I LOST MOR THAN 15 MINITS AND MEAN THAT YOU WILL TAKE MY ANSWER AZ IN TIME. Magic Snail - 3 (3 points) XACBA . If it is corect!
Thanks!

Is there a trick to solving kropki 3 (the one with only four dots)? I couldn't think of any ways to approach it.

All the 4 given dots are across columns, none of them are across rows. So row-wise, 3 can have neighbours as 1 or 5 horizontally, similarly 2 can have only horizontal neigbhours as 5 and 6. 4 can have only 2 neighbours as well.
Using this helps a bit, but even otherwise, the particular puzzle solves row wise (you can put all the digits in row 2, then row 3, then row 1, then rows 4,5/6).
Hope that helps, else I can be more specific.

Thanks, that makes sense now. By the way, great job with this test, I especially liked the Easy as ABC Numbers (a variant that I don't see very often and that you made especially fun by having all fo the numbers be the same) and the Magic Snails (especially the last one which, like the practice example, had a repeated letter).

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Easy As ABC
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

My worst result in 3 years.
The puzzles aren't to blame - they were great. Kropki-3 and Kropkuro stood out the most. Very nice!
Although I'm not happy to learn that the ABC-Skyscrapers was given an answer before hand, since I solved from front to back and that pretty much ruined my test :(

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kakuro
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

where is the password?? for puzzle ramayana

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Easy As ABC
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kropki
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

Very nice set of puzzles Deb! Didn't expect anything else, by the way. :-)
I was so much focused on finishing the Kropkuro that I didn't realise that I completely forgot to enter the solution codes of the Skyscrapers.
When I realised it, it was too late (5 seconds remaining.) I can't blame anyone but myself for such a stupid mistake. :-( And in the end I couldn't finish the Kropkuro as well...

The third kropki was really fabulous! Very well done!

The third Kropki was inspired after a discussion with my friend Rohan, who said "I find Kropki one of those 'who is fastest at trial and error' type of puzzles. I never try to find an opening, very time consuming."

I hope he finds this puzzle otherwise.

About ABC-Skyscrapers
First thing is that, as at least some players have guessed, it was a mistake. It was certainly not intentional. (I hope to learn from this mistake, but that is separate).
Anyway, so this mistake was brought to my notice about 12 hours into the test. At that time, I quickly checked all the players (17 in all) timings who have submitted the specific puzzle. I could see the time taken to solve this puzzle in about 15 cases, and all those cases convinced me that "players generally don't solve the puzzles in the IB". Even after 70 submissions as of now, I still stick to that belief. Yes, there might couple of stray cases of players getting benefited from having solved the IB puzzle, but that is extremely few.

So, there was a mistake from the author, and when that happens, there is rarely an option which is fair to everyone. So I decided not to change anything - which I think is the next to fairest option.

Thanks for the note.
In retrospect, I think not having a "D" clue in Easy As ABC - 1 was slightly misleading, even though 1) A-D was clearly marked at the top 2) instructions included "Each row and column contains one blank cell.".
I see lot of submissions for this puzzle as XX, which means players are solving with A-C, not with A-D. I could have swapped the 1st one with 3rd one.

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kakuro
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

Hi ,
I am new here. How do we solve the magic snail puzzles?

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Easy As ABC
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I'm relatively new here, and I don't think I've ever seen a link that allowed me to rate puzzles individually. Maybe if the link were more prominent I would have seen it...?

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Kropki
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

We never had a separate link for rating the puzzles. There are "stars" next to the puzzle name in the submission page. See this submission page for example (you need to login)

I agree with Deb on this one. Most seasoned players who have are familiar with the puzzle types, usually will not devote time in solving the IB.
I did not know about this issue till reading the discussion after completing the test.

I also missed out on the repeated alphabets thing in the fourth magic snail. I solved for ABC instead of ABBC. Reading the IB more carefully would have definitely helped ;)

Overall it was an awesome test, with difficulty level a bit on the higher side. For me Kropki (3) and Easy as ABC numbers (4) were the standout puzzles.

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Magic Snail
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

Enjoyed the puzzles. Spent too much time on the harder ones and disappointed with not completing the set.
But this was a top-notch set of puzzles, with some wonderful solving paths.


Well, I still guessed :-)
But beautiful Kropki.

Can you point to a particular puzzle? Someone will give the steps for that one so you can understand it better in general.

I missed this too and had to re-solve, among numerous other things I missed (I even got stuck for a good while on two of the Skyscrapers!). In fact, I was really expecting Rohan/you to beat me on this one.

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Skyscrapers
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Congratulations to Hideaki, Endo & Michael for topping the international chart, and to Prasanna, Amit & Rohan for topping the Indian chart.

It has been voted correctly that the set had too many medium difficulty puzzles, and I agree with that. Few easier ones would have made it more accessible.

Here is the result of voting for puzzle types : Kakuro > Easy As ABC > Magic Snail > Kropki > Skyscrapers (I'm not at all surprised to see the Skyscrapers at the bottom).

Thank you everyone for participating. We have one month break now, we will resume with Sudoku Mahabharat after WSC/WPC.

New players : If there is any specific Puzzle in which you got stuck, feel free to post here and we will guide you through. (Please be specific about a puzzle. Answering questions like how to solve a puzzle type is difficult. But if you ask about a particular puzzle, we will be quick to respond)