Preview series part 3 of 4 - Cipher and Sum

Today's preview series looks difficult...I haven't solved yet....I am telling just based on the looks.

Even the Greater Than yesterday looked Zooish, but it was an interesting solve.

Edited by rakesh_rai 2011-06-02 7:47 PM

Preview series part 4 of 4 - Shikaku and Star

Instructions in Chinese is available here - http://www.sudokufans.org.cn/forums/index.php?showtopic=265

Only at the classic fillomino you have given the explanation of the answer entry. Namely, that only the unit digits (=last digits) of each square's content has to be entered.

Is this specification of the answer entry valid for all puzzles? Or do you want to imply that only the classic fillomino can have numbers greater than 9? I don't believe so but I better ask...

For Cipher Fillomino the numbers can be greater than 9 also, I assume. But the numbers 2 and 12 are denoted by different letters (even when both numbers are given by a 2 at the answer entry). Correct?

Actually for checking the answer the letter denoting the 2 and the letter denoting the 12 should be interpreted the same. Otherwise it is "unfair": If the correct entry would be ABBB (A=2, B=12) for some row/column, then a competitor typing 2222 would be awarded points while a competitor typing AAAB wouldn't.

Have fun, thanks for the test,
Stefan

In the Cipher variation, is it possible that there will be additional areas of a size not represented by a letter?

I am not sure that I will be able to compete this weekend as I am in Dallas and haven't found an internet cafe yet.

Re: euklid
The answer entry for Classic is intended to apply for all puzzles.

For Cipher, it is true that a 2 and a 12 would be denoted by a different letter but have the same last digit. So your answer would look a bit different if you entered letters than if you entered units digits. This is okay.

I do not consider it unfair that AAAB would not be accepted if it is wrong. If you want the advantages of being able to entering an answer that can't distinguish between 2 or 12, you have to enter the numbers. That the letters could be entered at all was a concession by us in the first place.


Re: David McNeill
It would cause problems for entering answers by letters if hidden polyominoes whose size is not equal to any of the givens were allowed. I will go ahead and say that it won't happen, and that knowing that almost certainly won't help you solve any of the actual test's puzzles.

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-06-05 5:22 AM

I would have just suggested an example in the instruction booklet would have suffised: (e.g. If a square says 15 or 25, you enter a 5). Don't think anything more would be necessary.

I think you mean that a 2 and a 12 would be denoted by different letters. But what do I know? I'm only your co-author. :)

Edited by mathgrant 2011-06-03 10:48 PM

Puzzle booklet is uploaded. It has 9 pages. Each page has 2 puzzles. There is no cover page / points table.

All the answer keys are simple and consistent this time. So we don't expect much manual overrides, but if anyone feels they didn't get points because of a formatting problem, they should post here or send a message to Grant.

While posting here, please don't post the answer, fully or partially - just the puzzle id is enough.

Alright, finished the test a little while ago with a score of 8/18 correct. Not a terrible performance, but of course I hope to improve in the future.

As for the puzzles, I'll leave specific comments to after everyone has competed, but the ones I solved were Classic 1-3, Easy Shikaku, Easy Even-Odd, Easy and Hard Cipher (Hard Cipher was quite good) and Easy Sum. I'm looking forward to doing the rest though, including the Hard Star Fillomino, which looks to be worth every one of those 20 points.

Thanks for the test Grant and Palmer. One question though: will you eventually say who authored which puzzles? I want to see if my guesses as to which was which are accurate.

Hi, I've made a really stupid and costly numpad-style mistake. I'm not sure whether you can do a "manual override" on such thing :)

PS. It's funny how nikoli made me to dislike several puzzle types. I never really thought that fillomino can be so entertaining/interesting, especially since in general I dislike puzzles with numbers/digits.

Yep, we figured it was a Numpad typo. You should already have those (hard-earned) points.

hey i think in the test the shape filimino is wrong...please check the top one

ok srry i dont no then.
thank u.

hey i got it just did silly mistake ..

Ok - I'm deleting your original post. Players may get confused.

That was fun. Sadly my sloppy handwriting cost me 7 points on the shikaku fillomino. Misread one of the digits. Obviously didn't think that digit could go there as it clashes with a given.

Great Test. Many puzzles that weren't super hard. I did enter my answer for the easy Sum Fillomino on the greater-than answer key (they're on the same answer page) Check for me?

Personal frustration on being 1 second slower than desired in typing the last answer. Oh well. This happens.

It's hard to rate this test. Normally I use an internal scale that starts at 5-6 (or lower) for my least favorite puzzles, up to 10 for my favorite. While that would work within everything here, it would not do justice to this test relative to others. I don't have any least favorite puzzles here - nothing that solved in an inelegant or unfriendly way. All I saw were quality puzzles and a lot of really creative designs.

In a few cases I think I could pass the Pepsi challenge and ID the designer, but even with these guesses I have both Grant and Palmer to thank for my favorite puzzles. A superstar team with an excellent test. Thanks.

Re: Para
mathgrant and I knocked our heads together on this for awhile, but in the end we are giving you those 7 points. Good job on your performance too.

Re: TroyS
Normally I'd say "I'll tell Deb and he'll fix it when he wakes up", but it appears to me that you would have had the answer wrong anyway. Look at the last few entries of column B. Sorry. Glad you enjoyed the test.

Re: motris
Thanks a lot for the glowing review and the blog recommendation. :D I think mathgrant and I may have an informal contest on our blogs to guess who wrote each of the puzzles after it's all done, so maybe you can try that out for fun. Great performance too. You may know what I mean when I say I thought you were in trouble 55 minutes in... but then I don't know the whole story. Your classic speed floored us both.

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-06-05 4:59 AM

I've changed in any case.

Re motris: I am so, so, so, so very excited that you liked this test so much! It means so much to me, someone whose only experience in the competition setting is your 20/10 test on which I scored a meager 777, having you, a grandmaster of construction and solving alike, say this about a test to which I contributed half of the puzzles. Honestly, though, even if I made the puzzles, Palmer is probably responsible for most of what made my puzzles come together along with his to be an actual test, and I think he deserves far more of the credit than I do. (I only allow myself to have top billing on the cover page of the IB because my name comes first alphabetically. :) )

If I don't post here much, it's not because I don't care about this test and what you guys think of it; it's because Palmer keeps saying the same things I would say, except more authoritatively. *laughs*

Edited by mathgrant 2011-06-05 5:09 AM

I think there is a lot to be said about how having a good co-author makes one's own work better; so I'd never single out recognition of one author here over the other as it's clear the combination of authors and styles worked better here as a test than either alone would have been.