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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2013-03-11 3:14 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Mintonette | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Graffiti Snake | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Masyu | | | 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 | |
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debmohanty
   
Country : India | An LMI player - 2013-03-09 1:40 AM
For people like me, it would be nice to get bonus points for a longer period than 60 minutes. Because often puzzles need just some more than 60 minutes (that was for several puzzles this time), and this is worth just the same as working hours or days solving them. But nevertheless I enjoyed the contest very much, and it was hard to choose the 3 "best" puzzles, for they were all beautiful!
I am not sure if we can really find a solution this problem. Increasing the limit to 75 minutes or so is not a solution, because there will be some players who might finish a puzzle in 78 minutes for example.
We certainly want a cut-off time beyond which the puzzle does not carry bonus points. Of course, if others have some other ideas to handle this, please share.
About the bonus system
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Last year, we had extensive debate on how to improve the bonus system, especially about "normalizing" the bonus points. In fact, this year's system is directly based on a suggestion from last year. There are some votes indicating that the bonus system was bit unfair, it is important to know why players thought so. Except Nilz, I can't see any concrete reasons.
Given how popular Puzzle Marathon has been, we would certainly try to make it as an annual event. And if the bonus system has some obvious problems, we need players' input and opinion on how to get it fixed for next year (s ).
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rajeshk
Posts: 542
Country : India | rajeshk posted @ 2013-03-11 5:42 PM Thanks to all the authors for these great puzzles. Unfortunately I could not solve all of them due to disconnection of Internet at my home. Anyway whatever the puzzles I could download and solve last week, I found each and every puzzle created very carefully. I liked Fifty-Fifty the most and found Gapped Kakuro little tough to solve.
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2013-03-11 5:43 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Watches | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Liar Diagonal Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Gapped Kakuro | | | 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 | |
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keshava.hs
Posts: 10
Country : India | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Star Battle | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Multi Skyscrapers | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Mintonette | | | 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 | |
Though i was in a customer workshop for most of the days and lot of deliverables, i was not lucky enough to attempt all puzzles. But the puzzles were so irresistable, so tried couple in whatever time i had. It was amazing!!, Thanks a lot to for all authors for a wonderful puzzle set. Warm Regards, Keshav |
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standupcanada
Posts: 11
Country : Canada | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Maxi Loop | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Multi Skyscrapers | | | 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 | |
This test served as an excellent reminder as to why I stay away from the larger tests on regular competitions. Too prone to little mistakes that come back to haunt you later. The puzzles themselves were excellent - but probably not a competition I repeat in the future (It's not you - it's me ). |
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An LMI player
| An LMI player posted @ 2013-03-11 11:06 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Araf | | | How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were? | A bit skewed | | | 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? | Average | |
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prasanna16391
Posts: 1801
Country : India | So then, a quick post from the author side of me. When me and Deb decided on Graffiti Snake for me, my first 2 thoughts were,
1) Oh, its gonna be tough to follow up Serkan's beautiful puzzle last year.
2) The starting step in previous Graffiti Snakes I've designed generally require some thought and I needed to avoid that since I believe that having a complicated start coupled with a puzzle of a huge size isn't good during competition (Incidentally, I've already had a Graffiti Snake rejected elsewhere in the past for the opening being too tough!). Also, if the start isn't obvious in a genre like Graffiti Snake, the timings might fluctuate a lot.
I quickly put the first thought out of my head and designed the puzzle on some simple locally observable openings, the notably obvious one being the right bottom corner, with the crowding of clues around that area. The rest of the puzzle flows fine after that moving upwards.
I'm glad and pleasantly surprised that its gotten into the top 3 for a lot of solvers. |
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greenhorn
Posts: 164
Country : Slovakia | Hi everybody,
I want to thanks Deb and his team for preparing such a great contest. I want to appreciate all puzzles by 11 authors, who made really great job while constructing their puzzles. I really enjoyed the solving, even I had many troubles (printer, repeated submitting of answer key with small mistakes, Jehovah´s Witnesses knocking at the door).
As I post before, my favourite puzzles were these three:
Watches (great puzlle, Serkan!)
Nanro (All three mentioned problems appeared within solving this puzzle. However I really love this puzzle type, and I hope we may expect some Nanro contest in few months)
and Diagonal Liar Slitherlink (although I had empty grid after 30 minutes with no clue how to start).
