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Country : India | |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2019-01-21 8:50 PM Some of us are traveling for the Asian Sudoku Championship next weekend. Can this be extended by a day?
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Administrator
Country : India | |
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Administrator
Country : India | vopani - 2019-01-21 8:50 PM
Some of us are traveling for the Asian Sudoku Championship next weekend. Can this be extended by a day?
The test will be extended till January 30 23:59 hours (IST ). |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2019-01-22 9:44 AM Administrator - 2019-01-22 9:19 AM
vopani - 2019-01-21 8:50 PM
Some of us are traveling for the Asian Sudoku Championship next weekend. Can this be extended by a day?
The test will be extended till January 30 23:59 hours (IST ).
Thanks!
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mstang
Posts: 74
Country : United States | mstang posted @ 2019-01-22 12:00 PM For Twopa, how can we decide which Tapa puzzle to put in which answer blanks, if the point is that the two grids can be interchanged to produce a (technically) new solution?
Edited by mstang 2019-01-22 12:25 PM
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Administrator
Country : India | mstang - 2019-01-22 12:00 PM
For Twopa, how can we decide which Tapa puzzle to put in which answer blanks, if the point is that the two grids can be interchanged to produce a (technically) new solution?
Good question.
The situation of "deciding which Tapa puzzle to put where" will not arise - One shaded cell will be given in one of the grids. This means the cell will be shaded in one solution and not in the other. The shaded cell is an added given which may also be used as a clue to solve the puzzle. |
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Administrator
Country : India | Updated Instruction Booklet
An updated version of the Instruction Booklet is now available: http://logicmastersindia.com/PR/2019012/
Changes
- End Date changed to 30th January
- Example updated for Twopa
- Text added for Twopa "General rules"
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2019-01-22 9:05 PM Puzzle 19-22 Skyscrapers – Easy as 123 Mastermind: This isn't really "Mastermind" at all, is it? Just shared clues between the adjacent grids if I understand the example correctly. |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2019-01-22 9:11 PM Also, the contest page is titled Classics and Evergreens. |
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forcolin
Posts: 172
Country : ITALY | rob - 2019-01-22 9:05 PM
Puzzle 19-22 Skyscrapers – Easy as 123 Mastermind: This isn't really "Mastermind" at all, is it? Just shared clues between the adjacent grids if I understand the example correctly.
either that, or the explanation of what the mastermind clues mean (like in puzzles 17-18 ) is missing
this contest looks exciting !!! |
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Kithyane
Posts: 49
Country : France | Is the explanation of the Minesweeper answer key wrong ? Looking at the example, I feel it is simply "the number of mines in each row". |
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Administrator
Country : India | rob - 2019-01-22 9:05 PM
Puzzle 19-22 Skyscrapers – Easy as 123 Mastermind: This isn't really "Mastermind" at all, is it? Just shared clues between the adjacent grids if I understand the example correctly.
The name of the puzzle will be reworded and will not include "mastermind" |
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Administrator
Country : India | Kithyane - 2019-01-23 11:34 AM
Is the explanation of the Minesweeper answer key wrong ? Looking at the example, I feel it is simply "the number of mines in each row".
The answer key will be to enter contents of two rows/columns. This will be corrected in the next version of IB. |
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Administrator
Country : India | rob - 2019-01-22 9:11 PM
Also, the contest page is titled Classics and Evergreens.
The contest does include some classic/evergreen puzzles like minesweeper, fillomino, skyscraper and tapa.
The contest name will be corrected before the start of the test. |
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Administrator
Country : India | Updated Instruction Booklet
A further updated version of the Instruction Booklet is now available: http://logicmastersindia.com/PR/2019012/
Changes
- Puzzle 19-22: Name change and instructions re-worded
- Points Table: Name change of one puzzle
- Puzzle 13-16: Answer key description changed for minesweeper
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randomperson1729
Posts: 11
Country : United States | For the linked minesweeper/nanro, are numbered cells always blank, or can there be a mine on those spaces? The instructions were not clear on that front. |
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Administrator
Country : India | randomperson1729 - 2019-01-25 5:57 AM
For the linked minesweeper/nanro, are numbered cells always blank, or can there be a mine on those spaces? The instructions were not clear on that front.
