   
Location: India | Thanks guys for the in-depth analysis. I think it is safe to assume that for a similar test next time, pencil marks should be enabled, if the sudoku difficulties are more or less same. At the same time, I feel adding pencil marks is not going to help much to beginners. (for example : take the Consecutive Sudoku. I see lot of beginners struggling in that. If you miss the 4 (out of 5 possible) dots in row 2, you are never going anywhere. Not sure if pencil mark would have helped here.)
Another theoretical thought I had about pencil marks is that, LMI's pencil marking is very unique. It is not certainly easy to use, especially if you would be using it for the first time. So I was of the opinion that having pencil marks significantly benefits players who are used to LMI's interface. So disabling pencil marks was one way to make it more balanced to paper players.
Anyway, given that almost all comments suggest that pencil marks should be enabled, we should just do it accordingly next time.
About undo : I remember now that during my initial visualization of the test, I had thought of limiting Undo to 2 steps. (Just enough steps to undo mis-types). But I had forgotten about it when the test took the final shape. So, yeah, I agree that not having pencil marks and enabling undo is a perfect recipe for guessing.
Para - 2012-12-28 4:16 AM
One final comment. I would have liked it if the letter and number of the puzzle were listed somewhere on the puzzle page while solving (in front of the puzzle name for example). I find it handy to know how far along I am in the puzzle set. Will do next time. |
Posts: 45
Location: India | debmohanty - 2012-12-28 11:00 PM
Another theoretical thought I had about pencil marks is that, LMI's pencil marking is very unique. It is not certainly easy to use, especially if you would be using it for the first time.
On the contrary, I feel LMI's online interface is the best I have found till now. It's way-way-way better than any other interface out there. And only because of LMI's interface, I have started using Pencil Marks - earlier I was used to solving Sudokus with No Pencil Marks at all. (I still don't use Pencil Marks when solving on paper). |
Posts: 8
Location: Canada | debmohanty - 2012-12-26 7:31 AM
Thank you everyone for using the feedback system and letting us know how you felt about the test.
However, I'm bit confused by the feedback about "Number of puzzles". More than 40% of the votes suggest there were too many puzzles / way too many puzzles.
I thought in the IB, it was clear that 12 puzzles are meant for 'All', next 9 puzzles as 'Bonus', and last 9 as 'Extra Bonus'. If you are not a top player, you were not expected to reach section E in any case. Similarly, if you were a beginner, you should have thought that there were 12 puzzles for you.
If we plan for a similar test in future, I am not sure if we can / should reduce the number of puzzles drastically. It will be interesting to understand why players thought here were a lot more puzzles in this test than what it should have been.
I kept putting off and forgot to officially do this test (would have been my second, I think) despite doing the demo. I think the reason may have something to do with the fact that a puzzle can be skipped as incomplete, and with the appearance as a whole of a 30 puzzle test. You can't please everyone, and if the screen test had been one hour for 12 puzzles - something I don't consider too out of the ordinary, as those not as skilled can then spend five minutes on a puzzle without stressing - then some others would have said "Where's the challenge?" With a test of 30 puzzles, and the ability to skip puzzles, I don't blame someone who skipped over 5 puzzles they couldn't do and otherwise solved 18 (right or wrong, don't matter) before running out of time for saying there was way too many puzzles. Personally, I thought it was too many; you have to literally solve each in, on average, two minutes. However, if the goal had been to solve any 20 and skip any six, that would give a little more time and allow people to customize their test for the best result. Obviously, bonus points could then be awarded for correct solves of 21-30 (not by puzzle number but by number of correct puzzles), and the best performances thus would well exceed the otherwise expected maximum test score based on 20 puzzles (as an example). For 24 puzzles, for instance, that shaves off 12 minutes that can be allocated to other puzzles, giving 2:30 to each puzzle instead of 2:00, and skip any six you don't like the look of.
Just my opinion.
Also, a booklet of the puzzles now that the test is complete might be nice. :)
Cyclone
Edited by Cyclone 2013-01-04 3:48 AM
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LMI Screen Test #3 — December Sudoku Test — 21st-24th December