The hardest puzzles for me were Star Battle, Fifty-Fifty and Skyscrapers. I was not able to find out the logic of these puzzles, but it is just because I am not so versed in these types, so I solved them only by using brute force (guessing, guessing and one more guessing). I am still very ashemed, sorry :(
I am quite surprised that Araf is one of the most appreciated puzzles. I had some really good feeling when the puzzle masters (as Tiit, Neil, Hideaki, Jakub, Zoltan and many others) voted for my puzzle. Maybe I am the one who decided (by my vote for Nanro), that Nanro is the most favourite puzzle of this contest (right before Araf). But I do not regret my "defeat" because Nanro is a puzzle genre I enjoy the most since Tapa in 2009!
At the end, here is my story of discovering Araf.
We firstly noticed Araf (by Serkan) at WPC in Poland. Our team have no clue how to solve such a puzzle. In the bus we saw some Turkish players to solve some Araf puzzles just by one stroke and could not believe it. In the competion nobody of us tried to solve Araf. However we had a great fun with using word Araf in meaningless meanings during the championship (What do you want for breakfast? Araf!).
Just after the WPC we made small competition in guessing that puzzles and I won, so I had a feeling to be the Araf master of my country in that moment. Few months later I used small puzzle (5x5) in a regional tournament, where only Matej Uher solved it by logic. In the autumn we think about using Araf at 24HPC, but it was never used in our set (it was too difficult even without Araf), but Serkan published that puzzle in Akil Oyunlari last year.
Now is Araf one of my favourite puzzle genres and I am very delighted that you liked my puzzle. Thanks!
Edited by greenhorn 2013-03-12 1:17 AM
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MarkFox
Posts: 5
Country : United States | MarkFox posted @ 2013-03-12 2:22 AM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Watches | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Nanro | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Graffiti Snake | | | 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 | |
I like the marathon, independently timed structure a lot! I also like the idea of giving a substantial point value simply for correct submission, with bonus for beating a certain speed threshold. I'd like to see higher threshold (90 min, or 2 hours ) with increasing bonus values for increasingly fast times - i.e. bonus for 45 minutes vs 46 minutes would be greater than bonus for 65 vs 66 minutes. I think it would allow for more meaningful rankings among those of us in the kind-of-fast but not superfast levels. (I am not unbiased, here, I finished several puzzles between 60 and 70 minutes...Blast!! ) I suppose I think there is a real distinction between finishing in 90 minutes and finishing in 790 minutes. |
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Nilz
Posts: 29
Country : United Kingdom | Nilz posted @ 2013-03-12 3:35 AM greenhorn - 2013-03-11 9:08 PM
Hi everybody,
I want to thanks Deb and his team for preparing such a great contest. I want to appreciate all puzzles by 11 authors, who made really great job while constructing their puzzles. I really enjoyed the solving, even I had many troubles (printer, repeated submitting of answer key with small mistakes, Jehovah´s Witnesses knocking at the door).
As I post before, my favourite puzzles were these three:
Watches (great puzlle, Serkan!)
Nanro (All three mentioned problems appeared within solving this puzzle. However I really love this puzzle type, and I hope we may expect some Nanro contest in few months)
and Diagonal Liar Slitherlink (although I had empty grid after 30 minutes with no clue how to start).
The hardest puzzles for me were Star Battle, Fifty-Fifty and Skyscrapers. I was not able to find out the logic of these puzzles, but it is just because I am not so versed in these types, so I solved them only by using brute force (guessing, guessing and one more guessing). I am still very ashemed, sorry :(
I am quite surprised that Araf is one of the most appreciated puzzles. I had some really good feeling when the puzzle masters (as Tiit, Neil, Hideaki, Jakub, Zoltan and many others) voted for my puzzle. Maybe I am the one who decided (by my vote for Nanro), that Nanro is the most favourite puzzle of this contest (right before Araf). But I do not regret my "defeat" because Nanro is a puzzle genre I enjoy the most since Tapa in 2009!
At the end, here is my story of discovering Araf.
We firstly noticed Araf (by Serkan) at WPC in Poland. Our team have no clue how to solve such a puzzle. In the bus we saw some Turkish players to solve some Araf puzzles just by one stroke and could not believe it. In the competion nobody of us tried to solve Araf. However we had a great fun with using word Araf in meaningless meanings during the championship (What do you want for breakfast? Araf!).
