Question for True or Lie: "given clues" refer specifically to the small numbers, and we should trust the large numbers to be accurate, yes?

Yes. Good point. The rules will be modified to reflect this.

Thank you for the enjoyable puzzles. I even don't have favourites. They all were equally good. Although the letters in coded were hard to see when solving and I think I struggeled too much with True or Lie sudoku. There was probably something I missed.

About this visibility:
The gray in fortress vs. renban/coded was different. The fortress seemed a bit darker. Coded and Renban was still a bit too light in my opinion. But it was already a little bit better than last time. I didn't have to redraw anything this time, but I was far from comfort-zone in coded, because I really had to double check everything to be sure I didn't get a letter wrong. Luckily the coded sudoku was easy enough and the coding part wasn't the main part (thank you for that actually for making sudoku part more important than coding part).

I did not expect such easy sudokus from Mr. Rakesh Rai Sir. In excitement, I made an error in entering the answer key in one of the sudokus. Like Mr. Tiit Vunk Sir mentioned, I also found difficulty in visibility in 9x9 coded sudoku and 9x9 fortress was darker. But, after all, I am very happy to complete this SM-3 round fully with bonus points which is the first ever SM round I finished.

I had the exact opposite problem. The letters in Coded were so dark that I could barely see what I had written on top of them.

Thanks for bringing out the shading printing issues. We did change the shading from SM1 based on Tiit's comments but there are still issues. Will explore Penpa further to see how this experience can be improved.

Also I am puzzled how the same puzzle is darker for one participant and lighter for another participant (assuming no local issues).

Why?

It could be a number of things: printer differences, a difference in personal preference, maybe one of us is using a darker pen/pencil than the other (I used HB pencil). It's difficult to please everyone :) Next time I'll know to bring a pen or a darker pencil.

It's interesting you pointed that out. I'm using pen (blue), which is really well visible when I write something down. Cannot agree more that this is probably the reason why nothing is too dark for me. Pencil is something I just don't like using.
I also agree that there might be printer issues, although I haven't configured any settings there. Just printers are different.

But really it was better this time. You (organizers) already have done something for of me and I really appreciate it. I also don't want to say that I would have done 5 minutes faster if the gray was darker. No, I'm talking about some seconds here which probably didn't affect my result.

The fair thing would be to keep everything more or less similar than this time.

@TiiT @Feadoor
Thanks for your feedback regarding the shades. One thing we can probably do in the future for coded/substitution alphabets is to provide in the top left corner in black color (similar to True or Lie), this will keep the centre space empty and also make alphabets clearly visible. In regards to shading, we hope the below test will help to further improve.

@Everyone - If you don't mind, can you please print the following puzzle and share your feedback regarding which shade you feel is very light, very dark or appropriate/suitable. That would help us to further improve the choice of color.
Thanks in advance to all.
https://git.io/Jmd7K (Use "Screenshot" button at the top to download the image with default settings as is (i.e. High Quality and PNG))
You can either share your feedback here or send it to penpaplus@gmail.com, your time is very much appreciated.

Edit: Added alphabets to each shade and option for easier reference and feedback.

Edited by swaroop2011 2021-03-22 12:18 AM

For me, it would break down into the following:

Shaded
Ideal - C
Workable - B,D,K
Too dark - A,S

Thermo
Ideal - E
Workable - F,G
Too dark - H,I,J

Line
Ideal - R
Workable - L,M,Q
Too dark - N,O,P

Arrow
Ideal - U
Workable - T,V
Too dark - W,X

What seems to work best for me is as light as possible (since the shapes are large enough to be distinctive), except for lines perhaps take 1 shade darker than the very lightest since they can be easier to miss. But honestly anything within the workable range is perfectly fine for me

Edit: Standard printer settings, wrote some pencil marks and digits in each cell with a regular HB pencil. I also want to add that I think moving coding information etc to the cell corner is a great idea

Edited by bakpao 2021-03-22 6:40 AM

Sir, I did not expect that SM-3 round would be easy because generally your genius sudokus and puzzles are tough and require more time to solve but in this round all were easy. My favourites in this round were 9x9 Fortress Sudoku and 9x9 Consecutive Pairs Sudoku.

What an interesting contest. My laptop gave trouble so I got stressed out and lost my focus.in general I get a little demoralised when contests are very tough, Thus has brought back my confidence and enthusiasm in solving contests. Thanks very much Mr, Rakesh for a very enjoyable SM. I wish my score proved it.

Fantastic set. Didn't expect anything lesser.
Great example of how easy sudokus can be of high quality.

Favourites:
True or Lie 6x6
Consecutive Pairs 9x9
True or Lie 9x9

Thanks Rakesh!

As Dhruv had earlier mentioned, I too was surprised by the much easier set. I started the set remembering Rakesh's mean mini set. But found easier and so made an error in 9×9 Fortress which ate my time. Eventhough I didn't finish the set, this was my best effort in SM and a BIG thankyou for that Rakesh.

Very apt password.
My favourite was the 9×9 Fortress and the True or Lie

For me the best shading is:

Shaded - C, K
Thermo - E, F
Line - Q, R
Arrow - U, V

Shading A is not usable for me at all.

Thank you for asking this feedback.

I have to be honest. I printed it out and basically everything is workable (with only few exceptions). If you have used some of these in competitions, then there must me something else, which affects this (maybe the quality of pdf file, the pdf itself or resolution).

I first recommend to create an actual pdf and not put these different variants next to each other. Like this C feels fine only because it has darker areas on it's sides.

So:
Shaded:
C - Cannot tell for sure, it seems fine, but maybe a bit too light.
K, D - Perfect for me
B, S - workable
A - A bit too much

Thermo:
E - Would say workable, but not sure
F, G, H - totally fine
I, J - workable

Line:
L - workable in here
R, Q - Perfect for me
M, N, O - workable
P - maybe too much, but would be workable for me

Arrow:
U - seems workable
V, T - perfect
W, X - Also totally fine

numbers 1 and 2. I can see them clearly in here. They are definitely not the same as they were in coded sudoku. In here both are fine.

Great set of Sudokus, relatively on the easier side. I echo Tiit's views that the Fortress was too dark and the Coded alphabets were too large, which made the solve slightly uncomfortable. I also found the True or Lie 9x9 to be tougher than the Fortress 9x9, though it was worth lesser.

Overall, a fantastic set. Thanks Rakesh!

What a Great set of Sudokus! Loved all of them. I had some issues with reading the numbers in coded Sudokus(penpa), But didn't have much problem as they were not hard to solve. Consecutive pairs Sudoku 9x9 increased my time by a large margin.
Amazing set. Expected nothing less from you sir. Thank you