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Moscow Puzzle Cup 2016 Author
Posts: 233
 
Location: Russia | chaotic_iak - 2016-04-30 9:25 AM
My complaint about Borderless Sextet is that I can't understand the instructions, so I didn't even attempt to solve it. For example, I've been understanding Loop that "touching" means Snake-like touching; if adjacent cells are both part of the loop, then the loop must also go through them consecutively. The regions are also said to be contiguous, so I wondered what could fit inside the hole that the Loop region had to make. (Although I haven't seen the solution, I'm pretty sure that the loop simply had to not cross each other, so the "touching" is Masyu-like touching; going in adjacent cells is okay. )
While that alone isn't a big complaint, my issue is that I asked for clarification, but it went unanswered. I believe rule questions should be answered, because otherwise it's an unfair disadvantage for people that interpreted the ambiguous instruction incorrectly (for having an immediate contradiction like above ).
For Crossmind, the fact that you need to use uniqueness metalogic also means that it's a bad puzzle. If Riad created this puzzle by also using uniqueness, I wonder how many solutions were missed; if Riad created it purely with logic, I'm interested to know the intended path.
The Contest must be surprised for solvers, otherwise it is not interesting for me, as for the author. 90-minute contests with a focus on well-known genres, with hundreds of fans, I am able to spend each week. Actually, I do it regularly for magazines published in Russia.
I can only say that I propose handmake puzzles. All of them are solved logically.
Ivan, you thought that the crossword grid can be constructed to eliminate the options? Do you think that I was not able to provide unique solutions for each Mastermind? The ambiguity of some Mastermind was intentional. You kidding me, it seems.
If you have any questions, I'll answer after 4 May.
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2021 World Sudoku+Puzzle Convention Organizer
Posts: 1777
 
Location: India | tamz29 - 2016-04-30 11:27 AM
But surely, having a test solver reword some of the instructions beforehand would be quite productive.
I feel I should answer this since I've been test solving Riad's contests for the past few times.
All of these times, I have reworded the instructions. This time too, I reworded them for the ones I solved. Even some of the answer keys have been reworded and edited, both this time and in the past. For whatever reasons (time, capabilities, other commitments, etc.) I couldn't complete some of the puzzles, including Borderless Sextet. I tried them for a significant amount of time and couldn't do much. I'm just generally weak at word puzzles, so maybe that's part of the problem. Since there are so many variables in those rules I decided it best to leave them unchanged, since I might put in something wrong, having not solved it.
Its still true that I failed to do a complete job this time as the test solver, but I just wanted to share this because the suggestion made has already been implemented over the years, and this year too for some of the puzzles.
As for the contest itself, my thoughts are it is a special attraction contest which has its own unique value in the puzzle community. I think solvers should realize that sometimes a puzzle might have a logical path which is just beyond their prowess, as I found out with the Borderless Sextet's Scrabble start and the Crossmind's crossword part. If this happened in a 90 minute timed contest it is definitely up for debate whether the puzzle should have been on the contest or not. But as a special attraction contest making it clear at the outset that these are difficult puzzles without a time limit, I think its important to go in with a mindset that you may not be able to spot everything no matter how good a solver you are in other contests. Its just more space to improve, or an area to ignore, depending on individual perspective. |
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Moscow Puzzle Cup 2016 Author
Posts: 233
Location: Russia | Prasanna, thank you for your help in testing and translation of texts into English!
Before leaving, I found time on a detailed response about Crossmind.
I'll start with history. In Russia it is published a series of magazines "Handmade". They content are Keywords, Fillwords, Tetris and other word puzzles. From the first issues they published Crossmind’s invented by me. Typically several pages using words of different lengths.
Ivan, I advise you to make a Crossmind with 4-6 words, as in our magazines. When you feel the puzzle, then make more difficult tasks:
1. In each Mastermind given words should denote the same thing in different languages.
2. Crossmind should not be split into two independent puzzles – Mastermind and Crossword. Therefore, some Mastermind must be solved at the expense of crossword intersections. That is, it is necessary to construct a crossword grid, which guarantees uniqueness Crossmind.
