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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	All puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Too few pages / too small grids

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?	Below Average
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Too few pages / too small grids

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?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Very nice test.

Only little minus point: I dont like it, if the difficulty is raised via unusual/inconvinient presentation of puzzles (as in the classic sudokus).


Edit: Just wanted to add something regarding Tiits comment. I think he is right up to a point. Many types of puzzles were very innovative and unusual variants, some of them involving more general puzzle solving skill than usually needed in the other tests. Tiit might be right, that this are only solvable by about 30-50 people (during the contest). But the other 450 solvers (and even most of the 30-50) usually have the freedom of choice, which puzzles they do, because they cant solve all of them anyway. (There might be exceptations.) I'm totally fine with the mix and enjoyed the fresh variants.

Edited by Realshaggy 2013-06-22 7:48 PM

Testing
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2
3

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?	Very nice
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

Clearly the toughest of the Grand prix rounds so far.I had a disappointing start with over 25 mins wasted in the 36 point classic.In addition to the strong puzzling touch that most of the sudokus had there is something else that i would like to direct attention to.
First the font of the classics kept changing and i had a hard time getting used to it.The first Classic had a typical Italian touch to it and the second had a more conventional look which was repeated in most other sudokus.The third Classic was quite a shocker.It was appalling to say the least.I still cant think of a good reason as to why the given numbers in that were printed as big as the cells themselves.Believe me .It found it very hard to adjust to it.Then the last one was more than twice in size than the previous.Now i have seen solvers been taken by surprise by the puzzles but for the first time i was taken by surprise by the grid sizes of the puzzles!. I am not sure if that was intented or not , dis-settling the solvers first and trying to see how confident and strongly they solve the rest.But i felt a more uniform font and grid size would have more appealing and better.
Second and the most important is the puzzle link that most of the sudokus had.While i m not against such a concept,i dont think it should be in such a way that it takes the identity of the sudoku .By identity i mean the free flowing logic associated with each sudoku which does not require anything else but pure sudoku solving skills(like how fast u spot numbers,how fast you use the variant logic in addition to the normal classic rules etc.)It was as though there was a barrier to start a sudoku and the barrier is in the form of a puzzle.Solve the puzzle and start the sudoku.If not forget about getting points.Sudoku Bands ,Psycho killer ,Logidoku,Tripod sudoku,Snap shot(in which i got broken twice) etc..were created in the above mentioned way and were way above my reach.
I was moving from sudoku to sudoku (or should i say puzzle to puzzle) looking for sudokus that was completely devoid of the puzzling touch and there were not many that i could find and solve.This test is bound to favour solvers who have a strong puzzle solving skill since the big pointer ones are designed that way.If i m not very wrong,i dont see anyone beating Hideaki 's score.A test tailor made for someone like him.I wont be surprised if he finishes this test at the top .
To conclude ,i would say that this is a nice test which had good quality Grids inspite of the hiccups.Thnks to the authors for giving a nice testBut certainly this is NOT a 2 hr test.Like in the just concluded US Round ,the test should have been for 2 hrs 30 mins.But then again it looks like the test solvers must have completed the set in just under 2 and hence the case.

If I understand Tiit's point correctly, it isn't about the variants being new/innovative. Its mainly about the logic used, and I can see his point. A lot of these Sudokus had a non-Sudoku logic extensively used before letting the Sudoku logic come in. Something like Top Heavy, A or B, Sudoku Clocks, are all also innovative but they "merge" well with the Sudoku logic. Unlike this, a Psycho Killer for example (my favourite one from what I solved), requires you to do the "spread the region" logic coupled with arithmetic logic a lot before the Sudoku bits come into play. So, this 7th GP alone, is a bit "Puzzle-heavy".

However, I'll add that, over the 8 GPs, if you only take the percentage of puzzle-heavy ones, the overall percentage is close to being as high as what might appear over the length of a typical WSC. I personally don't mind that, since the point of having 8 different countries author these is to see the overall variety and to allow each country to bring their best to the mix. That coupled with the "Best 6 out of 8" ruling makes this Puzzle-heavy test fine as a part of the 8. Obviously opinions on balance can differ, but most importantly, as Tiit noted, the puzzle quality was superb, and the test was fun.

I skipped the test because of the "classics". Sorry.

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?	A bit too many puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I agree with Tiit's point of view:

After reading the instructions booklet, I thought that it was more a "puzzle test about sudoku" than a sudoku test.

Having 2 or 3 "puzzlish" sudoku is not wrong in a sudoku test (we sometimes met some of these in previous WPF GP tests), but here half of the points of the whole test was about puzzles. I think it's too much !

Also, what is the point of not publishing the point distribution before the test? I hardly see any advantage. And what is the point of playing with different layout on classic sudoku? Your classic sudokus were great, no need to try to hide something or to try to be funnier...

Finally, I have to say that each individual puzzle was nice and well constructed, and I thank you about the global work for this test.

Personnally: an inversion in the tripod sudoku will perhaps coast me a lot


Fred

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

Although puzzles are nice, but I was confused with the difference of font-style in classic sudokus. Especially it was rather hard for me to recognize digits in the grid no.1...

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?	Below Average
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Too many pages / too large grids

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

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?	Average
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	All puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I really enjoyed this test esp. solving Tripod and Physo Killer Sudoku.

I spent much time during the test on the snapshot sudoku without finding a solution.
After the end of my test, I tried to find a solution and finally I found one by rotating one of the snapshot. Perphaps I made mistakes but if snapshots could be rotated, it should have been written in the rules.
At this time, only 6 players found the solution of the snapshot sudoku ! I wonder if many other players had the same problem as me on this sudoku.

Sylvain

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?	Very nice
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

There were bit too many previously unknown puzzles for me. Also, as an moderate solver I really would like to have the points distribution available beforehand in order to try to optimize my competition.

Thank you all the same! In overall, nice competition.

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?	Way too many puzzles (too little time)
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	All puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Too many pages / too large grids

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

The formatting of the classics was a bit confusing.
The Instruction Booklet didn't mention that the constraints in Logidoku will differ in the Puzzle Booklet from the constraints in the Instruction Booklet. That's also my fault that I didn't ask about it beforehand, but I didn't expect to be able to participate in this contest so I didn't deal too much about the IB.
In general I enjoyed the test, the puzzles which I have solved were very nice.

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?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

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?	Very nice
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 their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I can't believe it! The LMI server is normally super-reliable, but for the last 5 minutes of my allotted time I tried frantically and desperately to submit my last 2 answers... never succeeded to reconnect to the site before the end of my time (sometime around 21:35 French time = 19:35 GMT Sunday -- did anyone else experience an outage around that time? if not perhaps the problem was on my end, though other websites were loading fine). I lost 28 points (clock and odd lab) in the process. Grrr..... Oh well, at least I didn't wait until the last minute to submit all my answers, otherwise I'd have ended up with a beautiful zero...

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
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

@auroux, please check your PM.