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Link to original post : TVC XVI Practise

Hello from Vancouver. Currently travelling before the WPC in Beijing. Need to be relaxed when I arrive there. Although maybe adding a small jetlag isn't totally the smartest thing. I was better located in Australia for that.

I wasn't sure if I could post any puzzles this week for the upcoming TVC XVI at Logic Master India.. I wrote a few puzzles on the plane, so I figure I'd share those. I hope they are of some use to people. Hopefully I will be able to compete in the last few days of the CTC and the last TVC. We will see. Everyone have fun at least.

There are four Tapas in this post.
The first puzzle is a Symmetric Tapa. This rule is very influential in the solve, so you really don't need many clues if you place your rectangles smartly. This one has four clues, but really shouldn't be that difficult a solve. I made it 11x11 as that way the rectangles would less likely share an edge if I placed all dots on grid points.
The second puzzle is a Toroidal Tapa. I like this variant. It's a bit trickier to design as you need to set a lot more blocks to make sure you can guide the wall where you want it to. I think this is a genre that can always use some practise, especially with looking around the edges of the grid. This puzzle is 12x12 as I liked this pattern of givens.
The third puzzle is a Transparent Tapa. This is the only genre that hasn't previously appeared on a TVC, so I figured I should at least make one of these. Although people can find a few of them on Prasanna Seshadri's blog. Oddly enough this rule change only means there is one clue that is invalid in normal Tapa. This one is also 12x12. I made an opening and then I noticed it would work more effectively in the corner of the grid. But to make a nice pattern of givens it would be better for the grid to be 12x12.
The fourth puzzle is a Alternative Tapa. This is the hardest of the four puzzles. This is not caused by the variant, as it's not overly influential in the solve. But the normal Tapa bit is pretty challenging and should give you all a bit of a challenge. Although maybe with the CTC you've had enough of those already. This one is 11x11 as it worked nicely with the TVC XVI pattern of letters.

Enjoy and have fun this weekend.

Puzzle can be found below.
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Posted in TVC, Tapa, Puzzle, LMI

Puzzle Points 1. Kakuro-Style Tapa 27+29+33+49 2. Tapa Place 16+57+53 3. Symmetric Tapa 24+36 4. Tapa Filler 46+23+25 5. Toroidal Tapa 47+49 6. Transparent Tapa 28+40 7. Tapa Mine 14+15+40 8. Mastermind Tapa 37+37+56+56 9. Tapa Tapa 47+33 10. Alternative Tapa 34+49

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 : 10 points per minute saved (Computed upto seconds) Grace Period : 5 minutes Penalty : 15 points per minute used (Computed upto seconds)

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(Edited as the forum is not restricted. The problem will be looked into shortly)

Oh, very sorry, somehow I thought they were always restricted.

please check the PM

You don't need to be. It is my responsibility to make the thread restricted, but I didn't do it since I didn't know how to do it. There are 2 ongoing tests with two different set of players having access to the threads. Luckily Prasanna gave a simple solution that we can make both the threads restricted and players finishing both the tests should have access.

So the thread is restricted now, with the above condition.

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

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

Nice sprint format to end TVC. I thought I wouldn't finish there. I don't feel comfortable as much with Filler and I was completely (and needlessly) stuck on the bottom Tapa Tapa. All of the puzzles were excellent. I did use a little intuition on the bottom Toroidal. Considering this was a TVC with a lot of variants I'm not comfortable with, I'm happy to have finished, albeit in penalty time.

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?	All puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Looking back at the penalty, I'll probably be losing quite a lot of points for submitting that last puzzle because of the penalty time. I hope there's some provision for the submissions that cause the score to drop to not get counted

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?	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?	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?	I have a different complaint

No clue which grid is which on the kakuro styled page.

All was going ohk until after test i saw i have done silly mistake in two of puzzles. :(
Anyways nice puzzles. Will solve the remaining ones. :)
Thanks to authors for such wonderful test :)

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

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

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

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?	All puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Darn, I messed up answer entry on all three Tapa Fillers (entered the sequence of numbers instead of blocks) I hope I will get credit for these puzzles (otherwise that's 94 points down the drain).

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 easy
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?	Just right