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?	Arrows
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

Great test, thank you! It turns out I have some things to learn about Arrows, and also some things to practice -- I missed so many of the "obvious" deductions at first.

Edit: I think I should retract my judgement on the point distribution. I just went through my results, and things seem pretty even:

* hashi: 1.6 points/minute
* magnets: 1.4
* arrows: 0.6
* anglers: 1.6
* dominos: 1.8

The low arrows score is due to a bad performance, not due to difficulty. I did think I got through the magnets very cleanly and found the somewhat tricky deductions immediately, so that one might be a little undervalued. The dominos felt quite easy, but were low-valued accordingly.

Edited by rob 2015-11-01 11:03 PM

Thanks. I did got those magnets. But found out what I was missing. Thanks.

Hmph. Assuming that one will be able to finish a PR round within 90 minutes is the wrong strategy. I never figured out how to do Arrows #3 and by the time I decided to move on it was too late to catch up.

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 hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Magnets
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

Arrows #3: I spent over 15 minutes on it and never found the solution or even a reasonable solve path.
Hashi #2 and #3 (4 and 5 points) took much longer than any of the Magnets puzzles (8 and 9 points).
I am not sure if the point values are aimed at beginners or at seasoned players; if the latter, then they are problematic (Magnets is easier than you seem to think it is), if the former then the overall difficulty of the round is problematic.

That said, it was still fun. Apart from Arrows #3.

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

If you're still looking for how to start it, I think the break-in is meant to be the 3 in the middle. There are only four possible arrows that can point to it (no diagonals), and you can quickly find that two horizontal arrows doesn't work, so you need to do two vertical arrows. From there I don't remember running into many difficulties.

For Arrows #3, the "3" in the center is the starting point.

I have learnt that I find it surprisingly difficult to (correctly) count the number of line corners in a row or column... :)
Thanks Amit!

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?	Hashi
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 liked the (new to me) 5s interaction logic in the Hashis.
I thought Magnets 3 was hard/undervalued.

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 hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Dominos
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

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 hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice

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 hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Dominos
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	variations represented the theme well
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Magnets
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

A good set of 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?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Magnets
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?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Anglers
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

Thanks -- yesterday I just didn't see that 3 in the middle. I was obsessing over the 4's on the diagonals for exactly the same reason, but somehow didn't think of the 3 even though it's obviously a better place to start. Okay then, I have to take back some of my negative comments about the puzzle difficulties. I was just being stupid. (I still found Hashi and Arrows to be huge time sinks compared to other puzzle types for equal point values, but possibly it's because I'm just not good at those. My answering timeline doesn't quite reflect solve times due to my computer crashing partway through and needing to be rebooted twice).

How well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	representation could have been better
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Anglers
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Very good set of puzzles. I liked Multi Anglers most.

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?	Magnets
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

This was a hard test, and my performance was terrible.

But I really enjoyed solving the puzzles after the test. Even though these are 'standard' types, many of the techniques needed to solve the puzzles in the set were unfamiliar to me. Figuring them out was an enjoyable experience.

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?	Dominos
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 well did the variants represent the theme of the test ?	representation could have been better
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
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Anglers
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

Congratulations to Ulrich, Michael and Bram for topping the international chart, and to Rohan, Rajesh and Swaroop for topping the Indian chart.

Here is the result of voting for puzzle types : Anglers > Magnets > Dominos > Hashi > Arrows

The most consistent feedback is that the test contained a large percentage of hard puzzles. We had realized this before the test and in an attempt to balance the difficulty of the puzzles replaced one arrow and magnets puzzle with easier ones. The difficult ones might get used elsewhere (2017?) One option which would have helped is to reduce the grid sizes, especially for magnets.

Another concern was with regarding the distribution of points which becomes difficult when the puzzles have narrow solving paths. Also the fact that all the dominos were created by Deb and the rest of the puzzles by me added to the complexity. A little more extensive testing including solvers having varying levels of solving speed might have helped.

Thanks to Deb and Prasanna for helping with the organization of this test. Special thanks to Zrinka and Bram for test solving the puzzles at a short notice.
Thank you everyone for participating.

I will be posting a set of hints to help the beginners on some of the harder puzzles separately.

Hashi -1 : Use the "No islands" rule throughout the grid - inspired by a comment from Prasanna that very few Hashi puzzles use this rule extensively
Hashi -2 : Masyu like chain which goes from top left to bottom right
Hashi -3 : Interaction of two 5's near the center
Hashi -4 : Interaction of the 4 and the 5's at the center. This one was my personal favorite for the entire set

Magnets 1 : Easy puzzle used to replace a harder magnets puzzle
Magnets 2 : Existence of half the grid size (8/2 =4) in one of the polarities forces a few bars to be magnets
Magnets 3 : Min max - A less loaded column surrounded by two heavily loaded columns.
Magnets 4 : Transfer of polarities across rows

Arrows 3: 3 in the center gives good starting point
Arrows 4: Interaction of two large numbers in the corners (4 and 5) along with the smaller numbers int he remaining two corners (2 and 3)

Anglers 2: Parity - Only one angler can reach the fish on bottom left as it has different parity compared to all other fish
Anglers 4: Reach ability of top left fish to an angler

Multi-anglers- Count of total number of anglers and how many anglers can reach each fish.

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 hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Hashi
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 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?	Arrows
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