For the minesweeper, numbered cells cannot contain mines. The instructions mention this indirectly "Place mines in some empty cells" |
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Administrator
Country : India | Final Instruction Booklet
An updated version of the Instruction Booklet is now available: http://logicmastersindia.com/PR/2019012/
Changes
- Points table added
- Kurotto example and instructions updated (Note on circles added )
- Minesweeper instructions clarification added
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Administrator
Country : India | Puzzle Booklet and Test Start Time
Puzzle Booklet is available for download on the contest page.
The test will start around 15:00 IST.
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Administrator
Country : India | Administrator - 2019-01-23 2:40 PM
rob - 2019-01-22 9:11 PM
Also, the contest page is titled Classics and Evergreens.
The contest does include some classic/evergreen puzzles like minesweeper, fillomino, skyscraper and tapa.
The contest name will be corrected before the start of the test.
This is corrected now. |
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Administrator
Country : India | The test has started now. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-25 4:07 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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rob
Posts: 170
Country : Germany | rob posted @ 2019-01-25 7:59 PM Great concept, and pretty good test, thanks Prasanna!
I tripped up a bit on the first Twopa, thinking I couldn't get out under the 13s in both puzzles. I feel like they were quite tricky anyway, an easier starting type would have felt more friendly.
The Fillomino relay types are really fun ideas. Some of the types were a bit low on interaction, with the connection rule mostly coming in towards the end of the solve. But keeping them easy seems appropriate for the PR.
* The Twopa disambiguation via shaded cells late in the solve were a bit of a pain. If you want to do it like this, at least ask for the same rows/columns in both grids, so it's easy to read off if you've solved the other way around? Or ideally just accept both combinations.
* The code order and direction on the right grids in the 4-by-4 types is confusing. Intuitively, I'd want to fill the "top" codes before the "right" codes, and read the "right" codes right-to-left. Improvement (but not perfect): point the arrows on the right and below the grid right and down, respectively.
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Administrator
Country : India | * The Twopa disambiguation via shaded cells late in the solve were a bit of a pain. If you want to do it like this, at least ask for the same rows/columns in both grids, so it's easy to read off if you've solved the other way around? Or ideally just accept both combinations.
Valid point. If a solver ended up solving the other way around, answer keys for 1 go into 2, and answer keys for 2 go into 1. Of course, you would have to select the correct rows/columns. But that should not be a big constraint (we thought so ). We had a discussion on this exact point before the contest and then decided to go ahead with the current approach. If it was an offline contest, there would be no issue but this adjustment was only because the contest is "online."
* The code order and direction on the right grids in the 4-by-4 types is confusing. Intuitively, I'd want to fill the "top" codes before the "right" codes, and read the "right" codes right-to-left. Improvement (but not perfect): point the arrows on the right and below the grid right and down, respectively.
If someone enters top code before right code (that is intuitive ), it will still be marked correct (although it is not mentioned anywhere ). We have emphasized left-to-right and top-to-bottom wherever possible. And the IB examples also illustrate that. We just wanted to stick to the "rows before columns" mentioned under the generic section ("If one row and one column is marked, enter the row first and then the column" ). Your idea about the arrows' direction is also a good one, perhaps better than the current depiction. We did not want the arrow to point outside the grid, as that may have also introduced some confusion.
Thanks for the useful suggestions! |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-25 11:05 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Fillomino-Norinori Relay | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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ghirsch
Posts: 102
Country : United States | ghirsch posted @ 2019-01-25 11:13 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | I have a different complaint | |
Regarding answer keys I think backward arrows are confusing. I would also prefer if Twopa did not have shaded squares to force each solution to go in a specific grid, since that gives a potentially undesired break-in, and it makes it hard to plan answer drawing. I don't know if the scoring setup allows for multiple possible answers though. I also don't like that the answer keys were separate for each grid, since if you guess to finish one piece of the puzzle I don't think you should be able to confirm that it's right until you finish the other grids. Otherwise, I loved this contest though! I think connected puzzles are always really fun, and it's cool to see a full contest of them.
