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.

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 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

Some really nice puzzles there. But again, I think this was too hard for a PR round.

The answer keys format was quite poor and cumbersome.

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

Solid puzzles overall, though I agree with the complaints about the answer keys. The Slash Pack keys were time consuming (e.g. there could have been just two rows/columns instead of 4) and confusing. The Fillomino keys were time consuming too. And the Rassi Silai key seems like it should depend more on the whole grid.

Again though, the puzzles were fun. My favorites were Rassi Silai (I'd never seen it before, but it was a fun variant of typical path puzzles), and the instructionless balance loop.

I would be curious to see a logical solution to the Araf Squared puzzles too, they fell reasonably quickly to intuition/guessing, but I couldn't find any good real deductions.

Edited by ghirsch 2018-03-20 1:25 AM

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?	Slash Pack
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

I really enjoyed the test especially the slash pack. I am wondering about the first Araf puzzle as I can't seem to figure out where the five in the top row goes. It is 5 or 7 away from the 7.

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
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

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?	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

The Slash Pack answer keys were pretty bad, I felt it took me longer to enter 40 characters of digits, hyphens, Fs and Bs then solve the 2 point puzzle. I was constantly reminding myself which way F and B went, perhaps you can allow slashes next time? And making us fill in given digits is just annoying, as now I can't leave my fingers hovering over keys while I only look at the paper.
The Instructionless was interesting but no room in the black cells to write deduced numbers (I don't have a white pen like in the example solution!)
Anyway, the puzzles were excellent, and the Araf Squared weren't as scary as the WPC's. Thanks for a great contest. :D

i try to have the instructions on my computer screen during the test, just in case i am not sure about a certain point. keeping a printed copy handy or having it on your mobile phone could also work, depending on where, what which, etc

What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Fillomino
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Perfect answer keys

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?	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?	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
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 the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Congratulations to Endo Ken, Ryusuke Nishiyama, and Yuki Kawabe for making it an all-Japan Top 3, yet again. Endo Ken was more than 17 minutes ahead of the second placed participant!

Amongst Indian participants, Congratulations to Rohan Rao, Amit Sowani and Swaroop Guggilam for taking the top 3 places.

Of the 171 participants, 30 were from India, and 26 from Japan. Tamekasa Aoki (Japan) was the first to start the test while Anubhav Balodhi (India) was the last person to start the test. 22 participants completed the set of 22 puzzles, within the allotted time. The median score of the test was 46.4.

Fillomino and Rassi Silai were the most solved puzzles, while Araf Squared and Balance Loop instructionless were the least solved.

Thanks Prasanna Seshadri for the puzzles, and all participants who provided valuable feedback.

Participants may share feedback on the results page and rate the puzzles on the contest page.