Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mintonette
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

I'll be good and not vote for my own puzzle.
Nanro was really fun. I had never seen it before this contest. Would love to see solve some more.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mintonette
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Masyu
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Watches
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice

Some more examples - Thanks to Otto for sharing -
http://www.janko.at/Raetsel/Nikoli/Nanro.htm
http://indi.s58.xrea.com/nanro/
And 4 more at Mokuani's blog

Some more history about Nanro here at Author Interview page at Nikoli - that page also gives a clue to the unofficial puzzle in the IB.

My correct nanro submission was rejected because of lower case x instead of upper case. Really??? Please fix this. I was over 60 minutes, so presumably no effect on my score.

Case does not matter in this puzzle, in none of the puzzles. There are many entries in Star Battle puzzle with lower case. Also there is exactly 1 submission from you for Nanro which is marked correct.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Maxi Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

In Maxi Loop, is the number indicated only the maximum number of consecutive cells or is it a requirement that there be a segment with that length in the marked areas?

Thanks.

It is a requirement that there be at least one segment with the given length in the outlined region.

I am not clear about the rules in a Gapped Kakuro I have got broken thrice and losing my mental stamina .. Makes me think that i m not sure that i understand completely the rules.
* Can there be numbers which are not part of the sums (of any clues which are given at the top or the left)
* Can a number which is a part of the sum of the clue given at the left be immediately under a black shaded cell or should that cell be Xed out ??
* Is there any other restriction other than the no number repeating in a sum and no blank cells adjacent rule?

You are over thinking things. There's no other restriction. Numbers can come in cells not covered by any sums too, following the 1-9 ruling. For the 2nd question, if I understand it right, there's no restriction on being immediately under or on any side of a black cell, just go by the sums on whether or not something needs to be Xed out or filled by a number.

That's actually why it's formulated as the highest amount and not the maximum amount. I figured highest would imply it always appears.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Maxi Loop
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

I just reported what happened. I used 'x' in my first nanro submission. It was rejected as wrong. I then changed all 'x's to 'X's and resubmitted. That was accepted.
I later used 'x' in gap kakuro and it worked fine. Might different puzzles parse it differently?
I agree 'x' should always work for 'X'. That's why I reported it. I don't have the info to know if this was a fluke or a (nanro only?) bug.

It would be nice to have some way to start a new puzzle without having to wait an hour on an unsolved puzzle. I even tried to run up the clock with bad submissions, but the clock didn't jump.

We have reset your time in the db and you can skip Watches now and start any other puzzle. Just refresh the submission page.
We'll probably add a "Skip" button next time

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Watches
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Can the submission deadline be extended by a few days?

It is still open for 5 more days!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fity Fifty
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Gapped Kakuro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Star Battle
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Liar Diagonal Slitherlink
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Ah, thanks, that makes a bit more sense. Still not sure I agree with the scoring system though; it means that the relative final positions of any two solvers may be affected by how a third, separate solver does, which seems a bit odd to me (see http://rangevoting.org/GutermanCHE.html for more about this phenomenom- particularly the paragraph about halfway down starting "A dramatic flaunting..."). But at least it does make sense!

The ranking system last year was purely based on time left to solve. Just as this year, the worst solves are discarded. But this caused a problem because not all puzzles are the same difficulty and take the same average or fastest time to solve. This caused for most people last year to have the same puzzle discarded, even if their relative performance was really good compared to others. As the same time on different puzzles might not actually be equally good, it was suggested the scoring system could be improved. So that's why there was a discussion on how to make it fairer, to rank players for each puzzle on their relative performance in each puzzle, instead of their purely time related performance. This eventually led to a bonus system that is similar to the LMI rankings, where each test is scored relatively to the performance of the best solver. In this test instead of top score and ranking, there are fastest time and ranking. And all solvers who finish a puzzle fast enough to qualify for a bonus are included in this calculation.
I'm not saying this is a perfect scoring system, but it's fairer than last year's. And if you have any suggestions on what you think might be a better way, I think they are always welcome. There's always room for discussion here.


Edited by Para 2013-03-07 3:17 AM