EDIT: Looks like rob already said a lot of the same things. Edited by ghirsch 2019-01-25 11:14 PM
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Administrator
Country : India | I also don't like that the answer keys were separate for each grid, since if you guess to finish one piece of the puzzle I don't think you should be able to confirm that it's right until you finish the other grids.
Your point may be valid. But we were very clear that we wanted to encourage partial points, especially for more beginner kind of solvers. |
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boing
Posts: 4
Country : United States | boing posted @ 2019-01-26 12:32 AM ghirsch - 2019-01-26 11:13 AM
Regarding answer keys I think backward arrows are confusing.
Very! In some of the puzzles the answer key instructions made it clear that the reading order was still left-to-right and top-to-bottom but not in all, and I happened to start with Norinori which did not include those instructions so I lost points because of this. I hope admins will consider retroactively awarding points for backwards answers on those - I'm sure I'm not the only one!
EDIT: other than that this was great :D Edited by boing 2019-01-26 12:33 AM
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-26 1:48 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Minesweeper-Nanro | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Answer key arrrows poiinting left were slightly confusing. |
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Francwe
Posts: 3
Country : France | Francwe posted @ 2019-01-26 4:37 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-26 9:53 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Mostly the same comments as ghirsch. I got tripped up by the left arrow in the norinori (like boing ) and found the twopas confusing because of the one shaded cell. In the twopa rules: "This means, in a multi-digit clue, some of the digits can have the same behavior, but not all," I would have liked the example puzzle to clarify whether a single-digit clue could have identical behaviour between two grids (I guessed not but couldn't solve the puzzle ). With partial marks I noticed one of my mistakes by submitting an incorrect subpart which you wouldn't usually be able to notice, so I felt like having separate answer keys was bad - perhaps you could still submit separate answer keys but only mark them individually at the end of the contest / when all other subgrids have also been submitted. A very nice test though - the logic was nicer than I was expecting in the puzzles I did solve (especially the linked skyscrapers-easy as 123 ). |
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mstang
Posts: 74
Country : United States | mstang posted @ 2019-01-26 10:40 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Twopa | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I also got tripped up by some backwards arrows, and I couldn't finish the harder Linked Maxi Loop! Still, nice puzzles overall.
Personally, I think the Fillomino/Star Battle relay was worth (a lot ) more than 2+2 points. Edited by mstang 2019-01-26 10:48 AM
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mstang
Posts: 74
Country : United States | mstang posted @ 2019-01-26 10:45 AM @2 above:
Yes, the rules for Twopa as I would state them are: "for any pair of corresponding clues in the two grids, the arrangements of shaded/unshaded cells in the (usually 8) neighboring squares cannot be exactly the same." So that applies to single-digit clues equally well.
Edited by mstang 2019-01-26 10:47 AM
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puzzler05
Posts: 7
Country : South Korea | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Below Average | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Twopa | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-26 12:37 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | I have a different complaint | |
Grid for Cave (17 ) was too thinly coloured |
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Fillomino-Norinori Relay | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Very interesting, novel theme. Many interesting uses of connected puzzles. I'm not sure if it fits for PR, but seeing the many easy puzzles I think it works well enough. Some problems: - Connected puzzles should be considered as a single puzzle. Answer keys should span over the many grids, otherwise solvers can check partial work by submitting the answer for a grid, and if it's correct work from it for the other grids. Unless this is intentional. - Some grids are (mostly ) solvable without using the connected gimmick. Again, this might be intentional due to this being PR, but I see that as a downside. But overall trying a new mechanic like this is interesting and I'd like to see more. Maybe variants like "liar" or something as a theme?
