Logic Masters India announces September 2011 Puzzle Test — Sprint Test (Introduction)

Dates : 03^rd and 04^th September

Length : 35~75 minutes

IB and Submission Link : http://logicmastersindia.com/M201109P/

Author : Bastien "Ours brun" Vial-Jaime

Interesting. I had the same idea I was going to suggest to Deb. Guess I'll be aiming for 50 minutes.

Thanks Bram.

The table shown in the IB doesn't have all data points. But it is just a linear table.
One gets 4.8 seconds less for every rating point above 500. Since your current rating is 768, you get litter more than 56 minutes.

Good ! This test was originally supposed to be an experiment, to be reconducted if successful, apart from the "standard circuit" of monthly tests. Finally, since no other puzzle test was planned for this month, it has been decided that it would act as september puzzle test - but in the future, if other authors are interested to organize such short and easy tests, maybe it will be possible to really establish a new, distinct, formula. Don't want to speak for Deb and LMI team of course, but I think it could be interesting.

It hadn't been foreseen, but this small test will definitely be a good way to relax a bit after the big tough one which is going to be the USPC...

I know, but I was trying to be ambitious.



Think it's a good idea to cater to all people who compete. It brings a different challenge for the top solvers, somewhat comparable with what the short rounds in a WPC bring.

I agree with Bram that it is good to test solvers at different things (sprints versus large puzzles, "classics" versus variants) as well as occasionally having tests with easy/easier puzzles. My one worry is having 40+ minutes on the clock when I hit submit and having one tiny error to lose 80+ points. I've been pretty clean recently, so let's hope I can race to the finish and do that 36 minute target justice.

Sounds cool. My plan is to sprint through the first 63 minutes to see how far I get, and only then enter the answers. Or, perhaps, finish before 63 minutes? Or, perhaps, not write the test again. :(

why is there more of puzzle tests and less of sudoku tests?

There is 1 puzzle test and 1 sudoku test every month. July had 5 weekends, so there was an additional test. If the additional test was a sudoku test, someone would've asked "why is there more of sudoku tests and less of puzzle tests?" :-)

Between May'2010 and Jul'2011, we have had 17 monthly puzzle tests and 16 monthly sudokus tests, so I think that is a fair ratio.

We would like to continue in this mode (1 sudoku and 1 puzzle test per month) for as long as we can, but if ever we have to reduce the frequency, we might reduce the frequency of sudoku tests. Firstly because we get more puzzle sets from authors than sudokus, and also to quote a former World Sudoku Champion, sudoku captures just 10% of all interesting logic puzzle space

The bonus system will most probably be changed. Deb and I are not happy with the current one, but we didn't have much time to think about it before. We definitely want to avoid the case of a player solving everything very quickly and losing a huge amount of points because of a small mistake.

If the player has a lot of time left, the player "can" spend time (as much time as the player wants) in checking the answers before hitting on "claim bonus". If someone still submits early with a mistake (with a "lot" of time left), he/she should be penalized to some extent.

Of course he should. The question is "to what extent ?". I agree that players can check their answers before hitting the "claim bonus" button. But on the other hand, we ask players to go as fast as possible; expecting them to spend 10' checking carefully every puzzle and re-reading all their answers is somewhat contradictory.
Mistakes will be penalized; but the idea is to avoid players restraining themselves to go fast - I do not see puzzle solving as russian roulette.

Anyway, no decision has yet been taken.

What about this. A player finishes, he's (or she's) happy with the solution and clicks on "CLAIM BONUS". then he/she notices there is a mistake. There should be a second button like "SUBMIT NEW/DIFFERENT ANSWERS or AMEND ANSWERS", the player clicks on that, can amend the answers, click on "CLAIM BONUS" again. In this case the player will be awarded a bonus reduced by 50% (calculated on the basis of the time he clicks "CLAIM BONUS" the second time). facility to be used once only, if there are other mistakes he/she has'nt found the first time, they will stay.

I think too many buttons will not be good. It is understood that once you click on "claim bonus" the test is over for you.

