Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Meandering Numbers
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nurikabe
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Scrabble with Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Is it possible somewhere on the score page to display the number of incorrect submissions? I'm so happy I do not have any.

It would have been much better to present the words in a monospaced font (courier) for the scrabble loop puzzle.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fillomino
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

First, I'm not done yet; I broke Summon whee. Also, not particularly good scores; I think I shouldn't solve these when I'm sick.

Among the other nine puzzles, Hidoku (or Hidato) strikes me as the most impressive, requiring pretty much no bifurcation or long what-ifs, and of course the long tail is impressive. Regional Coded Snake follows next with how the global-level logic goes, and Fillomino with how the big minoes interact midway during solving. I'm not sure Summon gets into the top three even though I haven't fully solved it. Of course, each puzzle has its own spark, but those that linger with me the most are those three.

Excellent marathon; I'll pick up Summon again later, then wait for the next Marathon.

The instructions state: Each puzzle can be started, solved and submitted independent of others, and in any order, anytime during the week.

This is clearly false. It is not possible to start two puzzles at the same time.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Summon
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
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?	Fairly Nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
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?	Fairly Nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

Sorry that you had troubles, but surely no trial and error was intended.
At the same time certainly it was supposed to be in Medium category and not easy.
But none the less it had few new starts and tricks, for e.g. each corner was unique in itself and then setting the path for "23" clue. The tricky part is finding the isolated 3*2 region in the center of the grid which helps to solve the "23". And of course the ending at the center was tricky again with 8,5,4 interaction.
I am sure it would be fun if you wan't to give it a try again to go logically and ask if stuck somewhere.

Good luck with Remaining Marathon Puzzles :)

I have a w1 on my Summons and I don't know why. I presume that means I submitted wrong once. However, I have only submitted once in total.

w1 = worst (1)
w2 = worst (2)

It has got nothing to do with wrong submissions.

Nevermind then. Thanks for the clarification.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Bit unfair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Turning Fences
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.	Summon
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Bit unfair

I put puzzles in order about how I liked them and add my comment to explain why so:

1. Regional Battleships - There was beautiful logical solution. It was possible to solve it fast and fly over the grid. On the same time there were plenty of places where needed to think a bit longer but still found a nice logical path. It was just excellent and with nice outlook.

2. Statue park - Same thing as previous, very nice and logical path for me. I really liked the end part how last pieces combined together. The outlook wasn't so nice, than in battleships, but in a wider view it made sense.

3. Regional Coded Snake - It was a hard puzzle and I even might say that too hard, because if you give 60 minutes and even many top solvers aren't able to solve it within that time limit, then I think it's too hard. Still I found it enjoyable and I liked how finding the code came out to be an important thing in the middle of the solving. After that it was pure enjoyment.

4. Scrabble with loop - It's rank rised firstly because there was my name in there and secondly because despite of being very bad at word puzzles I was able to solve it logically. Yes, it took some time, but I enjoyed it. Ironic is the fact, that I messed up once and I figured out that I had messed up exactly when I used "Kota". Thanks to Kota I figured out that I must go 3-4 steps back and do it differently. And on the same gray square where Kota started at the first place, my name went through it :) Riad, excellent puzzle.

5. Meandering numbers - I think I made my best performance in that puzzle. It really went smoothly most of the time and I really like number puzzles, but I had to guess in one place. I really didn't find a logical solution there and that ruined the thing a bit. But the puzzle was nice.

6. Turning Fences - It was much about knowing the tricks Bram teached us last year. That's the thing with that puzzle. that's why it feels that part of the puzzle is solved by someone else and during the whole time you must use the same tricks. It's not very sexy puzzle type, especially with large grid.

7. Nurikabe - The problem with nurikabe is that you need intuition to solve it fast. You need some experience and it's very important to see where the large areas reach. And that's what I don't have. It's my cumblestone and it's not the first time. It just didn't feel enjoyable to solve it although it might be a good puzzle. Maybe I would appreciate it more If my time was without searching half an hour where I did wrong.

8. Fillomino - It was just a fillomino.

9. Summon - I think it's a great puzzle type, but it was too hard. The times of best solvers are showing that too. Maybe it was intended, I don't know, but it's really annoying to do a math with small numbers in a really large grid. It just isn't suitable type with large grid.

10. Hidoku - same thing. It's really annoying to do that counting. It drives a solver crazy. I think it would actually have been even cool if it was easier. But what's the point of doing large hidoku to make solvers do that mononotous counting from 1 to 400 and then you make it hard too. I felt really tired after solving it, but maybe that's what a marathon should be.

Edited by TiiT 2015-03-11 1:23 AM

@Tiit - Thanks for your valuable feedback. It will surely help in future creations.
Thank you.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Meandering Numbers
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
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Some of the puzzles were way too hard - Yes summon I am looking at you - and didn't really make it possible for those to affect scores much for many players. I think the "1 hour" time limit may need to be different for the easy puzzles vs. the hard puzzles. Really enjoyable puzzles nonetheless.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Statue Park
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Turning Fences
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fillomino
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Meandering Numbers
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	A bit skewed
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Bit unfair

Hi!

I have question about the Summon and 1000. Could somebody please explain the rules a little more?

Thank you in advance!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fillomino
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 did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Scrabble with Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
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?	Fairly Nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Fillomino
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Nurikabe
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Coded Snake
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Summon
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Regional Battleships
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

Very nice set of puzzles, very challenging and of excellent quality, thanks to all the authors (particularly to Riad for using my name)

In reply to other earlier comments: I do not find anything wrong in the puzzle being hard. It's a marathon. The balance of the difficulty level is excellent.
What can be improved is the bonus mechanism. It is unfair that for at least 4 cases the 20th fastest solver has no bonus (in the case of summon even the SECOND fastest solver has no bonus!). I know that in the past there have been long discussions about the bonus mechanism. IMHO the rank bonus should not have any connection with the time bonus. also, in this case, perhaps setting a time bonus level different for different difficulty level of the puzzles (for example: 45' for the easy puzzles, 1 hour for the intermediate, 90' for the hard ones) could have been better.


Edited by forcolin 2015-03-12 5:21 PM