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Snowmen Author
Posts: 44
Location: Russia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Statue Park | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author
Posts: 668
 
Location: India | bob - 2015-03-07 3:22 AM
Is there anyway to give up on a puzzle once started? I am finding the Nurikabe impossible to solve logically (certainly not "easy") and trial and error is not much fun.
Sorry that you had troubles, but surely no trial and error was intended.
At the same time certainly it was supposed to be in Medium category and not easy.
But none the less it had few new starts and tricks, for e.g. each corner was unique in itself and then setting the path for "23" clue. The tricky part is finding the isolated 3*2 region in the center of the grid which helps to solve the "23". And of course the ending at the center was tricky again with 8,5,4 interaction.
I am sure it would be fun if you wan't to give it a try again to go logically and ask if stuck somewhere.
Good luck with Remaining Marathon Puzzles :)
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Posts: 80
Location: Canada | I have a w1 on my Summons and I don't know why. I presume that means I submitted wrong once. However, I have only submitted once in total. |
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Location: India | achan1058 - 2015-03-10 5:48 AM
I have a w1 on my Summons and I don't know why. I presume that means I submitted wrong once. However, I have only submitted once in total.
w1 = worst (1)
w2 = worst (2)
It has got nothing to do with wrong submissions. |
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Posts: 80
Location: Canada | Nevermind then. Thanks for the clarification. |
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Posts: 80
Location: Canada | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Bit unfair | |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Turning Fences | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Summon | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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Posts: 139
Location: Estonia | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Statue Park | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Bit unfair | |
I put puzzles in order about how I liked them and add my comment to explain why so:
1. Regional Battleships - There was beautiful logical solution. It was possible to solve it fast and fly over the grid. On the same time there were plenty of places where needed to think a bit longer but still found a nice logical path. It was just excellent and with nice outlook.
2. Statue park - Same thing as previous, very nice and logical path for me. I really liked the end part how last pieces combined together. The outlook wasn't so nice, than in battleships, but in a wider view it made sense.
3. Regional Coded Snake - It was a hard puzzle and I even might say that too hard, because if you give 60 minutes and even many top solvers aren't able to solve it within that time limit, then I think it's too hard. Still I found it enjoyable and I liked how finding the code came out to be an important thing in the middle of the solving. After that it was pure enjoyment.
4. Scrabble with loop - It's rank rised firstly because there was my name in there and secondly because despite of being very bad at word puzzles I was able to solve it logically. Yes, it took some time, but I enjoyed it. Ironic is the fact, that I messed up once and I figured out that I had messed up exactly when I used "Kota". Thanks to Kota I figured out that I must go 3-4 steps back and do it differently. And on the same gray square where Kota started at the first place, my name went through it :) Riad, excellent puzzle.
5. Meandering numbers - I think I made my best performance in that puzzle. It really went smoothly most of the time and I really like number puzzles, but I had to guess in one place. I really didn't find a logical solution there and that ruined the thing a bit. But the puzzle was nice.
6. Turning Fences - It was much about knowing the tricks Bram teached us last year. That's the thing with that puzzle. that's why it feels that part of the puzzle is solved by someone else and during the whole time you must use the same tricks. It's not very sexy puzzle type, especially with large grid.
7. Nurikabe - The problem with nurikabe is that you need intuition to solve it fast. You need some experience and it's very important to see where the large areas reach. And that's what I don't have. It's my cumblestone and it's not the first time. It just didn't feel enjoyable to solve it although it might be a good puzzle. Maybe I would appreciate it more If my time was without searching half an hour where I did wrong.
8. Fillomino - It was just a fillomino.
9. Summon - I think it's a great puzzle type, but it was too hard. The times of best solvers are showing that too. Maybe it was intended, I don't know, but it's really annoying to do a math with small numbers in a really large grid. It just isn't suitable type with large grid.
10. Hidoku - same thing. It's really annoying to do that counting. It drives a solver crazy. I think it would actually have been even cool if it was easier. But what's the point of doing large hidoku to make solvers do that mononotous counting from 1 to 400 and then you make it hard too. I felt really tired after solving it, but maybe that's what a marathon should be.
Edited by TiiT 2015-03-11 1:23 AM
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PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author
Posts: 668
Location: India | @Tiit - Thanks for your valuable feedback. It will surely help in future creations.