One possible solution that I don't know if you are thinking about is to not necessarily deduct the value of time bonus, but to deduct some fixed number of minutes from the total count of time bonus (similar to a WPC playoff where a mistake is a one minute penalty, but immediate grading isn't used on this test). The penalty would still only be used in the case of just one wrong, and the solver would still lose the puzzle points, so it would be a 20-30 point mistake most likely. One thing I prefer about penalizing time and not point rate is that it applies equally to all solvers, and seems to let you fairly run a test for long enough that many many solvers get a chance to finish.

Edited by motris 2011-08-29 9:24 PM

Here's an idea that combines what you just said above with some of your earlier ideas about instant grading (which I said back then I was skeptical of). When you hit Claim Bonus, if there are any wrong answers,
- you lose some amount of time: maybe a fixed 5 minutes, maybe 3 minutes per wrong puzzle, maybe something else.
- you are told which puzzles are wrong.
- the timer continues, if it didn't get knocked down to 0 by the penalty, and you may correct your puzzles and hit Claim Bonus later with no other penalties beyond the subtracted time.

Awhile ago it was brought up the author/organizer has to set a very thorough list of alternate acceptable answers for this instant grading to work. The above system has the same concern of course.

I don't want to take-over this discussion thread with implementation discussion that doesn't feel appropriate to this test which won't have any interface changes. But the one thing in your suggestion that I do not like is to dynamically change the solver's clock during the test. It feels safer to log potential penalty data, and apply scoring changes later (where some penalties may be removed if a solver's submission is indeed considered right for whatever reason after inspection), but make sure every solver gets the same total time for initial submission.

A rather different implementation, similar to the end of the screen test, would be to have a 2 minute "review" process after the test finishes for any solver, either when their clock runs out, or they hit claim bonus. In that time "mistakes" can be corrected, but only for puzzles that already had submissions, and the test grader will certainly see the strings that were amended to determine if a solver was fairly using the time just to check and not to do more solving. I'm still trying to decide on the right match for my future LMI test, but I think we'll really address these questions when that comes up. For Bastien's test I'd be happy with something rather simple but fair, as I do look forward to a test that perhaps 30 or more people might finish.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Indeed, for this test we wanted to avoid bonus systems which would have needed to change the interface; so we have decided to stay on something quite simple but, I hope, more fair than the previous system. It will be made of two parts :

1) a player who finishes early, either with 14 or 15 correct puzzles, will get 3 bonus points per minute.
2) additionally, if all the 15 puzzles are correct and whatever the remaining time is, the player will get a fixed 25 points bonus.

This way, nobody should loose more than 25 points (the puzzle points excepted) on a single typo.

The points distribution is close from what we could get with Thomas' suggestion of deducing a fixed number of minutes ; the main difference being that this way, there remains a significative difference between two players finishing with a few minutes saved, one with 15 puzzles and the other one with 14.

An updated version of the instruction booklet should probably be available in some time.

An updated version of the instruction booklet IS available.

A small note about Akari. It is only necessary to enter the column position of left most light bulb for each row.

For the following grid, answer key is BABDACB. Same rule for Star Battle.

The submission page was showing target time of 60 minutes for all players with rating < 500. This was a typo and has been fixed. Thanks Fred76 for reporting.

Note that target time is just for display purpose. For everyone, submissions will be allowed until 75 minutes, irrespective of the target time.

Puzzle Booklet uploaded. It has 8 pages. Each page has 2 puzzles, except the last page. There is no header page.

Flash submission enabled too.

So, now my target time is 75 minutes, but what about my target points

In your case, your target points are exactly equal to your number of posts on LMI forum.

Now if you are wise, you will not answer this.

you know me: you know that I am wise

Score page link - http://logicmastersindia.com/M201109P/score.asp

As usual, please use the score page to settle all claims

For Fortress, the Answer Key instructions advise: "Write the length of separate white cell blocks in the marked rows and/or columns (write 0 if there is none). The answer for the example would be 1, 1."

