Have the solutions to the practice test been vetted? I believe I found multiple solutions for the Sea Battle. And I found 2 solutions for Liar Slitherlink [the cave end in the lower right that surrounds the 1 in R6C5, could also be shortened to only go around R6C4 and still be valid]. Just checking.

All the puzzles from IB have only one valid solution. In the Liar Slitherlink you probably forget to use columns, where is also only one incorrect clue.

The row/column marking is incorrect here. First row and first column should have been marked. The answer key, in that case, is 199#123 or 123#199.





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Are you sure there are 2 different ships in each area and not just 2 different ship parts in the alternate solutions? As I made it, I can assure the example is unique.

About the ESB Flip...
Do the "line"s have to mirror one another?
In the example, you don't have to think the correspondence of lines to solve, but the lines were to be finally mirrored each other.

Lines do not have to mirror each other. It is just a co-incidence in the example. (Please check the actual puzzle in FLIP - http://logicmastersindia.com/lmitests/dl.asp?attachmentid=86&view=1 and its solution in page 15 )

I got it.
Thanks a lot!

ODD FILLOMINO i have atleast 3 solutions

EDIT: This puzzle has unique solution. See Serkan's message below.

Edited by debmohanty 2011-12-25 8:19 PM

Really nice puzzles there. Will have to solve the rest later, got muddled up in many of them. Not happy with my performance, but quite happy with my rank I guess. Admins, you can ignore my claim for points, I know even the alternate I gave is wrong. Just checked back. Silly me.

Please send any 2 solutions to Serkan or to me.

And my sincere request : if you really find multiple solutions, first send them to us and we'll do the needful. Your false alarms (not the first time in this case) is of no help to anyone.

That puzzle has unique solution. Probably Anurag didn't read rules well, so probably he broke that puzzle. So please not consider Anurag's comment, that puzzle has unique solution.

Serkan

This test is over now. Detailed score page is at - http://logicmastersindia.com/M201112P/score.asp

Congratulations to MellowMelon for winning by a huge margin. xevs takes the second spot. willwc is the 3rd position, his first time in LMI podium. It will be interesting to see what effect this test has on the ratings (it will be updated in an hour).

Congratulations also to Branko for being top Serbian player, narrowly ahead of Nikola.

Good to see Rakesh back, and he takes the top Indian spot.

Reminder to self - Do not schedule any test during Christmas period in next year(s). Thanks everyone who took time out during the festive period to participate in the test. Those who couldn't can still enjoy the puzzles.

Could someone please explain to me in FLIP MIRROR SUMS Left board how the 17 clues are filled?

If a cell is visited twice, the digit will be considered twice in the sum
So 17 = 2 * R4C3 + R4C4

Here is the solution booklet - Download | View

Hi,

Thank you very much for spending your time even at Christmas.

Congratulations to Palmer for 1st place. He could finish all puzzles, but Sea Battle... I think this puzzle hurt so many solvers. Also Congratulations to Ko Okamoto (2nd) and William Blatt (3rd).

Test had 20 puzzles, when I made these puzzles I pushed myself because of the title "Best of LMI". As a result of this, many puzzles were hard, I didn't mean that, but it happened. I am sorry for toughness of puzzles. I made a solution file because of this.

Some statistics:
- The puzzle solved by least competitors was Sea Battle. It was solved by 1 competitor. (Two more attempts, but one correct shot)
- The puzzle solved by most competitors was Suroramu. It was solved by 99 competitors.
- The puzzle with the highest rating was 4x4 Diamonds (8.77) and the puzzle with the lowest rating was Crisscross Crash (5.85).
- The puzzle submitted with the highest accuracy was Toroidal Rectangles(%100, 77 competitors), lowest was Sea Battle ( %50, 1/2 competitors)

Thanks a lot for participation,

Best wishes & Merry Christmas,

Serkan

Hm, I loved it :)

:), Honestly this one is one of my favorites. Of course I'm looking at the puzzle as a puzzle maker, not solver.

The Sea Battle puzzle was actually a pretty smooth solve for me. One of my favourite puzzles in the set. I didn't get stuck in it like all the puzzles I didn't manage to finish.
I missed a lot of final steps(and i'm a horrible guesser), which broke me up in broken tapa, number skeleton, esb, diamonds on which I spend at least 1/3rd of my time without any points to show for it. Also couldn't pull out either fillomino in the end. I never had time to get back to any puzzle I hadn't finished in the first run though. Managed to solve everything relatively quickly when I did the rest after the test, so could have probably gotten more points if I had a chance to revisit. I just didn't see the things I saw then while taking the test.

I figured you'd like the criss-cross crash, Serkan. That seemed like one of those types of puzzles you like to make, which I just can't ever construct.



Edited by Para 2011-12-27 11:14 PM

Not sure what's up with the Crisscross Crash rating, as that was to me one of the best. I also really enjoyed Broken Tapa, Number Skeleton, Penta Chess (even if it was a monster), Liar Slitherlink, and GT Fillomino. Lots of incredible puzzles in this set.

I feel like I was significantly advantaged from having so many of my tests represented here. My Liar Slitherlink and Fillomino solves were around 5 minutes each, and looking at other submission histories in the results it looks like these three alone put me at least 10-15 minutes ahead of basically every other competitor. Feels like a strange form of compensation for putting in the work to write those two, but I'll take it.

Obviously my last 15 minutes went toward the Sea Battle. One problem I had is that I worked with the wrong set of rules for the first 9 minutes or so, forgetting the row/column constraint entirely and only remembering it when I finally guessed my way to "multiple solutions". But even if I hadn't done that, I think I would have needed close to 20 to wrap it up based on my experience with it after time.

I lost a lot of time by breaking both Crisscross Crash and Gapped Kakuro, and my 4x4 Diamonds and Worm Sudoku solves had me blind to simple things for awhile, but otherwise I felt like I was moving pretty quickly. Despite that, puzzles like Broken Tapa, Number Skeleton, and Penta Chess took me over 10 minutes, so there certainly were some monsters. Still, that's to be expected if it's 20 puzzles in 150 minutes.

I have no idea how I avoided having a disastrous solve--I started the test shortly after midnight (the only time I could find to participate), and was definitely feeling the effects of sleep deprivation by the end of the 2.5 hours. In particular, trying to mirror back and forth between the grids of the ESB Flip puzzle with an extremely tired brain was quite an interesting experience. :)

As the other commenters here so far have said, I enjoyed the Crisscross Crash (the next morning), as well as a number of the other puzzles. My favorite was the Penta Chess--I was very impressed by how much information was provided by each of the five pieces to give a solving path that was quite clear in retrospect.

Many thanks to Serkan, Deb, and everyone else who contributed to all the contests across 2011. I hope 2012 is as much fun.

This contest and the previous sudoku test was very nice retrospective of LMI Mocks and puzzle tests. I am here from the first days, I remember that I joined you on old Orkut Community. Thank you a lot for all great moments and everything what you doing for the puzzle world. Keep it up!

Nikola

Great contest, thanks Serkan.
My favourite moment was during the Greater-Than Fillomino - I was 75% finished and just extending the 8-region when the left-most end touched a <. Urgh! And that touched another <. Eek! I have to fit two even larger regions in and not much space left... but I managed ;) .