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Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March
   LMI Tests -> Monthly Sudoku and Puzzle Tests160 posts • Page 5 of 7 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
debmohanty
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 6:36 AM (#17966 - in reply to #17964) (#17966) Top



1000500100100100202020
Location: India
achan1058 - 2015-03-17 5:10 AM

Upon reflection, I think both the original scoring system, and the revised one for 2015 (is it implemented?) are both pretty bad. If you look at it by rank, I got 32nd place on the summons, and 61st place and 86th place on the Meandering Numbers and Regional Battleships. Yet, the former is being marked as my worst one, and got bonuses on the latter two.

I think we should just use the top ranks to determine the bonuses as suggested by debmohanty. If there is a need for players to know when to give up, set a long cut-off time for no bonus, after say 3 hours, presumably after the top competitors would have solved the problem.
The 2015 system was implemented ( http://logicmastersindia.com/2015/03P/score2015.asp ), it has definite problems as pointed out by Stefano.
brecher92
Subject: RE: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 7:09 AM (#17968 - in reply to #17960) (#17968) Top




Posts: 30
20
Location: United States
karzym - 2015-03-16 4:37 PM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...



The key at this point is to realize that that there are thirteen different letters that must cover the numbers 1 through 13. Once you realize which letters have to represent "1" and "2" the rest of the puzzle follows pretty smoothly.
daisuke_t
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 7:14 AM (#17969 - in reply to #17765) (#17969) Top


Japanese Puzzle Land 2 Author

Posts: 2

Location: Japan
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Meandering Numbers
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 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? Bit unfair


An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 7:29 AM (#17970 - in reply to #17765) (#17970) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Meandering Numbers
 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


Administrator
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 8:22 AM (#17971 - in reply to #17970) (#17971) Top


2000100050020
Location: India
Puzzle Marathon 2015 is over now. Overall 393 participants participated and 290 scored points. 84 participants from USA and 52 from India. 93 participants completed all ten puzzles.

Congratulations to Endo Ken (EKBM), Hideaki Jo (deu), Bram de Laat (Para), Robert Vollmert (rob) and William Blatt (willwc) for finishing as the Top 5.

Special mention for deu as the only participant to score bonus in all ten puzzles.

Congratulations to Prasanna (19th), Swaroop, Amit, Ashish, Kishore and Jayant for finishing as the top participants from India.
Administrator
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 9:02 AM (#17972 - in reply to #17971) (#17972) Top


2000100050020
Location: India
to our ten authors - Ashish Kumar, Denis Auroux, Fred Couglin, James McGowan, Ko Okamoto, Matej Uher, Prasanna Seshadri, Riad Khanmagomedov, Robert Vollmert and Swaroop Guggilam - for providing the puzzles for this contest.
rakesh_rai
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 9:13 AM (#17973 - in reply to #17972) (#17973) Top



Mean Minis (2020) Author

Posts: 774
500100100202020
Location: India
We shall be responding to most of the comments soon, but let us do a summary of the puzzle difficulty first.

We observed that the differentiation between easy, medium and hard puzzles was not too significant, in the last few marathons. This time we planned to have a clearer categorization:
- 3 easy puzzles where top solvers should finish in ~15 minutes
- 4 medium puzzles where top solvers should take ~25 minutes
- 3 hard puzzles where top solvers should take ~35 minutes.

Statue Park and Fillomino were indeed easy and, not surprisingly, both had the maximum bonus submissions. Statue Park is easier than Fillomino but Fillomino is more familiar.

Nurikabe is a medium category puzzle difficulty wise but due to its familiarity it has been kept as the third easy puzzle. Going by the best times, it still fits into the Easy category as the times are lesser than other puzzles. But there were mixed opinions on this and even some top puzzlers stumbled on this puzzle.

Regional Battleships and Meandering Numbers clearly fit the Medium category with the expected level of difficulty.

Turning Fences was a tough puzzle, but it was also present in a previous marathon, so was a familiar puzzle. It proved to be harder than expected. Post event, we can say it was a hard puzzle rather than medium.

Regional Coded Snake proved to be hard too, going by the solving times. It was classified as the 7th toughest but, post event, it proved to be the 8th toughest and should have been placed after Scrabble Loop on the difficulty index.

Hidoku, Scrabble Loop and Summon were intended to be tougher than most of the marathon puzzles so far (all editions included). While Hidoku and Scrabble Loop were as per the planned level of difficulty, Summon, with just three numbers to fill, proved to be too tough. Although there were lot of obvious starting points (six digit numbers, 1000, etc), completing the puzzle in 60 minutes proved to be difficult as there were too many mini steps to solve. Based on the timings, it fits a category 'SuperHard'.

