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Administrator
   
Country : India | |
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Administrator
Country : India |
Logic Masters India announces December Sudoku Test — LMI Screen Test #3
Dates : 21 st — 24 th December
Length : Approximately 60 minutes
Details : here
Designer : Deb Mohanty
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neerajmehrotra
Posts: 329
Country : India | Nice concept....
Please check the answer of E6..I think top row is wrong |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Yes, the given solution is wrong at 3 cells. Will upload a fixed booklet. |
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devarajand
Posts: 114
Country : India | Good Concept |
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manuj
Posts: 4
Country : India | manuj posted @ 2012-12-17 6:46 PM Good concept, but i dint get the meaning behind "Cells that are 180° symmetric to each other cannot have identical digits." in Symmetric Unequal. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | manuj - 2012-12-17 6:46 PM
Good concept, but i dint get the meaning behind "Cells that are 180° symmetric to each other cannot have identical digits." in Symmetric Unequal. Hi Manuj, Good to see your first (of hopefully many in the future ) post here.
Regarding Symmetric Unequal : Mathematically, as written in Speed Sixes IB, it means "R (m )C (n ) and R (7-m )C (7-n ) cannot contain the same number for all values of m and n."
Does that help? |
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manuj
Posts: 4
Country : India | manuj posted @ 2012-12-17 7:09 PM ok,understood now.
the demo was good, but took a lot of time to load each puzzle. |
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Kota
Posts: 33
Country : Japan | Kota posted @ 2012-12-17 8:25 PM I played this demo.
I was so much irritated that the cursor always skips the hint numbers.
Even if the cell which I want to go to next touches the present position on a corner, I won't be sometimes able to reach by two actions.
Must I be accustomed with this system? |
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Administrator
Country : India | A new option is added now - "Skip Givens"
If this checkbox is selected (default behaviour ), givens will be skipped when using UP / DOWN / LEFT / RIGHT arrow keys.
If this checkbox is unselected, givens will not be skipped when using any of the arrow keys.
Hope this helps you.
 (SkipGivens.png)Attachments ----------------  SkipGivens.png (1KB - 3 downloads) |
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Kota
Posts: 33
Country : Japan | Kota posted @ 2012-12-17 10:13 PM Administrator - 2012-12-17 9:44 PM
A new option is added now - "Skip Givens"
If this checkbox is selected (default behaviour), givens will be skipped when using UP / DOWN / LEFT / RIGHT arrow keys.
If this checkbox is unselected, givens will not be skipped when using any of the arrow keys.
Hope this helps you.
I confirmed the changed system.
It seems OK for me. Thanks a lot!
I'll do the best on this test as usual. |
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Fred76
Posts: 337
Country : Switzerland | Fred76 posted @ 2012-12-17 11:21 PM Kota - 2012-12-17 10:13 PM
I'll do the best on this test as usual.
I'm not sure it's a good news for us, haha !  |
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Administrator
Country : India | Keyboad Shortcuts Typing a digitTo type a digit in a cell, make sure that cell is selected. Then just type the digit.
(You can use mouse right click as well to directly select and type in one go.) ClearingFirst select the cell. Press 'Spacebar' or 'Del' key to remove a typed digit.
If you are playing using Numpad, you can press 0 to remove as well.
(You can also use mouse right click to select and clear in one go.) UndoPress 'z' to undo. Control+z works as well.
For continuous undo, keep pressing and releasing 'z' button.
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debmohanty
Country : India | Players finishing all sudokus will get bonus points ( I really don't know if that can happen or not - but we have seen many crazy timings in LMI tests).
Players will get bonus as (seconds saved) * (points earned) / 3600, if all 3 conditions below are met
All 30 sudokus are submitted (within 60 minutes)
No sudoku has blank cells left
Maximum 10 wrong cells. (10 is approximately 1% of total cells to be filled)
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dp_94
Posts: 25
Country : India | dp_94 posted @ 2012-12-20 10:39 PM can digits repeat in quad in quad max min sudoku |
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Administrator
Country : India | dp_94 - 2012-12-20 10:39 PM
can digits repeat in quad in quad max min sudoku Yes. Please check the example, 6 is repeated at the intersection of R4C1,R4C2,R5C1,R5C2 |
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Administrator
Country : India | Some more technical notes
1) Submitting blank cells -
If you click on "Submit And Next" with blank cells in your grid, you will be shown an error. This is done so that you don't submit a blank grid by mistake.
You can get rid of this error by pressing Control while clicking.
Similarly for Clear All
2) Timers
As you might have noticed in the Demo page, there will be 2 timers. One for the current sudoku and one for all sudokus.
Sudokus will be auto-submitted at the end of 5 minutes and also finally at the end of 60 minutes. That means you can just focus on solving without worrying about timer :-)
3) Submissions after 60 minutes is also allowed, although they will not be added in official score. You can view score page after 60 minutes.
