Finally about Twists :

The EverGreens series at LMI were very popular, and Rakesh/Rohan wondered if we should do an EG3 at LMI. I was independently working on Twist, and I thought it might be a good idea to have Twist instead of EG3.

I decided to stuck to EverGreens format i.e. lot of easy puzzles and some hard puzzles.

Applying the twists were not easy, because I wanted a simple rule change to each puzzle. So all kind of Hybrids were ruled out. I'm personally happy with the kind of puzzles I chose. Even if the rule change is minor, the solving approach changes drastically in some puzzles (e.g. LightUp, Hitori). While in some other puzzles, one just needs to solve like the standard puzzle with the additional rule in mind (e.g. Fence/Minesweeper). But some puzzles resulted in completely different puzzles (e.g. ESB/Sudoku - unfortunately those two types turned out to be hardest ones). The rule changes to Masyu and Arrows are something I was not comfortable with (especially Arrows because it became too error prone).

Despite the debatable points-reduction system, I hope that everyone found some puzzles enjoyable.

And finally, thanks to Branko once more for pretesting all puzzles. I used his timings as a guidance in determining the points, but the timing structure of 90+10+10+10 was set by me, which could have been improved.

Considering that lot of puzzles turned out to be very different from the standard types, we'll probably should have EG3 sometime soon :-)

Ken, I'm glad that things worked out fine at the end.
Posting the password on forum is definitely not advisable while the test in running. If someone wants to compete the test unofficially, they should request for password in email.

About answer format - I was very much impressed by the answer format used in TVC. Most of the answer keys were driven by that (all loop puzzles, minesweeper)
In EG2, the answer keys I chose were really difficult, but I'm certain that the answer keys in Twist were relatively easier.

There seems to be lot of wrong answers in No 3 in Minesweeper (Top), but I feel they are because of wrong solves rather than bad answer key. Same about Fence.

The answer key for Arrows were probably more difficult, but I didn't know of a better answer key. I personally know 2 players got it wrong after solving the puzzle correctly.

The answer key for LightUp was little bad - because in the top puzzle it didn't require to solve the puzzle fully.

Deb, thank you very much for wonderful test! I had very enjoyable 2 hours in the weekend. And of course i like the point system, i think it is very useful. I tried to solve hard puzzles in begining, some of them was solved smoothly, some of them not solved, and they caused some trouble for me. During the test i forgot some rule additions of some puzzles like hitori, like minesweeper, and i spent more time for these puzzles, i was a little upset for this. Because i can get easily more than 400 points. But anyway i like your puzzle style, contest format, nice instruction booklet, very useful points system. So thank you very much, and in my language "Tesekkur ederim" :)

Best,

Serkan

Deb, let me add my thanks for an excellent competition. Personally, I don't particularly care about the point system, but this one seemed more fun than most. For the 99% of people who are not going to finish in 90 minutes, it gave us something to think about. Thanks for the tip about the adjacent circles in Breakpoints, although knowing that meant the puzzle took me 2 minutes max, rather than the 30 minutes that I wasted not solving it in the competition :)

Thanks again.

Steve, I figured that your strategy of "solving all easy puzzles first before cracking the difficult ones" is best. I didn't follow everyone's progress so others might have followed similar strategy.
Congratulations on topping the UK chart this time.

The Missing Breakpoint properties mentioned above are really interesting. As a self-taught puzzler I tend to just hit everything with a hammer and hope it works. Is there somewhere online that people discuss these puzzle-solving theories?

We try to do that for some puzzles in every test. But we don't do it consistently enough.
It is always interesting to discuss how the author expected players to solve a puzzle vs how players solved it.

Twist LightUps were not difficult by any standard (although they were not solved by many)

I had solving methods documented for them, so thought of sharing

Thanks Deb for this excellent test.

My original strategy was to try to solve all the easy puzzles and then some hard ones if possible, but I changed my mind because some puzzle types were so attractive that I really wanted to try both puzzles. Finally I solved puzzles only according to my likes, but still hoping to get at least the equivalent amount of points of all the easy puzzles ; and I did so despite some silly mistakes. So, good operation.
The puzzles themselves (the ones I solved) were very nice, and several were better than that. As expected, rectangles were fun to solve, as were masyu (especially the little one). Fences were pretty easy but, again, fun. Just forgot to send the answer for biggest one... Both hitori were excellent. I solved the second one after the test and it was really great (and a bit strange) to have so much pleasure on hitori.
I couldn't solve the biggest "breakpoints" but the smallest was nice too, etc.

All in all, an affordable test but with some tough puzzles for strongest solvers... Many beautiful grids... Nice job, really.

I think this is exactly what Deb intended :-)