Thanks for your additional explanation. Now I understand that your aim is to organize a WSC that is clearly about sudoku, what was not clear for me from the text written in the FAQ page.
I'm sorry, but I still need a few precisions about 2 points : basic definition and hybrids between sudoku and other puzzles.
First about basic definition :
"We define a sudoku as a puzzle in which numbers/characters do not repeat in a row, column or an outlined area."
Do we agree that :
- puzzle 1234, round 2 of WSC 2015, doesn't enter in your definition, with several numbers repeating in rows, columns and outlined area ?
- A single cell cannot be considered as an outlined area, as it doesn't add any constraint ?
- Outlined areas must cover the whole grid,(or a large majority of at least 90% of cells if you want to refer to WSC 2010 guidelines, that you'll find in the puzwiki website that is linked from all WPF website pages) ?
(counter-example: WSC 2015, round 4, only 43% of cells are contained in outlined areas provided that we don't consider single cells as outlined areas)
I would like to have a few clarifications now about puzzles that are hybrid between sudoku and other puzzle types.
You wrote:
“The organizers of WSPC 2017 believe that a Sudoku variant can lean towards a Sudoku or a Puzzle based on the manipulation of the author, regardless of the nature of the rule-set as long as the basic characteristics above are followed.”
I've the quite exact opposite opinion, and I hope the consequence will not be that I have to renounce to take part in WSC for a second year in a row.
In the discussion, you take the example of the skyscrapers sudoku. In my opinion this is not an hybrid between a sudoku and a puzzle, thus all kind of skyscrapers sudoku will be fine for me at WSC.
[The reason is: Sudoku can be defined
(except for geometrical variations
) as latin square with regions
(In the strict sense: a Latin square is an n × n array filled with n different symbols, each occurring exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column.
(wikipedia
)
).
If you have a latin square variant and divide it into regions, you'll have a sudoku variant. For example, skyscrapers puzzle <-> skyscrapers sudoku, kropki puzzle <-> kropki sudoku, futoshiki <-> greater than sudoku. All these sudoku variants are fine for me. The skycrapers rule, even if it is not easy to get into and far from sudoku rule, is a constraint that will say you where to place the digits. Digits are the sudoku elements and the skyscrapers elements.]
I don't know if some sudoku players consider skycrapers sudoku as a variant which need a special treatment in WSC. I don't.
My fears are about hybrids between sudoku and a puzzle which belongs to another category of puzzles than sudoku, for example loop puzzles, shading puzzles, region division puzzles, etc...
With these kind of puzzles I fear that manipulations of author aren't sufficiant to reduce any unfair advantage.
I take for example the loop sudoku from this LMI contest:
http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/?test=mock17
Rule-set is:
“Apply standard sudoku rules for the digits 0 to 8. Moreover, there is one continuous loop inside the sudoku grid. All the digits 0, 1, 2, 3 are used as clues for the Loop puzzle (these digits gives the number of cell sides used for loop). And all digits 8 are always inside the loop. Some sides of the loop are marked."
I don't think there's a way to make this kind of puzzle fair in a WSC. Even if you make the loop solving part to be very easy, a player that hasn't played loop puzzle before will feel very umcofortable. My argument is that even on a very easy puzzle, a beginner will never be competitive against a specialist. If I follow the reasoning that you made about skyscrapers sudoku, it means you can create a loop sudoku which is, say, 95% about sudoku and 5% about loop. From a puzzle player point of view, this is fine for WSC but from a player who never solved loop puzzles before point of view, the 5% of the puzzle about loop can already be a source of unfairness.
I understand that people in the puzzle community could be sad to see players who don't know about other puzzle category than sudoku and they want to encourage them to play a wide range of puzzle types. However I don't think that including a lot of puzzle types in the WSC is the right way to do it.
And I think these hybrid puzzles can without any kind of problem be integrated into WPC
(finally this is no more than combine 2 WPC puzzle types
).
From my point of view, these kind of hybrid puzzles should be eliminated or at least minimized in WSC. Do you agree with that? Can I be reassured that the next WSC will contain a negligeable number
(and negligeable number of points
) of these puzzles?
If I refer to past competitions organized by Indian authors, I think I can be reassured, but I hope you understand from the last year discussions that I want to have more guarantees concerning WSC.
To summarize, I would like to quote Thomas Snyder and WSC 2016 organizers, who said respectively:
"While I’ve written a book of Battleship Sudoku, that combines the puzzles Battleship and Sudoku, we can agree that this kind of puzzle – which rewards experience outside of sudoku – is not appropriate at a WSC."
“We do think Battleship Sudoku, Fence Sudoku or other puzzles used in the LOGIDOKU contest are interesting puzzles completely suitable for an LMI test. At the same time, we realize using such puzzles at a WSC might be questionable, if not controversial.“
I agree with these statements, I hope you too.
I hope that starting from 2016 we'll have proper WSC two years in a row.
I hope that if I take part in the WSC my ranking will reflect my ability to solve sudokus during the competition.
I hope that you understand these are important questions for me, that require clear answers from you as they will potentially have an effect of my participation in the WSC
(and please note that my question is more “which category of puzzles will appear in the next WSC” than “which category of puzzles do you think is appropriate at a WSC”, what, I learnt from last year, can lead to different answers
).
Sorry fo the long post,
Fred