Monday Mutant 53: Cross the Streams

Shade in some cells black such that the black cells are all connected to each other through their edges, and no 2x2 cell area within the grid contains all black cells. Numbers to the left of a row or above a column represent the groups of consecutive black cells which are in that row or column. For example, a clue of "3" means the row or column has three consecutive black cells, and a clue of "3 1" means that the row or column has a group of three consecutive black cells followed by a single black cell, separated by at least one white cell. A question mark (?) represents a group of consecutive black cells whose size is unknown; an asterisk (*) represents any number of unknown groups of black cells, including none at all.

Puzzle 461: The Inner Limits 4

A new contest will be starting on November 30! What does this puzzle have to do with it? Nothing.

Rules of The Inner Limits

Monday Mutant 52: Spirits of Serpentine (cipher)

In this Spirits of Serpentine puzzle, most of the given numbers have been replaced by letters; all instances of a particular letter represent the same number, but two different letters must represent different numbers. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

The two given numbers look very similar to the letters S and O; if you find yourself confused, just remember that the only letters in this puzzle are the ones in the word BANKER.

This is Monday Mutant 52. In other 52-related news, I recently paid Rick Griffin of Housepets! to draw this picture, which happened to be number 52 out of 100 in the Iron Artist series he's doing. Don't worry, folks; I plan on keeping the Monday Mutants series alive past 100. :)

Puzzle 460: Streaming Content 32

No comment.

Rules of Streaming Content 

Monday Mutant 51: Straight and Arrow (indirect)

In this Straight and Arrow puzzle, a number followed by a question mark represents how many black cells are in at least one of the four orthogonal directions (that is, the question mark can be replaced by an up arrow, a down arrow, a left arrow, or a right arrow, and be a normal Straight and Arrow clue). A number followed by an x means that none of the four orthogonal directions contain that many black cells. (Note that for the purposes of a 0? or a 0x on an edge or in a corner, any orthogonal direction which would point off of the grid is excluded.) A number followed by a plus sign represents the total number of black cells in all four orthogonal directions. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

Puzzle 459: Spirits of Serpentine 3

In a remarkable proof that turnabout is fair play, David Millar spotted an error in this puzzle before I posted it here. Because I was smart enough to let someone else see it first, though, it doesn't count against me for the purposes of how many times I've been wrong according to my blog's banner. (Gwa ha ha!)

Rules of Spirits of Serpentine

Monday Mutant 50: Straight and Arrow (indirect)

In this Straight and Arrow puzzle, a number followed by a plus sign represents the total number of black cells in all four orthogonal directions. The rules are otherwise unchanged.

 It would not appear that MellowMelon has ever made an Indirect Yajilin with nothing but plus sign clues.