I always worry with "stunt" tests that the puzzles will suffer from the extra constraint. In this case, there was no need to worry. You made a large number of very creative and challenging puzzles. Merci beaucoup!

Really beautiful puzzles and an amazing success with a very challenging way of constructing the grids. Wow. A lot of fun solving!

Nice puzzles with lots of variation. At first I thought the puzzles were only in a PDF file, and after wasting some time trying to figure out if I could work it in paint, I realized that all I had to do was scroll down and solve them on the browser.

That was awesome! None of the puzzles felt constrained, and all were very fun to solve (Different was especially beautiful).

SudoClones is now over. There have been some really impressive performances at the top. janoslaw and Kota finished with 90 seconds difference. WaterlooMathie, playing after quite a while at LMI, takes the 3rd position. 4 other players (jaku111, motris, Gotroch, uvo) finished all grids before time.

The grids have been highly praised throughout. The concept was nice, but Sylvain executed it perfectly. Thanks so much Sylvain, and also thanks for administering the test the whole weekend.

The last few submissions have not been checked for manual overrides, so there might be few (really few) changes after top 7.

Among Indians, Rohan, Gaurav and Rakesh take the top 3 positions. Out of 227 players, 171 players solved at least one sudoku correctly. Thank you everyone for participating.

The minimum rated puzzle was Frame Sudoku at 7.81, which itself is a high number. In fact, it is the highest among all 'minimum rated puzzles' across sudoku/puzzle tests.






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I liked most puzzles. My favourite was the different, even though I didn't solve it in competition.
I somewhat disliked the Diagonals Entry Key structure though. I like to have the safety check that each row/column of the answer key has the given set of digits in Sudoku Tests. I think it reduces typos.

I think number of typos (and correspondingly number of claims) were much less this time compared to other tests.

I didn't understand this. Are you suggesting any change to the submission system?

Nah, I guess what he meant is, when the answer key is Row/Column, you kinda know digits can't repeat, so thats as good as a little safety check in itself. Suppose a digit repeats in the key you know you're wrong and you can go back to it. In diagonals, digits can repeat.

Ah, well. My question really sounds dumb now.

Congratulations to Janoslaw, Kota, Waterloomathie. Thanks to all participants: for authors, the greatest gift is that players make their grids. I'll just say a few words on my way to create this test.

When I decided to make this test, so I took the most time is finding the theme. One day I woke up with this idea: the same structure of departure for each grid. So I searched a grid pattern interesting and I found this configuration: 5 empty regions and some empty diagonals. I wanted to start with a classic-look alike and I like very much antiknight. So I tried to create this first grid. I placed the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 in an area thinking it would be useful to have cells where we can only place digits above 5.
My goal was that the grids were to be aesthetic, technically intesresting and with not too many clues. The first variant I created was the arrow: I used these famous cells with numbers greater than 5. For thermometer, it was quite difficult to create a symmetrical grid. Then the grids with outside clues (highest difference, frame, skyscrapers): it's not very annoying to have fixed numbers to create this type of grid. Then I saw the two 5 on rows 6 and 7 and I immediately tried the renban with two groups of four digits. Then I tried to use the diagonals with the little killer. Make a killer with 16 digits which were already placed was a bet but when I drew the cages, I thought it would be interesting.
For these two grids I thought they were surprising because it is unusual to use these rules with grids with many digits already placed.
Then the grids where I had to use two rules because I did not have the right to add digits: parity calcdoku, tri outside and extra region Greater Than.
At that time, I sent my twelve grids to Timothy and Geoffroy. Based on their performance I thought it lacked a grid a bit difficult and I decided to reuse the diagonals with different.

I enjoyed myself so much to create these sudokus and I'm glad that you have enjoyed.

Now I think everyone looks forward to Richard’s test.

See you next week

I can imagine, moreover since the grids you prepared are very, very nice!
When creating grids, or even a step before: thinking about what I am willing to make, is big fun!



I hope so too! At least everyone is invited to take part!

Yeah, that.

Sylvain -

I was remiss in not sending you a note last week; thanks very much for the test - the puzzles were clever and quite entertaining.

Dave