Eric Fox's Puzzles

     Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Additionally, divide the unshaded cells 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. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded.  Solve online

       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. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the (up to) eight cells surrounding the clue. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Solve online

       Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area.  No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded and e ach connected group of unshaded cells must be exactly five cells in size.  Clues cannot be shaded, and indicate the number of orthogonally adjacent shaded cells. Solve online

    This idea for a hybrid is something I wasn't sure would be possible at all, but it actually wasn't all that difficult to construct and I'm very satisfied with the result.      Place stars into some cells such that each row, column, and outlined region contains exactly two stars. Stars may not touch one another, not even diagonally. Additionally, d raw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of all empty cells which passes through each region exactly twice. Solve online

       Divide the grid into square regions of orthogonally connected cells and s hade some cells so that each region is either fully shaded or fully unshaded.  Region borders may not form any four-way intersections.  Clues represent how many of the five cells forming a cross around the clue (including itself) are shaded. Two shaded squares may not be orthogonally adjacent. Two shaded squares of the same size may not have a vertical or horizontal line of unshaded cells between them, unobstructed. Solve online

       Shade some cells to form a non-intersecting path which does not touch itself orthogonally. Circles mark the ends of the path.  Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the number of shaded cells connected in a straight line horizontally or vertically to the clue.  Exactly one orthogonally connected area of unshaded cells must exist of each size from the range given outside the grid. Solve online

       Draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of some cells which passes through every white circle and every letter, but not through any black circles. Grey circles mark the ends of the path. Starting from one grey circle,  the path must travel through the letters in the given password, in order, repeatedly until the second grey circle is reached.  Between each pair of circles the path uses, the path must turn exactly twice, and both turns must be in the same direction. Solve online

       Draw a non-intersecting path through the centers of all cells, starting from the S (start) and finishing at the G (goal). Each numerically clued cell must be traveled through on the path’s Nth visit to the region the clue lies within, where N is the value of the clue.  The straight line segments coming out of a white circle must have equal length, while the straight line segments coming out of a black circle must have different lengths. Solve online

       Place each shape from the bank given outside the grid into the grid so that no two shapes share an edge and all unused cells form one orthogonally connected area. Rotating and reflecting shapes is allowed.  Clued cells cannot be used by shapes, and a clue means that the first tetromino seen in a straight line in the indicated direction is of the shape associated with that letter. Solve online

       Shade some cells to form a non-intersecting path which does not touch itself, not even diagonally. Black circles must lie on one end of the path.  Clues outside the grid represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the corresponding row or column, in order. A question mark represents one block of an unknown number of cells. An asterisk represents any number of blocks of shaded cells, including none at all. Solve online

       Shade one tetromino of cells in each region so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Two tetrominoes of the same shape may not share a bold border, counting rotations and reflections as the same. Clues outside the grid represent the lengths of the blocks of consecutive shaded cells in the corresponding row or column, in order. A question mark represents one block of an unknown number of cells. An asterisk represents any number of blocks of shaded cells, including none at all. Solve online

       Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells which visits each shaded region at least once and passes through every circle. When the loop exits a clued region in any direction, it must travel in a straight line for exactly the indicated number of cells (turning on the Nth cell, where N is the value of the clue).  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. Solve online

       Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Cells touching a circle must be unshaded. Every orthogonally connected area of unshaded cells must contain exactly one circle,  and have 180° rotational symmetry around it.  No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Solve online

     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 or unshaded cells horizontally or vertically anywhere in the grid.      To be clear, the rule from Tapa which states that a 2x2 area cannot be entirely shaded does not apply. Solve online

       Shade some cells so that no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent and draw rectangular loops through the centers of the remaining empty cells so that every remaining empty cell gets used. The sides of different rectangles may intersect each other, but not turn at their intersection or otherwise overlap. Clues cannot be shaded, and represent the number of shaded cells in a straight line in the indicated direction. Solve online

       Place a number from 1 to N into each cell so that each row and column contains every number from that range with no repeats, where N is the side length of the grid. A number in a region represents the value obtained by applying an operation iteratively on the numbers in the region the clue is in. If no operation is given, it may be any of +, -, ×, or ÷. Subtraction and division in regions with more than two numbers are handled by taking the largest number and subtracting/dividing all the others.  A number outside the grid represents how many cells in the corresponding row or column contain a larger number than all cells before it in that row or column from the direction of the clue. Solve online

     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.  Each orthogonally connected area of cells not used by the loop must be in the shape of a square. Two unused squares of the same size may not have a vertical or horizontal line of used cells between them, unobstructed. Solve online

      Jeffrey Bardon / IHNN recently challenged me (in a sense) to create three variants or hybrids from his December 2020 daily streak, and I did it! Here's the third one, a hybrid between Kakuro and Kropki. His can be found here .      The first puzzle from this challenge was a  hybrid between Nurikabe and Araf , and the second was a  hybrid between Moon or Sun and Balance Loop .      Place a number from 1 to 9 into each empty cell so that no number is repeated in any unobstructed horizontal or vertical line. A clue on the bottom of a blocked cell represents the sum of the numbers in the vertical line below it. A clue on the right side of a blocked cell represents the sum of the numbers in the horizontal line to its right. Clues cannot see numbers through other blocked cells.  All pairs of orthogonally adjacent cells containing numbers with a 1:2 ratio are marked with a black dot. All pairs of orthogonally adjacent cell...

       Jeffrey Bardon / IHNN  recently challenged me (in a sense) to create three variants or hybrids from his December 2020 daily streak, and I did it! Here's the second one, a hybrid between Moon or Sun and Balance Loop. His can be found  here .      The first puzzle from this challenge was a  hybrid between Nurikabe and Araf , and the third was a  hybrid between Kakuro and Kropki .      Draw a non-intersecting loop through the centers of some cells which passes through each region exactly once. Within a region, the loop must pass through all moons and no suns, or all suns and no moons. A region containing only suns or only moons must have its clues passed through. The loop may not pass through the same type of clue in two consecutively used regions.  The straight line segments coming out of a sun must have equal length, while the straight line segments coming out of a moon must have different lengths. Solve on...

       Jeffrey Bardon / IHNN  recently challenged me (in a sense) to create three variants or hybrids from his December 2020 daily streak, and I did it! Here's the first one, a Nuraf. His can be found  here .     The second puzzle from this challenge was a  hybrid between Moon or Sun and Balance Loop , and the third was a  hybrid between Kakuro and Kropki .      Shade some cells so that all shaded cells form one orthogonally connected area. Clues cannot be shaded. Every orthogonally connected area of unshaded cells contains exactly two circles and has an area that lies between the two numbers in the circles, exclusive. No 2x2 region may be entirely shaded. Solve online