I release the content of this site under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial license which allows reader to do what they want with it as long as they attribute me and don’t sell derivative works.

Recently, I found the site of someone who is doing just that. Otto Janko at janko.at has written a little java applet interface for my mochikoro puzzles (and those of some others as well.) Here’s a direct link to one of my puzzles. I’m excited to see my work improved upon in this way and I think this is a great example of what the creative commons is all about.

Here’s this week’s Mochikoro puzzle. A little late.

solution pdf

Here’s today’s Mochikoro puzzle:

pdf solution

This week a 19X19 puzzle.  My plan is to post five puzzles in this size and then take a break from mochikoro for a while to try other puzzles.

pdf solution

Here’s this week’s mochikoro puzzle.  The last puzzle that I will do in the 15X15 format.  Next week, expect a larger puzzle.

pdf solution

Hopefully this week’s puzzle has a unique solution.

pdf solution

I have updated last Monday’s Mochikoro puzzle such that it has a unique solution.  If you click over, you’ll see that it has changed.

Here’s my next mochikoro puzzle.

pdf solution

For today’s 15X15 mochikoro puzzle, I actually managed to have symmetrical clues.  I’m starting to realize, in making these puzzles, that single cell islands should only be placed in areas where removing one would create a 2X2 pool or break the chain of islands.

I’ve realized that people who haven’t been coming by since the first puzzle I put up probably don’t know the instructions for solving a mochikoro puzzle.  Instructions for puzzle solving are included in the pdf files that I make up.  You can also click the mochikoro tag below and read some of my earlier posts about this kind of puzzle.

And here’s this week’s puzzle:

pdf solution

This week’s mochikoro puzzle has a 15X15 grid. And I’m back to asymmetrical clues. (I tried.) The 15X15 format makes for a more difficult puzzle, both for solving and for creating. Enjoy!

pdf solution

The last week for the 10X10 format and I think I saved the best for last. This puzzle avoids a lot of huge islands and a lot of 1-cell island clusters. I’ll be working on a 15X15 puzzle for next week. I’ve spent a little time on it already and it seems like the larger puzzles will be more difficult to make. Without further ado, here’s this weeks puzzle:

As always: solution pdf

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to have a new feature.

This week’s puzzle has fewer clues, but still doesn’t have the difficulty that I would like to see. I’m planning to try one more in the 10X10 format and then try some 15X15 puzzles.

Also, this week, I have a pdf for the mochikoro puzzle. And the solution is here.

Here’s my third mochikoro puzzle. I like this one the best, but it has more clues than I was hoping for. I managed to get the clues to be diagonally symetrical this week (which may be part of the reason why there’s so many of them.) I think that I may have over-compensated with regards to having too many large islands as you can probably tell from the clues. I continue to be interested in what kinds of number patterns leave the puzzle ambiguous and I’ll write a longer post on this next week. So, without further ado, the puzzle:

The solution is here.

Here’s this weeks puzzle.  Commentary below.

I changed my algorithm slightly to build puzzles with a lower density of “land” squares and I think it was successful.  There are still some tweaks I would like to make and I still do a fair bit of manual editing, but I count this week as progress over last.  I’m looking to get it so that the clues come out in a nice symmetrical pattern.  I’m getting closer to that too.

In any case, I’ll have another next week.  Here’s this weeks solution.

I’ve decided to post some original puzzles here on puzzlinks.com. There are two reasons for this. First, what’s a puzzle blog without orignal puzzles? Second, I realized after I posted my entry on Mochikoro a while back that there are very few places to find such puzzles on the English web. So, I decided to create some of my own. As you may be able to guess from the title of this post, I’m hoping it will be a weekly feature. Right now, I’m shooting for a 20 week run.I also thought that it might be interesting, since I’m in uncharted territory a little bit, to document what worked and what didn’t in the puzzle making process. But first, the puzzle (rules for solving the puzzle can be found here):

I wrote a little algorithm to generate a map for the puzzle. I then placed the numbers myself and made some minor edits. I hope there is a unique solution. If not, someone please comment to let me know. Here’s what I learned in this iteration:

1. The original puzzle that I generated was ambiguous and could not be disambiguated as it stood. To see what I mean, try to solve the puzzle after removing the 1 from the fourth row, last column. You’ll see that the square could be either land or water. In my original puzzle it was water. I could think of no number placement that could require the space to be water, so I made it land.
2. In general, I think the islands are too big in this puzzle. Having larger islands seemed interesting to me at first but they just make the puzzle easier, at least with a small board. One thing that I learned pretty quickly when I was laying out numbers is that any island larger than 2 is going to require a number in it. Otherwise, the puzzle will be ambiguous.
3. I’m working with the theory now that a good mochikoro puzzle is one where you have a single unique solution with the least amount of initial information provided. Having said that, I think I could do much better than the above puzzle.

So, I have a few things to work on for next week. When I post a new puzzle then, I’ll address all of the issues above. For now, enjoy this one! And here’s the solution, if you need it.