Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
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?	Very fair

Choosing favourites is impossible, I really enjoyed almost all of them. The exception being the Twin: I like that it was included, I just had a really rather frustrating experience with it. Didn't even think I was that bad at such puzzles before, but I found roughly one pair per fifteen minutes, and decided to shelve it after 45. I think it was fine as is, but perhaps having to find more but easier pairs would have helped (me).

Other than that, a few too many mistakes, but overall a very fun contest. It was great to be part of it.

The Akari is solvable logically by the way, though I can see it being a bit painful if you miss the central deductions.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
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?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Akari
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
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

I think that Twin CO is far less logical of a genre than I would have liked to see on an LMI test. I don't think that logic puzzles should be tests of visual acuity alone.

I'm quite surprised, as of the time of writing, that I've placed third on the LITS+ round. Had I been just 10 seconds faster, I'd have been first.

Had I known the Domino Loop and Hidoku were that easy, I would have done them earlier instead of trying to muster up the courage to plunge into them. I did however learn something from the Domino Loop about parity, and the breakins for the Hidoku, once spotted, almost made the puzzle solve itself.

The breakin into the Akari was well-hidden, and quite a bit of my time was spent wondering where it was.

Linked Poset Futoshiki is a pretty novel idea, but the rules were convoluted enough that I had to read the whole thing three times, and message Ivan about it in order to understand the rules.

Everything else was pretty ordinary but not noteworthy.

Edited by edderiofer 2016-04-10 1:46 PM

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
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

Enjoyed the contest. Congratulations to all the authors for creating a nice set of puzzles.

I like the format: there is no time limit for each puzzle.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
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

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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
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?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
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?	Fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
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?	Very nice
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Every Second Breakpoint
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?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
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?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Linked Poset Futoshiki
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?	Very fair

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hex Slitherlink
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	LITS+
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Domino Loop
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
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

The Puzzle Marathon is always my favorite! It is so nice to be able to finish all the puzzles and get credit, and I love the big grids. The puzzles this year were very nice again, though nothing stood out as a particularly hard one .. I would rate most as easy or medium. And so I was mostly frustrated with myself for breaking each of the ESB, Galaxy, Futoshiki, Neighbors, Pentopia (I broke that one about 5 times, but it was one of my favorites nevertheless), and LITS+. Sigh. But a big thank you as always to the puzzles makers!!

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Spiral Galaxy
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Twin Co-Ordinates
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?	Very fair

Every single puzzle was excellently constructed, and even more impressively the difficulty seemed well-balanced between all twelve. I also thought that all of the rules changes for this year were for the best. Great job, everyone involved!

Puzzle Marathon for 2016 is over. Submission is no more allowed.

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Neighbours
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

Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Pentopia
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Hidoku
Your 3 most favorite puzzles of the contest.	Word Search Sudoku
How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	A bit skewed
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Average
What is your opinion about rules, points and scoring for this test?	Fair

We thought it'd be nice to acknowledge some of the Marathon Solvers. There is some criteria for this list - We didn't consider solvers going more than 2 hours on a single puzzle, because they might have taken a break mid-puzzle. Also, the total accumulated break time in between solving is equal to or less than an hour.

I guess I should post a few comments about my puzzle (Linked Poset Futoshiki).

Congratulations for deu for solving Linked Poset Futoshiki the fastest at 12:29. Further congratulations for deu that has also won the entire Marathon. Also congratulations for Kota (15:50) and EKBM (16:03) as the podium finishers, along with those below 20 minutes.

Among the people so far that have posted their feedback publicly on this thread, 13 out of 49 liked Linked Poset Futoshiki. Since that's close enough to 1/4, I suppose I take it as good enough that my puzzle competes in the average. (I didn't actually count the others, so I'm not sure if there's any outlier).



Yes, this is unfortunate, and I apologize for that. I did have NEW, HUGE, AND CHALLENGING! that was hosted a month ago (about a hellishly difficult 16x16 Poset Futoshiki, but it also contains 6 practice Poset Futoshiki puzzles), but I think I forgot to remind people here to check it to practice Poset Futoshiki. (The linked part should be easier to understand.) For this particular question, I should probably have made a 2x4x4 example instead of a 2x3x3 one.



I suppose it's no longer useful now that the Marathon has ended, but the answer below that post is correct. In a regular Poset Futoshiki (see above link), a puzzle is made of a grid and its associated diagram. In this puzzle, the diagrams haven't been associated to the grids; rule 1 in your numbering is to associate them (so each diagram is associated to one grid in each row/column).



A poset is usually represented as a Hasse diagram, which is exactly what you see: if there is a path from a lower number to a higher number that is going strictly upward, then the lower number is smaller than the higher number (and if there is no such path, then the two are incomparable). I chose to remain with this convention. On retrospect, it probably would have helped to remove the arrow heads and telling that lower number is smaller than higher number instead.



Yes, I probably should have linked NEW, HUGE, AND CHALLENGING! as described above, so that people can familiarize themselves with Poset Futoshiki first before going into the linked part.