Edit: Apparently this echoes a lot of similar comments. Well. Edited by chaotic_iak 2019-01-26 2:26 PM
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JonaS2010
Posts: 22
Country : Germany | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | |
For some reason I kept making mistakes, especially on the large Maxi Loops, which I printed out again. Still happy to have finished the round. There were some great puzzles here, and I generally enjoy linked or relay puzzles. I hope this becomes a regular round in PR. Thanks Prasanna for the very enjoyable set! |
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Administrator
Country : India | boing ->...I happened to start with Norinori which did not include those instructions so I lost points because of this. I hope admins will consider retroactively awarding points for backwards answers on those...
Yes |
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Administrator
Country : India | An LMI PLayer -> In the twopa rules: "This means, in a multi-digit clue, some of the digits can have the same behavior, but not all," I would have liked the example puzzle to clarify whether a single-digit clue could have identical behaviour between two grids (I guessed not but couldn't solve the puzzle).
Instead of guessing you could have read the rules where it mentions "every clue must behave at least a little bit differently." and a single digit is also a clue. Ideally it should have been in the example too, but the forum was open for questions/clarifications |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-26 6:24 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Twopa | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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TS279
Posts: 7
Country : Poland | TS279 posted @ 2019-01-26 6:50 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Shaded Cave-Kurotto Mastermind | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I have also been confused by the right-to-left arrows with the left-to-right key. Nevertheless, these puzzles really gave me some kind of flow. Good job! |
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Badacoin
Posts: 4
Country : France | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Very enjoyable test, I really liked the way the connected logic was weaved into the puzzles. |
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WA1729
Posts: 65
Country : United States | WA1729 posted @ 2019-01-27 6:54 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Thank you! Favorite puzzles: 3-4 Twopa 11-12 Maxi Loop |
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ABcDexter
Posts: 50
Country : India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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anurag
Posts: 136
Country : India | anurag posted @ 2019-01-27 2:16 PM Dear Admin,
Twopa: I believe behaving differently is only limited to the fact that cells that are shaded may partially differ for the same clue between two grids. OR, do I also need to consider the shape of the shaded block?? As I see in the example, the shapes are identical! that's why I am a little unsure.
Also, just curious,
Ep 1 was PR201901.
'PR2019012' follows the same nomenclature? Or was it supposed to be PR201902?
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Administrator
Country : India | anurag - 2019-01-27 2:16 PM
Twopa: I believe behaving differently is only limited to the fact that cells that are shaded may partially differ for the same clue between two grids. OR, do I also need to consider the shape of the shaded block?? As I see in the example, the shapes are identical! that's why I am a little unsure.
Cells that are shaded should partially differ. If you compare all eight cells surrounding a clue, at least one cell should differ in the shading between the two grids. Shape (s ) may or may not be the same.
Also, just curious,
Ep 1 was PR201901.
'PR2019012' follows the same nomenclature? Or was it supposed to be PR201902?
You should have been able to figure this out. Nomenclature is PR2019XX where X denotes the month in which the test starts. If there are 2 PR tests in a month, the second test has a 2 appended.
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TiiT
Posts: 139
Country : Estonia | TiiT posted @ 2019-01-27 3:38 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Kithyane
Posts: 49
Country : France | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Shaded Cave-Kurotto Mastermind | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Despite not being able to finish due to issues with my printer (small downside of being on holiday ), I really enjoyed this test ! The "connected" logic was nicely used, at the right level for PR imho (thas is, it was necessary to finish all grids of a group, but used only a few times so that the flow of classic solving isn't broken ). Looking forward to see this category again next year : ) |
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prezensky
Posts: 2
Country : Romania | TWOPA 1 i send in the last seconds, and i arrieve 4 points.
