25 November 2015

What Do You Mean?

Title: What Do You Mean?
Rating: 2/5

Not just a question you might ask during your Thanksgiving holidays, but appropriate for the little tweak in the last rule.

The official rules:

  • The digits 1 through 9 appear in each row and each column exactly once.
  • Digits in each shaded region must multiply to the indicated product.   
  • Squares with multiple colors contain a number that’s used in the product for adjacent regions of each of those colors.  
  • Remember: numbers can repeat within a shaded region if that doesn't violate the first rule. 
  • The center square is the geometric mean of the four squares immediately diagonal to it. 

18 November 2015

Frame Job

Title: Frame Job
Rating: 3/5


It may be easier to see without the colors, but the shapes of the regions in this week's puzzle are meant to convey a picture, matted and framed.  As has happened before, there are certain cells that belong to intersecting regions, namely those cells in positions (3,5), (5,3), (5,7), and (7,5).  The colors of these cells is the average of the colors of the horizontal and vertical regions that intersect there.

The official rules:

  • The digits 1 through 9 appear in each row and each column exactly once.
  • Digits in each shaded region must add to the indicated sum.   
  • Squares with multiple colors contain a number that’s used in the sum for adjacent regions of each of those colors.
  • Remember: numbers can repeat within a shaded region if that doesn't violate the first rule. 

11 November 2015

Pisco Sour

Title: Pisco Sour
Rating: 3/5 

A mix of Pisco, lime juice, syrup, and egg white, this is drink is served straight up and is celebrated annually in Peru.

The official rules:

  • The digits 1 through 9 appear in each row and each column exactly once.
  • Digits in each shaded region must add to the indicated sum (denoted by +) or multiply to the indicated product (denoted by *).   
  • Squares with multiple colors contain a number that’s used in the sum/product for adjacent regions of each of those colors.  
  • Remember: numbers can repeat within a shaded region if that repetition doesn't violate the first rule.

04 November 2015

Turn, Turn, Turn

Title: Turn, Turn, Turn
Rating: 2/5


The rotational symmetry of these puzzles lends them, as has been seen before, a certain windmill-ian aspect.  So too here.  But more than that, the colors were chosen to represent each of the seasons.

The official rules:

  • The digits 1 through 9 appear in each row and each column exactly once.
  • Digits in each shaded region must multiply to the indicated product.   
  • Squares with multiple colors contain a number that’s used in the product for adjacent regions of each of those colors.  
  • Remember: numbers can repeat within a shaded region if that doesn't violate the first rule.