Sudoku, towers, Star-battle, fillomino, Hybrids and one offs… ?
I don’t play much any more but I used to love Picross
I haven’t heard them by that name before. I like the cross the streams variant. Unfortunately I’ve played through them all. https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/category/shading/cross-the-streams/
Oh, I honestly didn’t know it had a different name. Perhaps Picross is just the name for the video game version
Lots of names, most of the pencil puzzles do. The first name I associated with that type was pic-a-pix. I might have come across a few unnamed before that time though. The Wikipedia page has the name as nonogram. The cross the streams variant has some extra rules, 1 contiguous region and no 2x2 full.
That’s my favourite too, I also really like those Zebra puzzels but only if there is a grid I can cross out.
I love these, but TIL that one can get a book to do them by pencil.
Minesweeper
I can’t remember the last time I played. Never really liked the aesthetics of the windows versions after 7. If I’m in the mood I use https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/mines.html That version never requires guessing. To give myself a challenge I try to do it without flagging the mines.
Edit: realized its the xp version I liked, 7 was ugly.Nice. I use Minesweeper Online on desktop and Antimine on Android.
Sudoku!
Cracking the Cryptic has shown me the wonders of variant sudoku. My personal favorite variant is thermo. Their GAS series is a good introduction, or jump right in at logic masters
Cracking the cryptic is awesome! They opened my mind to the wonderful world of puzzles
Simon’s enthusiasm is infectious. I am up to the point I can do most of the puzzles that don’t involve set theory or really heavy math. So much fun.
I used to just passively watch all their videos, but I recently started “having a go” if the video is less than 50 minutes. It always feels good when I can actually complete one.
Their android apps are awesome as well. Much more approachable than the puzzles on the YouTube channel.
It was probably a year after I started watching before I started attempting the puzzles myself. It started with Mark’s videos that were under 45 min and Simon’s that were under 30. Now I think my limit is under 90 minutes for Simon, except pencil puzzles, I’ll try any of those. The video length can actually be a bad indicator of how difficult I find it. They both do math heavy puzzle really fast, and Simon has a knack with set theory.
They both do math heavy puzzle really fast, and Simon has a knack with set theory.
That’s a good point. Simon seems to have every killer cage committed to memory lol. Set isn’t too bad if it’s the Phistomefel ring (and clearly signalled by the clues), but some of the other sets I’ve seen him spot are damn near impossible for me to see.
They both worked in banking, so the math makes sense. For the sums I have a feel for most of the extremes and common ones, the triangular numbers, the maximum numbers, the missing or extra “ones” (4 digits that add up to 14, 4 digits for 11…). I usually just use the killer calculator for the other ones. At least on the desktop site its under the advanced settings.
That too is about my limit for set, although I might see the expanded ones too. As soon as Simon highlighted the cells in yesterdays feature he immediately knew it was set. I don’t know how he does it.
Thanks for sharing this. Never been trained formally, just picked it by doing it in the papers. Would definitely check it out and see how I would do.
I wouldn’t call their videos training, more of guided solving of easy to monstrously difficult puzzles. You solving is the training. As a warning, if you start enjoying solving the featured puzzles, your old sources might lose the allure they once had.
Hello fellow Blaze!
Hiya!
Word searches. I love word searches but I honestly can’t find ones featuring numbers or license plates
Hello everyone! I’ve just stumbled upon an unusual version of tic-tac-toe on a large board: Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe. I use to play here: https://tictactoefree.com/ultimate-tic-tac-toe
That’s an interesting take on it. I wonder if that version is “solved”. You reminded me of a 3d version on a really old version of windows. https://tcrf.net/TicTactics
Decomposing the current time into prime factors. 24-hour-format, only one minute time, then the next one.