It was the toughest marathon yet. As bob said "Most puzzles are snacks, these are banquets." Hopefully most puzzlers would have enjoyed the banquet setting.
Grizix
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 2:17 PM (#17977 - in reply to #17765) (#17977) Top




Posts: 30
20
Location: France
 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. Statue Park
 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


Paul
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 2:23 PM (#17978 - in reply to #17765) (#17978) Top




Posts: 2

Location: India
Could not solvce even a single puzzle
chaotic_iak
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:11 PM (#17979 - in reply to #17978) (#17979) Top



Typed Logic Author

Posts: 241
1001002020
Location: Indonesia
Bug: Someone that didn't solve all puzzles (me, my Summon broke again) sees incomplete standings.
Administrator
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:15 PM (#17980 - in reply to #17979) (#17980) Top


2000100050020
Location: India
chaotic_iak - 2015-03-17 3:11 PM

Bug: Someone that didn't solve all puzzles (me, my Summon broke again) sees incomplete standings.
Fixed.
rakesh_rai
Subject: RE: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:17 PM (#17981 - in reply to #17960) (#17981) Top



Mean Minis (2020) Author

Posts: 774
500100100202020
Location: India
karzym - 2015-03-17 2:37 AM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...

Snake solution has been sent via email.
rakesh_rai
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:29 PM (#17982 - in reply to #17945) (#17982) Top



Mean Minis (2020) Author

Posts: 774
500100100202020
Location: India
ghirsch - 2015-03-16 2:28 AM

Could someone give some tips on how to start the summon (once the competition is over of course)? I was very lost on that one and basically made no progress on it.
Look at the first two rows. The six digit number in the first row and the five digit number in the second row limit a lot of possibilities. You should be able to complete the regions in the top left corner (with a lot of Xs). Then there is a row with the sum as 1000. Think how can you reach 1000 as the sum. And, keep looking at the sums below for vertical constraints.
Realshaggy
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:37 PM (#17983 - in reply to #17978) (#17983) Top




Posts: 69
202020
Location: Germany
I liked all the puzzles, even the types I usually don't like (Snake, Nurikabe, Battleships) as they all make good use of the room. I also don't have problems with a contest with a high overall difficult level and very difficult puzzles like the Summon, even if that means it's not suited for beginners. But the scoring system should be revised. By now there should be enough test data from three years. Of course it's difficult with different solving times. If it should feel like a marathon for the top solvers, it's near impossible for me.

No offense to the author, but I think especially Nurikabe is a bad type for a timed contest on a marathon grid. Seems like it's even more favourable to use intuition than a logical approach.
Paul
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 3:52 PM (#17984 - in reply to #17765) (#17984) Top




Posts: 2

Location: India
I would love to get starting instructions, on how to solve each type of puzzles.
An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 4:32 PM (#17985 - in reply to #17765) (#17985) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Statue Park
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Turning Fences
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Fillomino
 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? Very fair


An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 4:34 PM (#17986 - in reply to #17765) (#17986) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Meandering Numbers
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Nurikabe
 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


An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 5:27 PM (#17987 - in reply to #17765) (#17987) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Fillomino
 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


anderson
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 6:14 PM (#17988 - in reply to #17765) (#17988) Top




Posts: 16

Location: United States
 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? 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? Fair


Every puzzle in this contest was awesome. Thanks to all the authors!

I also have to mention that the box in the middle of the hidoku was extremely cute as well as the 360-400 path.

Regarding the scoring system, I like the suggestion of increasing the time limit to, say, 2 hours for the hard puzzles (assuming that future puzzle marathons will have similar difficulty to this one). I also like the idea of just giving bonuses for your best ranks as suggested by Aaron, probably the only problem with that is the feeling of "I don't know if it's safe to stop working now and take a break". Maybe the 50 points for 1st, 49 points for 2nd, etc. but you only get the bonus in the first place if you solve it in 2 hours/whatever time limit.

Edited by anderson 2015-03-17 6:34 PM
swaroop2011
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 7:29 PM (#17989 - in reply to #17984) (#17989) Top



PR 2020 (Shading and Loops) Author

Posts: 668
500100202020
Location: India
Thanks to all, for your feedback and support.
Congratulations to the top contestants.
I have made a solution tutorial for Nurikabe and kept, and so sharing with you all.
Hope it helps to get you some idea behind the thinking of that puzzle creation.
Hope everyone enjoyed all the marathon puzzles though difficulty was on bit higher side but after all it was marathon.
Here is link,

http://swaroopg92.blogspot.com/2015/03/tutorial-to-solve-marathon-n...

Paul - 2015-03-17 3:52 PM

I would love to get starting instructions, on how to solve each type of puzzles.


Edited by swaroop2011 2015-03-17 7:30 PM
An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 8:40 PM (#17991 - in reply to #17765) (#17991) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Statue Park
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Nurikabe
 What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? Fairly Nice


auroux
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-18 12:02 AM (#17994 - in reply to #17765) (#17994) Top


Hex Slitherlink Author

Posts: 145
1002020
Location: France
Note in case anyone is curious: the Regional Battleships puzzle still has a unique solution without the given ship segment in the "M"-shaped region. (The given ship segment at the bottom-left is, on the other hand, necessary as far as I recall). That clue was added in order to make the puzzle difficulty more manageable.
Denis
Nilz
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-18 2:17 AM (#17995 - in reply to #17973) (#17995) Top




Posts: 29
20
Location: United Kingdom
rakesh_rai - 2015-03-17 5:13 AM

Summon, with just three numbers to fill, proved to be too tough. Although there were lot of obvious starting points (six digit numbers, 1000, etc), completing the puzzle in 60 minutes proved to be difficult as there were too many mini steps to solve. Based on the timings, it fits a category 'SuperHard'.

