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.

now I see the solution: shame on me!

I took almost a bit more than 40 hrs to solve all these puzzles. Except tapa cyclic I had all correct answers. Hope to do much better in the next contest.

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?	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

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?	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?	Just right

Thanks to all participants.

Top three are as follows:

1. Endo Ken (Japan) [16/16, 49:15 min]
2. Thomas Snyder (USA) [16/16, 52:10 min]
3. Bram De Laat (Netherlands) [16/16, 55:50 min]

Almost everyone in the top 20 submitted answers for all 16 puzzles. Some of those lost crucial points with only one mistake. All of these incorrect submissions differed from the correct answer by only one digit, less or more.

In general, I am very happy about the overall difficulty and that many people completed the test. Many thanks to William Blatt that made this possible.
Endo Ken is not only the winner of this round, but also is the first Japanese solver to win a TVC round. Congratulations for both!
The solver with most wins in all TVCs is now Palmer M. (4), followed by Thomas S. (3) and Ulrcih V. (3). For details: http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/

- The puzzle solved by least competitors was Tapa In The Cave (b). It was solved by 26 competitors.
- The puzzle solved by most competitors was Elimination Tapa. It was solved by 89 competitors.
- The puzzle with the highest rating was Pentapa (b) (9.10) and the puzzle with the lowest rating was Wordic Tapa (7.50).

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

Current ranking to determine Tapa Master 2013, after TVC XIII and TVC XIV: http://logicmastersindia.com/TVC/2013.asp

For TVC XV, 6 of the 10 puzzle types were determined by your votes. The remaining 4 will be displayed in the IB to be published at the weekend. If you think this kind of voting system is reasonable, we can do it for TVC XVI.

Please feel free to share any ideas.

Best,

Serkan