|
|
Administrator
   
Country : India | |
|
Administrator
Country : India |
Logic Masters India announces October Puzzle Test — Classics : Hexed & Remixed
Dates : 5 th — 7 th October
Instruction Booklet & Submission : here
Author : Denis Auroux
|
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-09-28 5:32 AM If you feel the need for practice grids, several of the "remix" puzzle types have appeared in French WPC qualifying tests: Note that the last two of these practice puzzles "Skyscrapers and Ring Road" and especially "Magnetic Kakuro" are substantially harder than those on next week's test. (The 2006 magnetic kakuro was a 70-minute test on its own... ).-- Denis |
|
kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2013-09-30 6:28 AM Looks like a great set of puzzles. Unfortunately with WSC/WPC starting in less than 2 weeks, we have ~150 types to learn for that, so many competitors won't have much spare time to learn these other new variants. Can we make this test non-rated? (or allow a 3 week window to compete? ;) ) |
|
swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | Can we make this competition extended even after week of WSC or WPC ?
Secondly in HEX STAR BATTLE can the thick border be of some other color as Dark Black in Hex is giving confusion to view. I don't know if anyone else facing the same problem. :) |
|
rajeshk
Posts: 542
Country : India | rajeshk posted @ 2013-09-30 8:48 AM Yes, agree with others if this test can be postponed to after WSC/WPC? |
|
prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | I think (hope ) James was only joking about the three week extension. Looking at what Deb posted on the TVC topic, its obvious that there's more contests to come and extending any one will cause a real problem in the schedule.
About keeping it non-rated, well maybe that can be done but I don't think its necessary. In my personal opinion though, a WPC is hardly 150+ new types to learn. It'll be a lot of classic stuff, some variations, some innovatives. I think at least the classic part of this test will be good direct practice. It will also be good practice to solve Hexed grids which are usually a good part of the WPC. Indirectly, I believe competitive solving always helps. Its not like even the new variants here will cover completely different logic than anything that will appear on a WPC. |
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-09-30 11:25 AM swaroop2011 - 2013-09-29 6:38 PMCan we make this competition extended even after week of WSC or WPC ? I am not sure this is possible -- according to Deb Mohanty, this might not even be the last LMI test before the WSC/WPC. However I'll defer to Deb and other people with more experience of LMI -- I'm flexible and mostly want people to have fun with this puzzle round.Still, I haven't seen any of the WSC/WPC instruction booklets except for the "around the world in 80 puzzles" (are they out yet? ), and given the flavor of that one (more variants on classics ) I'd think playing "Hexed & remixed" for extra practice before the WPC could be more helpful than harmful, as pointed out by Prasanna. Secondly in HEX STAR BATTLE can the thick border be of some other color as Dark Black in Hex is giving confusion to view. I don't know if anyone else facing the same problem. :) A different color for the thick borders is probably not a good idea though -- I for example don't have a color printer, so a non-black color will just appear as a shade of grey and it'll be less visible. I guess the thinner lines could be made gray instead of black, though I'm not sure it helps much, and it might decrease the visibility of the grid for everyone else? Any other comments on this? If Swaroop is the only person in the entire world with that problem, I'm not sure I want to fix it at the expense of everyone else -- but if others think that making the base grid gray instead of black would help, it can be done.Denis |
|
edderiofer
Posts: 8
Country : Hong Kong | In puzzle 18 (Pentomino Blackout Dominoes), must the dominoes necessarily all be connected? |
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-09-30 8:44 PM In puzzle 18 (Pentomino Blackout Dominoes), must the dominoes necessarily all be connected? No, the dominoes need not all be connected. A pentomino may separate some dominoes from the rest of the grid. (But that's about all that can happen, since the pentominoes don't touch each other even diagonally ). -- Denis |
|
kiwijam
Posts: 187
Country : New Zealand | kiwijam posted @ 2013-10-02 4:05 AM prasanna16391 - 2013-09-30 5:47 PM
I think (hope) James was only joking about the three week extension.
(yes, I wasn't serious, I included a wink-smiley: "; )" ) |
|
cyberx60
Posts: 15
Country : United States | Rules clarification for Hex Tents:
The rules say "every tree is next to exactly one tent," however in the example solution several trees are next to more than one tent. Is rule meant to say "at least one tent?" |
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-10-03 2:17 AM The rule says "every tree is *connected* to exactly one tent" -- in this classic puzzle type, "connected" is to be understood as "connected by a line", not just "adjacent". So there is a way to assign to each tree exactly one tent that lies next to it, in such a way that all trees and tents are paired together. There can however exist some other tents besides the one attached to the tree that also lie next to it (but are attached to a different tree).
