Any pointers on how to go about solving the Count puzzle in Yin Yang Variations contest? I'm unable to get a start. The example given is too easy.

The key is Rohan's post:
http://rohanrao.blogspot.in/2010/12/solving-black-and-white-edge-co...

There is 5 black circles in the 1st row and 3 in the last.
So there are only 2 ways:

The full right side is black and the first 5 circles in 1st row and first 3 in last row.
OR
The full left side is black and the last 5 circles in 1st row and last 3 in last row.

The second one won't work if you try it, because of the 2 in 3rd column. It leads a contradiction in 2nd column.

When you fill the edge you can solve the puzzle. (For instance you can continue in 2nd row.)



In the second one it is also possible to fill the full edge. According to the given numbers on the edge and the number 1 in C5.

Thanks! That helped! It didn't strike me before. :)

Just a note about the answer key of Yin-Yang, although it is clear in the IB :

For each marked row, enter the number of black circles, including the given ones.

Yin-Yang last puzzle (exploratory) was simply awesome :)
Also Minesweeper 6th puzzle was awesome :)
Nice Contest. I requested for credit in Minesweeper don't know will get it or not. I thought the stretch of 3 cells is like 3 mines. so was submitting total cells and it gave wrong and then thought it is single dynamite. Apart from that a nice contest for beginners. :)
Thanks to Author and LMI. :)

Somehow I am missing the category bonus for the minesweeper, despite finishing everything within 20 minutes.

Anyways, I have a complaint on the formatting of the PDF. My printer is cutting off the top and bottom of each page. While it didn't actually cut off the puzzles, it cuts off part of the instructions and exploratory puzzle sample.

The puzzle types themselves are right up my alley, especially minesweeper.

Edited by achan1058 2014-05-08 10:45 AM

Still struggling to figure out why some player have it, and some don't.

Noted. Will make the margins larger from the next set.


Edited by debmohanty 2014-05-08 10:50 AM

As I know we accept both format in 7th and 8th Minesweeper puzzle.
But you typed 646 instead of 656.

Can the puzzles be solved online?

So I blazed through the test and found out I've topped both scoreboards for the moment. I'm expecting these to be beaten when the Japanese players come in or something.

The puzzles are great. My first thought of the exploratory variant of the Minesweeper was Double Minesweeper, but apparently it's totally wrong, heh. I didn't even have any idea of what variant could go to Yin-Yang, and I found that. Very well done. My favorite would certainly be Yin-Yang 8th.

Also, I should have used red/green or something instead of red/light purple for Yin-Yang; I couldn't distinguish the light purple from the given exploratory gray that easily and had to spent precious seconds shading in the white areas too due to that. Oops. (Yeah, I'm Paint solver.) Definitely not a complain for the formatting of the test, more like my fault for not choosing the proper colors.

No, they can't. You have to download it to your computer and open it locally. Of course, feel free to use MS Paint or some image editor instead of printing the pages.

Passwords removed and solutions appended.
Link to score page : http://logicmastersindia.com/BeginnersPuzzle/201405/score.asp

Hi everybody,

it's a bit late, but I wanted to write a short summery about the competition.

First, congratulations for the winners. In Minesweeper
Hunsuduku aka Zoltán Gyimesi from Hungary has won, deu was second and Psycho was the 3rd, who beat me on Poland Puzzle Championship.

On Yin-Yang the top was totally different:
WA1729 won, chaotic_iak was the 2nd and rob was the 3rd.

And congratulations for best beginners, too.
mtsd, SP1 and pinkagape were the best in Minesweeper. And
SP1, aras and bereolos in Yin-Yang.


Some words about the puzzles:
I think there was no problem with the difficulties. However, nobody could finish the sets under 10 minutes. But maybe it isn't a big problem.

Minesweeper:
First two puzzles are really trivial, in the 3rd one there was a little trick: the 4 mines in the four corners which wasn't covered by any clues. The 4th one was again easy.
Inspired by Prasanna Seshadri's puzzle: http://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/tag/kurotto+classic+mondaytuesday/

5th and 6th were normal puzzles, 5th is relatively easy.
The 6th seems a bit harder, if you don't try to solve it on the proper way.
More details about this puzzle here: http://valezius.blogspot.hu/2014/05/solving-tip-minesweeper.html


The requiments for Exploratory puzzle were:
"The twist must provide a different perspective while not deviating much logically. "

The well known Double Minesweeper, where the cells could contain 2 mines, was a possibility, but I wanted something more unique.

I think this Dynamitsweeper worked well. There are some familiar clue combinations such as 1-3 or 1-2 that worked similar way than in a normal Minesweeper. But the 1-3 in puzzle 8 give some extra information, too.

If you didn't solve the linked minesweeper puzzles from my old site, now you are ready to do them :)
Practice Puzzles (10 mines each in 6X6 grids, 20 mines each in 8X8 grids)
http://5mp.eu/fajlok/logikairejtveny/aknakereso.283.291_www.5mp.eu_...


In the Yin-Yang set it caused me a little problem that in this type there are 2 important trick. They were in the IB, but I wasn't sure that everybody read it.

So I didn't wanted to use these tricks in the first puzzles.
The 3rd puzzle is monocolor without any trick. The 4th is very similar with a Chessboard pattern.

The 5th and 6nd are normal puzzles.


I didn't checked the Yin-Yang variation contest before the puzzle making. But most of them wouldn't be suitable because there logic are too far from the basic puzzle. So I had to find out a new variation. I hope everybody enjoyed these puzzles.


Zoltán

IB is posted now.

Contest has started.

Nice puzzles.
Yajilin went good, cave was bit bad, did silly counting mistake and then got stuck for couple of minutes on 6th puzzle and then found trick.
Both Exploratory parts were new and nice idea.
Best puzzle combining both i would say 6th puzzle of CAVE. :)

Enjoyed the contest a lot. I agree Cave 6 was very nice. It looks like the same category bonuses have been used for the Yajilin as for the Cave despite the instruction booklet stating that different category bonuses would apply?

Coincidence that the same one fit this time :) Glad you enjoyed the contest.

Is the 6th cave really suitable for a beginner? It's definitely a beautiful construction, though.

I really liked the cave exploration puzzles for their instructional value, for exposing it to beginners how some advance solvers handle cave puzzles.

Can the puzzle be solved online or do we have to print out the puzzles ?

All "Puzzle" contests (with the exception of CTC) are NOT available online. You either solve on paper or with image editor.

It is only "Sudoku" tests where online solving is available, unless announced otherwise.

Edited by debmohanty 2014-08-29 5:28 PM

Hi, thanks for the competition, but my printer is not suitable for grids without framed borders. Everything what was printed were the numbers :(
Is it possible to discard my participation in Caves? Thanks in advance.

Matus

Dear puzzle-friends,

I wanted to start my first (Beginners) contest here on LMI. Thanks to my very good friend Richard Stolk :-)
But it seems the pdf-file needs a password?

Can somebody tell me what the passwords are?

Looking forward to your earliest reply!

Arvid a.k.a. Eisbaer