Logicsmith Exhibition 6: Shipping Pearls

I have not had a contest on my blog in a long, long time. Some of my Wordy Wednesday puzzles in the past have been contests (in fact, the system where you get 1 or 2 stars next to your name on the solvers list is a carryover from the contest format, where you could get 1 or 2 contest entries depending on whether you solved the puzzle before or after the easy version went up). However, since I created my Patreon, where people who pledge $3 or more per month get an early look at my Wordy Wednesday puzzles, it doesn't feel right to basically give an advantage to people who pay to see my puzzles earlier. The solution? This contest doesn't involve word puzzles! In fact, it involves logic puzzles, also known as those things this blog used to be focused on before I jumped the shark. However, I won't be writing the puzzles; that is your job.

You are to write a valid Masyu puzzle on a 10x10 grid. The puzzle must have exactly one valid solution. In this solution, there must be exactly 20 cells which are not entered by the loop; within those unused cells, it must be possible to fit a standard Battleships fleet (one ship of length 4, two of length 3, three of length 2, four of length 1) in accordance with the standard Battleships rules.

IMPORTANT: You are not writing a Masyu Battleships puzzle. The puzzle must be solvable as a normal Masyu puzzle, without knowledge that the unused cells will form a Battleships solution.

Count the number of black circles and the number of white circles in your puzzle. Let M be the number of occurrences of the more frequent color, and L be the number of occurrences of the less frequent color. (M and L will be equal if there is an equal number of black circles and white circles.) Your goal is to minimize the value 100M+L. (For example, if your puzzle has 8 black circles and 14 white circles, your score is 1408.)

Submit your puzzle to glmathgrant[at]gmail[dot]com within the next 4 weeks (before December 18, 2016). You may enter multiple times; only your lowest score counts. Whoever submits a valid puzzle with the lowest score wins. I will feature the lowest-scoring valid entry from every entrant on this blog, so even if you don't win, your puzzle-writing abilities will be showcased on my blog. Ties will be broken by random.org.

The winner will receive a copy of an upcoming Grandmaster Puzzles e-book featuring my puzzles, which is scheduled to be released some time before the end of the year. If, for some unforeseen reason, the e-book isn't released by then, the winner will be offered a replacement prize.

Good luck!

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