Just after the WPC we made small competition in guessing that puzzles and I won, so I had a feeling to be the Araf master of my country in that moment. Few months later I used small puzzle (5x5) in a regional tournament, where only Matej Uher solved it by logic. In the autumn we think about using Araf at 24HPC, but it was never used in our set (it was too difficult even without Araf), but Serkan published that puzzle in Akil Oyunlari last year.
Now is Araf one of my favourite puzzle genres and I am very delighted that you liked my puzzle. Thanks!
I'd never solved an Araf before this puzzle was announced. The only place I'd seen them (I now know ) was in Akil Oyunlari as an instructionless puzzle... and I couldn't work out the rules! Now that I know the rules, I don't think I'd ever have worked it out, they seem pretty anti-intuitive- to me, it would be more natural if the area was exactly equal to one of the numbers or something like that, rather than somewhere in between, but I guess that would change the logic quite a bit and not be as good. So anyway, once this competition was announced, I learnt the rules and did the example puzzles linked to earlier in this thread, but I didn't really have high hopes, because like I said the rules seemed a bit random (sorry Serkan ). However, I thought the actual puzzle was great, and surpassed all my expectations- it had lots of logic I hadn't really appreciated before, and it just seemed to work really well. That's why I voted for it, so thanks for designing it! |
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Nilz
Posts: 29
Country : United Kingdom | Nilz posted @ 2013-03-12 3:38 AM MarkFox - 2013-03-11 10:22 PM
I suppose I think there is a real distinction between finishing in 90 minutes and finishing in 790 minutes.
The trouble is, if you know you can only get bonus points within 60 minutes, lots of people will relax after that time, and take a break or whatever. So the person who solved it in 790 might have spent less time on it than the person who clocked 90. You definitely need a threshold, because people can't spend hours on end solving one puzzle, and I think 60 minutes works well. |
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MarkFox
Posts: 5
Country : United States | MarkFox posted @ 2013-03-12 4:18 AM Fair enough. I went back and looked at the breakdown of the scores, and there were only 8 people tied with a score of 500, out of 305 who submitted any correct solutions. That's not bad. If there were hundreds, or even dozens, of people tied at 500, I'd stand more firmly by my suggestion.
On an unrelated note, for the first day or two of the contest, I was only able to "sign out" a single puzzle at a time, but later it became possible to sign out more than one puzzle at the same time. Was this according to plan, or was there a decision during the contest to change it? I have no objection either way, I am just curious. (Though I really liked the concept of having to commit to an answer, for better or worse, before opening the next puzzle.) |
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Administrator
Country : India | MarkFox - 2013-03-12 4:18 AM
On an unrelated note, for the first day or two of the contest, I was only able to "sign out" a single puzzle at a time, but later it became possible to sign out more than one puzzle at the same time. Was this according to plan, or was there a decision during the contest to change it? I have no objection either way, I am just curious. (Though I really liked the concept of having to commit to an answer, for better or worse, before opening the next puzzle.) There was a constraint that a if you start a puzzle X, you can't start another puzzle Y until you submit X or one hour is over, whichever is earlier. This was to done so that players shouldn't start new puzzles by mistake there by losing bonus. But the problem was that, if you don't reopen/refresh your browser, the system didn't check for the 1 hour period and kept on disabling new puzzle starts.
I'm pretty sure your observation is related to this. |
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MauFirenze
Posts: 1
Country : ITALY | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Graffiti Snake | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Liar Diagonal Slitherlink | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Multi Skyscrapers | | | 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 | |
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yureklis
Posts: 183
Country : Turkey | Araf is a lovely Japanese puzzle type. But it is hard to construct puzzle, especially providing uniquiness. In Puzzle Marathon, it was one of my favorites. Actually after the test, when I decide the three favorite types I considered two approaches: Which puzzles have lovely solving steps (solver side), which puzzles have cute construction? From solver side, my favorite type is Araf. Matus did a great job. Because as I mentioned, Araf is a hard choice to prepare, so I appreciate Matus's work. But from designer side, there was a given area in the puzzle, so I kept it in mind. But now I think that I could ignore this, because preparing such a big puzzle such good is a huge effort. Sorry for that.
Nanro is new for me, I didn't know this type before. This puzzle had lovely solution steps, and final movements in the middle of the grid were great. So, Nanro was satisfying for both sides.
Mintonette is also new for me. I had a lot fun when I was solving, and the designer made good job with (0) 1-2-3-4 theme in the puzzle. So, I put it to the same place with Nanro in my scale.