Total 35 points minus penalties
Please chek
Best regards
Prezensky Istvan (Romania) |
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anurag
Posts: 136
Country : India | anurag posted @ 2019-01-27 11:20 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Fillomino-Star Battle Relay | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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priyambhushan
Posts: 36
Country : India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2019-01-28 1:13 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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detuned
Posts: 152
Country : United Kingdom | detuned posted @ 2019-01-28 2:46 AM | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
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greenhorn
Posts: 164
Country : Slovakia | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many easy puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Fillomino-Norinori Relay | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
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bob
Posts: 59
Country : United States | bob posted @ 2019-01-28 5:10 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Too complicated and frustrating for a timed test. Spent half my time on Maxi Loop 11 and 12 (which was favorite type out of the ones I tried ) and checked and rechecked and rechecked and rechecked my answers. I either don't understand the rules or I don't understand the solution codes. Unsatisfying to say the least. Even after more time I still don't know what's wrong. I might be ready for a new hobby. |
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Administrator
Country : India | prezensky: Your solution was received 16 seconds after time was over. We have similar cases with many other participants too. And there are still other participants who do not submit once time is over, even if they finished just in time. So, to be fair to everyone, this submisson (1-Twopa) will not be awarded points. |
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Administrator
Country : India | Kind attention for Solvers
Please read the Instruction Booklet. Page 2 clearly mentions "Answer keys must always be entered from left to right and top to bottom"
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amitsowani
Posts: 349
Country : India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | I have a different complaint | |
Overall the test went very smoothly. But I got tripped on the "slighly" different rul of Twopa and wasted 15 mins on the first one and had to come back and solve it later. Answer Keys were mostly perfect but the arrows pointing from the right/ bottom were confusing and I was not sure whether to enter left to right or right to left. The size of the instructions impacted the puzzle grid size in a few cases. One possibility could have been to ask participants to refer to the instruction booklet |
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randomperson1729
Posts: 11
Country : United States | Hello! First-time participant here!
How do we fill out those questionnaires for feedback on the puzzles? I can't seem to find any links to them. |
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harmeet
Posts: 87
Country : India | harmeet posted @ 2019-01-29 4:08 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2019-01-29 9:50 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
I felt the contest was on the harder side.Being a new round in PR, I would have preferred somewhat easier puzzles.I did my first submission at 26 mins having started with the first puzzle of the contest (Twopa ) which went nowhere no matter what I did and had to drop and move on.Point distribution was certainly off for that puzzle and for Fillomino & Star Battle as well wherein I spent a considerable time. Regarding the Twopa, my opinion is that the added shaded cell made the solve much more complex as now you have to determine which pattern fits exactly where.I would have preferred a loose start wherein you can shade some cells and shade the opposite in the other and then figure out. I enjoyed solving Sky/Easy as ABC and Maxi loop puzzles (which were accurate in depicting the difficulty level by means of points ). Overall an okay contest where I couldn't enjoy puzzles much because of the difficulty (was depressing at the start itself ). |
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swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Nice concept and excellent Puzzles. As others have already mentioned, answer keys pointing right to left were confusing. The difficulty was definitely on higher side compared to previous tests. The first twopa and also star battle one were definitely worth more points. I indeed ended up making mistake in Twopa and needed 1 extra minute to finish all puzzles. Nonetheless very fun contest. Thanks Prasanna and LMI. |
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GaS
Posts: 24
Country : ITALY | GaS posted @ 2019-01-30 4:11 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Twopa | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
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kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2019-01-30 2:07 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Puzzles were great! I also had issues with the answer key arrows pointing the wrong way. Also in the Twopas, this new shaded cell approach is a problem for answer entering. We have to guess early anyway, and solve on both grids like a normal Twopa, ignoring the shaded cell until we work out which grid it is part of. In my case my solutions ended up on the wrong side, and then I got confused (needed 5 submissions, my own fault ). At least you could have made A and C the same row? |
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Administrator
Country : India | randomperson1729 - 2019-01-28 9:32 PM
Hello! First-time participant here!
How do we fill out those questionnaires for feedback on the puzzles? I can't seem to find any links to them.
There will be a link from the score page. |
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vopani
Posts: 739
Country : India | vopani posted @ 2019-01-30 5:57 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Maxi Loop | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
Clean set of puzzles. Enjoyed it. While the puzzle difficulty is good for a PR, just the new theme might make it a bit hard and unusual for the newcomers. Felt the StarBattle was undervalued and the shaded cell in Twopa was just inconvenient. Some of the grids were quite small, I don't think competitors will have a problem printing more pages for larger grids. Favourite puzzles: Maxi Loop, Minesweeper-Nanro, Fillomino-NoriNori Thanks Prasanna!
