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Numberlink / ABC-Connection6 posts • Page 1 of 1 • 1
@ 2011-07-13 8:16 AM (#5138 - in reply to #5101) (#5138) Top

MellowMelon



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MellowMelon posted @ 2011-07-13 8:16 AM

I have two issues with the S/T or H/V/T methods:

1. My annoyance with such a method is probably similar to your annoyance with the numbers. Personally having a whole bunch of consecutive H/V/T makes it harder for me to check because my head is stringing them all together. It's a lot easier for me to verify it to myself if I can partition the row/column into discrete blocks corresponding to each number. For C9 in the example, there's a 3, then a block of five spaces for 11 (1), then a block of three spaces for 6, then another 11. On the other hand, if going through checking a test and seeing "HTVVVTVVTH" I wouldn't feel comfortable unless I went through the entire row/column space by space again counting. (also is that 7th space a V?)

2. The information content is far less and it starts getting into guessable territory. The constraints uniqueness places on a Numberlink solution means that for most rows and columns you could probably narrow it down to few reasonable straight/turn patterns.

For really big Numberlinks (like a nikoli selection marathon size) it would indeed be a hassle to use the numbers. But I've never seen such a size used in a competition.


Throwing out a possible alternative even though I don't like it myself for the ease of counting errors: number of turns in the paths that link a few selected pairs of numbers. Would also work for Anglers too. For Four Winds, you might also do something like count the number of dead-ends in each row, or in just a few marked rows.

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-07-13 8:17 AM
Numberlink / ABC-Connection6 posts • Page 1 of 1 • 1
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