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Administrator
Country : India | Screen Test has started. |
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Administrator
Country : India | |
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Administrator
Country : India | |
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sud
Posts: 6
Country : India | sud posted @ 2012-12-21 1:51 PM i started the test , but i cannot see anything on the screen....only two download links
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sud
Posts: 6
Country : India | sud posted @ 2012-12-21 1:53 PM puzzle page in totally inactive.. i dont know but there is some problem with the interface. |
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chaotic_iak
Posts: 241
Country : Indonesia | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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Administrator
Country : India | sud - 2012-12-21 1:53 PM
puzzle page in totally inactive.. i dont know but there is some problem with the interface. Try from a different browser. You need to have flash installed ( http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ ). I have deleted your start.
Edit : It looks like you have started submitting now |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
It seems like ages since I had a really good time of things scoring-wise. Of course, its really early to know just how good it is. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-21 3:07 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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babuli
Posts: 4
Country : India | babuli posted @ 2012-12-21 4:37 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-21 7:44 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Below Average | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-21 8:56 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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neerajmehrotra
Posts: 329
Country : India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
Changed my vote Edited by neerajmehrotra 2012-12-26 7:35 PM
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tamz29
Posts: 225
Country : Thailand | tamz29 posted @ 2012-12-22 12:33 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Bit unfair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
Great puzzles. Scored some top 3 finishes (thus far ). I think the point system is a bit quirky. We'll see how it works out after the test is done. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-22 1:37 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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Skip
Posts: 2
Country : Australia | Skip posted @ 2012-12-22 6:43 AM I loved the Screen Test format, but couldn't finish the more difficult Sudokus inside the 5 minute time limit. Could you please post a puzzle booklet in .pdf format so that I can finish the puzzles at my leisure?
Thanks. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-22 7:29 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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sanket.saxena
Posts: 48
Country : India | When we see the results, some player's rank is marked by orange and green, What does it mean ???? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Skip - 2012-12-22 6:43 AM
I loved the Screen Test format, but couldn't finish the more difficult Sudokus inside the 5 minute time limit. Could you please post a puzzle booklet in .pdf format so that I can finish the puzzles at my leisure?
Thanks. Here is the PB - Link . It is same format as IB (couldn't have made it faster without copy paste ). Also, I have not double checked the solutions.
It is password protected, and password is here |
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mathcrazy
Posts: 35
Country : India | What is the password for the PB? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | mathcrazy - 2012-12-22 3:12 PM
What is the password for the PB? Check your inbox |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-22 8:41 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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Nilz
Posts: 29
Country : United Kingdom | Nilz posted @ 2012-12-22 8:47 PM The solving interface said that my time taken for all sudokus had just past the 60 minute mark, but it didn't tell me that the time was up. Is this because the total time allowed was 65 minutes (because it included the 5 minutes to read the rules), or because even after the 60 mins was up, you can continue to view the puzzles you didn't get round to solving? At the time, I assumed the latter, so I just stopped solving and skipped to the end. But now I'm thinking that the first explanation might be correct, which means I wasted 3 minutes of potentially valuable solving time. Of course, if that's the case it's my own stupidity, but I think it could've been made a bit clearer.
Anyway, nice test, 30 puzzles in 60 minutes is a tough challenge! Having to solve online made an interesting change- it's harder because you can't make pencil marks, but it's easier because there's no messing about with answer keys. I'm not sure which I prefer. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-22 8:50 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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Administrator
Country : India | There is some bug in the forum code, with posts with "An LMI player". It copies the lmi tests results info from the previous poster. ( here & here ) |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Nilz - 2012-12-22 8:47 PM
The solving interface said that my time taken for all sudokus had just past the 60 minute mark, but it didn't tell me that the time was up. Is this because the total time allowed was 65 minutes (because it included the 5 minutes to read the rules), or because even after the 60 mins was up, you can continue to view the puzzles you didn't get round to solving? At the time, I assumed the latter, so I just stopped solving and skipped to the end. But now I'm thinking that the first explanation might be correct, which means I wasted 3 minutes of potentially valuable solving time. Of course, if that's the case it's my own stupidity, but I think it could've been made a bit clearer.
Hi Neil,
I am not sure how exactly the timer behaved for you. We described some of the technical details earlier here. We did not include the instructions reading time in the 60 minutes.
To me, it looks like the score page has a bug, and is not considering your entry which was auto-submitted at the 60 minute mark. The server seems to have received you entries properly.
(Last 3 are submitted after 60 minutes mark ) |
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caudmont
Posts: 18
Country : France | why did the score page limit my time at 50:00 min ? |
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Administrator
Country : India | caudmont - 2012-12-22 10:21 PM
why did the score page limit my time at 50:00 min ? Fixed and you move to 11. Refresh your browser. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-23 12:47 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
hi |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-23 1:56 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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Skip
Posts: 2
Country : Australia | Skip posted @ 2012-12-23 2:23 AM debmohanty - 2012-12-22 12:34 PM
Here is the PB - Link . It is same format as IB (couldn't have made it faster without copy paste ). Also, I have not double checked the solutions.
