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Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March160 posts • Page 5 of 7 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
@ 2015-03-16 12:43 PM (#17955 - in reply to #17765) (#17955) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-16 12:43 PM

 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Fillomino
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Hidoku
 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


@ 2015-03-16 4:22 PM (#17956 - in reply to #17765) (#17956) Top

flk



Posts: 23
20
Country : Australia

flk posted @ 2015-03-16 4:22 PM

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


@ 2015-03-16 7:37 PM (#17957 - in reply to #17765) (#17957) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-16 7:37 PM

 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 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? 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


@ 2015-03-17 2:16 AM (#17959 - in reply to #17765) (#17959) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-17 2:16 AM

 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. Regional Coded Snake
 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? Fair


@ 2015-03-17 2:37 AM (#17960 - in reply to #17765) (#17960) Top

karzym



Posts: 5

Country : Poland

karzym posted @ 2015-03-17 2:37 AM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...

@ 2015-03-17 4:26 AM (#17961 - in reply to #17765) (#17961) Top

auroux



Posts: 144
1002020
Country : France

auroux posted @ 2015-03-17 4:26 AM

 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Statue Park
 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? 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? Bit unfair


The puzzles were all quite nice in the abstract, but the difficulties were poorly calibrated.

RC Snake was clearly a difficult puzzle, not a medium one, and Summon was just a monster (I broke it 3 times, but even after I understood my mistake it took me about 3 hours to work through it).

I would like to side with those who suggested that, in future years, the cut-off time for difficult puzzles should become longer than 60 minutes, or one should still be able to earn some bonus in some way for performing well. I am reasonably pleased with my time on Hidoku, and to a lesser extent on RC Snake, but rather disappointed that the scoring system doesn't make a difference between solving in 75 minutes and taking many hours. (Of course, if I had done really well, neither of those would have taken an hour and I perhaps wouldn't be complaining as much :)

Also, I know that's a very unfair/specific complaint but, as the author of a puzzle that was more carefully calibrated in terms of difficulty level, I feel very slightly annoyed that I only get to discard my performance on only one of the insanely hard puzzles rather than two of them like almost everyone else. That could create an incentive for authors to create hard marathon puzzles rather than easy ones :-) just kidding.

Denis
@ 2015-03-17 5:05 AM (#17963 - in reply to #17765) (#17963) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-17 5:05 AM

 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Scrabble with Loop
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 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? Fairly Nice
 What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test? Fair


@ 2015-03-17 5:10 AM (#17964 - in reply to #17765) (#17964) Top

achan1058



Posts: 80
20202020
Country : Canada

achan1058 posted @ 2015-03-17 5:10 AM

Upon reflection, I think both the original scoring system, and the revised one for 2015 (is it implemented?) are both pretty bad. If you look at it by rank, I got 32nd place on the summons, and 61st place and 86th place on the Meandering Numbers and Regional Battleships. Yet, the former is being marked as my worst one, and got bonuses on the latter two.

I think we should just use the top ranks to determine the bonuses as suggested by debmohanty. If there is a need for players to know when to give up, set a long cut-off time for no bonus, after say 3 hours, presumably after the top competitors would have solved the problem.
@ 2015-03-17 5:30 AM (#17965 - in reply to #17765) (#17965) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-17 5:30 AM

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


The restriction on starting just one puzzle at a time seriously detracts from the enjoyability of the contest. Participants should be in charge of their choices and times. Anyone who wants to play for bonus time is free do so. A starting restriction forcing everyone to play that strategy is unwelcome.
@ 2015-03-17 6:36 AM (#17966 - in reply to #17964) (#17966) Top

debmohanty




1000500100100100202020
Country : India

debmohanty posted @ 2015-03-17 6:36 AM

achan1058 - 2015-03-17 5:10 AM

Upon reflection, I think both the original scoring system, and the revised one for 2015 (is it implemented?) are both pretty bad. If you look at it by rank, I got 32nd place on the summons, and 61st place and 86th place on the Meandering Numbers and Regional Battleships. Yet, the former is being marked as my worst one, and got bonuses on the latter two.

