As we've found the unfortunate fact about doing Tapa of this size online is that guessing becomes a preferred strategy in many cases. I've kind of been worried that with the ability to make other solves viewable by anyone for this particular contest that it will give the illusion of "guessing is how good solvers get good times". That might be true for 10 by 10 Tapa, but absolutely not in general. Even for the 12 by 12 sizes I avoid just guessing my way through it, at least too early, because there's too large a search space, and my better performances on those have usually been with logic. My total inability to figure out what was going on for March 25th was a notable exception to that, and I did have to rely on luck/"tapa sense" there. I think there's a sweet spot for the difficulty of the larger puzzles that makes them hard but still preferable to do with logic from a speed-solving perspective. March 23rd was dead on in my opinion, and March 25th overshot it a bit.

That said, I don't think it's necessarily the Undo button itself that harms things. I typically forget about it and waste time erasing things manually when a guess screws up, which is still faster than erasing on paper, and online it doesn't leave distracting stray marks too.

Also, I have been going back after the days I bifurcate and solving these logically. Almost every puzzle is fantastically designed, even if it ends up that guessing is the fastest way to get through them, so it's more just a issue with this being a contest than a matter of puzzle quality. However there have been a few days where I've had trouble getting a logical solution without minor T&E. The ones that come to mind are February 25th, March 22nd, and March 25th.

Hmm. Ich würde sagen, im heutigen Tapa ist ein Fehler. Und zwar links unten das Feld 1/1 - da gehört nur ein Einser rein. Oder?

Yeah, I think we have another goof. Judging from the lack of symmetry a clue near the bottom was misplaced.

For what it's worth, here's what today's puzzle almost certainly was intended to be. It's pretty nicely made and worth doing.
http://mellowmelon.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ctc-march27.png
(just noticed the filename is off from the date on LMI; blame time zones)

For extra fun, the solution remains unique and the puzzle gets a bit harder and nicer when you remove the four clues at the center of each cross.

Edited by MellowMelon 2012-03-28 1:50 AM

I am sorry for wrong puzzles. I have not so much time recently, really i have not. Actually i uploaded today's puzzle in last hour, i checked two times, but i missed. For example, yestarday's puzzle i uploaded in the car (same like today, in last hour) :) I hope that remaining puzzles will be good.

I don't think the 'undo' button really makes much difference because you can obviously erase squares manually. But the multiple colours, as far as I can see, have no merit other than to encourage T&E.

The main problem I've had with the Tapa player is in fact exactly that I can't erase squares reliably. When I click on them there is a ~50% chance whether they empty or stay filled. Doesn't this affect everyone? I've only used Chrome, but I can't be the only one.

I also had to stop using the different colours because for whatever reason I found them so different in hue that my eye didn't "see" 2x2s or notice whether they were connected together - I've made literally hundreds of incorrect submissions. :)

Yes even I have this issue, thought it was a mistake probably on my side for not clicking on the cell properly. Even I use chrome.

Regards,
Ravi

Also using chrome and have the same issue. That was the cause of the only 2-minute penalty I've gotten; it was my last click in that region and I instantly shifted my attention somewhere else without noticing the click hadn't gone through. The reliable method I've found since is to right-click on the square twice, which changes it into a dot and then to an empty square.

If it helps - I'm using Opera and see the same problem sometimes.

On a positive note, I've never experienced the issue - using Chrome.

Congrats Prasanna, for finally a well deserved first place. Happy for you.

Thank you :) I guess almost everyone knows my big goal by now. Glad I achieved it, and a bit relieved after all those close ones. Of course there's still that possibility while the 72 hours are going, but I think I've done it. Seems I'm finishing the competition strongly.

How about we continue for another month, but don't tell Palmer about it till we're 2 weeks into the month?

Shhh. This is what private messages are for.

Or not :P

So, today was the day I messed up both my chances of finishing top 3 in the TVC and CTC in one go. Any chance I can erase today and start over?

:) The last puzzle of 2012 CTC was uploaded. :)x2, and good luck at the last one.

finsihed with mess up ..
Njoyed a lot throughout this month ..
Thanks to Deb,LMI,serkan and all for the beautiful CTC puzzles. :)

Hey thats my line. No one deserves to use that line more than me. I'll copyright that line.

Is today really the last one? What a horrible time to finish on from me! I think I can safely say that I won't be jumping up the leader board at the last minute, so congratulations to James for being the top UK competitor.
Thanks to Serkan for the puzzles. It did go on a little too long imho, but that's probably just me feeling bitter that after a few weeks (well, days) it became clear that I had no chance of making the top 3. I would've preferred 2 separate competitions of half the length (or, perhaps, 4 fortnightly contests, with each one finishing on the date of a TVC and getting progressively more difficult...)

Thanks for a great test! And I submitted a wrong answer for the first time in the last puzzle!

I will miss the routine daily morning test henceforth . I am a first timer and was able to submit answers to all but 1st april one when i had network issues and unable submit my answer. Any way great test, expecting more like this from LMI.