It is password protected, and password is here
Thanks Deb!
This will keep my mind active on lazy summer afternoons....  |
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Nilz
Posts: 29
Country : United Kingdom | Nilz posted @ 2012-12-23 3:35 AM debmohanty - 2012-12-22 5:34 PM
Nilz - 2012-12-22 8:47 PM
The solving interface said that my time taken for all sudokus had just past the 60 minute mark, but it didn't tell me that the time was up. Is this because the total time allowed was 65 minutes (because it included the 5 minutes to read the rules), or because even after the 60 mins was up, you can continue to view the puzzles you didn't get round to solving? At the time, I assumed the latter, so I just stopped solving and skipped to the end. But now I'm thinking that the first explanation might be correct, which means I wasted 3 minutes of potentially valuable solving time. Of course, if that's the case it's my own stupidity, but I think it could've been made a bit clearer.
Hi Neil,
I am not sure how exactly the timer behaved for you. We described some of the technical details earlier here. We did not include the instructions reading time in the 60 minutes.
To me, it looks like the score page has a bug, and is not considering your entry which was auto-submitted at the 60 minute mark. The server seems to have received you entries properly.
Thanks Deb, I think that explains it. Due to the bug, the clock kept ticking, so I didn't realise that my entry had been auto-submitted (although I'd assumed it would be ). It all looks correct, in that it hasn't given me credit for anything I did after that. |
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Gotroch
Posts: 83
Country : Czech Republic | Gotroch posted @ 2012-12-23 4:27 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Bit unfair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
Thank you Deb, it was very nice test. I usually use pencilmarks very often, but this test disables it, so it was very different solving experience for me. Lot of solving in mind and memory was used. For the scoring - in my opinion penalty system could have been better. In normal tests one wrong digit = zero points. In this test, submission with lots of wrong cells was still awarded with fair amount of points. Next time, especialy for such small grids, there can be some limit of maximum wrong cells (6-8 ) for each puzzle to any points being awarded. Edited by Gotroch 2012-12-23 4:30 AM
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zorko
Posts: 11
Country : Bulgaria | zorko posted @ 2012-12-23 7:58 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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davep
Posts: 43
Country : United States | davep posted @ 2012-12-23 7:52 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2012-12-23 9:33 PM Clearly the worst of all the LMI tests i have taken so far.... |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | kishy72 - 2012-12-23 9:33 PM
Clearly the worst of all the LMI tests i have taken so far....
Do you mean that with respect to experience or performance? I think you can elaborate so future improvements can be made (I do believe that was the main point put forward for needing a comments box in the feedback page ). |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2012-12-23 9:54 PM I meant the test not my performance....My performance is more or less below average in each test....I wish i had unchecked the Ratings checkbox...There was no way to type possible numbers in a box....Besides I dont think the sudokus were arranged according to difficulty levels or 'perceived difficulty levels' as the IB goes....Basically the sentence looks like a joke to me .....overload and a total waste of sudokus....dont like the system which awards points for partially filled cells at all.....Right from the 2nd sudoku none went right...After 20 - 25 mins i was waiting for the test to end....Basically was pressing cntl and submit in each sudoku hoping for atleast 1 sudoku where there would be 'real flow' till the end....sadly none had(i felt)....every sudoku every cell i had to labour to find a number....A TOTAL DAMPENER of spirits after the last 2 months of beautiful sudokus in beginner's |
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kishy72
Posts: 419
Country : India | kishy72 posted @ 2012-12-23 10:06 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Very skewed | | | 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? | Below Average | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Exteremely unfair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Below Average | |
'No comments' |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | Most of your criticisms are valid, and of course we are happy to hear any kind of ideas/feedback as this kind of Screen Test using Sudokus was a concept tried for the first time here. I feel I can answer some of your points though.
The perceived difficulty part is based on test solvers' times which is the same methodology used in mostly any contest as far as I know, and the same I did for my own test too. Obviously, sometimes individual opinions differ from the test solvers' times.
The part about the puzzles not having a flow towards the end, well, the IB states that the attempt was made to place the easier grids in A and B, so thats an indicator that beginners should probably concentrate on solving the stuff at the start as best they can.
The last part too, I feel I can answer. This is, in spite of the small sized grids, a monthly test, and I think we have given warnings in the Beginners' topic that a monthly test is much harder than a Beginners' Contest. I realize of course that you've given other monthlies before, and I'm sure you found them really difficult too compared to the Beginners' Contests. I think its just the fact that you had a 5 minute window per grid to solve here that might make it seem a bit more annoying if you don't finish, but thats probably the reason for the partial points.  |
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cnarrikkattu
Posts: 25
Country : United States | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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Zormac
Posts: 15
Country : Hungary | Zormac posted @ 2012-12-24 2:58 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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Zormac
Posts: 15
Country : Hungary | Zormac posted @ 2012-12-24 3:12 AM Not sure how much of this has been said before, couple of comments on the UI.