Frankly, its a bad noninstructive example. If there were 2 separate white cells of length 1 in the first row, should the answer have been 11, 1 (a one for each separate white cell block) or 2, 1 (providing the aggregate "length of the separate white cell blocks")

Thanks.

For Galaxies, the Answer Key instructions advise: "Write the length of distinct regions parts in the marked rows and/or columns."

Just as in Heyawacky, symmetrical "galaxies" can double back on themselves and have arms or legs separated by other galaxies. In such instances should the answer reflect each portion of a multi-part single galaxy by the length of its aggregate distinct parts, or each portion separately?

Thanks.

Edited by thesubro 2011-09-03 8:02 AM

Does anyone know of a good tutorial for how to do Heyawake? That is easily my biggest blind spot now when it comes to puzzles. I managed to get everything else on this test solved (and mostly correct!) near my target time, but never finished the Heyawake. I've been practicing them, and still it's rare for me to finish one.

In that case, you still need to enter the "different" number of galaxies.

As for having fun, this test was certainly a lot of fun. Thanks a bunch for the elegant puzzles, Ours brun! :)

And the test was definitely doable in the time allotted, but that didn't prevent me from breaking a puzzle because I couldn't count to 3, restarting, getting to the final step, and then wondering for 5 minutes why it didn't have a unique solution, again because I missed something and couldn't count to 3. I ended up not solving it. Oops.

It should be 11,1
Note that several puzzles in this test use the same mechanism for answer key. Please check NURIKABE, HEYAWACKY, HORSE SNAKE, LITS

As usual, LMI is the the top site for online puzzle test fun, both in terms of the quality of the test taking mechanisms as well as the product. Thanks for all of the hours that the puzzle creators (By Bastien « Ours brun » Vial-Jaime) and Deb put into these efforts.

With that all said, I personally stink at Galaxies and Snake puzzles, so I was not looking forward to them on the test - and my concerns were accurate. I guess I will need to wait for a treatise to be published by Motris or MellowMelon so that I can advance my puzzle career.

Folks, great fun again. Thanks so much.

TheSubro

i dont see the password and Pdf can not open, anyone knows? (my time is started, immediate pleasee :) )

The password is shown below the timer. If you still can't see the password, send me a message

ahh sooo, ok i see thanx for reply

All claims will be looked into. Sometimes, it might take a while.
Please check your forum inbox for updates.

Will the Hall of Fame entries be based on how much better than the Target Time you achieved?
Sure we want to know who was fastest overall, but the same names are always seen on the podium.
Here is a rare chance for the normal puzzlers to achieve a small amount of glory! :)

My pulse is racing more than on any other test. Waiting till the end to do all the typing didn't help. Many good designs and definitely "sprint" was the captured feel. Thanks Bastien!

Yeah, I can concur with having the pulse racing. Although here, that took the place of the huge amount of sweat I've started to feel all over me after finishing a 90+ minute test.

With no one participating now, Sprint test is over. MellowMelon (33:51), motris (34:05), xevs (37:48) take the top 3 positions. Their timings are extremely close (note that xevs took 3.5 minutes to recheck all answers before hitting 'Claim Bonus'). All of them and 3 more in top 10 are well ahead of their 'target' time.

Thank you everyone for participating and for voting in the poll. It is important for us to know what everyone expects.

Some stats :
Total number of participants : 264
Number of non-zero scores : 210
Number of players claiming bonus : 41
Number of players getting bonus : 36
Number of players submitting all 15, but not claiming bonus : 4
Number of players with all 15 correct: 29
Number of players with 14 correct: 19

Median Score : 110

Please post any feedback you might have regarding the test

• Length of the test
• Difficulty of puzzles
• Complexity of puzzles
• Number of puzzles

Bastien will share his thoughts some time later in the day.

Can I ask how I got 4 points out of 5 on Masyu? Was there partial credit somehow?

It looks like your answer was on the "accepted" list, but was not actually correct for the described answer mode. The solution should be 13,22, for lengths of line segments in the indicated rows, and your entry was 24,33 with consistent overcounting. So you got credit, but it counted as a typo for -20%.


