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

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?	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

Fun fact: when you make your mouse go over a player's timing in the results list, this player's global ranking is displayed. As usual.

Just, it is not the sudoku ranking that is displayed, but the puzzle ranking.

Edited by Ours brun 2013-06-24 8:37 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?	Too many hard puzzles
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?	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?	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?	Too many pages / too large grids

Many points about this test have been discussed, I'll try to post my opinions on each of them.

First, the points not being released. I generally don't do strategy well. Ok, I'm downright horrible. :P So from my perspective this was actually a good thing, because I didn't have to think about what puzzles to solve, and basically just went on what I feel like doing at that moment of the test. I definitely had a better test choice-wise than usual. However, I do believe the average solvers get affected badly by the lack of a points table. Its not good when you have just 3-4 favourites and need to pick the rest and don't know your picks pre-test.

Next, the Classics. I agree this was a bit problematic, but I do believe that, more than the changing font, the problem that should be addressed is the clarity of givens. Changing the font and size is fine as a surprise/adaptability tester, but the basic clarity should be there for the solver to have no problems. I personally had no clarity issues though, so again, from my side at least, I have no problems with this part of the test. Also, I trust that the author team had a good reason for doing this and I'd like to hear that reason before commenting further.

Then, the puzzly variations. Like I said before, over the course of the 8 GPs, I believe it evens out. However, this one as a stand-alone, was definitely dependent on non-Sudoku logic a bit more than usual. I think, it depends on the construction of variants too. The Logidoku for instance, I believe, can become an acceptable Sudoku variation for everyone if it has some givens and say just 5-6 operations. Don't get me wrong, the variants were all beautifully constructed, with some nice logic to them, and were indeed some of my personal favourites, but what I suggest is simply a way to make it more suited for a test targeted at a large Sudoku-loving audience.

Lastly, the Snapshot Sudoku's rotation surprise. I like surprises. I even expressed my support for a surprise in a previous GP. Also, I have no frustration related to this Sudoku because I solved it at leisure and enjoyed it (on the 2nd try anyway). Still, I'm quite certain I'd have been frustrated if I'd done it during the competition. The main reason being, me, and maybe a lot of other people, would've used the "obvious" 9-6 snapshot to start the Sudoku. While in a competition mindset, it certainly would look obvious to most people. Once you place that at the start, you still need the placement of the 2 big snapshots among others to reach a contradiction. So you're basically starting with "oh cool, this is so easy" and then you reach a contradiction, where you either think back, or just leave it. If you think back, you've basically done some unintentional guesswork, and if you leave it, you've lost out on the points here, neither being a desirable result. I really believe that releasing in the rules "Rotation of pieces is allowed" wouldn't have reduced the fun value of this puzzle at all, and would've kept away all criticism, because using the 2 big snapshots is a pretty nice start.

Also, it is important to consider the target audience here. Experimentation and puzzle-like variations are, I think, better to try with an audience that is mostly just people who have been at a WSC/WPC and had a lot of puzzling experience before. But these GPs have attracted many newcomers, and have been planned to attract solvers who are new to this level. Most of these are general thoughts, because within the duration alloted, I actually had fun on this test, which probably had a lot to do with avoiding the Snapshot and not having any clarity issues on the Classics, but still, I had fun. Thanks to the authors for that.

I tried reloading the page, but that had no effect. For those keeping score: I lost 11 points for the Odd Lab.

A great test with great puzzles.
I think it is necessary to have points-distribution before hand, if not, at least have it at a front cover
since I, and likely others, use it as a checklist to see which puzzle should be done next.

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?	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?	Way too many puzzles (too little time)
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did their point values reflect the difficulty/time spent?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

When I was little, after completing a painful test, my mother used to tell me "Don't worry, if it is hard for you, then it is hard for everyone" :)

First, I want to say that all these points that have been criticized were our personal choice, we wanted to do something different, but it was not appreciated. I'm sorry for that. I have been preparing puzzles for many years and I've often tried to make some innovative efforts in order to enrich the puzzle culture. These different efforts are generally criticized at first, but some of them are eventually accepted.

Months before, when the date of our GP was set, I had already made my mind that it would be something different and I mentioned those to Deb. So the types were selected according to that. We could build the set with many familiar types that everyone would be satisfied, but we chose not to.

About the fonts: Our starting point was the "check the puzzles" round in WSC 2011. Sudokus were built with many different fonts and the purpose was to challenge the visual perception. We used different fonts in classic Sudokus, based on this purpose. There are two points of view here: Solver's point of view and designer's point of view. The solver dislikes any feature that makes solving harder for them. The designer wants to do something different. That round in WSC 2011 was hard for me, I'm not a good solver and those fonts made everyting harder. I did not like that round as a solver. But when I put on my designer hat, I think it's a great idea. So in this test, we thought as a designer and personally I don't regret this choice.

Overall, in this test, there were many features that were deliberately put in order to deform the usual structure. I suppose too many of them came together and that caused so many reactions. Maybe we should not put them altogether, we're sorry for that.

Thanks for your comments,

Serkan

I agree with most of the criticisms that have been said here but at the same time I want to support Serkan, proven innovator in the world of logic. I suppose he and his team member Salih wanted to bring something new again. Good job!

