2026 UK Puzzle Championship

[puzzlemad]

This is the discussion thread for the UK Puzzle Championship

[pinkagape]

Loving the look of this Liane, thank you.

With Mintonette, is anybody willing to share any logic to help get started? I found it a painful example but I feel I might be missing something.

[Calump]

For the mintonette, every cell needs to be used, so you can fill in the top left corner. This creates another effective corner next to the circle, which gives a couple more lines.

The ruleset for these I've seen before has the amount of turns vary and can be specified with a number in the circle, but for this it's written as exactly three turns for each line, so now there's only one way to finish off the line from the top left corner.

[puzzlemad]

The points have been added to the instruction booklet and the time for each round will be 90 minutes.

I've corrected a few typos in the booklets.
Other changes include a change to the answer key for several puzzles. These are: 1.9 Heyawake (Domino), 2.5 Trio Cut, 2.6 Tapa Triomino, 2.7 Chained Block - For each marked row/column enter the number of consecutive cells that are shaded and unshaded. (I will accept the answer in the other format if someone enters that).
For the Mintonette I've amended the example to include "3" in each circle as a reminder of the number of turns required. The competition puzzle will have that too.
Apologies for the delay in getting this updated but was away all weekend.
I hope you all enjoy the competition.

[puzzlemad]

Huge thanks to all our wonderful puzzle authors and testers without whom I couldn't have put this competition together.
A comment from one participant - "Best contest of the year so far".