Except that I expect for the usual suspects that getting that second marathon done will be the entirety of the podium decision since the general time bonus is much smaller. I mostly enjoyed the puzzles last time but had to say the marathon bonus system was not my favorite choice. We'll see how it works out this time.

I'd be highly surprised that even if anyone gets two out, that they'd not be one of the fastest solvers of the main set anyway. I don't think this works out to any plausible scenario as being unfair to any of the top contenders. The time bonus acts as the main tie breaker - but if anyone can get two of these puzzles out then in my eyes they are certainly deserving of finishing ahead of someone who only finishes one (or none), even if there's a small difference between them in the main section.

I agree this system is a little quirky, but I think it's an interesting idea and the best way to see if it really works or not is to give it a go. We've seen some really good innovations come out of past LMI tests.

Edited by detuned 2011-07-05 6:35 PM

There will be 2 small changes to the submission system this time.

1) The timer and password will be shown left to the text boxes.
Serkan had suggested this earlier so that players won't have to scroll to see the timer.
See image below.

2) When only one of the two required field are entered, the other field will be highlighted.
It was suggested by motris, and it had been pending for a long time. See image below for FILLOMINO puzzle.

I agree that we should see what shakes out. But my years of experience say that having three high variance (certainly high length) puzzles, of which solvers must choose which may be easier than others, is a different end selection criterion than who is the fastest solver of everything. Perhaps the Yajilin is actually 5 minutes easier. Perhaps not. I don't know, but the test will probably be determined by squeezing out an unknown large puzzle. It may work for me, or against me, but since I'm often criticized for pointing these things out afterwards if I'm not the winner, I wanted to point out my concern this time well before-hand.

I'm fine with bonus puzzles being used in place of time bonus. But they should almost always be sprint-like puzzles (2-3 minutes max) as you want more, not less, granularity at the end of a test.

can anybody tell how to solve SURAROMU of instruction booklet ?

With most Suraromu puzzles, since you use all gates, one good first step is to draw lines through all the gates with just a single cell width. You'll find doing this and connecting forced paths completes the entire upper-left of the example to give you a line that goes through gates 6 and what must be 7 and 8 (as if they were earlier gates you'd have two gate 4's since the grid has a labeled gate 4). After these initial steps, you have free ends you need to link to future gates and this is where you want to focus your attention:

(1) With the end that just went through 6, how do you get to a gate 5 before passing through gate 4?
(2) With the end that just went through 8, how do you get to gate 9?

To answer (1), you'll see the path through 6 must immediately turn or else it would leave no way to pass through gate 4. So the path goes over two cells (but not three cells) so it can get to another gate and leave a one-cell wide path through gate 4. You'll run into this step a lot. A path "blocks" part of one of the gates (you can X out that cell), but now leaves just one cell to pass through, so it must pass through that cell and the other path has to turn away immediately. With those things marked, the chase of the other end to get gate 9 really only has one option and being "path-efficient" is really key there.

The best thing to do to learn Suraromu puzzles is practice on a dozen or so. The logic is fairly different from other types, but once you learn a few rules the type is almost always very easy to solve. Besides Tom's puzzles, I'd point you to the Circumnavi-Gates on Mathgrant's site as good practice.

Edited by motris 2011-07-06 12:21 AM

thank you
i will try out those.

Re suraromu/slalom, there are some good examples on Melon's Puzzles blog as well. I don;t recall making many suraromu puzzles, so perhaps other sources are a good idea if you want to get some practice in.

Re motris, I'm sort of taking the view from the other side of things. My own testing times for the larger puzzles vary slightly, but then my solving abilities between these 3 types also varies slightly. The fastest possible times are hopefully all about the same, and so then the theory is the participant can choose to sprint on their own terms. This obviously relaxes the whole accuracy of scientifically measuring everyone's performance relative to each other - but on the other hand should hopefully be a little more fun. For example, I've come across comments where yajilin is a bit of a love/hate type for many people. If they happen to love solving yajilin, then great, but if they don't, then they aren't going to be miserable about being forced to solve an arbitrary type as an apparent tie-breaker. The choice adds a little variability, but hopefully not too much.

just as a suggestion.
cant there be another way to answer LITS puzzle its confusing to count number of T's or S's we may miss out one.
answer key similar to NURIKABE or any other.


Edited by rakesh_rai 2011-07-08 7:36 AM

Answer keys can be a fiddly business, and I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the hashi one either. My tip for LITS is once you've completed the puzzle, to briefly spend some time writing the relevant letter on each of the tetrominoes (this doesn't take very long) and then answers will be relatively easy to read off. Promise!

ok no problem

Puzzle Booklets (one for Main Section, and a separate one for Marathon) uploaded

Main Section Puzzle pdf has 10 pages, including a cover page.
Marathon puzzle pdf has 4 pages, including a cover page. Note that Marathon puzzle pdf file has Landscape orientation.

Both pdf files have same password.

As discussed after Fillomino-Fillia test, a typo will cost 20% of the puzzle value. Of course, one gets 80% only if the author/organizers are certain that the puzzle was solved correctly, but a mistake was made during submission.

Nikoli Selection has started - Good luck to all.

Score page - http://logicmastersindia.com/M201107P1/score.asp

If you've not taken the test yet, you can check who all have taken the test in the score page.
If you've taken the test, you can check details of your submission, and others' scores. If you believe some puzzle is marked incorrectly, please use the score page to 'claim points'.

Hello, I'm not sure if this is the place to ask for this, but can I have a manual override for a typo on the numberlink?

Yes, this is the place to 'claim' typos.

My kingdom for five more minutes! At least I'm error-free this time. Thanks to all for the test.

Check updated score page.

Very nice set of puzzles Tom! Thanks.
The answer key for LITS and Hashi should be made simpler if possible in subsequent tests.

Hashi Suggestions: http://logicmastersindia.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=354&p...
For LITS, maybe a 'Tapa-style' answer key for marked rows/columns would be suitable.

Edited by Rohan Rao 2011-07-09 10:26 AM

Nice group of puzzles, more, more!!

I Find the answer key for hashi and lits very simple indeed....can't be simpler...

by the way in shikaku I entered the column next (right) to the column A I know its stupid but I keep doing it.... any chances to have the points awarded?

stefano

All claims made in forum or made using the Score page will be settled. Please allow us few hours.

puzzles were excellent .
I njoyed a lot.
although could have done better.
would be waiting for nikoli 3..!!

Thanks for the puzzles, great test!

If you can reconstruct all my answer entries then you will see that my latest entry was just overwriting one valid entry key (that I entered much earlier) by another. This could save me some seconds for the tiebreaker and one rank in the final table. :-)

Have fun,
Stefan

P.S.: I actually had a reason to overwrite my solution a second time. You can write me an email if you want to have an explanation. Here it would be a spoiler.

@euklid, please see my PM