Isn't it supposed to be "Wood", not "Snow"?

Well... you are right. That was the original idea

But the kanji (or hanzi, for chinese readers) for "wood, tree" is far too similar to "water" or "fire" and "earth" to a non-trained eye. This could have been a disadvantage for players who are not used to read ideograms.
So I decided myself for using a kanji that looks different in shape to the others.

Reference for who have interested in Kanji:





Attachments
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kanji.jpg (19KB - 4 downloads)

Hello Yuhei, nice seeing you partecipating in this competition. And thanks for the visual contribution!

Can the duration of this test be extended by 8+8+8+8 mins?

At least where possible on line solving be permitted

Having test solved it, I think 88 minutes is suitable for this one.

Unfortunately, time constraints play a part in these things too. We will certainly consider enabling partial online solving in the future, but it's a bit too late to prepare it for this test. Please make do this time.

In the first puzzle it has said, that there are highlighted 3x3 regions and then it says puzzle number 2 and 3 contains digits from 1 to 8. Do we need to keep one cell empty, do we have to expect 2x4 boxes or can we expect the highlighted areas to be irregular?

2x4 boxes. Normal 8x8 Classic. You're right, the rules aren't completely clear in the IB. Missed that.

In puzzle 16 there is a missing symbol, at the bottom, right side : 3-7 is not only odd but also prime

You're right, a symbol is missing. Sent an update for the IB. Thanks for your contribution.

Two puzzle booklets have been uploaded....which one to download????

You can download either one.
"16 pages test" contains 1 puzzle every page.
"9 pages test" contains 2 puzzles every page, and it's meant to save paper printing at the cost of cell dimensions. Arrow+8 and Symbols puzzles anyway are on a single sheet.

WARNING: correction needed to contest puzzle n.16
If you are going to solve puzzle nr 16 before the file is updated, please bear in mind this change.
A symbol was missing in 2nd row, right side. This is the correct layout:





Attachments
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symbols8.jpg (9KB - 0 downloads)

What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?

I have a different complaint

I think including a (bit-map based) logo in every page of the password protected booklet slows down the printing.

It is better to have no additional frills in the passwod protected booklet, other than just the puzzles/instructions/points. After the test is over, we can put whatever else is desired.

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 easy puzzles
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
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?	Too many easy puzzles
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 the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

i)Can someone give me the start in the example puzzle for symbols?I am just not able to see the breakthrough.It looks as though the puzzle requires a combination of strategies and not just one to rely on.

ii)In Really Latin square am i right in stating that the following are the conversions possible ? :
1 - 1234678
2 - 2378
3 - 38
4 - 4
5 - 45678
6 - 678
7 - 78
8 - 8

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Average
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I don't know how about the others, but these symbols just were so confusing. Two of them are almost the same.

Thanks for the nice test.

the test has lot of funny innovations, I appreciated every sudoku. Strictly speaking, brickdoku and really latin square are not sudokus, but latin squares. But as a "sudoku specialist" I prefer to have a few latin squares variants than puzzlish sudoku variants. So it was not a problem for me.

My only small concern was with formatting. It's probably not a bad idea to have 2 pdf's and the player can chose to have 2 sudokus each page or only one bigger. For me it's ok to have 2 sudokus each page, so I opened the 9 pages pdf. But I found that the grids were too small. You can certainly enlarge the sudokus with a different layout (rules smaller, on the side of the sudokus, codes indications smaller, etc...).

I don't feel very competitive this month, so I just decided to take part and have fun, without giving me pressure. Looking at my result could make think that I'm not able to solve hard puzzles, as I missed the 3 high-pointers. I certainly had a very bad strategy as I just solved the sudokus in order of appearance. After 75 minutes, I had all but the arrows+8 and symbols, but I did a mistake at the end of toroidal dragons, inverting some 6's and 7's. Then I took around 1 minute to look at the symbols but didn't found the entrance, so I tried to solve the arrows+8. I was a bit slow, it took me ~15 minutes to solve it. After the test, I solved the symbols (around the same solving time as arrows+8) and it's perhaps my favorite of the set. Very nice logical solving path .

Thanks again !

Fred

i) Have you noticed that a converse rule applies?
ii) Yes.

Apart from being a personal perference, lesser # of pages will also print faster. Some recent examples of how to fit in 2 sudokus per page without sacrificing on grid size - Portrait layout (ISC 2013) OR Landscape layout (Best of LMI sudoku tests)