I think we should just use the top ranks to determine the bonuses as suggested by debmohanty. If there is a need for players to know when to give up, set a long cut-off time for no bonus, after say 3 hours, presumably after the top competitors would have solved the problem.
The 2015 system was implemented ( http://logicmastersindia.com/2015/03P/score2015.asp ), it has definite problems as pointed out by Stefano.
@ 2015-03-17 7:09 AM (#17968 - in reply to #17960) (#17968) Top

brecher92



Posts: 30
20
Country : United States

brecher92 posted @ 2015-03-17 7:09 AM

karzym - 2015-03-16 4:37 PM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...



The key at this point is to realize that that there are thirteen different letters that must cover the numbers 1 through 13. Once you realize which letters have to represent "1" and "2" the rest of the puzzle follows pretty smoothly.
@ 2015-03-17 7:14 AM (#17969 - in reply to #17765) (#17969) Top

daisuke_t



Posts: 2

Country : Japan

daisuke_t posted @ 2015-03-17 7:14 AM

 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. Summon
 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? Bit unfair


@ 2015-03-17 7:29 AM (#17970 - in reply to #17765) (#17970) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-17 7:29 AM

 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Regional Battleships
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Summon
 Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest. Meandering Numbers
 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


@ 2015-03-17 8:22 AM (#17971 - in reply to #17970) (#17971) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2015-03-17 8:22 AM

Puzzle Marathon 2015 is over now. Overall 393 participants participated and 290 scored points. 84 participants from USA and 52 from India. 93 participants completed all ten puzzles.

Congratulations to Endo Ken (EKBM), Hideaki Jo (deu), Bram de Laat (Para), Robert Vollmert (rob) and William Blatt (willwc) for finishing as the Top 5.

Special mention for deu as the only participant to score bonus in all ten puzzles.

Congratulations to Prasanna (19th), Swaroop, Amit, Ashish, Kishore and Jayant for finishing as the top participants from India.
@ 2015-03-17 9:02 AM (#17972 - in reply to #17971) (#17972) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2015-03-17 9:02 AM

to our ten authors - Ashish Kumar, Denis Auroux, Fred Couglin, James McGowan, Ko Okamoto, Matej Uher, Prasanna Seshadri, Riad Khanmagomedov, Robert Vollmert and Swaroop Guggilam - for providing the puzzles for this contest.
@ 2015-03-17 9:13 AM (#17973 - in reply to #17972) (#17973) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2015-03-17 9:13 AM

We shall be responding to most of the comments soon, but let us do a summary of the puzzle difficulty first.

We observed that the differentiation between easy, medium and hard puzzles was not too significant, in the last few marathons. This time we planned to have a clearer categorization:
- 3 easy puzzles where top solvers should finish in ~15 minutes
- 4 medium puzzles where top solvers should take ~25 minutes
- 3 hard puzzles where top solvers should take ~35 minutes.

Statue Park and Fillomino were indeed easy and, not surprisingly, both had the maximum bonus submissions. Statue Park is easier than Fillomino but Fillomino is more familiar.

Nurikabe is a medium category puzzle difficulty wise but due to its familiarity it has been kept as the third easy puzzle. Going by the best times, it still fits into the Easy category as the times are lesser than other puzzles. But there were mixed opinions on this and even some top puzzlers stumbled on this puzzle.

Regional Battleships and Meandering Numbers clearly fit the Medium category with the expected level of difficulty.

Turning Fences was a tough puzzle, but it was also present in a previous marathon, so was a familiar puzzle. It proved to be harder than expected. Post event, we can say it was a hard puzzle rather than medium.

Regional Coded Snake proved to be hard too, going by the solving times. It was classified as the 7th toughest but, post event, it proved to be the 8th toughest and should have been placed after Scrabble Loop on the difficulty index.

Hidoku, Scrabble Loop and Summon were intended to be tougher than most of the marathon puzzles so far (all editions included). While Hidoku and Scrabble Loop were as per the planned level of difficulty, Summon, with just three numbers to fill, proved to be too tough. Although there were lot of obvious starting points (six digit numbers, 1000, etc), completing the puzzle in 60 minutes proved to be difficult as there were too many mini steps to solve. Based on the timings, it fits a category 'SuperHard'.