------------------
I really liked the test, particularly the page with the Star Battle (123 theme) and the Tapa below (with 1234 by quadrant theme). Some other puzzles also had cute themes that didn't compromise the lower difficulty goal.

You'll notice though that I am the voter with the least interest in seeing these every month or even every quarter. Just as I liked the Screen Test when it was run a year ago, I felt that was something that could happen every year and be a welcome change from the usual. I view this kind of test the same way. I would not want a Sprint Test to replace the 2h tests we've been having every month, nor to add on a third monthly test if that is the alternate option. But I wouldn't mind it once or twice a year as a (literal) change of pace.

One side comment on scoring - we have consistently been granular on the order of minutes when it comes to bonus. I see no reason to not have fractional points to give the most correct accounting of relative performance (particularly when this test greeted me with my score of 986.252 which has excessive significance anyway). One side effect is with fractional bonus you will never have the rankings incorrectly sorted after a test which I seem to see this time around with Janka1 behind Spelvin despite earlier submission and onigame ahead of two others despite being in the same minute too. Order could change with refreshing, but it should certainly sort by score and then time. (I think the specific bug is sorting on last correct submission and not "claim bonus" time.)

Edited by motris 2011-09-05 8:21 AM

I think its sorted based on "points + last correct submission time" currently. It should perhaps be changed to "points + claim time + last correct submission time". We are seeing this effect because of many claims this time (unlike earlier tests).

Certainly a glitch there. Will fix that in a while.

Updated score page - http://logicmastersindia.com/M201109P/score.asp

skywalker > Janka1 > spelvin
ByronosaurusRex > S_Aoki > onigame

Also,
Para > tarotaro > ppeetteerr

Players with same scores but less than 14 puzzles correct are sorted by "Last Correct Submission" irrespective of "Claim Bonus Time"

It was not necessarily a typo, but was a misunderstanding of answer key. It was debatable whether it should be 100% or 80%. We had same problems in JPL as well (even though the authors had done a splendid job of explaining using an image)

In fact we had players who entered row A using one method, and row B using another method. So clearly, it is not a good answer key.

We should be using Method 4 described here for loop puzzles.

I dont understand this result.
As I see the score page, I think the target time column is totally pointless. If you delete it, then the order wont be change.

I thought before the test the target time is important. And I thought I will get points for my saved minutes from my target time. This would be logical.

We had planned the Sprint test such that a 'lot' of players should be able to complete the whole set. That also meant top players will be completing the set much earlier. That is when we thought of adding a 'target time' for each player based on LMI ratings.

While giving bonus points based on 'target — achieved' certainly came across my mind, it was not done primarily because of reasons below.
1) There was no scientific / logical way to compute the target time. Rakesh had an interesting idea, but we stuck to a simple linear formula.
2) There are several new players who were playing first time. They didn't have a target time. For example onigame, Nilz
3) There are several players who have started to play at LMI recently (just 1 or 2 tests). Target time for them is clearly not accurate. For example murat, TiiT

In future Sprint Tests, it will be definitely interesting to fine tune target time. But I'm still now sure if we can give some points based on 'target — achieved' because of points 2 and 3 above.

And should there be penalty if target < achieved?

I am inclined to believe a serious usage of target time will not be worth much if you base it only on ratings (and I have no idea what else to base it on), for the same reason winning Under-X rating sections in chess tournaments is usually a matter of being significantly underrated. Even among players with established ratings, they can be in the process of improving, or others conversely may be a little rusty if they took a brief break from these tests. Either way their rating would not be the best reflection of their skill level.

To me the current system, where the target time is a recommendation with no impact on scores or rankings, seems to serve all the intended purposes well enough. One change that couldn't hurt is to have a separate unofficial ranking list with the best performers relative to their target time.

