Similar to Neeraj's suggestion.
I'm not sure if we should do this. Because 'the order in which the puzzles appear' would affect players' performance.

most importantly, any amount of seconds saved for a puzzle is being converted to bonus points... so it doesnt serve a purpose giving a bonus for seconds saved and then carrying the time forward to next puzzle...

agreed that bonus pts takes care of fast solving, i would prefer using that time in solvinhg other puzzles where i m not that quick, eg i cld solve the sudoku puzzles quickly but need more than avg time for the loops ,
thats my take, but i understand what we intend to test is also important, if we want to test time solving, or ability to solve all kinds of puzzle

Edited by utkaarsh 2010-12-06 8:10 PM

For Screen Test 1, we stuck to the format in which screen tests take place at WPCs. We added the 90-sec review period so that more puzzles can be solved by players and also to motivate new-comers and first-timers.

We will work upon all the feedback we get to improve in future.

As for your suggestion, if the saved time is again given back to you to solve any puzzle you want, it just transforms it into a direct 30-min normal test with 25 puzzles. Say for example a player doesnt like Arrows, she/he will just skip that puzzle and use those 60 secs to solve some other puzzle, which is not the idea of a screen test.

After an exciting weekend of the short-and-quick format of the puzzle world, with a high participation of 183 players from 35 countries, we announce the winners and players with outstanding performance:

1st Martin Merker (Germany) - 1477
2nd Thomas Snyder (USA) - 1450
3rd Hideaki Jo (Japan) - 1394

View complete results: http://logicmastersindia.com/ST/ST1/score.asp

Congrats to Martin Merker for winning Screen Test 1 and for scoring 1477 points . Congrats to Thomas Snyder and Hideaki Jo for finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Special thanks to Rishi Puri, Ritesh Gupta, Rajesh Kumar, Rakesh Rai and Tejal Phatak for solving and testing the interface of ST beforehand and to ensure a smooth weekend.

Please give your feedbacks and comments so that we can work on it for future STs. Hoping to see you all at ST2.

Regards,
Rohan Rao and Deb Mohanty.

I submited all the answers but only 2 was counted... Did I start too late?

Check other thread.

I participated in LMI Tests after a long time, was a bit rusty as the performance suggests.

Generally, the answers I submit are quite accurate. But this time I got 7 right and 7 wrong. Certainly, because of the time constraint associated with individual puzzles.

Overall, Screen Test is a great concept, as it requires the individual to solve each and every puzzle. As the whole test was based on WPC Style, I would suggest not to modify it further. But one thing that I would like is more time for all the individual puzzles in the next Screen Test.

Yes, we will probably have more time for each puzzle next time to enable more players to be able to solve the puzzles.

I have written about my Screen Test experience on my blog: http://rohanrao.blogspot.com/2010/11/logic-masters-india-screen-tes...

I fully agree with the latest comments, particulalry those of Rohan and adityasaraf. The ST perhaps needs adjustments but too many changes will result in making its nature completely different from WPC. I found it very demanding and fully enjoyable.
The statistics show that in the majority of the cases, the puzzles were well chosen and solvable on screen. The exceptions being the few cases in which the very low percentage of correct solution indicate a random distribution (=guesswork)
As an improvement, I would recommend a more visible time marker. (perhaps 5 beeps in the last 5 seconds??)
Stefano

Good idea. We can easily do something with the timer in the last 5 seconds to catch the eye of the participant. Maybe beep. Maybe changing colour or making bigger, since not all computers may have sound system in place.
Having a more visible timer during the entire session might be distracting to players. We wanted players to see the puzzle and solve it as quickly as possible rather than concentrating on the time left. Thats why we tried to camouflage the timer in the background. But we'll surely look into it if more people suggest a better timer :-)

I'm glad you enjoyed the Screen Test :-)

While we have got bigger green bars for most of the questions, we have got bigger orange / red bar for the question "Were most of the puzzles solvable on screen?"

See here for details.

That obviously means that while players liked the concept and interface, but the main area of improvement is puzzles.
In next few posts, I would cover my thoughts on the Screen Test puzzles.