It was the toughest marathon yet. As bob said "Most puzzles are snacks, these are banquets." Hopefully most puzzlers would have enjoyed the banquet setting.


Personally, I don't *love* the really really difficult puzzles, but if there's a nice logical path (as these did, to be fair), I don't mind solving them. But if there is going to be a competition with bonus points for solving in less than an hour, then it's better if it's actually possible to solve the puzzles in less than an hour (well, a couple of people will tell me that the Summon was possible, but still...). Perhaps an option would be to label them as 'superhard' and just give 75 points (or another number that is judged to be fair) to anyone who solves them.
Alternatively, just run a separate marathon for superhard puzzles only. I would guess there would be a few volunteers to create these puzzles, and the creators could have a contest between themselves to see who can create a puzzle solved by the fewest people!
forcolin
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-18 2:32 AM (#17996 - in reply to #17973) (#17996) Top





Posts: 172
100202020
Location: ITALY
rakesh_rai - 2015-03-17 9:13 AM

We shall be responding to most of the comments soon, but let us do a summary of the puzzle difficulty first.

We observed that the differentiation between easy, medium and hard puzzles was not too significant, in the last few marathons. This time we planned to have a clearer categorization:
- 3 easy puzzles where top solvers should finish in ~15 minutes
- 4 medium puzzles where top solvers should take ~25 minutes
- 3 hard puzzles where top solvers should take ~35 minutes.

Statue Park and Fillomino were indeed easy and, not surprisingly, both had the maximum bonus submissions. Statue Park is easier than Fillomino but Fillomino is more familiar.

Nurikabe is a medium category puzzle difficulty wise but due to its familiarity it has been kept as the third easy puzzle. Going by the best times, it still fits into the Easy category as the times are lesser than other puzzles. But there were mixed opinions on this and even some top puzzlers stumbled on this puzzle.

Regional Battleships and Meandering Numbers clearly fit the Medium category with the expected level of difficulty.

Turning Fences was a tough puzzle, but it was also present in a previous marathon, so was a familiar puzzle. It proved to be harder than expected. Post event, we can say it was a hard puzzle rather than medium.

Regional Coded Snake proved to be hard too, going by the solving times. It was classified as the 7th toughest but, post event, it proved to be the 8th toughest and should have been placed after Scrabble Loop on the difficulty index.

Hidoku, Scrabble Loop and Summon were intended to be tougher than most of the marathon puzzles so far (all editions included). While Hidoku and Scrabble Loop were as per the planned level of difficulty, Summon, with just three numbers to fill, proved to be too tough. Although there were lot of obvious starting points (six digit numbers, 1000, etc), completing the puzzle in 60 minutes proved to be difficult as there were too many mini steps to solve. Based on the timings, it fits a category 'SuperHard'.

It was the toughest marathon yet. As bob said "Most puzzles are snacks, these are banquets." Hopefully most puzzlers would have enjoyed the banquet setting.


Enjoyed a lot, thank you. and to all the authors too.
in summary we had 2 easy, 3 medium, 4 hard, 1 superhard puzzles. I like this share but perhaps it is a bit too tough for less experienced solvers. look at how many players had a high number of solutions with 200+ minutes for the majority of the puzzles. This could be frustrating. In my very personal opinion, the ideal mix could be 4/3/2/1 or 3/3/3/1

The bonus mechanism needs improvement. I believe it is nonsense in having two bonus mechanisms awarding bonus points to the same players. If one system is unfair, the other system gives no compensation. In my opinion the time bonus works very well, but the rank bonus should be a pure rank bonus, i.e. to award 25 points to the first, and decreasing linearly until the 50th (or 100th) fastest solvers. In this case no matter what the bonus threshold is, a player will always be motivated to complete the puzzle, however hard, even beyond the 60' wall, and the 50th fastest solver of the summon still could have earned 12.5 points even with a time of 200+ minutes. And this would be ideal, we have seen many times that only one bonus mechanism leaves the door open for unfair scoring.
stefano

forcolin
Subject: RE: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-18 5:12 AM (#17997 - in reply to #17960) (#17997) Top





Posts: 172
100202020
Location: ITALY
karzym - 2015-03-17 2:37 AM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...



don't throw away the computer. you will have no computers left. perhaps you can break in half the pencil it that relaxes you. you will still have the computer and if you sharpen both pieces you will have gained a pencil.

here

http://web.freepass.it/sf2l/PCQgIXt.jpg

is the solution. The fundamental mistake bottom left. Can't go from R16C3 to the head of the snake in 5 cells INTERNALLY- must go EXTERNALLY so L=1 not 3.

Edited by forcolin 2015-03-18 5:17 AM
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