Naturally, I see the problems with "my" bonus system.
But in this test the target time hadnt function, and I hope it will have in the future :)

I dont have better idea than making an offical and unofficial result.
You can perform on offical list if you have at least 6 non-zero results before the Sprint test. And in this case the target time can be accurate.

I know, I disqualify many solvers, but if the LMI hold a Sprint test in every half year, than this isnt a big problem :)

There will always be players who's rating does not reflect their capability, especially, those who play few tests, or those who are new-comers, like Deb mentioned. So, I would second Palmer's suggestion of having the target time just as a 'benchmark' for players, having no impact on scores. A list of best players relative to their target time would be an interesting read.

Also, regarding the frequency of these tests, it is certainly not feasible to have it once a month. Once a quarter sounds like a good regular event. It helps amateurs gain confidence and motivation throughout the year when there are simpler tests.

I am one of the four players who submitted 15 solutions but did not claim the bonus.

well, I had 14 solutions and 6 minutes to go. Had I clicked on the CLAIM BONUS button I'd earned 18 points, but if I could solve the final puzzle I 'd earned 45 points, so I tried to do it, but unfortunately I didn't succeed. I submitted an asnwer but I noticed it was wrong so I kept trying (unsuccessfully) to solve te puzzle until the last minute (panic!!), so I got no points out of my last 6 minutes. If I (or another player) had only two or three minutes after puzzle #14, by hitting the CLAIM BONUS button would earn immediately 6 or 9 points. Motris may find this situation familiar because of what happened to him in Zilina. In the past the time bonus was calculated only on the basis of last submission time. Is the CLAIM BONUS button really necessary?

Also, I noticed that a player who did not hit the CLAIM BONUS button has not been awarded not only the time bonus, but also the 25 points for completing all the puzzle correctly, I believe this is unfair.

Apart from this, the puzzle set was good (I like particularly the FORTRESS), but in my opinion the puzzles were not exactly "EASY" as defined somewhere (I had a debate with Deb on a different forum). Easier than usual, OK; the contest was solvable in the 75 minutes time, OK, (although my target seemed to me unrealistic, other players of similar level have achieved it), but if the target was to attract new players I believe only a few 5 or 10 points diagrams were simple enough for beginners.

stefano

Edited by rakesh_rai 2011-09-05 2:08 PM

Yet another bug. Updated score page. Melvy gets 225.

As far as I understand this, players with 14 correct will be awarded a bonus ONLY IF they have genuinely attempted the fifteenth puzzle also, i.e., it is not a bonus for doing 14 puzzles, but only on submitting 15 puzzles (with one mistake). So by hitting the CLAIM BONUS, you may not immediately gain 6 or 9 points automatically.

However, as you said, the interface is simpler without the extra button.

It doesn't sound to me that the system is broken in your case. You had 6 minutes to earn 45 points and chose to go for them instead of stopping early. (There was also the chance one of your 14 submissions was incorrect so you can not be sure you would even have gotten the 18 points for sure.)

When I've discussed "partial" bonus before, it has been in the context of having a reasonable but incorrect answer on the last puzzle. A blank submission would not count, and the administrators would judge whether to award it on a case-by-case basis. I believe this is the fairest way to do it, to sometimes award some points to early finishers (ie uvo) who made a mistake, but not so many that a solver would really benefit from stopping early and not trying to complete the test.

Having an end test button is also meant to allow someone who finishes early, for example 40 minutes early, to not have to spend the next 40 minutes constantly checking their work before seeing their score. It also exactly matches the WPC round/time bonus methodology of turning in your paper before you start your finish clock. That >90% of players (41 of 45) that could have claimed bonus did suggests the button generally works, particularly since the vast majority of those solvers ran into this situation for the first time.

Your last point is most important though. I agree that "claim bonus" should only affect time bonus points and not the 25 point overall bonus for being complete and correct. I do not recall if the instruction booklet was clear on this point, but I would view someone who took the last ~5 minutes to simply check their work and not turn in to be worth full marks and completion bonus whether here or on a WPC. They simply wouldn't get extra time/rank bonus.