To start with KnightSafe, Mazes, BeadCount
All three of them visual puzzles. Most players got them right. Mazes being the easiest one, I wanted mazes to be first puzzle in the test. But Rohan thought it might disable players' eyes if it the first puzzle :-)
Either way, I think all 3 puzzles were solvable easily on screen. They all have high percentages of success rate too.

The next 2 are Minimum Mines and Blank Hitori, both needing mild logical steps.
I had planned for a bigger Minimum Mines - an 8X8 one - but I'm glad that we didn't include it.
The 5X5 one needs minor additions, and many players cracked it in less than 30 seconds.
Blank Hitori - It had lot of "black" squares. Many players got it right, but few players answers 2 or 4.
I believe that these 2 puzzles are nice selections for the screen test.

The next two - CellSudoku and SudokuTwins
CellSudoku - One of the few puzzles where we probably didn't get it right.
We wanted a visual sudoku, and not a sudoku with standard solving approach with pencil marks etc.
It is a very simple puzzle, needing a two step approach. See spoiler below.

But given that only few players got it correct - we should have a smaller grid or more time for this puzzle.

SudokuTwins -
Unfortunately, grid A has two solutions because of a misplaced digit. Although the puzzle as a whole had single solution, it definitely pissed off many players.
And also, the labels were different between grids B and C.
I'm to be blamed for the mess in this puzzle.

While we wanted to have both the Sudokus easy and accessible to everyone, it didn't turn out that way.
This is one of my biggest disappointments in ST1.

I was not very confident of Stubborn Snake in the Screen test. But to my pleasant surprise, many players solved it correctly.

MultiESB had 10 circles, so I would think many players simply answered 5.
I believe that this can be solved on screen without much problem (though the original planned puzzle was way too difficult).
The first 3 loops can be drawn almost immediately.


Next puzzle LuckyColumn
If I were to remove exactly one puzzle from ST1, it would probably be LuckyColumn :-)

LMICount and MissingWords are two more visual / observation / counting puzzles.
Original LMICount was 8X8 and we decided to make it 6X6. May be we should have had the 8X8, since the 6x6 was solved correctly in 33 seconds on an average.

The original MissingWords puzzle was too error prone. See image below. We decided at the last moment to change it, and it was a much wise decision.



Operations Twist was the only arithmetic related puzzle. It turned out to be most correct 60 seconds puzzle.

ABCConnect - This was one standard puzzle type put in ST#1 without any modifications. The ideas was that many players solve ABC Connect mentally. We were correct, 75% players who answered it got it correct.

BlackAndWhite If I were to remove 2 puzzles from ST#1, this one will be the 2nd puzzle, the first one being LuckyColumn.
It is not a great B&W puzzle - but it insisted that player solve and count the puzzle on screen, which seemed little tough to me.
Players who had read the Guide must have noticed that we had provided the grid size for this puzzle (and some other puzzles)
The idea of providing grid sizes is that player may want to solve it on paper rather than on screen if the puzzle can be easily drawn on paper.
[ In some WPCs, players are allowed to redraw the images on paper ]

The next two puzzles IrregularSplit and CorrectXV turned out to be as bad as the 45-seconds-sudoku puzzles, very few players solving them.

The IrregularSplit was not spectacular, it doesn't work like a sudoku, but more of a jigsaw fitting puzzle. It all depends upon how quickly one can do all the combinations.
While IrregularSplit had a decent success rate, CorrectXV turned out to be least favorite puzzle fetching -0.16 points per attempt.

I'll explain below how we expected players to solve it, but since most players didn't get it, I accept that there was not enough time for this puzzle.
Just like the example - the four 4 grids were similar looking. Either an X or a V was the only difference between the grids.
We thought players would focus on that, rather than solving the grid.

In grid B, there was an additional V on Column 6, Which made column 6 unsolvable.
In grid C, there was less V on Column 3, which made column 3 unsolvable.
In grid A, there was an additional V in Row1 (which means there was no place for 5 in Row1 and hence grid A is also unsolvable)


The example used a similar technique, and somehow we thought that players will be able to solve this in 60 seconds. It was not to be :-)

It was really good from the regular tests. I think we should go for this kind of test regularly may be once in a month. I am suggesting this because the time for every puzzle is fixed, and many of the times the best comes out when we are under pressure, this is a perfect test for bringing the best from the players and improving their skills.