3. Black crossword cells must draw the letters L, M, I.
I spent several days creating Crossmind. I was engulfed in a process so that refused lunch.
I will come back to the discussion on 4 May.
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | Riad Khanmagomedov - 2016-04-30 9:33 PM
chaotic_iak - 2016-04-30 9:25 AM
While that alone isn't a big complaint, my issue is that I asked for clarification, but it went unanswered. I believe rule questions should be answered, because otherwise it's an unfair disadvantage for people that interpreted the ambiguous instruction incorrectly (for having an immediate contradiction like above ).
Your questions, I gave a clear answer - the 16-length loop to be accommodated in the 16-cell region (see under your question ).
The second part of the question was not answered, whether the loop may touch itself. I do know that the region is made of 16 cells, but I don't know how the loop works. My question was something like this. Left part is a correct Masyu-like loop, while right part is an incorrect Snake-like loop. Which of them is the rule in the puzzle?
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | Re Crossmind: That's why I'm interested to know the intended logical path to solve Crossmind, because it just looks completely beyond any approach I can think of. |
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Classics & Regions (PR 2016/17) Author
Posts: 170
Location: Germany | chaotic_iak - 2016-05-01 1:25 AM
Re Crossmind: That's why I'm interested to know the intended logical path to solve Crossmind, because it just looks completely beyond any approach I can think of.
I would guess that you missed some of the Mastermind deductions. If my notes are correct, there are just 7 ambiguous words, of which only two have more than two options.
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Typed Logic Author
Posts: 241
Location: Indonesia | No, I'm very confident my "solves" for Mastermind were right (because I just used programming to brute force each combination). But even with all of that, I still can't figure out where to start placing any of them. |
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Posts: 1
Location: Russia | About the "Crossmind" discussion:
The crossword part of this puzzle is completely logically solvable without using of uniqueness.
You should start with second "left-to-right" word (middle top of the grid).
The first and the last letters of this word must be 4th letters in some pair of words.
There are only 3 possible words, 2 of them very quickly lead to the contradiction.
Next - everything goes without problems.
On the competition as a whole - it is exactly as it should be.
Edited by dm_litv 2016-05-01 3:46 PM
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | dm_litv - 2016-05-01 3:43 PM
On the competition as a whole - it is exactly as it should be.
I fully agree.
[a bit OT, a question for admin] Is there scope for competitions dedicated to optimization puzzles only?
Stefano
Edited by forcolin 2016-05-01 8:19 PM
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Posts: 1
Location: India | I am unable to understand about it, could you reply me with proper or actual question? |
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Posts: 186
Location: New Zealand | forcolin - 2016-05-02 3:19 AM
Is there scope for competitions dedicated to optimization puzzles only?
Stefano
I think the optimization puzzles are the highlight of Riad's tests.
This time there were only 2, and they were 'solvable', but I'd like to see more too! |
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Moscow Puzzle Cup 2016 Author
Posts: 233
Location: Russia | Thanks to all the participants! Next year it will be necessary to return to the format with three optimization puzzles. |
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Posts: 172
Location: ITALY | I agree with both the last posts. However I miss a bit the good old DOM.
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Posts: 11
Location: United States | Does anyone have a solution for the Trid-Fir? I keep getting stuck. |
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Posts: 11
Location: United States | This is a very tough contest. I am also struggling with the Voyage puzzle. Even after looking at the answer string I am not sure how to do this puzzle. Is there a solutions page somewhere. After spending several days on these and getting nowhere it would be nice to know what it is I am not getting. Any help would be great. |
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Posts: 186
Location: New Zealand | It was a tough contest, much harder than other contests because you have a week instead of an hour to solve them.
Perhaps show us an image of where you are up to and we can suggest some next steps? |
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Riad Khanmagomedov's April Contest — 20th to 28th April 2016