And now reading the rest of the thread, I see that Deb has corrected the one instance where the 25 points was not rewarded. So I think this was an unintentional error and is certainly now fairly resolved.

Sorry for my very limited presence these days but I have been travelling all day yesterday and I will be again today, so here are just a few words ; I shall complete them later.

Firstly, many thanks to all the players who had a try at this test. Despite its shortness and facility, it really needed lots of work to make it fulfill our purposes as much as possible. The big participation, as well as all the positive feedbacks I got before, during and after the test are a great reward and make it largely worth the spent time.

Congratulations to Palmer, Thomas and Ko for topping the test with around 34' total time each, and to all the people who did their best to try to beat their target time.


I am glad you noticed the 4 quadrants theme on Tapa; I was slightly afraid no one would see it. For me it is one detail that makes the puzzle more than just a very easy tapa. But I will post some more comments about the puzzles themselves later.


About that : I voted for once a month, which is kinda dishonest since I would rather go for once in two months. What is sure is that I would clearly not want to see it replace the current monthly puzzle tests (which had never been the idea) and 3 different tests in a month would perhaps be too much indeed, in particular if we consider the fact that more and more sites are organizing puzzles/sudoku competitions. Anyway - my main desire is to have easier puzzle tests on a regular basis, even if it is only twice a year. The idea seems to seduce many players, which is the essential point. I now just hope we can work together to make it happen.

I abbreviate since I really need to sleep a bit.

Thank you all once again and see you quickly to pursue this discussion. I hope most of you, if not all, had fun; and before everything else, I hope newcomers found a sufficient interest in the test to consider participating in future puzzle competitions.

The idea of the poll was not to change the scheduling of LMI tests. We are certainly not going to add a 3rd monthly test, it is lot of work for us. Replacing the regular 2h test is obviously not an option.
At the same time, the polls suggests that it is interesting to have easy puzzle tests (e.g. Sampler Platter / FLIP / this test). We'll keep that in mind. It is always a difficult task to cater to all kind of solvers with much wide experience and expertise.

Regarding partial bonus :

Just to repeat what Rakesh and motris posted, partial bonus is not to encourage players to leave early, and get the time bonus. We expect players to be greedy and try to get as much points as possible. Also, the wrong puzzle will be manually checked to determine if the player has tried to solve it genuinely. It is some times difficult in a puzzle test, but I would assume that anyone with 10+ minutes bonus and a wrong answer has tried to solve the puzzle genuinely.

In the upcoming Sudoku test, we'll enforce a rule which requires player to have filled at least x correct cells of the 17 cells to be eligible for partial bonus.

As a relatively new puzzler I would love to see some of the easy puzzle tests appear more frequently. I can see your dilemma. For many of the world class puzzlers on here, that would not present much of a challenge, but it would be great occasionally to see a competition aimed at people like myself who are keen (but quite slow!) puzzle solvers. I donlt imagine I could ever compete with the top solvers however hard I practised, but I would still find it fun to enter the competitions and try to beat my own scores etc. At the moment I find I am downloading quite a few of the puzzle booklets and then not submitting my score because it is too low to bother with! I then take away the booklets and do the puzles at leiisure when I can usually complete most of them in the end I have to say I really enjoy the challenge and variety of the puzzles in these tests because you get so bored with all the regular sudokus that appear in every magazine over here! I really enjoyed the Sprint test puzzles, but was just too slow to enter my results!

Just to say I really appreciate all the hard work everyone puts in here - it's a great site. Thank you.

I'm a new puzzler and I have tried online puzzle test for the first time, with this Sprint Test. I have appreciate it so much !!
I agree with Gramar. If possible we need other session of puzzle for beginners.
I am slow too, never tried to solve puzzle with timer.
I agree with Forcolin too, about this test was not so "easy" for newbie. The time is not sufficient for who of us that have tried periodically some puzzle on magazines, considering that many of them never appeared on magazines, and the difficult is absolutely not easy for other of new puzzler that have never tried this kind of game, or done it too few time.