Unfortunately, the solution example doesn't show the connections between each tree and the corresponding tent, but you can probably reconstruct them yourself.
Hope this clarifies things -- if it's still unclear, don't hesitate to ask again. |
|
prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | cyberx60 - 2013-10-03 1:58 AM
Rules clarification for Hex Tents:
The rules say "every tree is next to exactly one tent," however in the example solution several trees are next to more than one tent. Is rule meant to say "at least one tent?"
What the rule means is, every tree has it's own tent. If you connect each tent to just one tree, there should be just one way you can do that such that each tree has a tent. |
|
swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | Hey thanks for reply,
yeah it will help for WPC so its fine.
And regarding Hex star Battle it seems only i was facing problem, so will see try for some different settings for printing : )
auroux - 2013-09-30 11:25 AM
swaroop2011 - 2013-09-29 6:38 PMCan we make this competition extended even after week of WSC or WPC ? I am not sure this is possible -- according to Deb Mohanty, this might not even be the last LMI test before the WSC/WPC. However I'll defer to Deb and other people with more experience of LMI -- I'm flexible and mostly want people to have fun with this puzzle round.Still, I haven't seen any of the WSC/WPC instruction booklets except for the "around the world in 80 puzzles" (are they out yet? ), and given the flavor of that one (more variants on classics ) I'd think playing "Hexed & remixed" for extra practice before the WPC could be more helpful than harmful, as pointed out by Prasanna. Secondly in HEX STAR BATTLE can the thick border be of some other color as Dark Black in Hex is giving confusion to view. I don't know if anyone else facing the same problem. :) A different color for the thick borders is probably not a good idea though -- I for example don't have a color printer, so a non-black color will just appear as a shade of grey and it'll be less visible. I guess the thinner lines could be made gray instead of black, though I'm not sure it helps much, and it might decrease the visibility of the grid for everyone else? Any other comments on this? If Swaroop is the only person in the entire world with that problem, I'm not sure I want to fix it at the expense of everyone else -- but if others think that making the base grid gray instead of black would help, it can be done.Denis |
|
debmohanty
Country : India | |
|
RALehrer
Posts: 31
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? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
|
|
An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2013-10-05 7:39 PM | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | Fairly balanced | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
|
|
achan1058
Posts: 80
Country : Canada | | 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? | Average | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Too few pages / too small grids | |
The hex are too easy, and the remix are too hard. I would prefer it if things are balanced out more. One of the problems that showed up with the remix is clutter. By that, I mean that the notes/deduction written down for the 2 types interfere with each other in a nasty way. For example, in battleship minesweeper, you want to cross out cells to mark that they are not part of a ship, and you also want to cross out cells to mark that there are no mines. Even if you keep 2 sets of notations, it can get confusing which is which. |
|
swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | After long time i felt , i performed little well.
Unfortunately did a typo while submitting one answer, well mistake is mistake.
Awesome puzzles, every puzzle had nice trick and logic.
Thanks to author for such wonderful test.
Solving Remixes was real tough time, hopefully got 4 of them, have to solve other 6 left.
I liked Hex Fences, Hitori Fences, Snake in the Tents and Hex skyscrapers a lot :)
I guess this is last test on LMI before WPC, hopefully lifted my confidence. :) |
|
debmohanty
Country : India | swaroop2011 - 2013-10-06 9:37 AM
I guess this is last test on LMI before WPC :) Well that is not true. We have 2 more tests coming up before WPC/WSC, one Sudoku and one Puzzle. Both of them use puzzle types from WPC/WSC. Details will be published soon (in next 24 hours! ) |
|
ksun48
Posts: 29
Country : Canada | ksun48 posted @ 2013-10-06 9:44 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 medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Very nice | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
|
|
davep
Posts: 43
Country : United States | davep posted @ 2013-10-06 10:32 AM Denis - Enjoyed the puzzles very much, the ones I did not finish will help fill the time between football games tomorrow....
Thanks for putting these together, nice job!
Dave |
|
swaroop2011
Posts: 668
Country : India | Oh Wow ! : )
Seems to be tight schedule then.
And better way to get ready for Championships : )
debmohanty - 2013-10-06 9:42 AM
swaroop2011 - 2013-10-06 9:37 AM
I guess this is last test on LMI before WPC :) Well that is not true. We have 2 more tests coming up before WPC/WSC, one Sudoku and one Puzzle. Both of them use puzzle types from WPC/WSC. Details will be published soon (in next 24 hours! ) |
|
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? | Too many hard puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Average | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Regarding difficulty, it's obvious. When the top players don't even finish in time, you know something is wrong. (There are still one or two days though. )
Regarding puzzle quality. The one that I can most remember is Hitori Fences. I solved the Hitori before I started working with Fences, so it's just putting two puzzles in one. Another one is the lack of interesting features of the puzzles. The aesthetics are just average (not even rotational symmetry ), and the solutions to the puzzles (at least those I attempted ) don't really have nice tricks. Perhaps there are a few, but it's much less than what I expect about puzzles that ignore aesthetics.
