The test has started.

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?	Araf Squared
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

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?	Balance Loop Instructionless
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys could have been better
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 Prasanna, this one is a lovely test.

Sometimes I act so stupid, like I've acted here. I spent 10-12 minutes for the 2nd Rassi Silai puzzle because of the grey region. I thought that all nine regions should have own path, and of course I tried to make it happened. However, I couldn't accompish the my weird goal :D In 2012, in Croatia, there was a part and that part contains Battleship and Snake puzzles. I'm reall good at Snake puzzles, so I gave a shot, but after several minutes I couldn't solve, and I was sure that there was not any solution of that puzzle. It was obvious, it's impossible to place a snake into the grid. Then, I saw my stupidty, this was not a Snake puzzle, this one's a Battleship puzzle which were given only two one-unit ships of the fleet. I assumed those were the Snake's end points :D So, I did similar things in here, and lost so much times, because the grey region had to be empty :D

Thanks Prasanna, again!

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?	Araf Squared
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys could have been better
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Thanks for a beautiful set of puzzles! Hard to pick a favourite among them, but Araf squared was fantastic (and I normally dislike araf - or so I thought - so that's saying something...).

My only complaint is that some answer keys were a bit too long, four rows/columns for Fillomino seems too much to me. Also, the answer key for Slash Pack was super weird. (I guess it may have actually taken me longer to enter the answer code than to solve the puzzle...) Is there any reason for the choiche of f and b? I had to check the instructions every time because I couldn't remember which was which.

f = forward slash, b = back slash

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?	Araf Squared
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys were horrible
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

Again, the feedback form leaves a lot to be desired. I don't think too many hard puzzles is a bad thing, and I don't know if you are measuring distribution by #of puzzles or #of points - but I think in either case hard puzzles accounts for much more than this supposed 10% target.

I also find it hard to believe that anyone gave an honest second opinion about those answer keys! Some were certainly not proportional to the points available for a particular puzzle.

Other than that, quite a nice test. Thanks!

Might this be pushing the boundaries of "culture neutral" a little too far? Was any consideration given to using / and \ instead?

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?	Balance Loop Instructionless
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Perfect answer keys
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

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?	Place By Product
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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 test!

Favorite Puzzles:

6 Place by Product
11 Balance Loop Instructionless
20 Slash Pack
21 Araf Squared

Thank you!

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?	Rassi Silai
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys could have been better
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

was there any problems in the format of the slash pack? I kept receiving error messages

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?	Balance Loop Instructionless
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

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?	Araf
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

You entered '-' instead of numbers. However, we will review your (and everyone else's) submissions for slash pack, as that is an error in entering a "given"

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?	Rassi Silai
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys were horrible
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

I normally really enjoy the PR sets but found this one VERY frustrating. Point distribution seemed off. Especially with unfamiliar puzzle types, I use point values to identify easier puzzles to start with. Here, it seemed the opposite. I thought the 2-point rassi silai was the hardest one. The 1-point place by product took a lot of trial and error for me. Could be my own experience though.
The answer keys for slash pack were extremely frustrating. I painstakingly wrote b's and f's on my diagonal walls and carefully typed them. All were wrong. Tried capital and small letters, turned my paper, quadruple checked solutions and rules. I still don't understand what I am doing wrong and wasted a lot of time. Ugh.
Aside from these issues I liked seeing new types. I really liked the rassi silai and (ragular) araf.

Yes. But that causes a glitch in the scores. We can mention next time such a case arises that we will accept the answer if b and f are switched too as long as they are consistent.

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?	Araf Squared
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

Excellent set of puzzles once again.

Only 1 complaint, the answer keys of slash pack was hard. The solving itself was so easy. Wasted lots of time entering the answer key and trying to correct it.

Logic was very nice behind every puzzle.

Favourite was Araf Squared and balance loop instructionless.

Nice test.

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?	Place By Product
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

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?	Average
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Slash Pack
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Answer keys could have been better
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

This round turned out to be even worse than the previous PR round.Too many hard puzzles just slowed everything down .Lengthy answer keys didn't help the case either.If the answer keys for Fillomino had been reduced to two rows or 2 columns or a row and column and better for a few other puzzles like balance loop(a few rows instead of all rows) , there would have been sufficient time to solve all slash pack puzzles which I did eventually after the contest and found them to be the least troublesome and fun to solve.

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?	Place By Product
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

Yes, I got my two penalties for entering wrongly only '-' and slashes. :( then I tried numbers for non-slash cells. I always pay no real attention to the answer key part in the IB. :) Should change this habit..

Edited by Panni 2018-03-18 11:22 PM

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?	Place By Product
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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

1-2 point puzzles need a much shorter answer key. I spent more time on Slash Pack trying to get the answer key right than I did solving the puzzles in the first place.

I join the crowd of people having trouble with the answer keys. Having to enter the numbers was very unexpected to me. But of course I didn't study the instruction booklet carefully here. But at least the description could have stated "Use digits for given numbers, '-' for an empty cell,, ...". F/B is not great but better than /\, since backslash can be really hard to enter if you're not on an English keyboard layout. On croco-puzzle we asked only diagonal/non-diagonal back in the day: https://www.croco-puzzle.com/Raetselspass/Ue-Raetsel/ue-raetsel2.php... I think that might give enough information?

Apart from that small bump, I had a lot of fun with the puzzles, thank you!

Edited by rob 2018-03-19 3:56 AM

I also have the same complaint about Slash Pack answer keys, but I guess that's why there's Claim button.

I also wonder if N/Z (backslash and forward slash, see their diagonal lines) would have been better in avoiding the culture-based key.

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?	Balance Loop Instructionless
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Mostly perfect answer keys
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 struggled a lot through the Araf Squared puzzles, which lost me a lot of time.

I messed up the answer keys to the Slash Pack puzzles. When I finally figured it out after going back to the instruction booklet, I didn't have enough time left to correct them all. I don't really understand the point of having to put in the numbers instead of just marking them as empty cells to be honest. It's the same thing within the rules of the puzzle as slashes can't be in numbered cells and the numbers are in set places. It could have been clarified to insert the numbers as well in the instructions as mostly clue cells are counted as empty cells in these types of puzzles that don't involve inserting numbers into cells.