Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

I gather from various sources that people have an increased amount of time on their hands. I offer my standard list of recommendations as a public service of puzzle evangelism.

Logic:
http://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/puzzles/ Language-independent (mostly) books shipping from Japan.
http://www.pavelspuzzles.com/aenigmas/ Monthly, tricky, and a friendly and communicative author.
https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/ On indefinite hiatus (edit: actually, they're back now!), but see the (free) archive and (not free) pdf publications.

Word:
https://www.puzzlers.org/ Monthly zine, annual con, active online community and my entrance into avid solving. The Enigma zine is fantastic and entirely opaque to the new solver, but I have several years of hands-on teaching to pay forward to interested novices.
https://www.piemag.com/ My aspirational subscription to impossible cryptic crosswords and monthly lesson in humility.
https://www.patreon.com/leftfieldcryptics/posts A much more approachable weekly cryptic. Apparently the authors are also willing to field questions on particular clues?

Solving:
https://smile.amazon.com/Sheaffer-Prelude-Lacquer-Nickel-E3373/dp/B001O3GQQO/ and a pack of big ol' erasers.
https://pubpub-zz.github.io/ppInk/ for solving directly on pdfs if you don't have a printer.

____________________________

---

[Last edited by Dischorran at 12-03-2020 11:17 PM]

wisprabbit
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 154
Registered: 08-02-2010
IP: Logged

Puzzle Square JP has a lot of good logic puzzles submitted by users. It's all Japanese language, but Google Translate is good enough.

For word / trivia puzzles, I love PuzzGrid. Each user-submitted puzzle is a grid of 16 clues, which you have to sort into 4 themed groups of 4. They get tricky when the puzzle designers put crossovers and double meanings in - for example, you might try to put Apple, Peach, Pear and Orange into a group based on fruit, but it won't work because Apple actually belongs to a different group based on tech companies. (If you've ever seen the quiz show Only Connect, PuzzGrid is a direct clone of that quiz's Connecting Wall round.)

Cracking the Cryptic is a really good Youtube channel run by two championship puzzle solvers. They do walkthroughs of the odd cryptic crossword, but their main output is videos of nightmare Sudokus, with links in each video description to let you try the puzzle yourself first.

____________________________
formerly MHighbrow

Dying Flutchman
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 406
Registered: 01-27-2017
IP: Logged

MHighbrow wrote:
Cracking the Cryptic is a really good Youtube channel run by two championship puzzle solvers. They do walkthroughs of the odd cryptic crossword, but their main output is videos of nightmare Sudokus, with links in each video description to let you try the puzzle yourself first.

Wow, those guys are amazing. Yesterday, I've watched these two nice gentlemen fill out sudokus for two hours and I don't regret a single minute of it.

____________________________
Autocorrect is not my friend. Apologies for the typos.

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

I hadn't included Games World of Puzzles in my list because while it's a significant cut above your basic supermarket puzzle rag I don't find that it measures up to what's now available online; I'd tackle the cryptics and maybe the nonograms and that was about it.

Why bring this up now? Because they contract out to Conceptis for their logic puzzles, which while see above did post a free and sizeable print and play puzzle book. I'm fairly certain that the date of posting can safely be ignored.

____________________________

davidatk100
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 42
Registered: 11-27-2007
IP: Logged

I really like Killer Sudoku (Think Sudoku/Kakuro hybrid). I find regular Sudoku and Kakuro to be tedious and repetitive. Whereas Killer Sudoku requires a lot more logic and creativity. I must admit that there are some hard killer Sudoku puzzles that I've spent several hours trying to solve.

Killer Sudoku+ is good for the iPhone (I can't remember what I used when I had an Android. https://www.killersudokuonline.com/ has good puzzles and a good online player. The daily puzzles tend to get harder through the week. You can browse the archive for hundreds of previous puzzles. They also have “Greater Than” Sudoku and “Greater Than” Killer sudoku puzzle. The latter is only for the truly hardcore fanatic puzzle master. I have only ever solved one. I haven't been brave enough to try many. However, writing this makes me want to try another one.

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

There's this too for a generally more approachable cryptic crossword: https://www.patreon.com/leftfieldcryptics/posts

____________________________

Dying Flutchman
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 406
Registered: 01-27-2017
IP: Logged

Ok, I've just come here to brag.

Remember I mentioned getting hooked on the 'cracking the cryptic' YouTube channel on sudokus?

Well, I send them a puzzle of my own and they actually went ahead and solved it live today. With 200k subscribers.
https://youtu.be/iI_B-Owogq0

I m very very thrilled, and just had to share this here!

And perhaps you'd like to give it a try as well? It's a sudoku combined with a magic square and chess-move constraints. Pretty weird actually.

Thanks MHighbrow for pointing out their wonderful channel.

____________________________
Autocorrect is not my friend. Apologies for the typos.

---

[Last edited by Dying Flutchman at 05-24-2020 11:14 AM]

wisprabbit
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 154
Registered: 08-02-2010
IP: Logged

I was just stopping by to ask if that was you! Congratulations!

I'm having a go at your puzzle right now. The magic square part is very clever!

edit: solved it after 90 mins - I had to go nuclear and put every possibility into every cell to see what was going on in the end. Really hard, but a lot of fun! I love how these miracle sudokus just completely unravel after a certain point.

____________________________
formerly MHighbrow

---

[Last edited by MHighbrow at 05-24-2020 02:24 PM]

The spitemaster
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 354
Registered: 06-09-2005
IP: Logged

I have been working on their star battle puzzle for the last few weeks. It is the 7 star variant that they flashed on the screen for a few seconds. They said that their pro who did it took 23 hours to finish it. It is so hard.

About 20% done.

____________________________
Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away

The spitemaster
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 354
Registered: 06-09-2005
IP: Logged

File: Minesweeper.png (21.2 KB)
Downloaded 325 times.
License: Public Domain

I have a puzzle that I made. I hope that I could get it on that channel too. If you want to try, here it is.


https://tinyurl.com/y9jc37nn In every 3x3 box the 1/2/3 are next to 1/2/3 mines. The little killer and cages function normally except that they only add the numbers that land on the mines. There are only 3 mines in each box.



The start is especially hard. It uses a relatively unknown fact about sudoku boards to get started.

____________________________
Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away

---

[Last edited by The spitemaster at 06-25-2020 03:20 AM]

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

I discovered https://ig.logicpuzzle.app/ via the GMPuzzles blog recently. I'm entirely baffled by a couple of them so far, and it allows team solving if this appeals to people here. Seems like a plausibly disoriented thing in particular?

____________________________

Cognizant
Level: Goblin

Rank Points: 16
Registered: 04-11-2022
IP: Logged

I like different labyrinths and in real life - jigsaw puzzles)

____________________________
I love life =)

Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1548
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged

I don't think I've seen this mentioned here before, but Zach Barth's Advanced Dungeons & Diagrams was a fun twist on nonograms, with some slightly different logic to learn. Just one page with nine 8x8 puzzles.

https://www.trashworldnews.com/files/advanced_dungeons_and_diagrams.pdf