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?	Ripple Loop
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 too much or too little
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?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Loaded Battleships
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

I really don't like entering columns as letters for the battleships answer keys. It could be digits, it's simpler to read, and faster to type on a numpad.
Same for polyominoes, it could be the size of the colored parts, it's faster to type than letters.

Thanks for your viewpoint and we are concerned that you found the answer keys horrible while most other participants were ok.

For Polyominoes, your suggested answer key is an altogether different kind of answer key and does not clearly tell if the solver placed the correct polyomino. So the letters do serve a purpose here. Last year, we had asked names of the first three shapes from a direction, again letters only.

For Battleships, letters are already provided for easy reference above the grid. So it should not be that difficult. The numbers are avoided for a reason again. Numbers can possibly cause confusion with battleship outside clues which are also numbers.

Yes, we do consider things like "simpler to read" and "easier to type" but that is not the only consideration.

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?	Battleships
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?	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?	Ripple Loop
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?	Fairly Nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Futoshiki
What was your opinion about the answer key extraction?	Perfect answer keys
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?	Very nice
Which set of puzzles did you like the most?	Polyominoes
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

Good test, although harder than I expected! I got everything but the last two Kropkis. The quality was very high, in my view. Thanks!!

Edited by mstang 2020-02-25 10:15 AM

Phew. Finished this test with a minute to spare.
I was really slow with the Latin Squares.
Thankfully, I made up for it with the Object Placement portion.

Number Placement should perhaps include other genres as well (maybe Products, Summon, heck, even Nansuke?) - 3/4 types being Latin Squares was maybe a bit... much.
I noticed a wild imbalance with points/minute solve - but this is often common with the placement genre since you could quickly intuit to a solution.
For example, I took only 90 seconds to solve 8 points worth of Akari, whereas I'd take 10 minutes+ to solve 8 points worth of Kropki.
The presentation of Weighted Battleships (I think that was the original name) could've had the digits written on the ships (which is usually made lighter grey) to make it easier to visualize.

Loved the test. You could see the intended logic path behind most of these puzzles. The 14-Battleships deserves a special mention.
Thanks!

A question: if every test is going to be extended by 24 hours, why not just start each test with the extra day already included and save yourself the hassle?

Yes. It is a valid point and has been discussed internally too.

There is a reason we are not doing it. If we directly do it till Wednesday then people may ask for extension till Thursday and we want to avoid that.

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?	Futoshiki
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

Congratulations to Endo Ken, Kota Morinishi and Hideaki Jo for taking the top three places.

Thanks to the 270 participants from 37 countries. Among participants who scored points, Michael Ley (Germany) was the first to start the test while David Cohen (USA) was the last person to start the test. 21 participants completed the set within the allotted time, while another 20 participants completed 20+ puzzles. The median score of the test was 45.3.

Top finishers for countries with 10+ participants:

India(50): Prasanna Seshadri, Rohan Rao and Ashish Kumar
Japan(27): Ryotaro Chiba, Tomoya Kimura, Kazuya Yamamoto (ranks 4-6)
USA(22): Walker Anderson, Anderson Wang and Jeffrey Bardon
Italy(16): Giuliano Montelucci, Stefano Forcolin and Arianna Domenichelli
Germany(15): Michael Ley, Robert Vollmert and Martin Merker
France(15): Denis Auroux, Anne Limoges and Philippe Meyer
Poland(11): Tomasz Skalski, Lukasz Skrzypczynski and Mateusz Przybyla
UK(11): Jeremy Kong, Sam Cappleman-Lynes and Freddie Hand
Slovakia(10): Marek Kasar, Natalia Chanova, and Veronika Kolvekova

Thanks Harmeet Singh and Pranav Kamesh for the puzzles!

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

The Solution Booklet is now available here.

Thanks to LMI for giving an opportunity to Pranav and me to author PR2. Thanks to Rakesh for guiding, test solving and overseeing many other things in the background. Congrats to the podium finishers. There were 21 solvers (across 8 countries) who finished all puzzles in time. The test got inclined towards the hard side and general feedback reflects the same. We take constructive feedback of choosing variety in puzzle types. It is a learning curve for us and we see an opportunity in improving the balance of the test for wide spectrum of puzzle solvers. Special mention of Pranav as he came up with an amazing set of puzzles. It never looked like he was authoring for the first time.

Congratulations to Endo Ken, Kota Morinishi and Hideaki Jo for completing the all Japanese Podium, and congratulations to Prasanna, Rohan and Ashish for finishing in the top 3 among Indians.
It was a test on the harder side going by the feedback. The lack of puzzle type variety is a quite valid criticism, and we shall keep it in mind for future rounds.
It was a nice experience to author PR (for the first time). Thank you to Harmeet and Rakesh for helping me with puzzle ideas, test solving and their general insights!
It was fantastic to see the solve path and general smoothness of Harmeet's creations as I test solved, and its something i will try to incorporate into my creations as well!
Looking forward to the next round!