Two questions for IB.

1. (Page 3) How many pages in Puzzle booklet?
2. (Puzzle 19-20 & Solutions) Max Spiral Galaxies: Is there any areas that are no dots or asymmetric? I think rules should be modified.

Sorry about that. Rules are correct. There is a typo in the solution. The center dot should not have the left and right edges, it will be corrected in the next version.

Hello all, If you are new to these puzzle types, Instruction booklet does contain links where you can practice these puzzle types. Additionally you can also watch the following existing tutorial videos to learn some tricks and get started:
Double Choco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S723gWflAHc
Fillomino - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2qTNJoLD1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATm4asc4UAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMQ-1uymA4A
Sashigane - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-bcqW7tBaE
Spiral Galaxies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxHD4Mb0iaI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bfj5vbbQBo
Compass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_l7A6TjdHE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1wnHMKOGv0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZjSf_dB6-Q

PB pages will be released by this evening but consider it similar to other rounds, 8-9 pages.

Hi,

For the Max Spiral galaxies, I came up with a solution that is different from the one on the IB. The circles in first and second rows are in a region with 3 cells each (one with the circle and one to the left and right). The circles in the 3rd and 4th row are in a region of only 1 cell containing that circle. All the remaining cells are in one region.

I am not sure if I am missing some rule and my solution is wrong because of that. Can someone please check?

Thanks,
nikhil

Hi Kheti,
As the rule of spiral galaxy says, the region must be 180 degree symmetrical at the central circle point. i.e. If you take a region to the left side of a circle and you rotate by 180 degree, that should be the shape on the right side of a circle.
Whereas in your case thats not the case with the 5th row circle.
Here are some more sample examples - if it helps - https://git.io/JY2fg

Best of luck to all participants.

Hi,

I am new to Penpa and was looking for a way to enter a number and draw an edge without having to switch between the two repeatedly, mainly for Filomino.

Is there a way to do that?

Thanks,
Nikhil

Currently there is no hybrid mode. But I hope you are aware of Tab feature. Pressing Tab allows you to quickly switch between Number and Edge.

Excellent test ... had fun solving all the puzzles I could ... :)

Wow, pretty difficult round! The Fillominos in particular seemed quite tricky (especially Fillo 1; I didn't expect to need a maximality argument for a 4 point puzzle). Solid puzzles though; I'll get around to the ones I didn't do someday :)

Thanks. I am glad you had fun.
I hope you solve all the remaining puzzles in your leisure.
Feel free to ask here if you get stuck or need any help.
I hope you learn some new tricks and solving techniques in the process.

Will solutions eventually be posted? I have a blind spot somewhere and just cannot solve the right hand side of Fillomino 3 (the 12x12) Obviously after the test is over :)

Thank you, it was a very fun set of puzzles! I'm glad I continued on to solve the ones I didn't get to during the test, Compass #3 was a standout for me.

Yes the solutions will be posted after the contest is over, but can take a while sometimes.
But this is restricted forum, so only who have completed the test can see these messages. So feel free to share here and we can help you figure out, whats missing in your solve if you dont wanna wait till the solutions are posted.

Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed.

Thanks Swaroop for the delightful puzzles. My performance was below par. I got stuck with Fillo-1 & 2 at the beginning and got too late to pull back.
Nevertheless, the puzzles were thoroughly enjoyable. My favorites were Double Choco-3 and CombiBlock-3.

Thanks Harmeet. Unfortunate that you got stuck.
I hope you solve all the remaining puzzles at your leisure and enjoy them as well.

Wow. Never expected this performance but i would say this was one of the best PR round i have solved. Of course i had been practicing a bit these days but the puzzle quality was awesome. top notch quality and totally satisfying round. Thanks a lot Swaroop for this wonderful contest :)

Had fun solving these puzzles. The practice links and videos provided were very helpful. I practiced a lot and was pretty confident with filomino, shasigane, spiral galaxies and combi blocks and had decided to attempt these ones first. but as it turned out, I got stuck in the filominoes at the very start and wasted a lot of time there. Headed straight to shasigane and spiral galaxies and got them out of the way and then their Max versions. didn't expect to get stuck in combi block but I had very little time left when I got to it and so made a mistake in hurry. Could not get to the compass puzzles at all.

First time, I tried solving on Penpa. Was fun.

Fantastic set of puzzles but extremely hard for PR. Could have been more enjoyable otherwise.

No particular favourites since most were high quality but generally liked the Combi-Block and Double Choco sets.

Thanks Swaroop!

High quality puzzles but found them way too hard. Heavy dislike for the contest. No fun at all. More easier puzzles would have made the experience better.
Also one feedback regarding formatting. Dotted lines and (dots as well) got wiped off when I erased to fix a broken part in Combi Block (7 pointer)and that left me stranded for the last 20 mins...

Nice and hard puzzles. I practiced most of the types before starting this test and was very (over) confident to complete this test. However, my confidence was shattered with the first Fillomino puzzle itself.
Loved each of the puzzles in this test. Thanks, Swaroop for these great puzzles.

Very nice puzzles! Got spooked a bit by the opening fillominos :) But everything went more or less smoothly except compasses. Glad I got them eventually but I really need to improve at the genre.
Favorites: Double Choco 2, Sashigane 1, Compass 1, Spiral Galaxies 3.
Thank you!

Thanks to the 263 official participants. There were 29 finishers in this round.

Congratulations to Endo Ken, Jeffrey Bardon, Walker Anderson and Freddie Hand for taking the top 4 spots, and scoring 130+ points.

Congratulations to Ashish Kumar, Rohan Rao, Rakesh Rai and Rajesh Kumar for taking the top 4 spots from India. Very good performance by Ashish!

Thanks to Swaroop Guggilam for authoring this round!

Congratulations to all the winners.

Brief background of the contest:
We selected only those types which were available on puzz.link with a thought that it will allow solvers to practice these genres.
I also wanted to challenge myself and so I picked all the new genres except Fillomino. New in the sense, I created these genres for the first time. One thing I realized while setting these genres was, they are so uniqueness prone. I created multiple versions of puzzles which would break at the end because of non-unique. Eventually the struggle came through and I was happy with the logic behind all the puzzles.

Statistics:
Most submitted puzzle: Spiral Galaxies 2 (205)
Most correctly submitted puzzle: Spiral Galaxies 2 (99.51%)
Least submitted puzzle: Compass 3 (76) - Expected
Least correctly submitted puzzle: Max Spiral Galaxies 1 (73.54%) - Shocking

TakeAway:
Firstly Sincere apologies for the minor mistake in the Spiral Galaxies at the start of the contest, which may have affected 4 to 5 solvers. Apart from that, Most of you liked the puzzle quality and enjoyed solving the puzzles. I understand the difficulty became harder than usual PR rounds. I guess being new genres, I couldn't accurately gauge the difficulty and there was less time to do multiple iterations but will surely keep this in mind for next time.

FinalNote:
I hope you solve all the remaining unsolved puzzles in your liesure and maybe also the puzzles you may have guessed through during the contest and would like to discover a nice logical solving path. If you get stuck, feel free to post here and would be happy to guide the next step.
All though I am really happy with the way the puzzles turned out, my personal favourite was the entire Compass Set.
Thanks to everyone for providing their feedback here as well as in the Discord servers.

I now pass the Ball to Priyam for the next PR round (Object Placement). Best of Luck! Eagerly looking forward for the test.

Lovely puzzles Swaroop ! Please do share the solution booklet

hello

Solution Booklet - Link