Thanks a lot for all who made this initiative very successful.

Next one is CarelessArrows another visual puzzle. But unlike many other visual puzzles, it can be quickly checked whether your answer is correct or not.
I liked this puzzle very much.
It is only because of this puzzle that we had a DropDownList rather than buttons for answer keys.

Mastermind is like standard Mastermind. Given that options were given, it again was more like a check-check-check puzzle.

ImagesCount - When I started thinking about ST#1 around 3 months back, ImagesCount was the first puzzle I created. Originally it had 9 images. We reduced it to 6. Given that there were still 120 circles, it seemed too difficult.
Also that, the reflection possibility was missing from the example image (though the instructions had it), it made matters worse.
There could have been a better puzzle!

MiddleStick - Again one of the earliest puzzles. See image below for original version. One of the wisest decision to drop two sticks and make it 2-colored.

That brings us to the last 4 puzzles -

MissingDigitKakuro This type went to several iterations, we made multiple puzzles of this type and we thought we chose the easiest one.
It needed to be solved only in the left top region ( i would think that most players start looking that region first :-)
May be this could be have been easier. A smaller range 1-6 would definitely have helped.



CodedSkyscraper - Our original thought was that CodedSkyscraper and CorrectXV are the only 2 tough puzzles which would challenge the top solvers.
In Coded, it takes a while to realize that {A,D}={3,4} and 3+4 = 7
Looking at either column3 or row3, D can't be 4. so A=4
Given the very low success rate for this puzzle, it was not best fit in 60 seconds.


RareSkyscraper - Irrespective of the success rate, I think that this was an easy puzzle. Especially if one had solved the example carefully and found the pattern of 9-8-7-6....

BrilliantColour
The best puzzle of ST1 in my opinion, and we intentionally had kept it at the end.

Finally, the technical part - It was a good technical challenge to implement the Screen Test since it was very different from what we've done so far at LMI.
But we all love challenges in some way, don't we?

We are glad that ST#1 worked as flawlessly as we designed. Thanks to everyone for sharing improvement ideas, we'll keep them in mind if/when we do ST#2.

I've no idea if making Screen Tests a monthly contest makes sense or whether it is feasible to write good puzzles so frequently. We've to wait and see.

One of the most satisfying things from ST#1 is there were lot of Indian solvers. Also, it really feels good to see many old solvers back (Omkar/Ritesh, are you reading this?)
30 minutes time and no printer requirement seem to be the key things that worked here.

Keshava Murthy continued from his FLIP performance, and got the best Indian rank (he admitted that he made some lucky guesses :-)
Rajesh did reasonably well, though I think he was very conservative.
Rishi stood 3rd, and it is good that he is spending more time on puzzles now.

Rakesh had a disappointing test - he should have got much more.
Amit - I'm not exactly sure what the problem was - but he certainly could have got more points.

Congratulations to everyone and thank you for participating.

Thank you Deb for sharing your views on my suggestion.
I agree that it is not easy to design these kind of puzzles which can fit the time frame (60 or 45 sec).
I think we should increase and decrease time depending on the difficulty level of the puzzle.
We can work on this tests if some of the solvers can become authors and contribute some puzzles, may be not 25 puzzles all the time but decent enough number of puzzles with varying difficulty.
Let see how this goes I also will try to desgin puzzles which suits this test (although I have never designed puzzles )

Wish me luck.

Thank You.

It was a nice test, and a good change. And, most importantly, it introduced the ST concept to solvers like us who have never been to a WPC. The interface worked well overall and the puzzle selection was good. The main challenge was to create puzzles which can be solved without use of paper, and the test was largely successful at that.

Deb: Thanks for your views on the puzzles. They are very comprehensive and almost cover everything that I might have wanted to comment on.