- During solving the puzzle, it is a convenience feature if, in addition to picking cells with the mouse, you can also navigate between cells using the arrows. I don't like the fact that such arrow key navigation "jumps over" a cell if it has a given number. I am pretty used to navigate in tables with arrows, be it Excel tables or Croco-Puzzle puzzles, I tend to make very fast movements like "3 to the down and 2 to the right". But ignoring given cells throws this up. I believe that ensuring your arrow keys always make a movement of one unit square would much more resemble industry standard, thereby improving de facto usability.
- The submit button was not very well placed at the far bottom. The confirmation request for submitting unfinished grids is a good idea, though, as one can accidentally miss a cell or two. Then again, one comment regarding the "force submit" - the help says Ctrl-click to force submit: this is actually alt/option-click on a Mac (well, at least on mine), may be worth showing that info as well.
- It would be nice to have a way to put pencil marks into cells, e.g. either-or notes or number ranges or so. I understand this being a screentest, that may not have been the intention, but this interface is much more promising to only ever be used for the odd screen test, and once it grows out of that box, such features might come in handy.
- I overran 60 minutes without being told, I notice this was raised before.
Hope that helps - thanks for the work in the UI and the contest
Zoltan |
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spelvin
Posts: 20
Country : United States | spelvin posted @ 2012-12-24 4:12 AM Zoltan -
There's a checkbox in the lower right you can uncheck so that the arrow keys don't jump over givens. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-24 5:02 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-24 9:29 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Zormac - 2012-12-24 3:12 AM
Not sure how much of this has been said before, couple of comments on the UI.
- During solving the puzzle, ...........
Zoltan Hi Zoltan, Thanks for the detailed input.
Issue about force submit not being clear enough in Mac - It was a miss from my part.
Not having pencil marks - Regular Sudoku tests have pencil marks feature. It was disabled purposefully for this test. I realize it is a debatable decision, and has been noted by other players too.
Players not being notified after 60 minutes - probably the biggest flaw here. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-24 6:55 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Perfectly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
Great format - the variety of tests swas very challenging. Increasing the difficulty as you went was a lot of fun too. I would enjoy seeing this format again. |
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detuned
Posts: 152
Country : United Kingdom | detuned posted @ 2012-12-24 8:19 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
Having a no pencilmark interface is fair for a screentest - after all you are challenging people to solve in their heads - but this is inconsistent with a very powerful undo system which encourages systematic guessing for the harder puzzles. Given how hard some of the puzzles were, I'd have liked to have seen pencilmarks. My only other gripe is that puzzles were either quite easy or quite hard, with not too much in between. Other than that, slick as usual. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | An LMI player - 2012-12-24 6:55 PM
Great format - the variety of tests swas very challenging. Increasing the difficulty as you went was a lot of fun too. I would enjoy seeing this format again. Thank you so much.
detuned - 2012-12-24 8:19 PM
Having a no pencilmark interface ... Thanks Tom for very valuable inputs. Certainly will be useful if/when we consider this format again. I'm tempted towards having no pencil mark, no Undo, but also puzzles that don't require any of them. I thought most puzzles in this test fall into that category, but looking at overall feedback, that does not seem to be the case. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-24 9:19 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Just right | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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adityasaraf007
Posts: 45
Country : India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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joshuazucker
Posts: 31
Country : United States | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
Nice test! There were a few too many hard puzzles among the first 10, I'd say, where I expected them to be relatively easy. There were also a few really beautiful puzzles where you could solve easily if you think about them the right way (which I often only noticed after guessing turned out to give a contradiction, then I'd see what I should have noticed in the first place ) -- those were really nice. I also learned a lot about some types of puzzles where I usually solve on-screen by making tons of notes! I think the trickiest part is when there's unusual rules and the inverse rule is also in effect; it makes pretty puzzles, but hard to solve on-screen with time pressure. |
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detuned
Posts: 152
Country : United Kingdom | detuned posted @ 2012-12-25 12:06 AM No problem - and despite the seemingly indifferent colours provided by my feedback, I quite enjoyed the test. Having a quick scan of the results, there seem to be a strikingly large proportion of wrong entries. My best guess would be a large portion of these occurred as a result of guessing. Then again, this will always be a problem with difficult puzzles in smaller grids.
