Congratulations to jzverina, deu and jaku111 for securing the Top 3 positions. In fact, 4th to 10th positions were very close, with only 6 points separating them. Thanks to everyone who provided a feedback on the test. Glad to see the two relatively newer variations - X Sum Frame and QuadMax 4Odd 4Even - getting the bulk of the votes. Congratulations to Rohan, PRasanna, SuvaRna and ShaheeR for taking the top places for India. Also good performances from Amit, ManjiRi, KishoRe and NeeRaj. Thanks to Rishi for test solving this set.

Overall 315 users, and about 10% of participants (33) completed all 18. Average 6x6 had a lot of erroneous submissions (1 out of 3 wrong) as participants tended to guess since it was a 6x6. However, there is a neat logical path to solve it. Kropki 9x9 was the least attempted with only 93 correct submissions. However, I had expected QuadMax 9x9 or Average 9x9 would be the one with least submissions as the come last in the PB.

We have puzzle wise submission data for 6 of the top 10. Based on their timings, Classics should have had 22 points (we had 22), Consecutive should have 15 points (we had 13), Kropki should have had 18 points (we had 19), X sum frame should have had 13 points (we had 12), QuadMax 4Odd 4Even should have had 15 points (we had 18) and Average should have 17 points (we had 16). So, except for QuadMax 4Odd 4Even, the differences were less than 3.

HaRmeet: You may also share your impressions from this test.

Thanks to LMI for hosting the test and especially to Rakesh for guiding throughout. Together we came up with the set, the standard ones were kept reasonably simple to compensate for moderate to difficult variants. I hope all of you have enjoyed solving the sudokus. Congratulations to the winners! It was awesome to see 30 participants solving all 18 within time. The feedback is yet to be analyzed. This was my first attempt as an author and I have learnt a lot from the experience of creating them. My personal favorite was Average 9x9.

@Rakesh
Good work with the R's ;-)

Interesting. It might also be worth comparing on grid-size rather than variant.

I was one of the players who voted negative on the points distribution. It might be a personal experience, but I struggled on the Average 6x6 (spent 11 minutes), compared to the Kropki 6x6 or X-Sum 6x6, all of which were of equal points. I also found the Average 9x9 (13 points) much harder than Kropki 9x9 or QuadMax 9x9 (both 16 points).
Maybe I am just bad at Average :-(

I'd say, just an average day on average.

Huh, I had just the opposite experience: I flew through the Big Average (probably took me less time than the small Average) but couldn't find any opening for the Big Kropki.

Thanks to the puzzle makers!!

Does anyone have general tips for kropkis (and kropki sudokus)? I always have a really hard time starting them, and I often just end up having to use trial and error until I find something that works.

If anyone is interested, average 6x6 walkthrough is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2OFqlbyLKVDWDU2eV84NUprUlE

Solutions are available now.

Good to know Harmeet has created significant number of Sudokus for this episode.

@Rakesh
Thanks for the walkthrough. I never got that first '4', probably the reason why I took long.

@Harmeet
Really nice sudokus as a first-time author. Hope to see more from you in the times to come.

Sure! Will look forward to it.

@Rakesh and Harmeet
Thanks for this great Sudoku test. All the puzzles were of great quality. I enjoyed all the puzzles. My favorite were Average and Non Consecutive Sudoku. Looking forward for more such puzzles from both of you :)

@Rajesh:
Thank you. But there was no Non Consecutive sudoku in the test ;)

:) I mean Consecutive Sudoku