Infact, where the world's attention is on Nikoli, where puzzles are concerened.
Personally, I am a huge fan of Nikoli puzzles and it won't be right starting a puzzle blog without referring them.
So, "what's next after the sudoku craze?" As a matter of fact, people are looking to Nikoli for answers. The publication of Nikoli original puzzles other than sudoku have been steadily increasing throughout North America and Europe.
What makes Nikoli puzzles unique is that their editors collaborate with individual puzzle creators and fans. Puzzle authors submit puzzles and their experienced editors review each and every puzzle. As they are very particular about quality, even experienced puzzle creators get rejected through their reviewing process. Having a fan focused creation process makes Nikoli puzzles exciting and they have a totally different "flavor" and freshness.
You don't need any special talent to solve Nikoli puzzles just an interested active mind will do the trick. Besides, their carefully reviewed puzzles will not cause solvers unnecessary stress and they also don't require high levels of knowledge or any complicated hypothesis. A special talent is not a requirement to find the answers. You just need an open mind, thinking for yourself that "Maybe this is the right way"
A unique aspect of Nikoli puzzles is that a puzzle that is challenging to a beginner and yet solvable, can also give the expert solver pleasure in solving it. In fact, there exists a bond between puzzle creator and solver.
Today, I am going to focus on Fillomino puzzles from Nikoli.
Fillomino is a type of logic puzzle published by Nikoli. Other published titles for the puzzle include Allied Occupation
Fillomino is played on a rectangular grid with no standard size; the internal grid lines are often dotted. Some cells of the grid start containing numbers, referred to as "givens". The goal is to divide the grid into polyominoes (by filling in their boundaries) such that each given number n in the grid is part of an n-omino and that no two polyominoes of matching size (number of cells) are orthogonally adjacent (share a side).
Unlike some of its contemporaries among puzzles, there need not be a one-to-one correspondence between givens and polyominoes in the solution; it is possible for two givens with matching number to belong to the same polyomino in the solution, and for a polyomino to have no given at all.
Solution methods
It is common practice in solving a Fillomino puzzle to add numbers to the empty cells when it is determined what size polyomino each must belong to; these numbers are effectively treated identically to the givens.
Below is a sample Fillomino puzzle
1.Place numbers in all empty cells according to the following rules.
2.Put numbers into empty cells so the puzzle grid becomes divided into Blocks of cells with the number of cells indicated by the number in the cells.
3.A Block must contain the number of cells indicated by the number in the cells of the Block.
4.A Block cannot touch a similarly sized Block, horizontally or vertically.
5.Cells without numbers may form Blocks necessary to complete the puzzle.
The typical means of starting a Fillomino puzzle is to draw in the obvious borders between non-matching givens and surrounding all polyominoes completed by the givens alone ('1's, pairs of orthogonally adjacent '2's, and so on). From there, the solver searches for three things, possibly in combination.
When you see fantastic exceptional puzzles, please check who made them. I am certain it would be from Nikoli puzzles.
So long, everyone, and thanks for reading.