I'd be very interested to see a variation of this format, again with specific time limits per puzzle, but where the solver can choose the order in which puzzles are solved... |
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debmohanty
Country : India | detuned - 2012-12-25 12:06 AM
I'd be very interested to see a variation of this format, again with specific time limits per puzzle, but where the solver can choose the order in which puzzles are solved... When I explained Branko (my perennial test solver ) about this format, that is the first question he asked. "Will solvers be able to choose the order in which they want to solve?" So certainly something to keep in mind for the next one. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | detuned - 2012-12-25 12:06 AM
No problem - and despite the seemingly indifferent colours provided by my feedback, I quite enjoyed the test. Having a quick scan of the results, there seem to be a strikingly large proportion of wrong entries. My best guess would be a large portion of these occurred as a result of guessing. Then again, this will always be a problem with difficult puzzles in smaller grids.
We can now view each others' exact submissions here |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | So this finishes with me being the only one in the top 10 to not have a single best time on an individual grid. Never thought consistency would be my positive in a test :P |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Sudoku Screen Test is over. This was a different test from regular monthly tests, with every sudoku having time limit and solving in sequence. It was our first attempt, so certainly many points to consider in the next one, if we ever have that. Many thanks to all of you who shared their feedback.
Nevertheless, I sincerely hope everyone had fun to some extent.
Congratulations to uvo, janoslaw and misko for taking the top 3 positions. TiiT and jaku111 are really close to the top 3.
Prasanna has a top 10 rank for the second time now, and it is very significant achievement. Congratulations to Prasanna, Rishi and Rakesh for the top Indian positions.
Edited by debmohanty 2012-12-25 7:35 AM
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john_reid
Posts: 10
Country : United States | I was disappointed just now to find that I was too late to try these puzzles. Most of the LMI competitions I've entered have had clearly displayed starting and ending times on the main page, whereas this one just vaguely stated that it would be open over the '96 hour period from Dec 21-24'. As solvers at this site clearly consist of a worldwide community, over many different time zones, it's definitely worthwhile to have the server times displayed for start time/end time/current time, so that we are all able to plan accordingly and be certain that we will have time to compete. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | We always follow GMT, but yes, it was not mentioned in the Screen Test main page.
It was there in the demo page / submit page, but I assume you didn't check that. Sorry that you missed it, and we'll be mentioning it more clearly in future. |
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john_reid
Posts: 10
Country : United States | Thanks for the response. It was clearly my own mistake for leaving it too late. It was a shame for me because I was really looking forward to this competition. I had tried the demo a few days back but don't remember seeing anything about GMT. Of course I should have thought of that and will keep it in mind for the future.
Thanks for taking the time to design these puzzles - they are a lot of fun! I'll anxiously await the next Screen Test. |
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debmohanty
Country : India | john_reid - 2012-12-25 7:42 AM
Thanks for taking the time to design these puzzles - they are a lot of fun! I'll anxiously await the next Screen Test. Just prepared an unofficial link for you - http://logicmastersindia.com/ST/ST3/unofficial.aspEdited by debmohanty 2012-12-25 8:10 AM
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gowrishankar
Posts: 13
Country : India | Hi Deb,
I was thrilled with the no of Variant Sudokus given, i tried the demo Sudoku ..and was practising for the screen test..! however before the dead line time of screen test, i was not able to take it up; as i was travelling; can you please tell me when ll this screen test happen next time ? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Gotroch - 2012-12-23 4:27 AM
Thank you Deb, it was very nice test.
I usually use pencilmarks very often, but this test disables it, so it was very different solving experience for me. Lot of solving in mind and memory was used.
For the scoring - in my opinion penalty system could have been better. In normal tests one wrong digit = zero points. In this test, submission with lots of wrong cells was still awarded with fair amount of points.
Next time, especialy for such small grids, there can be some limit of maximum wrong cells (6-8) for each puzzle to any points being awarded. Thanks Gotroch. You might not have realized that you were the first solver in the official period. It was lot of fun watching your score updates.
About the scoring system : We didn't have much data to come up with a rigid system. I was keen to play safe, so whenever there was a doubt, I thought it is better to award points to players.
I'm not defending the current system, but here is why it was done this way.
Given that there is a 5 minute cutoff on every puzzle, we needed to have partial points. We* expected many players to have half solved sudokus at the end of the cutoff time (and that is precisely what happened ). We wanted to give some points if something has been solved - so there was no minimum-cells-to-be-filled-to-get-points condition.
And finally, about no penalty for wrong cells : it was again because of the cutoff. Imagine a situation where at the end of 270 seconds, 2 players have filled in same number of cells. (take the example of Skyscraper). They have 30 seconds solve the remaining part. Player A keeps staring at the grid and 30 seconds gets over. Player B does not find the logic, but decides to take a bifurcation, but unfortunately he takes the wrong route and 30 seconds gets over (and sudoku gets auto submitted ) with him having some incorrect cells on the grid. I just thought that Player B shouldn't get less points than Player A. So there was no penalty for wrong cells.