It was the toughest marathon yet. As bob said "Most puzzles are snacks, these are banquets." Hopefully most puzzlers would have enjoyed the banquet setting.
@ 2015-03-17 2:17 PM (#17977 - in reply to #17765) (#17977) Top

Grizix



Posts: 30
20
Country : France

Grizix posted @ 2015-03-17 2:17 PM

 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. Statue Park
 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


@ 2015-03-17 2:23 PM (#17978 - in reply to #17765) (#17978) Top

Paul



Posts: 2

Country : India

Paul posted @ 2015-03-17 2:23 PM

Could not solvce even a single puzzle
@ 2015-03-17 3:11 PM (#17979 - in reply to #17978) (#17979) Top

chaotic_iak




Posts: 241
1001002020
Country : Indonesia

chaotic_iak posted @ 2015-03-17 3:11 PM

Bug: Someone that didn't solve all puzzles (me, my Summon broke again) sees incomplete standings.
@ 2015-03-17 3:15 PM (#17980 - in reply to #17979) (#17980) Top

Administrator



2000100050020
Country : India

Administrator posted @ 2015-03-17 3:15 PM

chaotic_iak - 2015-03-17 3:11 PM

Bug: Someone that didn't solve all puzzles (me, my Summon broke again) sees incomplete standings.
Fixed.
@ 2015-03-17 3:17 PM (#17981 - in reply to #17960) (#17981) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2015-03-17 3:17 PM

karzym - 2015-03-17 2:37 AM

Nice puzzles. I thought Nurikabe was easier. The most puzzle I like is Summon even if it was hard, the least - Snake, I hate snakes, even more like spiders than those ba******. :) Can someone post the solution for this? (it can be priv message) After 2 hours of tortures I've got this http://i.imgur.com/PCQgIXt.jpg and wanted to throw my computer out of the window. Yeah, I know about the mistakes at the bottom and on the top...

Snake solution has been sent via email.
@ 2015-03-17 3:29 PM (#17982 - in reply to #17945) (#17982) Top

rakesh_rai




Posts: 774
500100100202020
Country : India

rakesh_rai posted @ 2015-03-17 3:29 PM

ghirsch - 2015-03-16 2:28 AM

Could someone give some tips on how to start the summon (once the competition is over of course)? I was very lost on that one and basically made no progress on it.
Look at the first two rows. The six digit number in the first row and the five digit number in the second row limit a lot of possibilities. You should be able to complete the regions in the top left corner (with a lot of Xs). Then there is a row with the sum as 1000. Think how can you reach 1000 as the sum. And, keep looking at the sums below for vertical constraints.
@ 2015-03-17 3:37 PM (#17983 - in reply to #17978) (#17983) Top

Realshaggy



Posts: 69
202020
Country : Germany

Realshaggy posted @ 2015-03-17 3:37 PM

I liked all the puzzles, even the types I usually don't like (Snake, Nurikabe, Battleships) as they all make good use of the room. I also don't have problems with a contest with a high overall difficult level and very difficult puzzles like the Summon, even if that means it's not suited for beginners. But the scoring system should be revised. By now there should be enough test data from three years. Of course it's difficult with different solving times. If it should feel like a marathon for the top solvers, it's near impossible for me.

No offense to the author, but I think especially Nurikabe is a bad type for a timed contest on a marathon grid. Seems like it's even more favourable to use intuition than a logical approach.
@ 2015-03-17 3:52 PM (#17984 - in reply to #17765) (#17984) Top

Paul



Posts: 2

Country : India

Paul posted @ 2015-03-17 3:52 PM

I would love to get starting instructions, on how to solve each type of puzzles.
@ 2015-03-17 4:32 PM (#17985 - in reply to #17765) (#17985) Top

An LMI player



An LMI player posted @ 2015-03-17 4:32 PM

 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. Fillomino
 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? Very fair


Puzzle Marathon 2015 - LMI March Puzzle Test - 6th to 15th March160 posts • Page 5 of 7 • 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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