them yet but they look fantastic.

Do you think that we could all collectively think about publishing daily puzzles or weekly puzzle sets? Or monthly competitions?

Or is Cracking the Cryptic already doing enough?

Just back from visiting my brother in Plymouth. Sorry to miss you all. Congratulations to Liane for organising this year after year. Hope it went well.

Thanks Glenn. Glad you got a chance to try out the full set. Hope to see you climbing the leaderboards in the near future.

The results of the UKPA Hybrid Sudoku Contest are now posted at https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=56 There were 91 puzzlers taking part. Thank you all for showing up. I hope you enjoyed it. 17 of you managed to solve all 8 puzzles in the allotted time. The statistics clearly show that puz...

Glum,

Please don't be. You may not win with those solving speeds but it's the taking part that counts. I would encourage you to persevere with the Killer/Clone example. Think Z pentomino. Sorry if that's too cryptic.

Good luck,

David.

The contest has now started. Good luck to everyone planning to take part.

Your initial assumption is the correct one i.e each group of grey shaded cells must contain a set of distinct consecutive digits.

Sam,

I have already reported this issue and expect it to be fixed shortly. Anyway, welcome to the discussion thread.

The instruction booklet is now posted at https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=56

The instruction booklet is now posted at https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=56

This is the discussion thread for the online UKPA Hybrid Sudoku contest to be held as follows:

Dates: Friday 28 February to Monday 2 March 2020
Duration: 90 minutes
Contest page: available from Friday 21 February

Please post any questions about the competition here.

David McNeill.

I'm pleased to announce that the UK Puzzle Association will host an online Hybrid Sudoku contest to be held between Friday 28 February and Monday 2 March 2020. Competitors can start whenever they wish within this time window, and will have 90 minutes to print out and solve the 8 Sudoku puzzles and s...

Thanks Liane for organising the great contest. I was very surprised to be able to attempt so many puzzles in the time allowed. I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it, as there were so few number puzzles. In the end, the TomTom proved one of the fiddliest puzzles in the set, and some of my less favouri...

Just dropping in. Liane, thanks for posting the instruction booklet. Is it possible to post a copy of the UK Open puzzles? I think there was at least one Loose Magnets puzzle therein. Or just those particular puzzles if it isn't possible to post the whole files. One other piece of pedantry. Can you ...