* Thanks to Rohan and Prasanna who very patiently heard about my concept and discussed about it whenever I needed. |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-25 10:22 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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B. Thananon
Posts: 12
Country : Thailand | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Fairly Nice | |
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GBathri
Posts: 1
Country : India | GBathri posted @ 2012-12-25 12:35 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | 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 | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Very fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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witty
Posts: 16
Country : India | witty posted @ 2012-12-25 1:44 PM Hi Deb, I remember attempting puzzle no. B3 (not sure, if I completed it or not, but I did fill in some cells).
However, on the review submission page, it says that I did not submit it!
Could there be some problem with the auto-submit after 5 minutes were complete? |
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debmohanty
Country : India | witty - 2012-12-25 1:44 PM
Hi Deb, I remember attempting puzzle no. B3 (not sure, if I completed it or not, but I did fill in some cells).
However, on the review submission page, it says that I did not submit it!
Could there be some problem with the auto-submit after 5 minutes were complete? Hi Jayant, I checked the database. It looks like you have submitted B3 (Touchy ) at 88 seconds in your timer without filling any cells. So 5 minutes auto-submit does not have a role to play, since you have submitted much earlier.
You started this puzzle at 2012-12-23 19:48:59 and submitted at 2012-12-23 19:50:28, both in India time. You can check the same in the score page as well.
In review page, we are not showing puzzles which are completely blank.
Is it possible that you are thinking about another puzzle B5 (or some other puzzle ) ?
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adityasaraf007
Posts: 45
Country : India | It's so good to see a test with zero `Zero` Scores Edited by adityasaraf007 2012-12-25 3:33 PM
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utkaarsh
Posts: 89
Country : India | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Thank you everyone for using the feedback system and letting us know how you felt about the test.
However, I'm bit confused by the feedback about "Number of puzzles". More than 40% of the votes suggest there were too many puzzles / way too many puzzles.
I thought in the IB, it was clear that 12 puzzles are meant for 'All', next 9 puzzles as 'Bonus', and last 9 as 'Extra Bonus'. If you are not a top player, you were not expected to reach section E in any case. Similarly, if you were a beginner, you should have thought that there were 12 puzzles for you.
If we plan for a similar test in future, I am not sure if we can / should reduce the number of puzzles drastically. It will be interesting to understand why players thought there were a lot more puzzles in this test than what it should have been.
 (TooManyPuzzles..png)Attachments ---------------- TooManyPuzzles..png (16KB - 0 downloads) |
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neerajmehrotra
Posts: 329
Country : India | A very good explanation by Deb....I think now I should change my vote from a bit too many to just right... |
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utkaarsh
Posts: 89
Country : India | Agree to Neeraj,
Overall i think pencil marks was very much needed, we can do away with UNDO option if one of them is to be exlcuded
Nice variety of puzzles , covered a large no of variants
Edited by utkaarsh 2012-12-26 7:51 PM
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Fred76
Posts: 337
Country : Switzerland | Fred76 posted @ 2012-12-26 8:20 PM First, I would like to thank you for this first sudoku screen test. It was interesting, fun, well organized and with nice sudokus.
I would like to give my opinion on 2 points: The number of puzzles and pencilmarks:
About number of puzzles: I asked myself if it's really useful to ask this question to players. Is it really a subjective topic? If you ask me this question, my first reaction will be to look at the ranking and analize it.
So for this test, what I see is that 5 players submitted all puzzles (without leaving some of them after just a few seconds ). Nobody has the perfect score, without mistake; misko didn't make mistake, but he lacked just around 1 minute to finish the test. The other 4 finished the test before the time limit, but with a few mistakes. Janoslaw spared more than 5 minutes, but without the possibility to check the puzzles a perhaps fix some mistakes.
My point is that, with less puzzles, more players would have been able to submit all, but the ranking would not have been fair, because one or 2 little mistakes would have resulted in a lot of places lost, thus perhaps not reflected the performance. For this test, in my opinion, the number of puzzles was just right.
The number of puzzles is always related to the fairness of ranking and scoring. On normal tests (where we can choose the order in which we solve the puzzles ): if there are too little puzzles, one mistake can cost a lot, on the other side, with too many puzzles, you need a perfect evaluation of each puzzle's difficulty to be sure that the ranking is fair, what you can reach only by having at least 10-15 testers in my opinion (what is generally not the case ).
When I organize a tournament, I have the answer to the "number of puzzles/general difficulty" question when I look at the ranking.
The other point is pencilmarks for this test:
I understand the decision not having the possibility to write pencilmarks for this screen test. However I noticed 2 things:
1. Writing pencilmarks is a matter of habit. Some players like to write lot of them, others prefer to write only a few. In that sense, the ranking would not have been the same if we could write pencilmark. Therefore it's an important decision.
2. Not being allowed to write pencilmarks, we were tempted to use more bifurcation/guesses than logical work at some points (on hard sudokus ). I don't like to do some guesses to solve sudokus, normally I try to avoid them when it's possible. I did more guesses than usually on this test.
