Practice puzzles from Bram at http://puzzleparasite.blogspot.in/2013/08/tvc-xiv-practise-part-1.h...

More Practice puzzles from Bram at http://puzzleparasite.blogspot.in/2013/08/tvc-xiv-practise-part-2.h...

Some notes:

Cyclic Tapa: "Similar shapes within a puzzle do not have to necessarily have to contain the same clues" [WB]

Tapa In The Cave: "It could be worth putting an exception to the "Tapa rule" at the beginning of the document that this puzzle is an exception to the 'There are no wall segments on cells containing numbers' condition." [WB]

Puzzle Points 1. Tapa Loop 136 2. Tapa Clones 58 3a. Tapa Turns 48 3b. Tapa Turns 74 4. Tapa [Regional] 47 5. Cyclic Tapa 4 X 34 6. Wordic Tapa 42 7a. Pentapa 59 7b. Pentapa 99 8. Tapa Or Not Tapa 58 9a.Tapa In The Cave 49 9b.Tapa In The Cave 164 10.Elimination Tapa 30

Announcements Password protected puzzle has 11 pages (including a cover page with points table) Time bonus will be computed after you click 'Claim Bonus' Penalty will be given irrespective of correctness of submission Contest Length : 75 minutes Total Points : 1000 Bonus : 4 points per minute saved (Computed upto seconds) Grace Period : 5 minutes Penalty : 9 points per minute used (Computed upto seconds)

Link to score page : http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/XIV/score.asp

Please note feedback page is enabled - Same set of questions as usual LMI tests.

A note : We found that a particular player has rated all the puzzles even before taking the test, even giving different ratings to different puzzles of same type. Such ratings will be ignored without warning.

Wonderful Puzzles. I think thats the first time I've finished a TVC? Cool.

Well done Prasanna! (and of course the sugoi Japanese competitors!) I'm a minute behind you and also very pleased to finish for a change.
I didn't know there was a Claim Bonus button, I haven't been in that situation before. Although now I see it mentioned in the Announcements panel. Doesn't matter, it's quite tiny in my case, and would spoil my nice round score.

Great puzzles. I was never intending to do #8 "Tapa or no tapa", because the practice puzzles required too much thought. That is one of the 'advantages' of not being good enough to finish, we don't have to do them all! But unfortunately(?) I was forced to try it at the end, and actually really enjoyed Serkan's approach. Thank you! :-)

I saw some of your submission times, honestly I wondered what you would do for 3-4 puzzles in last 10-15 minutes, then I watched at the admin panel. Except for the Pentapa (b), others were easy, and you did smoothly all of them. When you didn't "push the button", I thought you were checking your submissions :)

About Tapa Or Not Tapa, first version of this puzzle had so many clues. I was thinking that it shouldn't be like this. So I made again, and my intention was to construct with a few clues, so 0-1 seemed very suitable for it.

I'm really glad that so many solvers complete the test. I can balance difficulty easier than previous year, because William's solving times are incredibly helpful. If he can complete the test nearly 65-70 minutes, so many solvers can repeat the same. So I've stuck to his solving times for balancing the whole test difficulty. Normally, balancing whole test difficulty one tester's times not enough, if you make so many solvers happy. Also tester solving skills don’t have to be same. So the designer needs to get more than one's times. But this is not case for William's. I hope that he can find time for rest of the TVC.

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?	Just right
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

Ayse Naz'a derslerinde basarilar dileriz.

Edited by bskbri 2013-09-01 8:32 PM

:) Ayse Naz is my nephew. She is 5.5 years old, and she is going to start the primary school two weeks later,1st-grade :)

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

Yes, I always save small puzzles for the end, because I don't want to be halfway through a large puzzle when time runs out. And I found all the puzzles smooth this time, it's nice to watch them fall without getting stuck on one.You were right, I was checking my submissions. Which took a couple of minutes, and that finished inside the Grace Period (there is no point to claiming a bonus then). It surprises me that only one of the current finishers (= Ko) checked answers (unless perhaps the others made a correction before finishing). And there were 10+ people with a #correct of 15/16...

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?	Just right
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

That Wordic Tapa clarification would have made preparing the practise puzzle so much easier.

I always write out my answer keys after solving a puzzle and then recheck when entering these days. So the checking goes in with the entering instead of afterwards as I notice that afterwards I really never feel for checking answer keys, but during entering I am more diligent.

Thanks Serkan, it was a fun set. Most of it went smoothly, except for having to restart part of the Cyclic as I entered a clue from a triangle into a circle. That was bound to happen considering I can't even manage to put the symbols in the same place in different grids when constructing.

Yeah I noticed that too. That's why I went with all the squares of clues so a bunch of Tapa clues would at least be forced true and would be able to influence the solve a bit.

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 few 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

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?	Just right

@witty, See your inbox

I like how you manage to sneak in one-off gimmicks (puzzles that only work once) in your tests.
Tapa Regional was very cute!

Really incredible puzzles, but I did "guess what you were thinking" a few times instead of doing logic like on the Wordic Tapa. Glad to not have made a mistake this time.

:) on the Wordic Tapa there were two possibilities for center 4's, and I forced them to be zero. I knew that some solvers would guess that. You know, sometimes the author has some request from the puzzle, in better words "author desire" :)

Edited by yureklis 2013-09-03 3:06 AM

I just finished the contest and, despite my (usual) low level result, I liked the puzzles very much.
I'm only very curious about the Tapa in the Cave A solution: I loss a lot of time on this puzzle but I'm sure that it has no solution... Obviously, if so many partecipants solved it, it has one, but I can prove (!?!) that is an impossible puzzle... :-) Looking for the solution

Thanks very much Serkan!

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?	Just right

Good concepts for the Puzzles. But personally too tough for me. Couldnt solve even a single puzzle. :P

Thanks Serkan for the wonderful test. I will try solving it offline whenever possible.