Another awesome test, another idiotic mistake for me. (I assumed the entry rules for all the dice puzzles were the same, and alphabetized them all.)Thanks to Bram and everyone.

Excellent puzzles...I liked both the sea battles the most. Thanks Bram.

And, probably inspired by Akash, I wasted close to half an hour in the end.

Very nice puzzles, well done Bram. I particularly loved the Pentopia puzzles, hope to see more of them in the future

Marcin

Very nice puzzles, so I enjoyed two hours. Thank you for Bram!

By the way, in Japan where I am from, many people are suffering from the earthquakes and tsunami which happend on March 11th.
I live in Tokyo which is far from the hypocenter, so there is little damage around me.

From the Internet and so on, I heard the news that so many people are anxious about the present circumstances in Japan all over the world.
I appreciate for the care from other countries. And I think that it is happy that I solve the puzzles as usual.

Thank you for reading.

Kota

Hi Kota, Thank you for kind update about the quake and tsunami. What we gather from internet and newspapers is that it is really devastating.
We can just pray and hope for well-being of everyone there.

Also read from deu's blog that he had to walk few miles from his office to home. Hope everything is well there too.

Deb

I enjoyed this test very much, and managed to complete 6 puzzles (which for me is good) - I am not yet practised enough to solve fast.
Unfortunately, I made a typo in one entry, and a mistake in the puzzle for another... the worst thing was my final puzzle tht I submitted with about 1:30 to go (according to the counter) didn't get accepted :(

However, I will be taking the remaining puzzles to solve on the train - I usually give uncompleted puzzles to my 4 yo to draw on. So in that regard, this is probably the best (most suited to my puzzle interests) LMI I have attempted (even though I did enjoy some of the other ones).

It is unlikely that the 'counter' ran slowly (90 seconds is a lot of time), so I would tend to think that it could be a connectivity issue.
Thanks for participating in this test (and other tests too). Glad that you enjoy these tests.

I won't be able to do the test but it seems amazing.
Thanks for this posibility.
I'm from Argentina and we are so far away of this level, but I try anyway.
Thanks again and best wishes to Japan.

It was delightful test! I had a lot fun. :) Thank you very much. I could be make better, but in any case this result enough for me. Thank you very much again, Bram.

Liked the test very much but I'm not a big fan of bonus points of this kind. It makes the difference between stronger and weaker solvers even bigger without any upside I'm aware of. Especially regarding the Puzzle rating of LMI it might have an undesired effect...

Beautiful puzzles Bram. Thoroughly enjoyed the test... :-)

Hi,

I've just solved a few grids. I didn't read the instruction booklet before beginning, just look at puzzle types, and I wanted to do some. But those I solved were very good. So I think other ones were good, too

I just asked myself a quick question: why bonus are bigger (more %) for easy puzzles and smaller for hard puzzles? Instinctively I would have done the opposite (or just the same rate) and I can't understand what is the logic of that. (Just for my curiosity )

Thanks

Fred

Edited by Fred76 2011-03-14 4:44 AM

Connectivity is entirely likely to be the issue, I have recently noticed that sometimes it takes 2 or 3 attempts to reach a webpage... but haven't had issues once I get there. (I think it is time to change ISP)

Hello all,

I had a quick question (that might be a FAQ)-- I was able to register for this site but when I typed in my login ID and password and country then clicked "login" to start taking the test, basically nothing happened except the login button disabled. Also, I did not receive a code to open the puzzle pdf. I'm a beginner, so maybe I did something wrong?

Definitely strange. If you are doing what you mentioned, that is the correct step to login.
From the database I see that your country is still empty.

So, basically, fill Login Id, password, and country. And click on Login. It is very surprising when you say "Login" button is disabled, but you also "Clicked on" it.
Is your password single character or 2 characters?

Thank you for the quick response! Ah, my password uses upper case letters, lower case letters, and numbers. It is 8 characters long. I will try to go to my profile and update my country, thanks for pointing out that it is empty.

The country can be updated from the test page itself, so that is not the issue.
Anyway - this test will be over now (in few seconds) - but you can still fix the login problem and get set for the next test.

Post here or send me a PM, if you still face issues.

Now that full results are out, it appears that the Extra section did in fact count for everyone. In page 2 of the instruction booklet it says that section would only count if 18 puzzles were solved correctly. Was that changed? It didn't affect the standings at the top since no one worked on them, but for the past few days I've been baffled by the solving statistics on those puzzles, when no one ever had more than 18 puzzles solved.

Just that players didn't read the very details in the IB. As many as 10 players have solved (correctly) X1 dice. I'm not sure how to deal with this. Giving them 0 for something they spent time on is probably harsh.
I'll discuss with Bram and decide something soon. But as you mentioned, the top 10 does not change.

We still need to finish the manual checking for all the puzzles for possible credits.

But the top 10 results are already checked, so the winners for Puzzle Hybrids are deu, MellowMelon and motris - Congratulations.

Thank you everyone for participating.

Many thanks to Bram for the good puzzles.
This is my best result, but I missed the medal, maybe next time.
Unfortunately I choosed the Sea battle, what just 3 people could solve, and i got 70 points instead of the hard Worm sudoku. And I made an other mistake too.

I have a suggestion for the authors.
In my opinion in this test and in the last month the answer system was too difficult.
You should use Serkan's answer system. Choose some rows and the answer is the number of squares in the connecting blocks. For instance in the slitherlink's example the first row is 21. This is more easier than counting the cells in EVERY ROW.
And you could use this system in A2, A3, maybe B1, D2, D3, E1!!!, E2,E3!!!
An uniform system is better than 10 differents answer format.

My favourite puzzles in this set:
Star battle, Sea battle easy, and the two Pentopia. It is a very good penta variation. I will use it on the WPC ;)
The X1 and X3 puzzles are really good too. Unfortunately I could solve them just after the test :)

Finally, I congratulate the best solvers.

Edited by Valezius 2011-03-14 6:42 AM

Solutions Booklet is uploaded here

That is very good point Zoltan.
I think it is also important for us to have some kind of uniform "answer keys" across the monthly tests. [ for example, all loop kind of puzzles should have same answering system across all tests ]

Nice Puzzles.........although difficult from my standards.......but happy with my result. Congrats to all the winners.........and to Bram for excellent set of Puzzles......
ABC was very interesting and cud solve it after the test was over.

It was a very good and innovative set of puzzles.
Initially was a bit frightened but (as Melllow Melon has already pointed out) the competition diagrams were probably easier than those in the instrution booklet.
Congratulations to the solvers and thanks to the author and the organizers.
Also my best wishes to the Japanese players and to their country in this difficult moment.
stefano