Thank you. |
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Posts: 9
Location: United States | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Meandering Numbers | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
Some of the puzzles were way too hard - Yes summon I am looking at you - and didn't really make it possible for those to affect scores much for many players. I think the "1 hour" time limit may need to be different for the easy puzzles vs. the hard puzzles. Really enjoyable puzzles nonetheless. |
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Posts: 102
Location: United States | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Statue Park | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Turning Fences | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Fillomino | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Meandering Numbers | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Bit unfair | |
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Posts: 1
Location: Estonia | Hi!
I have question about the Summon and 1000. Could somebody please explain the rules a little more?
Thank you in advance! |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Fillomino | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Turning Fences | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Scrabble with Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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Posts: 44
Location: Thailand | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Fillomino | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Nurikabe | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Summon | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | Very nice set of puzzles, very challenging and of excellent quality, thanks to all the authors (particularly to Riad for using my name)
In reply to other earlier comments: I do not find anything wrong in the puzzle being hard. It's a marathon. The balance of the difficulty level is excellent.
What can be improved is the bonus mechanism. It is unfair that for at least 4 cases the 20th fastest solver has no bonus (in the case of summon even the SECOND fastest solver has no bonus!). I know that in the past there have been long discussions about the bonus mechanism. IMHO the rank bonus should not have any connection with the time bonus. also, in this case, perhaps setting a time bonus level different for different difficulty level of the puzzles (for example: 45' for the easy puzzles, 1 hour for the intermediate, 90' for the hard ones) could have been better.
Edited by forcolin 2015-03-12 5:21 PM
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | elinman - 2015-03-11 9:13 PM
Hi!
I have question about the Summon and 1000. Could somebody please explain the rules a little more?
Thank you in advance!
the sum of all the numbers formed in that particular row should be =1000
Edited by forcolin 2015-03-12 5:25 PM
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Turning Fences | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Coded Snake | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
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| | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Scrabble with Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Hidoku | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | |
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SM 2020 (Math) Author
Posts: 419
Location: India | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Regional Battleships | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Fillomino | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Statue Park | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | |
At last,the Puzzle marathon has come to an end.I am relieved that I managed to complete the contest as I seriously doubted whether that would happen after experiencing the difficulty of some of the puzzles in between the test.The mental energy that I had to put into some of the puzzles to get them to completion was so tremendous.Also,I opine that the contest overall was skewed towards the harder side in difficulty.Some of the puzzles were so difficult....
It may be the marathon.I agree with that but personally, I feel that in a marathon, I should be intimated by the size of the puzzle rather than by it's difficulty.If the size of the puzzle is one thing that stands between the solvers and their quest for completion, the difficulty quotient in this test made that task doubly difficult.
I wonder what might have forced Nurikabe to be graded an 'easier puzzle'.Of course there is the standard argument which goes: puzzles are ordered based on difficulty and personal experiences may differ.Despite accomodating that statement,I would still have thought that it should end up in the hard category even if I were to say at the least.I found it extremely difficult to find continuous strings of logic in that puzzle.The logical continuation from a particular stage of the puzzle to the next seemed incredibly far fetched.I felt that the puzzle could have been more easier with additional givens to work with particularly given the fact that it was in the easier category....
On a positive note ,I was completely fascinated by the design of some of the puzzles especially of that of Regional Battleships.To be candid,right after solving the Fillomino, I decided that I would include it as my most favourite puzzle of the marathon but Battleships just totally took it away.The solve path in Regional Battleships was highly pleasing and the theme(5 all over the place! and the LMI design) and the aesthetics is just too good to describe in words!!Amazing puzzle!!.I plan to solve it again just to relish the piece of quality logic hidden intricately in the puzzle.I enjoyed solving the Fillomino too which I had described in an earlier post in the forum.The puzzle was enjoyable with the logic completely free flowing and should not pose much of a difficulty to solvers familiar with Fillomino.I had great fun solving the statue park puzzle too.The way in which the puzzle worked out in the beginning and at the very end when it came to placing the last 4 pentominoes was just a treat.
I enjoyed the marathon a lot although I felt that some of the puzzles were just unreasonably hard (atleast to me) and could have been easier or should I say
not that much laborious.
Finally,a mighty thanks and sincere felicitations to the authors for creating some quality puzzles and making this marathon 2015 a great contest!! |
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | What happens? All of a sudden, all the scores have changed. is there a problem with the server? |
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | The scores were using 2014 scoring earlier; perhaps it has changed to 2015 scoring. |
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WSPC 2017 • Schedule • Participation • Location • WSC • WPC • Contact •Search •Recent
Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March
