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?	Fillomino
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

Had any expectations or predictions going for me ? :)




Indeed.This was exactly my first afterthought upon completion of the test.Seldom do I choose "Just Right" in the "What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?" category.Mostly,my choice would be too many hard puzzles .Not that I have anything in particular against the test but just that the puzzles would be too hard, subjectively speaking.But this test was an exception.It ideally reflected the 50% easy, 40% medium, 10% hard concept .In my opinion, the Spiral Gal. accounted for the hard part ,Fillominoes and Yin yang taking the medium and the rest being easy.

On my personal experience,with about 30 mins left on the clock for 3 puzzles ,spiral Gal.(6 ,10 and 14), I was looking at a possible finish .But as luck would have it,I got stuck on spiral Galaxies 3 which according to me is the hardest of the set .Just kept going wrong repeatedly, until I finally completed it.I cursed myself for not attempting the 14 pointer being intimidated by its points .I completed it after the test in precisely 7 mins 53s.Ah!

Also, I noticed that I have taken a serious liking to Shikaku puzzles .I was surprised seeing my time that I completed all shikakus in a span of 7 mins. Too bad ,there is no PR round dedicated only to shikakus. :)

To conclude,this was one of those tests where I had a sense of satisfaction having completed 20/22 puzzles which I rarely get in a puzzle test with more half the puzzles left uncompleted.
Thanks Rakesh for a wonderful set!

Btw,refreshing to see Deb give a feedback or is it a new user with the ID debmohanty ? :-p :-p

I enjoy solving all the types Rakesh has selected in this test. So, this was one of the rare occasions where i solved all the puzzles before the test started. So I thought I'm eligible to give feedback this time :)

Thanks Rob!

Agree with your feedback. We will try to factor this input in future, and try to cover more available logic.

Thanks for your feedback. Does 'Neat' (in this context) mean OK?

Its not been a long time since this is my first puzzle test as an author. I think the 'region' puzzles in general work faster with intuitive solving.

No. Neat as in, it was crisp, good and overall a nice pleasant solve. Puzzles were not 'extraordinarily fantastic', but it is an excellent set for a PR round. I liked it better than Numbers, Evergreens and my own, Classics.

Yes, its your first puzzle test, but I meant in general... long after Prime Exotica and mock-tests!

@Puzlifouk, @rob: I agree that a high number of puzzles were on the easier side. Personally, I take the positive that most solvers will get a chance to try out all puzzles in the set, which rarely happens.

@wgryciuk: I didn't expect anyone would select "too many hard puzzles" but you have. Can you please share your thoughts about the hard puzzles?

Yes. I thought you would get 70. I thought you would miss out on SG3, SG4 and SG4/5 (exactly the three you did in the end). But you got 76. I am happy I was wrong.


Thanks Deb!

Well you were not wrong entirely.If you see my submission timings ,you will notice that I submitted SG3 in the dying moments!So...you predicted well :)

I've since looked at these puzzles again: I missed reasonable steps on both puzzles. That fourth Yin-Yang did a good job showing some different logic. And the 4/5 is fair (for me, it felt quite lucky that I got it out in reasonable time).

By the way I had more trouble with Spiral Galaxies 3 than 4.

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?	Fillomino

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?	Shikaku
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?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Area Division
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 Rakesh, this test was very fun. A few of the puzzles were too easy to guess at (e.g. the fillominos which had very few hidden polyominoes), but overall the test was nicely done. Spiral galaxy 3 was very tough though, I think I spent 15-20 minutes on that one alone.

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?	Spiral Galaxies
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 easy puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Fillomino
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?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Area Division
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

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 easy puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Area Division
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

One particularly generous puzzle was the 10 point Shikaku. And the "easy" Spiral Galaxies didn't seem to be that easy. In fact, I solved them in the order 1, 4, 3, 2 despite starting them in the right order. But, to be fair, I'm not desperately good at Spiral Galaxies.

Overall though, fun test - the first one I've ever finished!

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?	Fillomino
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

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?	Spiral Galaxies
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?	I have a different complaint

"I have a different complaint" - the grid lines were not visible on the paper when I printed the puzzles, for Fillomino (incl variant) and Shikaku puzzles. Probably a matter of too thin grid lines or so. Used a Win 7 laptop and some Canon InkJet - I do not typically have similar problems elsewhere. Thanks.

Check this: http://logicmastersindia.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=1177&...

Did you open the booklet in browser (Chrome) and print?

Yes that's what happened - I hope I'll remember to next time save a copy and print from a non-browser viewer - thanks.

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?	Spiral Galaxies
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

Very nice set of puzzles. The spiral galaxies were very nice and I felt were a bit undervalued as compared to some of the other sets like Shikaku.

Many puzzles had a very intuitive solve and it would have been nice to have a couple of puzzles in which the most intuitive option would not lead to the correct solution.

But having said that this set was a big relief after the previous rounds :)

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?	Area Division
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 for your feedback!

The 1 and 2 pointers were mostly giveaways. However I still saw some solvers spend a lot of time on YY1 and FL1.

I had kept the more familiar variations - Fillomino and Shikaku - easy (maybe, too easy). AD4 and YY4 were also in the same category. The objective was that everyone should be able to complete these sets and sample the other variants also. The spiral galaxies caused a few problems for most solvers, as expected. Although I did not expect SG3 to cause more problems than SG4, it did.

Another aspect which I maintained is that points for every variation (leaving the exploratory ones aside) would be almost equal. This is probably one reason SH4 got 10 (generous) points. It worked out well in the end, as most solvers were able to get Fillomino, Shikaku, Area Division and Yin Yang out of the way and still had enough time to grapple with the Spiral Galaxies and the two puzzles in the end. Some of them succeeded, others did not. But a majority of the participants were able to "sample" all variations.

Yes. It would have been nice to have a couple of puzzles in which the most intuitive option would not lead to the correct solution. And, I could have had more hidden polyominoes in the Fillomino. Valid points both. Also, at one point, I had considered increasing the difficulty level in FL3 and SH3. But ultimately decided against it.

Finally, glad to see the word 'fun' included in most of the feedback. That aspect is very important. And, it always feels good to complete a test with bonus!

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?	Fillomino
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