For me, loop is the white thin line, that should be found (drawn) onto the Tapa wall. It means that the black cells (forming a Tapa wall) may touch each other even if they contain nonconsecutive segments of loop.

Thanks to all participants.

Top three are as follows:

1. Palmer Mebane (USA) [14/14, 47:16 min]
2. Nagata Yuta (Japan) [14/14, 70:58 min]
3. Ulrich Voigt (Germany) [13/14, 61:51 min]

Palmer is continuing to solve Tapa puzzles like Usain Bolt runs :) Many competitors were close to completing the test but they could not succeed because of little mistakes.

- The puzzle solved by least competitors was Tapa Hamle. It was solved by 31 competitors.
- The puzzle solved by most competitors was Neanderthal a. It was solved by 108 competitors.
- The puzzle with the highest rating was Pata b (9.75) and the puzzle with the lowest rating was Tapa Hamle (7.0).

Full results table is here: http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/XIII/score.asp

For next rounds, the number of puzzles will vary between 14 to 18. Penalty points will increase every round. Types will become more and more unfamiliar. I have something in mind, I don't know if it's possible: After publishing the IB for TVC XIV, there may be a poll for the following ones and some of the types may be decided by the competitors by majority voting.

Please feel free to share any ideas.

Best,

Serkan

Re poll for future TVCs: If you have sufficient time to collect results and make the puzzles, I don't see why not. Competitive competitors might attempt to pick the variations where they are best at though.