Anyway, I will exercise with past tests, and hope do better next time :)

Congratulation for your work !!

can anybody post the solution of horse snake (in form of image).
and how to solve the Galaxies puzzle (i am finding it hard to solve it)

Thanks for the very good and fun puzzles from a beginner point of view.

As the test was designed for beginners/medium level players, and as I fit very well this category, I've some thoughts about this test:

I think that the main thing for me is that there was to many different puzzles if you consider that the goal is to introduce new players to puzzles. Perhaps is it also related to my proper way to approach things:
As a beginner, I would prefer a tournament introducing to me perhaps 4-5 types of puzzles, with 3-4 easy/medium grids for each type, so I could really get into them, memorize rules and become comfortable with them, understand the logic of the puzzle, etc...
The amount of work to become comfortable (without speaking of being really competitive) with a puzzle type is not negligeable (even if it's not comparable with the time spent to create grids and organize such a test), especially for an inexperienced player. With 15 puzzle types, I think it's too much for someone who does not know most types of puzzle. I had not much time to prepare this tournament, so I began to solve puzzle which I already knew enough about the rules and after that, I stopped solving.

It's just a personal point of view about sprint test designed mostly for new players. As you said in the instructions booklet: "Our main objectives with this test are to catch the interest of potential new players, who may be afraid of standard tests which are usually designed for experienced puzzlers"
I was also afraid of the number of new puzzles I had to study to be happy of my performance on this test.


Fred

Horse Snake was one of my favourites of this test.

Edited by Rohan Rao 2011-09-06 9:42 PM






Attachments
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HS Solution.png (9KB - 2 downloads)

Since a lot of beginners/new-comers/leisure-solvers participate at LMI and many of them do not submit answers due to 'low scores', we can possibly have more tabs on the Results Page. Apart from the complete results, we could have (say) 5 different tabs showing results of only those participants belonging to a certain category (which can be probably based on LMI ratings). So, all players with a rating below 200 can see results of all participants whose rating is below 200. Players whose rating is between 200 and 400 can see results of all participants whose rating is below 400. And so on.
(The number and section of tabs can be discussed).

I dont know how useful it would be, but it could certainly be an interesting part of the Results page. Players can compare their scores with players 'of similar level'.

I found the Galaxies puzzle pretty nontrivial myself. Here is a text-only logical walkthrough for it.

1. The two bottom right galaxies can be finished first
2. R2C3 has to be part of the galaxy with R4C4; hence R7C6 also is
3. R5C2 has to be part of the galaxy with R4C4; hence R4C7 also is
4. R2C2, R2C1 are both part of galaxy with R3C2; hence R4C2, R4C3 also are
5. The above means R5C6, R5C7 can't be part of the R4C4 galaxy; it can easily be checked only the R6C7 galaxy can contain them
6. This means R8C7, R8C8 are part of that galaxy also
7. The large galaxy in R4C4 has to contain R6C5 to reach R7C6, and symmetrically has to have R3C4 also
8. That means R7C4 can't contain R6C5, hence symmetrically can't contain R8C3
9. Then only the R9C2 galaxy can contain R8C3
10. Notice it also has to contain R9C4, so symmetrically it contains R9C1, R10C2
11. Since the bottom R10C4 galaxy can't contain R10C2, it can't contain R10C6 either, leaving only one galaxy that can (R9C6)
12. This seals off R8C6; that gives more info about the R4C4 galaxy and finishes the R6C7 galaxy
13. Note R5C8 can only be contained by the R4C9 galaxy, so it symmetrically contains R4C10
14. This boxes in a bunch of space on the bottom, so we can actually finish the R4C9 galaxy here
15. R3C10 is hard to get to; only the R2C7 galaxy can contain it, also needing R2C9, R2C10
16. Drawing in the symmetric squares, we can easily finish all of the R1C4, R1C8, R2C7 galaxies
17. This gives us a lot of boxed in space in rows 3 and 4, as well as R2C4 which the R4C4 galaxy has to contain; draw in the symmetric squares
18. As a result, the R7C2 galaxy can't reach R8C2, so R9C2 has to reach it
19. This finishes R9C2, R8C1, R10C4, R9C5
20. From R4C4 containing R2C4, we get R7C4 is a single cell, which finishes off R7C4, R7C2, R6C1, R4C1
21. The remaining three galaxies are easy