Gapped Kakuro... Maybe the puzzle was hard in the PM, but I've made so many Gapped Kakuro so far, so I know that most puzzles of the type appears hard because of the rules/construction. However Amit built cool solution steps in the current one, and the construction was great.
At the end, as a solver my favorite type was Araf; as a designer my favorite type was Gapped Kakuro. But Mintonette and Nanro did not only appeal to my solver feelings but also whispered to my designer sense. So I voted Gapped Kakuro, Mintonette and Nanro. Hmmm, I've told these now, but no one asked me: Serkan, what is your criteria about selecting best puzzles? :) I'm just talking.
An idea, maybe puzzle can be voted in two sections: Solving - Construction
[Edit]: I forgot to thanks, probably I need to sleep. Thank you so much Deb, you and LMI are doing huge things for puzzle community/culture. Of course thanks to all authors for their "huge size" effort. Thank you so much!
Edited by yureklis 2013-03-12 6:54 AM
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debmohanty
Country : India | greenhorn's long post about Araf
So when Matus mentioned early last year that he wants to make an Araf for Marathon, I asked him for few samples of the puzzle, since I wasn't aware of it. Even after solving the samples, I wasn't sure how it will work in a big grid. But having worked with him multiple times in the past, I was certain that he will make a perfect puzzle for Marathon, and he did.
The hardest puzzles for me were Star Battle, Fifty-Fifty and Skyscrapers. I was not able to find out the logic of these puzzles, but it is just because I am not so versed in these types, so I solved them only by using brute force (guessing, guessing and one more guessing).
We listed Star Battle at the top of the list because of Star Battle's familiarity and the particular puzzle was not difficult at all (just focus on the 2X2X3X3 boxes ). And for Fifty-Fifty, check Zoltan's solving guide which was posted in forum.
Couple of puzzles were made easier than their previous version, and I always wanted to upload the original versions. (That got delayed because I am not able to locate the pdf of original Masyu ). But here are 3 others.
Nanro (After solving the puzzle in the competition, you might not find the original one much difficult. But I thought solving the original one first time could have been challenging. So we decided to add few hints and change couple of regions but the finishing with 8s remained as-is )
Mintonette (The regions belonging to 0/1/3 are same. All test solvers and me were finding the 2s region extremely difficult to solve. Considering its unfamiliarity, we thought might make the 4s region bit easy also. Thanks Fred for quickly revamping this one )
Fifty Fifty (The original version has fewer shaded triangles. I don't know if it would have made much difference to top solvers' timings, but from average players' point of view, it was good to have more shaded triangles )
Attachments ----------------  M201303P_Nanro (Original).pdf (27KB - 16 downloads) P0X_Mintonette (Original).pdf (29KB - 12 downloads) M201303P_FiftyFity (Original).pdf (49KB - 9 downloads) |
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debmohanty
Country : India | Nola - 2013-03-11 4:34 AM
I like the concept of one hour with bonus points and then "infinite" time for finishing later. I do not want to have this longer, even when I could finish some puzzles with only slightly more time. But so I know I have to reserve one hour and then I can do something else again. Exactly. That precisely is our motivation to restrict bonus to 1 hour. |
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bjgeraci
Posts: 1
Country : United States | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Star Battle | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Watches | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Gapped Kakuro | | | 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 | |
First time player. Enjoyed it. Thanks! |
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AngelSong20
Posts: 1
Country : United States | Enjoyed the puzzles I could solve during the week and glad that you made the rest available for those of us who couldn't devote too much time to solving. (I think one of my times was over 3400 minutes because I went to bed and then to work in between solving attempts!) Are the answer keys available anywhere? |
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Administrator
Country : India | Here are the answer keys.
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Mahyar
Posts: 8
Country : Iran | Mahyar posted @ 2013-03-12 6:35 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Star Battle | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Fity Fifty | | | 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? | Very nice | |
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MrLiang
Posts: 44
Country : Thailand | MrLiang posted @ 2013-03-12 7:57 PM | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Star Battle | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Gapped Kakuro | | | Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. | Masyu | | | 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 | |
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figonometry
Posts: 30
Country : Canada | How is the alternate key for the Slitherlink retrieved? |
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Para
Posts: 315
Country : The Netherlands | Para posted @ 2013-03-12 10:29 PM figonometry - 2013-03-12 9:10 PM
How is the alternate key for the Slitherlink retrieved?
I figure it's top to bottom instead of left to right. |
@ 2013-03-11 3:14 PM (#10284 - in reply to #9546) (#10284) Top