nearly four years ago, i won my first logic showcase. it also happened to be the first showcase i ever entered. since that time, i’ve become a regular participant and even host, honing my craft and hoping to inspire others, altogether making some wicked ambitious logic puzzles. i cherish the time spent, but i won’t deny i can get quite competitive, and despite all my efforts, a second victory has always eluded me. until now:

statue kurodoko rules

place the bank of shapes into the grid such that each shape segment occupies one cell, no shapes overlap or share an edge, and all of the unoccupied cells connect orthogonally in a single group. shapes can be rotated/reflected. each numbered cell indicates the number of unoccupied cells extending from it horizontally and vertically, including itself.

“two can play at this game”

of course it’s statue park (or a variant thereof)—my fixation on this puzzle type will never relent. this was one of the two winning entries for the recently concluded logic showcase 65, all about revisiting rulesets of prior showcase winners. for a long time, i’d wanted to knock out a 10×50 using the dreaded hexomino bank, and incredibly this construction only took me a day. it isn’t the only one to do so either:

scan lines rules

label some cells with one letter each such that each row spells exactly one word from the bank (ignoring empty cells), each word is spelled once, no letter repeats in a column, and all lettered cells connect orthogonally in a single group.

“evens and odds”

this was the other winning entry for the showcase. i tied myself for first. my longest yeah boy ever. i did have specific ideas going into this construction, and i had to get clever about massaging it into something that worked at all, but it took shockingly less effort than i thought it would, and i rocketed out of my chair upon completing it.

shiftopia rules

draw some paths indicating movement from some or all circles such that no paths turn or overlap each other. after all movements, each circle indicates the directions of the other circles that are nearest to it along the same row/column.

“tilted square”

this final showcase entry of mine didn’t place on the podium, but i think it’s actually my proudest puzzle of the set. took me the longest time to make, too; this puzzle type deserves more love.

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this is in all likelihood the last you’ll see me #puzzlechosting. it’s been lovely sharing this space w/ y’all; i’ll truly miss this place. as i mentioned before, i can be found on bluesky, or you can follow my intermittent game work on itch.io. hit me up on discord, even! catch you in the next life, digital or otherwise.

here’s a puzzle i completely forgot i made and thus completely forgot to publish. applying an “easy as” variant to statue park was an idea i’d had for a while, but i confess this construction (which was my entry for logic showcase 53) got away from me in more ways than one: the use of conway’s convention for naming pentominoes notwithstanding, the eyewatering size of the grid is frankly ridiculous.

easy as statue park rules

place the bank of shapes into the grid such that each shape segment occupies one cell, no shapes overlap or share an edge, and all of the unoccupied cells connect orthogonally in a single group. shapes can be rotated/reflected. each letter outside of the grid indicates the nearest shape along its line of sight into the grid.

“topsy-turvy”

a while ago, fellow puzzler menderbug and i made a pair of puzzles, each exploring differing interpretations of a hybrid between statue park and territory (that is, naoki inaba’s territory, since many genres share that name). you can find menderbug’s puzzle on his blog, and mine can be seen below.

territory statue park rules

place the bank of shapes into the grid such that each shape segment occupies one cell, no shapes overlap or share an edge, and all of the unoccupied cells connect orthogonally in a single group. shapes can be rotated/reflected. each black circle indicates a cell occupied by a shape, and each white circle indicates a cell not occupied by a shape. additionally, each numbered white circle indicates the size of the largest unshaded rectangle overlapping it.

“walkability”

size ≠ difficulty! here’s some statue park puzzles in decreasing order of size and increasing order of difficulty.

statue park rules

place the bank of shapes into the grid such that each shape segment occupies one cell, no shapes overlap or share an edge, and all of the unoccupied cells connect orthogonally in a single group. shapes can be rotated/reflected. each black circle indicates a cell occupied by a shape, and each white circle indicates a cell not occupied by a shape.

“sp as in… ii”
(play on puzz.link!)

this next one uses some novel logic—try to find it!

“inside info”
(play on puzz.link!)

the one below the cut is straight up unreasonable. i’m sharing it here solely as a curiosity, along w/ its solution in a collapsible.