May be you can post how much you have solved so far. It will be easier to help with next steps.

[ You can upload images at http://tinypic.com/ and post the link here. (See this post for details) ]

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mini Coral
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Turning Fences
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

I know it's hard to coordinate difficulty with ten different puzzle makers. But I still think that a "best 8 out of 10" approach doesn't work well with such a big spread on difficulty.

However, this small scoring problems are outweighted by far by the original nature of the contest, which is a highlight of the puzzle year every time. I really enjoyed the puzzles!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Heyawake
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Really nice puzzles. While I didn't have time to do some of the puzzles (i.e. Araf, Mini Coral, Turning Fences), the other 7 I did were really elegant.

I wonder if a couple of days more were given, would the results have been better, but then again, I doubt most people are as busy (and slow) as me in solving...

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	4X4 Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mini Coral
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Scrabble
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Turning Fences
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nanro
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Heyawake
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Scrabble
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	KakurOH
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Turning Fences
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Araf
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Mini Coral
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Yajilin
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	KakurOH
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice

Hey !

I hope it's not too hard to read my puzzle.
Is someone could give me a nudge, that would be cool.
See here : http://tinypic.com/r/24otxz8/8

Thanks anyway !

You should be able to determine that the arrowed cell is 2. Otherwise, the 2 on its left remain isolated. After that the whole left region solves easily. (There are other openings, but this is how I solved.)

Try to solve for the clue 2 in the first column. It should give the left part of the puzzle. You will also get some constraints for the lower parts.

Is there something wrong with the "median time" calculation under details? The numbers are all under 60 minutes, even for puzzles where less than half of submitters got the bonus. If I counted rows correctly, the median for the Heyawake should be 193:18, not 44:14.

Median time, which is computed for bonus purpose, is actually the median time of "all submissions below 60 minutes".
As such, submissions above 60 minutes does not always reflect true timings and are not any reliable.

Thanks to all the authors and organizers for this wonderful test. I enjoyed this test very much and learned lot of variations which were new to me. Looking forward to more such tests and being a author of one marathon puzzle in near future.

We thought it'd be nice to acknowledge some of the Marathon Solvers. There is some criteria for this list - We didn't consider solvers going more than 2 hours on a single puzzle, because they might have taken a break mid-puzzle. Also, the total accumulated break time in between solving is equal to or less than an hour.

Thank you for the help debmohanty !

And, wow, I'm amazed about those real marathoners.
For me, it was really a whole week of solving, with a total time of 5035:57 !

Link to original post : Puzzle #163: Turning Fences

The LMI Marathon puzzle that was solved during the competition was actually the second version. In the first version I put in some stuff that came naturally to me for this genre, but stumped the test solvers. That's why there was an easier second version, which still took a relatively long time for the test solvers. That was why I added the Tutorial on my blog, just so people would realise the basics that I had figured out when designing these puzzles.
Here is the first puzzle I wrote. There are a few similarities to the second puzzle as I kept the bits that were solved quickly in the first test solve in the puzzle. It has the same layout as the second puzzle. For those who hadn't figured out the layout, the givens are in the shape of 25 letters that spell out TURNING FENCES LMI MARATHON 3 in an inward clockwise spiral. The 3 shape is made up completely of 3's.

Enjoy, but take some time to get through it logically.

Rules for Turning Fences






Posted in LMI, Naoki, Puzzle, Turning Fences

Very nice, but indeed quite difficult... (took me 79 minutes).

Out of curiosity, will there be any more tests this month? Believe me, the marathon was more than sufficient, but just wondering.

I can't work out how to get the box with the 1 around the 11 in the top left corner. I got stuck here twice and couldn't get around it. Have I made a mistake somewhere else or what? I can't get past this part.

I still can't work out how to get the block with the 1 in it around the 11 and out of that corner. Have I made a mistake somewhere else or in my reasoning there?

I still can't work out how to get the block with the 1 (on the left of the 1,2,3,4 at the top) in it around the 11 and out of the top right corner. Have I made a mistake somewhere else or in my reasoning there?

Cannot work out how to upload a picture, so this is the best I can do for now.

Edit: Oops! All my attachment attempts were posting to the forum! Sorry...



Edited by pinkagape 2014-03-06 1:29 PM

Not completely sure what you're talking about without an image, but it sounds like the Araf? If so the 1 from the 1234 at top heads left, doglegs around some activity in the top corner, slips in between the 11 and the 3x3 block of clues and then down. Sounds like maybe you've got a glitch somewhere in that top left corner.

Here is the solution to Araf puzzle, if that helps.