drsteve - 2016-01-23 3:03 AM

A fun test - on the one hand, I found it a bit easy, on the other, it was nice to finish one of these for once.

Hotel - 2016-01-23 8:22 AM

Nice puzzles. Especially I enjoyed Heyawacky 4.

Rohan Rao - 2016-01-23 1:21 PM

I felt this was the most balanced PR round so far.

Excellent puzzles and a good hour spent in solving them.
Thanks Swaroop!

chaotic_iak - 2016-01-23 2:49 PM

A fun set overall, if more on the easier side. Apparently Windows is a type that can be broken by intuition; I did Windows 4 in 2m25, the largest point/time ratio for this test.

I'm not very certain why Paint by Numbers is chosen here, since it's not a very deep type on its own; I don't think there's too many variations of tricks that can be used there. On the other hand, it's perhaps the type that is most well-known to people not active in competitive puzzling, so perhaps that's a reason on its own. It's also interesting that there's a lack of "common" shading types such as Nurikabe, but since the basic things of shading puzzles are covered ("black cells cannot be adjacent" and "white cells form contiguous region" are by Heyawacky; "black cells are connected" and "no 2x2 black cells" are by Windows; even Nurikabe's own island rule exists as Lakes), I guess the variations do represent the theme well.

kishy72 - 2016-01-23 9:36 PM

Just one word to describe the set.

Splendid !!

This becomes my favourite PR round so far and I am confident that it will remain that way until the end.Everything was perfect about the test.Construction/Points distribution/Difficulty/Selection of puzzle genres etc.,.My favourites of the test were Heyawacky (10 Points)and Windows(11 points).

Tremendous job Swaroop.Just for designing this test,you deserve a place in the Puzzle Team this year :-p.Simply stunning work behind the scenes.I greatly enjoyed the set.Thanks a lot for the test.

You made me experience the concept of 'fun' in a puzzle test which occurs very rarely.So you made me give an all "green" feedback in a puzzle test :)which is another of those rare things that I thought will never happen .Perfect work!!Keep it up!

Helen - 2016-01-23 9:44 PM

A very nice puzzle set and I thought the difficulty level was nicely targeted for beginners. Thanks to the creators :)

ghirsch - 2016-01-23 10:36 PM

Once again, this set was a lot of fun, though maybe a little too easy. There was a good amount of variety in the different puzzle types, and I liked seeing some unfamiliar types. Heyawacky 4 was very nice, and I also really liked both instructionless puzzles (though I made the stupid mistake of solving the instructionless Heyawacky example, thinking it was one of the puzzles for points).

Bram28 - 2016-01-25 11:05 PM

Got through everything fine ... except the Windows!! That was not a type I had done before, and I was completely lost, staring at them for about 30 minutes, with only the first one solved. Can someone please post some hints or tricks for Windows, or maybe step through one? I would really appreciate that!

swaroop2011 - 2016-01-25 5:13 PM



Hi, I am not sharing the steps for the puzzles in the contest right now, because i believe if you know the tricks, then you can solve it on your own. These are all easy puzzles.
So I have shared the common tricks that one can use to solve Windows Puzzles. I have posted a pdf on my blog (http://swaroopg92.blogspot.com/2016/01/puzzle-ramayan-2015-16-shading-round.html) or you can directly look at pdf with this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1TteOwGbxHcHNlWkR0UjFUMEU/view?us...

Give a try using these steps, and if you still facing issues, then comment here, will post the steps for solving the contest puzzles.

Bram28 - 2016-01-25 7:13 PM



OK, I'll take a look at those, thanks! And I forgot to say earlier that other than my complete bewilderment at Windows, I did really enjoy the puzzles, especially the variations. Nice job!!