Regarding answer keys. Seems like a few answer keys are too weird and can be replaced by better ones, but might be only my rant. I'll try to review over them again first before deciding.
So, yeah. Not really enjoyable test. Not utterly terrible, but not great either. Edited by chaotic_iak 2013-10-06 2:03 PM
|
|
Gotroch
Posts: 83
Country : Czech Republic | Gotroch posted @ 2013-10-06 2:00 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 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Perfect answer keys | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Many puzzles were worth too much or too little | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
Great puzzles in second part! |
|
yureklis
Posts: 183
Country : Turkey | | 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? | Fairly Nice | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
|
|
tamz29
Posts: 225
Country : Thailand | tamz29 posted @ 2013-10-06 4:23 PM The puzzles by themselves were great. But I'm not sure if these are suitable for a competition.
I think they require a lot of trying-out-all-the-combinations-type logic.
The second part was brutal, puzzles taking 30+ minutes.
I feel that I'd enjoy them if they were for leisure solving (some beautiful deductions needed),
but the competitive environment killed the puzzles.
Too many hard puzzles in too little time (even though the test was a lengthy 135 minutes).
The terrible answer keys didn't help either. We have 20 completely different types which makes too many different answer-keys formatting.
I'm not blaming the puzzles (I like a lot of them), but the way it is presented (in a timed condition) made it a harsh experience.
If these were in puzzle magazine or other casual-solving medium, I'd love them! |
|
ukonet
Posts: 9
Country : Turkey | ukonet posted @ 2013-10-06 5:48 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? | Too many medium difficult puzzles | | | What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test? | Fairly Nice | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Mostly perfect answer keys | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | A bit too many puzzles | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
|
|
achan1058
Posts: 80
Country : Canada | chaotic_iak - 2013-10-06 2:53 AM
Regarding puzzle quality. The one that I can most remember is Hitori Fences. I solved the Hitori before I started working with Fences, so it's just putting two puzzles in one. Another one is the lack of interesting features of the puzzles. The aesthetics are just average (not even rotational symmetry), and the solutions to the puzzles (at least those I attempted) don't really have nice tricks. Perhaps there are a few, but it's much less than what I expect about puzzles that ignore aesthetics. After going back and doing the rest of the puzzles, I agree with you strongly on some of the puzzles. The hitori slitherlink, magnetic kakuro, and star battle sudoku, and even the battleship minesweeper to a lesser extent felt a lot that way. The pentamino domino was nice, though. Edited by achan1058 2013-10-07 2:05 AM
|
|
FoxFireX
Posts: 35
Country : United States | Did the scoring for Hex Dominos change? Suddenly I have a wrong answer on that, and the stats claim only one person correctly solved that puzzle. |
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-10-08 5:50 AM FoxFireX and others: there was a bug in the scoring engine concerning the answer key for Hex Dominos; but I believe it's been fixed. In any case, don't worry, the correct answer is still considered correct, and hopefully the final scores table will reflect that properly. (Deb seems to be working on it.)
-- Denis |
|
Administrator
Country : India | Score is now public.
Password removed from puzzle booklet. |
|
An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2013-10-08 2:45 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 | | | What was your opinion about the answer key extraction? | Answer keys could have been better | | | How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test? | Way too many puzzles (too little time) | | | Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty? | Most puzzles were worth the right amount | | | What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing? | Just right | |
|
|
auroux
Posts: 145
Country : France | auroux posted @ 2013-10-09 12:11 AM Thanks everyone for the feedback, and sorry that the test turned out to be harder than anticipated! I hope most of you still enjoyed the test. Lots of lessons to learn here as a new LMI test author... next time I'll try to do better!
Congratulations to Ulrich who nearly finished the test, and to Nikola and Palmer for taking the next two spots.
Denis |
|
FoxFireX
Posts: 35
Country : United States | I'm used to not finishing in time, but I had a blast with this one. I actually had a little bit of an easier time with a couple of the Remixes than some of the Hexes. Makes me wish I could figure out ahead of time which ones I would find easier, then allocate my time after the fact. :) |
Classics : Hexed & Remixed — LMI October Puzzle Test — 5th-7th October 2013