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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
Gotroch
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 6:28 AM (#17950 - in reply to #17765) (#17950) Top




Posts: 83
20202020
Location: Czech Republic
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Hidoku
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 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? 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 @ 2015-03-16 6:34 AM (#17951 - in reply to #17946) (#17951) Top


2000100050020
Location: India
PuzzleScott - 2015-03-16 3:25 AM

There should be no restriction when a puzzle can be started. Currently, when one puzzle is started, other puzzles cannot be started for some time period. The only purpose this serves is to remove options and cause annoyance for people with limited time.

There always have been a 1 hour wait period before one could start a new puzzle.
But since it is last 24 hours, the wait period is removed.
RALehrer
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 8:29 AM (#17952 - in reply to #17765) (#17952) Top




Posts: 31
20
Location: United States
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Statue Park
 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


ashaash11ash
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 10:38 AM (#17953 - in reply to #17765) (#17953) Top


PR 2020 (MII and Regions) Author

Posts: 54
2020
Location: India
Thanks for your feedback about the regional coded snake. :) i never thought it would be so hard to solve it. being first puzzle contributed in LMI website for a competition, i was excited to make it something different and quite tough, but it went out to be more tough than i expected :) I will see to it that it never happens in upcoming future test. Thanks for all of your feedback :)
xevs
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 12:15 PM (#17954 - in reply to #17765) (#17954) Top


Toketa? Selection Author

Posts: 43
2020
Location: Japan
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Hidoku
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Nurikabe
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 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


An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 12:43 PM (#17955 - in reply to #17765) (#17955) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Fillomino
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Hidoku
 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


flk
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-16 4:22 PM (#17956 - in reply to #17765) (#17956) Top




Posts: 23
20
Location: Australia
 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. 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? Very 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 @ 2015-03-16 7:37 PM (#17957 - in reply to #17765) (#17957) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 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? 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


An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 2:16 AM (#17959 - in reply to #17765) (#17959) Top


 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. Regional Coded Snake
 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


karzym
Subject: RE: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 2:37 AM (#17960 - in reply to #17765) (#17960) Top




Posts: 5

Location: Poland
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...

auroux
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 4:26 AM (#17961 - in reply to #17765) (#17961) Top


Hex Slitherlink Author

Posts: 145
1002020
Location: France
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Statue Park
 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? 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? Bit unfair


The puzzles were all quite nice in the abstract, but the difficulties were poorly calibrated.

RC Snake was clearly a difficult puzzle, not a medium one, and Summon was just a monster (I broke it 3 times, but even after I understood my mistake it took me about 3 hours to work through it).

I would like to side with those who suggested that, in future years, the cut-off time for difficult puzzles should become longer than 60 minutes, or one should still be able to earn some bonus in some way for performing well. I am reasonably pleased with my time on Hidoku, and to a lesser extent on RC Snake, but rather disappointed that the scoring system doesn't make a difference between solving in 75 minutes and taking many hours. (Of course, if I had done really well, neither of those would have taken an hour and I perhaps wouldn't be complaining as much :)

Also, I know that's a very unfair/specific complaint but, as the author of a puzzle that was more carefully calibrated in terms of difficulty level, I feel very slightly annoyed that I only get to discard my performance on only one of the insanely hard puzzles rather than two of them like almost everyone else. That could create an incentive for authors to create hard marathon puzzles rather than easy ones :-) just kidding.

Denis
An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 5:05 AM (#17963 - in reply to #17765) (#17963) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 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? Fairly Nice
 What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? Fair


achan1058
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 5:10 AM (#17964 - in reply to #17765) (#17964) Top




Posts: 80
20202020
Location: Canada
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.
An LMI player
Subject: Re: Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March @ 2015-03-17 5:30 AM (#17965 - in reply to #17765) (#17965) Top


 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Fillomino
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Hidoku
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? Bit unfair


The restriction on starting just one puzzle at a time seriously detracts from the enjoyability of the contest. Participants should be in charge of their choices and times. Anyone who wants to play for bonus time is free do so. A starting restriction forcing everyone to play that strategy is unwelcome.
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.
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