I'm doing fine in logic sudoku variants. When I saw different fonts in first few grids, I thought the whole test is with such crazy fonts. I told myself, "get used to it!" Once I came out of the classics, the font has become normal . Then I quickly flew to see the point distribution and decided to solve in order, as usual. I am personally very happy that I was able to solve snapshot sudoku in the last 10 minutes of the test, which is not in my case with such tricky puzzles. Last week I failed on duello. Zero was completely out of my mind and author's obvious intention was not to show it in the example. The question for discussion is should samples clearly demonstrate all aspects of the rules of the puzzle? Of course, this reduces the author's maneuver for surprising factor, but I think there is still a lot of "legal" ways for good surprise.

And it seems we have 7 different GP winners. That will be a great final round in Beijing!

Nikola

Edited by Nikola 2013-06-25 3:13 AM

Hi Serkan, thank you for your explanation.
I really love Turkish-style puzzles (WPC 2009 was the best WPC ever) and they are still the best from my view. I had no problem with the non-sudoku logic sudokus, but I was really dissapointed when I saw the unusual classics. I asked to myself: "What a hell, why Serkan made such a madness? Is it a shot into a dark, just to catch attention? I do not understand." This moment surprised me so much, that I was not able to continue solving. Before then I have solved some harded puzzles (maybe three and skipped "unsolvable" snapshot sudoku) and consider them very nice, however I have no motivation to continue competing.
Another thing is the huge puzzle booklet. As I complain before (atfer Fugitive Warrant), I still think, that 21 pages are so much for a contest, that wants to invite new competitors. To save some papers and nerves I printed 2 pages per sheet, but some numbers were too small. Please, don´t think that I am looking for another complaints, but I have always dilemma how to deal with such a puzzle booklet.

Thank you for a nice contest, great puzzles (also prefer the term "puzzles") and also valuable experiences :)

Matus

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?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
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?	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
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

Personally loved it (except for the hard to read numbers on the early grids) though I can't argue with those who felt it was as much puzzle as sudoku.

I agree with this point mainly. Each twist on its own would've been only a "little twist" that some liked and some didn't while all together, there was some different thing each individual didn't like which stayed in mind even if they liked the rest. You gave the WSC example, and the point value there was very less compared to the rest of the WSC.

I also agree with, and like the idea of enriching the Sudoku/Puzzle culture. Any new idea/innovative test will always be a risk once provided to the large audience, especially in a test-series trying to get new competitors in. So I respect the fact that you take these risks, and I can understand how bad it must feel when you take a risk and it's not well received. Once again, from my own perspective, thank you and the other authors for a fun test :)

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?	I have a different complaint

Interesting test. I liked the logic/puzzling emphasis that gave it a fresh feel. I'll echo other commenters that a points summary would have been nice and the change in fonts was distracting.

I like the A or B puzzle type; this particular one was probably overrated for points.
I didn't get to the Bands or Blocks (#20 and #21) during the time limit but enjoyed both of them post test, particularly the Blocks.

GP7 is over. Password removed from Sudoku booklet. Here is the link to solution booklet.

The score page will be public in a while.

I hadn't realized the way to avoid the contradiction that I found during the test on the snapshot! So it's good that finally I learn this idea. I was too fixed in my thinking. That was a very clever twist. I agree with the commenter who suggested that having one twist like that in a test is a nice spice, but having many such twists may just overload us, especially if we're expecting zero twists going in.

I enjoyed the test, though I felt it was overall too hard/long. For me it felt unsatisfying to only solve 7 of 21 puzzles during the test, even if I did spend my time trying to solve the higher point value ones for the most part. I certainly look forward to spending some time on the remaining puzzles later! There is a lot of beauty to be found in these puzzles; none of them are boring, that's for sure!

I enjoyed the puzzles tho' for many of the reasons mentioned above (as well as being sick), I got bogged down and did not submit any answers.
I did not figure out the snapshot puzzle trick (would not have considered that within the description) and have wasted way too much time on it in interim! Glad to learn what I did wrong. Will have to look again. Tho' if rotation is allowed, then that opens up so many more possibilities that I probably wouldn't even have attempted it during the test.
Did manage to solve most of the others by the end of the day.
Good job. Thanks for the effort

Actually, if I understand it correctly, the 6-9 snapshot is the only one that can be rotated because the numbers still stay valid upon rotation.

Results are now public.

I do not like this snapshot twist at all. It was not mentioned that snapshots can be rotated. I spent much time to verify that something wrong in my logic and lost time. Those hidden tricks should not be allowed on that level of competion.

On another note, it will be nice to have standartized fonts.

Overall, the test was really nice. Thanks to authors and administrators.

Congratulations to Hideaki, Daisuke and Bastien for having the top three positions.
The grand prix format let more solvers participate to online competitions. I am a loyal solver of them and this was my first one as an author. Thanks to Deb and LMI for the organization of the test, and also thanks to all participants of the test.
I would like to express my extra thanks to the nine solvers who solved the snapshot sudoku. I was sure that I will receive some bad comments for that sudoku. Serkan came with the idea of rotating of a snapshot with a single digit at a corner. I applied the idea using two digits, assuming this will make it much obvious. Apparently, it didn’t work as I expected. I hope this twist will not cause any discourage for sudoku solvers.
Salih

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