One big mistake which I made in this test was to try to check/verify my answer. Inevitably, the time for the puzzle would run out. I'd try to note the answer for entering during the review period. But, during the review period, I instead concentrated on solving one "almost-finished" puzzle, ultimately getting minus points for that, and even not able to enter the planned ones. A better approach would be to enter answers as soon as you arrive at them. No need to double check. And, to not leave too much to do in the review period.

Many people have commented on the amount of time being inadequate. But, is there really a solution for that? If you make the time 90 seconds for each puzzle, inevitably the complexity would also increase a little bit. I think the timing was alright for 80-90% of the puzzles, as eight solvers were able to cross the par score - 1350.

The only cases which need a re-look are the ones which had the least solvers -
(1) Cell Sudoku (the main problem was the size of the sudoku, which put off most solvers...the in-out concept was actually very well applied)
(2) Correct XV (I was able to eliminate A and B in 60 seconds, then could not look at it in the review period)
(3) Coded Skyscraper (size of the grid was the main obstacle, again)
(4) Missing Digit kakuro (I think, due to the time pressure, most solvers were trying to eliminate digits rather than solve the kakuro. At least this was my approach, so I was able to eliminate 1,2,3,4,5,8,9 easily. But could not arrive at the final answer - between 6 and 7)

Maybe, one suggestion for ST2 could be to increase the review period a little bit (~150 seconds)...I was unable to do what I intended to do in the review period...it went off pretty fast. And, perhaps adequate time for sudoku/kakuro puzzles.

An interesting observation: There were 6-7 solvers who got more than 110 points for a single puzzle, i.e. solved a 60-point puzzle in less than 10 seconds (and two of them twice). But none of them finished in the top 50.

Rakesh - thanks for your views.

After the end of day1 of the test, nobody had solved Cell Sudoku. Thats when we realized that it is trickier that we had expected.
The idea was borrowed from Mock9 Round 1 Page 8
Rohan also got the answer quickly, and we thought it should be solvable. But we were wrong by a huge margin.
I'm not exactly sure if a 6X6 grid with similar trick would have been much better.

As I wrote, I don't have a problem with CorrectXV and Coded Skyscraper being least solvable. We were expecting only the top solvers to do it.

Regarding Review Period :
I have mixed feeling about the review period. Does it really help?
In my original plan, Review Period didn't exist.
But Amit suggested that we must have a review period of at least 120 seconds. Rohan was not very certain too.
I was thinking of an "Add-on" time for each puzzle.
Every puzzle will have an "Add 15 seconds" button. If you are close to solving it but still need few more seconds, you could add 15 seconds to the puzzle (at the cost of losing x% of the points).
To me that is better than Review Period - here is why I think so -
You are working on a puzzle, it is in your brain. It is easy if you have 15 more seconds to solve the puzzle.
If you switch to another puzzle, and again look at it in Review Period, you again have to bring the puzzle back in your brain.

We discarded Addon time for ST#1 because it looked complex to us.

Some players made heavy guesses... Solving MinimumMines in 2 seconds, KnightSafe in 2 seconds.
I'm not sure how to prevent that. Suggestions welcome.

I also have mixed feelings about the -ve scoring that we had.
Ideally -ve scoring should be applicable to random guesses.

Let me take an example -
BeadCount - It is a visual puzzle. J has 11 beads, A has 10.
J is the correct answer. Some players made minor counting mistakes and answered as A. [ A is most incorrect submission ]
But there are players who would either randomly guess or made major counting mistakes, and answered as C / D / E or whatever else.

158 | J
17 | A
3 | C
2 | G
2 | D
1 | F
1 | E

Take MultiESB - The correct answer is 4. If someone answers 5, it could be a counting mistake. But how on earth can the answer be 7 (there are only 10 circles - so the answer could be max 5 without even drawing any loop)
54 | 4
43 | 5
14 | 6
7 | 3
6 | 7

The point I'm trying to make is -
the negative scoring didn't consider this difference - a minor counting/solving mistake OR a random guess.
May be there should not have been any negative scoring for the most incorrect submission.

The negative scoring was introduced to dissuade players from randomly guessing. But given the nature of the -ve scoring, lot of players played conservatively.