A fairly good contest for me. As Aaron says the linked consecutive was a bit vicious and I had to force through the solution and costed me some time.
IMHO The Hamle was the best one, very logically constructed.

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 hard puzzles
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 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

That was a feast of sudokus!Last night I was thinking how it would be like to complete all sudokus except the 2 155 pointers and end up with 800 points.I remember number 8 as being the last thing on my mind before I dozed off....
So the first thing I did during the test was keeping the 2 bigger pointers seperately away from the rest and solve the remaining.As I see, this had worked to my advantage.Not sure if I would have touched even 500 if I had got a bit 'greedy' and attacked any of the higher valued ones.
Keep my story aside and the test itself was incredible and fascinating!
Of the ones I completed ,the stand-outs that I liked very much were Palindrome Search sudoku,Arrow sequences Sudoku and Consecutive sudoku in that order.Looking to complete the Hamle and Quad Max later.
Incredible test Prasanna with lovely solve paths in all !Keep up the good work.Oh! should I say this to the Prasanna from the Parallel Universe too?! :-p

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 many puzzles
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

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 hard 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?	A bit too many puzzles
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

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?	A bit too many puzzles
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 wish I did the Hamle. Tried it after the contest was over and it took 1/2 the time as the quad max, for the same amount of points.

In the IB, the Hamle Sudoku had two given 4s overlapping each other. Is this possible?

I have not seen the IB puzzle, but it is said that "numbers must all land on unique spots." I solved the contest puzzle with this rule.

As I see the IB, I believe you've interpreted that numbers must move by a distance of 1 cell, whereas the rules say the movement will be the distance of the number's value. The two 4s in the IB move to R1C1 and R6C6.

Very nice set. But as already pointed out above, the Hamle was (for me at least) easier than the Quad Max and in fact no harder than the Linked Consecutive.
Still not sure if starting with the big ones was a reasonable strategy, but at least I had a lot of fun with those harder puzzles.

Thanks Prasanna (from both universes)!

The scoreboard is showing up completely blank for me. It was working fine yesterday.

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 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

happens to me too.

Aaron, Hamle is a type of puzzle relatively uncommon. Not surprisingly, puzzle players like you and me find it easier than those who are mainly sudoku players. Hence (i guess) the relatively high score

stefano

Yup, this was exactly the reason I placed a high value to it. The logic of "movements" and using the second grid will be new to many. I just compared it to where something like a Tapa being valued higher than something like a Domino Hunt will still make me always go for the Tapa first and mostly finish it faster, the puzzle solvers would find this one over valued but thats part of individual strengths/weaknesses. I just went by tester timings which basically happened to invert (one had the Quad Max being much harder and the other had the Hamle being much harder) and my own feeling and placed the same value to both.

Should be fixed now.

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 few puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little

Thanks Prasanna and Matus,
Sorry, had a mind blank.

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 hard puzzles
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 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

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 medium difficult puzzles
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 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

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 medium difficult 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?	A bit too many puzzles
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

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many medium difficult puzzles
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 few puzzles (too much time)
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I enjoyed the puzzles, but most were not worth their awarded points. I had a feeling that they have the same difficulty. I do not know why, but the three most expensive sudokus (Quad max, Linked Cons and Hamle) were the easiest for me (besides the classics). On the other hand, I had many problems with both Arrows and Trio Sudoku. Also broke Palindrome Search few times, but it was just because of my stupidity, not the difficulty of that puzzle. Anyway, nice test, looking forward to the puzzle PU II.

Edited by greenhorn 2014-04-21 4:33 AM

Dear All,

Can anyone kindly explain, what does the question actually mean for "2 Even 2 Odd Sudoku - 70 Points"; which says

(“Their” Straight 2 Even 2 Odd Sudoku):- There can never be more than 2 consecutive digits of the same parity in a row or column.

What means parity over here? I am slightly lost in here.

Thanks