I would have preferred to have the possibility to write pencilmarks, even if I'm not a big fan of writing lot of them, and even if I'm not sure that my ranking would have been as good.
On a personal note, I'm happy to have made top10 ranking on the last 3 monthly contest, I hope I'll continue the same way in 2013 
Fred |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2012-12-26 10:33 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | 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? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Fair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Average | |
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frst
Posts: 2
Country : France | frst posted @ 2012-12-27 1:12 AM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles? | A bit hard | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? | Exteremely unfair | | | What is your opinion about the solving interface? | Very nice | |
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rvarun
Posts: 268
Country : India | rvarun posted @ 2012-12-27 1:06 PM Hi Deb.
I was on travel during the weekend and hence could not take part in the test.
Can you post the unofficial link of the Screen Test, which was given as reply to john_reid as a Bold or Bigger font so that people who are interested in giving it a try can do it. Also can you extend this till weekend if possible.
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debmohanty
Country : India | rvarun - 2012-12-27 1:06 PM
Hi Deb.
I was on travel during the weekend and hence could not take part in the test.
Can you post the unofficial link of the Screen Test, which was given as reply to john_reid as a Bold or Bigger font so that people who are interested in giving it a try can do it. Also can you extend this till weekend if possible.
Hi Varun, It is extended till weekend.
Here is the link again.
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | Thanks for all the feedback Fred. I'd like to address those two topics too.
When Deb first explained the concept to me, I personally was pretty excited for it. It seemed like a fun, light way to end the year. I'm glad a lot of others enjoyed it too.
A few of the decisions/features/format of the test are of course debatable, but overall I at least thought it was a fun experience (including the minute-refresh feature which can only be used best in such a test :P ).
To Fred's point about number of puzzles, I look for the same thing when evaluating number of puzzles. Every test is ideally planned so that the top 4-5 scorers can finish it and the rest can come close. As Deb mentioned, Branko was the first one to attempt this test, and then I did it. Seeing my score, both me and Deb were unsure of whether to reduce the time limit to 50 minutes. In the end we went with the belief that I'd had a good day and kept it at 60, and thankfully so, as this turned out to be the ideal limit for the first few to solve, as Fred said. When discussing this test, we thought at length about the beginners and that is why there was the categorization A, B and E in the IB, and I think Deb's already explained about that. So, we tried our best to keep a target for everyone, at the same time keeping enough to give the top players a challenge. At least going statistically, that worked ok.
The point about pencil marks has been debated by everyone, and most seem to feel that its required. When planning the test, I was in favor of disabling pencil marks because of a few reasons -
A. I know most people use notations to proceed, but I've seen it being very much possible to go ahead without them, even on harder grids (There's a site or two that have online solving without pencil marks too, and Fred frequents one of those ;) ). I just felt it was more fun this way.
B. After attempting the test myself, I had solved 29 puzzles logically, guessed on one, and I went back and solved that one too pretty easily after the test. So I told Deb as much, and the system seemed good to go with.
I think Tom's point is good about the Undo button contradicting the decision to disable pencil marks, and here again, it didn't strike me as I didn't use the button during my solves (I used Clear All once I think). We concentrated more on some other features and workings of the page instead, like the warning if an incomplete puzzle is submitted.
I'm glad that some people have commented that they enjoyed it overall, and with a few changes I do think we can have this format again. |
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Para
Posts: 315
Country : The Netherlands | Para posted @ 2012-12-28 4:16 AM With Christmas getting in the way I hadn't gotten around to commenting.
I think much is already said. I, like Fred also opted far more often to use guessing instead of logic on these puzzles than normal. This was mostly caused by using a lot of notation while solving and I just noticed I missed a lot in the beginning and making silly errors as i misremembered things, which led me to place the wrong digits. These would all probably not have happened if I had made notations. The high amount of guessing was mostly the reason I voted a bit lower than normal on the enjoyability of the test. Resorting to guessing always makes a puzzle les enjoyable for me and with the fixed time limit I have to try to get it out somehow. So I would prefer pencilmarks over an undo button, as I never use those anyway. I guess in another colour and find it far easier to just remove the digits of a single colour using the space bar than use the undo button.
I also think there should be a higher cutoff point for how quickly you get points for a puzzle. I would say you need to have at least half of the grid filled to receive points, because I don't think people should be able to get points for looking at a grid for 15 seconds and placing 1 or 2 digits. I also think a wrong digit should count differently than an empty cell. I feel you should score for the amount of points for the total of (correct digits-wrong digits), with at least half the grid filled, with the extra rule that you can't get any negative points for a puzzle, so when the amount of wrong digits is higher the amount of correct digits is should score 0. I get Deb's argument that someone who guesses and then it gets autosubmitted would get less points if it's wrong, even though they did the same parts logically, except he could also have guessed correctly and get the extra points. And as most guesses are a 50-50 chance of being correct, this would in the long run just even out.
