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.

I think the drop down should be active after 4-5 sec this will force few of the solvers who try to guess to solve the puzzle since they dont't know what are the options

For cell sudoku:
The options will be clear because of grid size, to prevent from guessing, the answer must be manipulated to some other form may be some mathematical operations, in this case both the mathematical expression to be used and the drop down will be visible at the same time.

For Lucky Column:
The options will be clear because of alphabets used for the naming of columns, to prevent from guessing, numbers can used to name the columns an then the answer must be manipulated to some other form may be some mathematical operations, in this case both the mathematical expression to be used and the drop down will be visible at the same time.

For ABC Connect:
Same as lucky column replace the alphabets with numbers.

For Black and White:
Manipulate the answer using a mathematical expression which will be shown at same time of dropdown.

For IrregularSplit:
Interchange numbers and alphabets, again same process manipulating the answer.

For Middle stick:
Replace alphabets with numbers, again same process manipulating the answer.

For Missing digit Kakuro, Coded Skyscraper, Rare Skyscraper, Brilliant Color:
Same process of manipulating the answer, replace the colors with numbers in brilliant color puzzle.

Are there any puzzles in ST1 that can be solved in less than 4 sec?

The number of options in the dropdown should increase also not all the answers will fit the mathematical expression (to avoid reverse calculations).

I hope I explained it clearly, any modifications or suggestions to this are welcome.

Thank You.

Are you suggesting something analogous to "answer key being displayed after some time in sudoku tests"? How does this change the situation? The heavy guessers will punch their answers in 5-6 seconds.

I did not understand this totally, perhaps. But it seems you are suggesting that we use a drop down (as in ST1) PLUS an answer key. Is that correct? And that the answer key should not be known beforehand. The idea is good and will certainly bring down guesswork but whether it goes with the spirit of a Screen Test or not needs to be determined...

Maybe not 4, but definitely within 10 seconds.

Can you explain your point with some example here? I am unable to understand it fully.

I am not able to understand it at all

Do you really want to prevent that?

Guessing is inevitable if you have multiple options as answers. But then, if you do not have options, the test will look more like a normal test. And, heavy guessers got more wrong than right. So its not as if someone is going to finish in top 20 by heavy guessing.

Still, if you want to reduce the probability of success of guesses, simply increase the number of options.

Hi guys I am extremely sorry for not making my points clear enough .

As rakesh said to increase the number of options to prevent from guessing in not always possible, like in the case of missing digit kakuro, rare skyscraper, irregular split etc. the number of options are fixed or rather can be decreased but not increased.

The idea is
1) There will be a mathematical expression in which there will be one variable, i.e is the answer obtained after solving the puzzle. Say 6(A) + A^2 is the expression where A is the answer.
Player after solving the puzzle needs to calculate the result of the expression and then choose it from dropdown box, so now we can increase the number of options.

2)Regarding the reverse calculation I guess I made a mistake it should have been like this, all the possible options that will result from the mathematical expression and some other numbers (to increase the options) should be there in the dropdown.

3)The dropdown and the mathematical expression will be active only after 4-5 sec (which I think should be fine) so that no one gets to know the answers or the expression before hand.

Even after all this if a player is able to guess the answer then it can't be helped, but I think this will decrease the number of playes from guessing.

Thanks for explaining, and I now understand what you are saying.
But it would simply increase the solving time unnecessarily, and adds an error-prone element to the puzzle.

To answer Rakesh's question "Do you really want to prevent that? " - I don't think we really need to do anything to prevent it. Definitely not by adding more complexities for genuine solvers.

Hi,

I feel, we should not do anything to prevent Guess work, True Champions will always emerge in a long run.
Guess work will not produce results always, Just to prevent Guess work, we should not complicate Puzzle Interface.
Easier/simple Interface will attract more puzzlers, I think which is also one of the main aim of LMI.

This is my personal feeling.

Thanks again for your precious time in organizing wonderful event.

Best Reagrds,
Keshav

Edited by keshava.hs 2010-12-07 9:45 PM