If this isn't clear enough (likely), I can try to whip up some images. Broadly speaking, the important thing to recognize is that there are relatively few galaxies that are not on the edge, so that means that there are relatively few options for which galaxies can contain which non-edge squares, and you should focus on this to move forward. For example, step 2 is motivated by seeing the top left corner has almost no one nearby except R3C2 and R4C4, and so you pick a square R3C2 can't reach, such as the one symmetrically opposite the R4C1 galaxy, and the result (R2C3) is probably forced to be a part of the larger one - it is.

Hmmm, I worked right to left in that puzzle. Mainly on the fact that cells like R3C10 and R6C910 can only belong to one galaxy, which helps you fill out the whole right top instantly.

Thank you rohan and mellowmelon..
can u post the final image of galaxies.
if you can tell where i can find few practice puzzles for galaxies and horse snake.


Edited by rakesh_rai 2011-09-07 11:08 AM

There's a ton of Galaxies puzzles at Otto Janko's site: http://www.janko.at/Raetsel/Galaxien/index.htm

I will publish a file with all solutions soon.
Regarding Horse Snake, the only such puzzles I know come from Oguz Atay Puzzle Contest 3, organized by Serkan and Gulce. I have some connection problems, so I do not have a link to give you right now.

Some very interesting comments from beginners/average solvers here. I will answer to all this later in the day.

I noticed that the number of participants in Sprint Test was a new high at LMI. Congratulations to all involved with the test !!!

For the record, here are the Top 5 "Box Office" numbers so far at LMI (excluding ISC/IPC):

Test Name	When?	Total participants	Nonzero participants
Sprint Test	September 2011	264(1)	211(1)
Japanese Puzzle Land	August 2011	258(2)	203(2)
Fivefold Sudoku Test	July 2011	221(4)	199(3)
20/10 Puzzle Decathlon	October 2010	226(3)	191(4)
Nikoli Selection II	July 2011	215(5)
Screen Test	December 2010		183(5)

Edited by rakesh_rai 2011-09-07 4:36 PM

we probably shouldn't including ISC 2011

OK. ISC/IPC excluded now from the list.

I tried but then i didnt found anything.
if you can post the link later also its fine.

Swaroop, it is very simple. Try again.

Open the IB and go to the last page. It is printed that Horse Snake appeared in "O?uz Atay Puzzle Contest 3"
Now google for "O?uz Atay Puzzle Contest 3"
The first link you get, you will see the IB and PB.
Puzzle booklet has 4 puzzles of Horse Snake type.

Sorry for the delay, I have big difficulties to get a connection these days.



Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Stefano, I don't know to what "somewhere" you are referring, but I was careful to say "rather easy" in the Instruction Booklet, since I knew that no two people agree on the definition of "easy".
One precision first : the idea was not to have puzzles that beginners may find easy. It was to have puzzles which would be easy enough so that beginners may be able to solve them, which is not exactly the same thing. However your point is still valid ; not all the puzzles were solvable in a reasonable time by beginners, and some were simply too tough for such a test. It is always hard to determine this, in particular for types such as Fortress or Galaxies that never appear in competitions. That is why we were attached to the fact of having some feedbacks : they will certainly be useful to the organizers of future such tests.


Very interesting remark. My idea was that, with many puzzle types, a beginner would always find some puzzles to his likes. The weakness of this choice is obvious indeed : adapting to these 15 types in a very short time is out of reach of a beginner. Certainly something to keep in mind. One idea that comes to my mind is a series of tests each dedicated to a theme : loop puzzles, latin squares, etc. In each test, 5 puzzle types, 3 puzzles per type. Maybe there is an idea to dig, here.

Here is a file with all solutions : Link