I thought the amount of puzzles was good. The best ones managed to get through it completely, without anyone having a lot of time left over. I think the rating might be partly caused by the fact that many people though, "it's only 6x6 sudokus, that's going to be really easy", as most 6x6 puzzles that you can find are just really easy. And then when a 6x6 puzzles stumps you, like some of these puzzles definitely will beginners, it might be demoralising. But that happens to the best of us. I think this test deserves a repeat, and maybe with everyone now better knowing what to expect the ratings will probably go up.
One final comment. I would have liked it if the letter and number of the puzzle were listed somewhere on the puzzle page while solving (in front of the puzzle name for example). I find it handy to know how far along I am in the puzzle set.
Edited by Para 2012-12-28 4:20 AM
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debmohanty
Country : India | Thanks guys for the in-depth analysis. I think it is safe to assume that for a similar test next time, pencil marks should be enabled, if the sudoku difficulties are more or less same. At the same time, I feel adding pencil marks is not going to help much to beginners. (for example : take the Consecutive Sudoku. I see lot of beginners struggling in that. If you miss the 4 (out of 5 possible ) dots in row 2, you are never going anywhere. Not sure if pencil mark would have helped here. )
Another theoretical thought I had about pencil marks is that, LMI's pencil marking is very unique. It is not certainly easy to use, especially if you would be using it for the first time. So I was of the opinion that having pencil marks significantly benefits players who are used to LMI's interface. So disabling pencil marks was one way to make it more balanced to paper players.
Anyway, given that almost all comments suggest that pencil marks should be enabled, we should just do it accordingly next time.
About undo : I remember now that during my initial visualization of the test, I had thought of limiting Undo to 2 steps. (Just enough steps to undo mis-types ). But I had forgotten about it when the test took the final shape. So, yeah, I agree that not having pencil marks and enabling undo is a perfect recipe for guessing.
Para - 2012-12-28 4:16 AM
One final comment. I would have liked it if the letter and number of the puzzle were listed somewhere on the puzzle page while solving (in front of the puzzle name for example). I find it handy to know how far along I am in the puzzle set. Will do next time. |
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adityasaraf007
Posts: 45
Country : India | debmohanty - 2012-12-28 11:00 PM
Another theoretical thought I had about pencil marks is that, LMI's pencil marking is very unique. It is not certainly easy to use, especially if you would be using it for the first time.
On the contrary, I feel LMI's online interface is the best I have found till now. It's way-way-way better than any other interface out there. And only because of LMI's interface, I have started using Pencil Marks - earlier I was used to solving Sudokus with No Pencil Marks at all. (I still don't use Pencil Marks when solving on paper ). |
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Cyclone
Posts: 8
Country : Canada | Cyclone posted @ 2013-01-04 3:47 AM debmohanty - 2012-12-26 7:31 AM
Thank you everyone for using the feedback system and letting us know how you felt about the test.
However, I'm bit confused by the feedback about "Number of puzzles". More than 40% of the votes suggest there were too many puzzles / way too many puzzles.
I thought in the IB, it was clear that 12 puzzles are meant for 'All', next 9 puzzles as 'Bonus', and last 9 as 'Extra Bonus'. If you are not a top player, you were not expected to reach section E in any case. Similarly, if you were a beginner, you should have thought that there were 12 puzzles for you.
If we plan for a similar test in future, I am not sure if we can / should reduce the number of puzzles drastically. It will be interesting to understand why players thought here were a lot more puzzles in this test than what it should have been.
I kept putting off and forgot to officially do this test (would have been my second, I think ) despite doing the demo. I think the reason may have something to do with the fact that a puzzle can be skipped as incomplete, and with the appearance as a whole of a 30 puzzle test. You can't please everyone, and if the screen test had been one hour for 12 puzzles - something I don't consider too out of the ordinary, as those not as skilled can then spend five minutes on a puzzle without stressing - then some others would have said "Where's the challenge?" With a test of 30 puzzles, and the ability to skip puzzles, I don't blame someone who skipped over 5 puzzles they couldn't do and otherwise solved 18 (right or wrong, don't matter ) before running out of time for saying there was way too many puzzles. Personally, I thought it was too many; you have to literally solve each in, on average, two minutes. However, if the goal had been to solve any 20 and skip any six, that would give a little more time and allow people to customize their test for the best result. Obviously, bonus points could then be awarded for correct solves of 21-30 (not by puzzle number but by number of correct puzzles ), and the best performances thus would well exceed the otherwise expected maximum test score based on 20 puzzles (as an example ). For 24 puzzles, for instance, that shaves off 12 minutes that can be allocated to other puzzles, giving 2:30 to each puzzle instead of 2:00, and skip any six you don't like the look of.
Just my opinion.
Also, a booklet of the puzzles now that the test is complete might be nice. : )
Cyclone
Edited by Cyclone 2013-01-04 3:48 AM
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