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SN Sam
Posts: 2
Country : India | SN Sam posted @ 2019-01-30 11:52 PM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Fillomino-Star Battle Relay | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Elyot
Posts: 4
Country : Canada | Elyot posted @ 2019-01-31 12:13 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Shaded Cave-Kurotto Mastermind | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
A lot of the puzzles seemed very suscepible to guessing, e.g. fillomino-starbattle or some parts of the skyscrapers, because you could finish 95% of the first puzzle, and then guess instead of relying on the second puzzle to disambiguate between two final bits of the solution. Not sure how I feel about this. |
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Grizix
Posts: 30
Country : France | Grizix posted @ 2019-01-31 12:31 AM | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Just right | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Skyscrapers-Easy as 123 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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Administrator
Country : India | Congratulations to Endo Ken, Hideaki Jo and Nikola Zivanovic for taking the top three places.
Amongst Indian participants, Congratulations to Rohan Rao, Amit Sowani and Swaroop Guggilam for taking the top 3 places. Rohan and Amit were the only ones to complete all puzzles.
Of the 188 participants, 28 each were from USA and Japan, and 21 from India. Ganghyun Lee (South Korea) was the first to start the test while Akansha Kansal (India) was the last person to start the test. 40 participants completed the set within the allotted time. The median score of the test was 64.
Thanks Prasanna Seshadri for the puzzles!
Thanks to the participants who have shared feedback so far. Participants may share feedback on the results page and rate the puzzles on the contest page.
A general suggestion to the participants is to READ the Instructions Booklet (especially the answer keys) before attempting the test. Backward arrows were very much there in the IB (and the answers keys were indeed left to right or top to bottom) and there were no questions or concerns raised before the test. Points have still been awarded (penalties have been removed) for all participants who entered the answer keys in the other direction. |
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | I see this point has not been raised. I recommend for future Twopa puzzles (by all authors), put down a better instruction: "for each clue, at least one cell around it is different (shaded in one puzzle and unshaded in the other)", instead of the very vague "must behave slightly differently". |
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vjain9
Posts: 44
Country : India | vjain9 posted @ 2019-02-06 9:44 PM Link to the solution booklet please ? |
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randomperson1729
Posts: 11
Country : United States | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | Which set of puzzles did you like the most? | Linked Minesweeper-Nanro | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | Might be a bit late to add my thoughts here but I thought a week in that it might be better bringing it up again when PR comes back around. Thank you to everyone for all your feedback. I think the general tone has been somewhere between liking the new theme and the consideration that it might be too hard for PR.
The reason I am bringing this up is it is relevant to how we see PR in general. I think that it is meant to be a gateway contest series for Indian beginners to prepare for the Indian Championship and eventually the World Championship. This means it needs to give solvers a level of basic preparation for higher levels while also providing approachable levels of difficulty.
There are exceptions but I think overall the results show that the difficulty was definitely at an approachable level for beginners. This does not necessarily mean beginners should finish the contest, but that everyone should have at least some puzzles to realistically attempt in their contest period and I think that was achieved here.
So I'd like to add beyond that that at the higher levels, there aren't always rounds you are comfortable with. I personally think experimenting for 1-2 rounds during the online segment is a very good thing to do to showcase the different things that can be done at those levels - if anything it is a very safe space to learn new things because solvers can discard a round or two in terms of results. I think for someone getting into puzzle contests, 4-5 rounds of optimum performance and 1-2 rounds of learning new things is a good balance to have.
This is all to say that in my opinion at least we should continue having 1-2 rounds that push the envelope a bit - someone suggested Liar puzzles, which sounds like a cool idea to do as well for instance :)
Once again, thanks to everyone for the feedback. All the best for the remainder of the series! |
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Administrator
Country : India | |
Connected Puzzles - 25th - 29th Jan 2019 - Puzzle Ramayan & IPC Qualifier