How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Thanks Fatih and Serkan for another great set of puzzles. I didn't quite manage to finish in time this time around, will have to wait for other results to judge that. It certainly felt like solving closer to the limit than on the previous contest.

One genuine mistake due to reading a 115 as 15 in the second Tapa-Like Loop, should have noticed it wasn't unique that way. Some of the logic on the hard Loop escaped me, but I really enjoyed it on the resolve.

The second Tapa LITS was a very satisfying solve, though considering my points/time, it seems it took me too long to see the classic Tapa connectivity break. Maybe there was a quicker way in via LITS? Scrabble was slow, Connection fast (one of my favourites).

I found the Not Alone Tapas to be quite strange but very fun to solve. I'm learning to really like Dissected Tapa, Black Hole had some very elegant logic of which I missed half... 4x4 is also really interesting, somewhat similar to Dissected. I wasted a bit of time on that one, having to restart after finding almost the correct solution.

A great set, thank you again!

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

For Black Hole, can a single cell contain multiple black holes? And if so, are they additive?

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Many thanks to the authors.
I found the second LITs was toughest (pointwise).

I'm lucky I didn't finish 5 minutes earlier, because then I would have clicked "Claim Bonus" and stopped.
But because there's no bonus to claim in the last 5 minutes, instead I thought I should double-check a couple of answer keys, specifically the 4x4 which I'd filled in on one grid only. And quickly spotted an answer entry error, so was able to fix it and avoid losing 40 points!

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	A bit too many puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	A bit too many puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Too many hard puzzles
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Way too many puzzles (too little time)
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Tapa Connection, in particular, was a beautiful puzzle.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount

Got very lucky with Not Alone high pointer as well as 4x4 Tapa where I just completely intuited it. Made a huge mess of the Black Hole, and really didn't expect such a good result. My favorite was definitely Tapa Connection.

I did use the connectivity break forced by the 1-1-2, which meant the Tapa must travel via the last two columns. Knowing this, out of the two configurations for the 3-1-1 clue, the one where the "3" is "above" it basically forces the 1-2 clue to be used twice before it goes up which contradicts things for the 7.

Scrabble was quick for me because I took a gamble and mainly focused on drawing lines dependent on size of words, starting with 4 being minimum. This actually ends up solving most of the puzzle to a point where you get both the 4-length areas which means you can do two things, extend the others to at least 5, and also get some words in. I just filled in the letters in the connection spots and was able to complete it this way.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	A bit too many puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	I have a different complaint

My two complaints about the layout is that I thought the Tapa-Like Loop puzzles were a bit small. Especially because clue numbers get smaller the more you put in a cell.
The other is that I get why the words were organised this way, but I don't really like disorganised lists. Preferably organised by size and alphabetical for me.

I did a lot on instinct this round. The general connections of the Tapa Connection, the words in Tapa Scrabble, the 4x4 Tapa, the Tapa with Borders. Everything I thought should work out this way was correct. A bit weird of an experience for me.

I didn't mind that so much, but fixed width would really be nice.

If have a typing error in a submitted answer, it's possible to correct from admin, after the ending from test ? I wrote 5 and not 6. Thanks. Prezensky (Romania)

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I think I find them much more difficult, with not a lot of logical paths going on; I distinctly recall bifurcating several times, and taking many leaps of faith, especially for the second Tapa LITS. Although that might also be because I did it while somewhat tired.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Fairly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

Darn. I lost 200 points from answer key mistakes, dropping from 10th to 19th. (at the time of writing this.)

I really should probably dedicate the last few minutes of these tests to very carefully checking it because that is the most annoying way to lose points.

Other than that, the puzzles were really fun again to solve, and Para's puzzles always are really good to prepare, especially for intuition on types like Not Alone and Dissected.

Edited by Jacoblance 2016-01-20 1:54 AM

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	Perfectly balanced
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Very nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I was getting most of the puzzles. But then I broke 3 puzzles. And lost lots of time, as well as points. Puzzles were all really cool. Have to try remaining though yet. My favorite were Tapa Connection, Different Tapa and Black hole from among the ones i solved so far.
I wasted Borders Tapa like 14 min and was getting wrong grid every time, and realized i am doing something wrong. I started over again, and just took 1 min to do it. Somehow i eliminated the possibility in 1st step itself, don't know why, but at the end that was the answer. No wonder, even after 14 min I could get nothing.
In last 15 min, I broke 4x4 Tapa. which I couldn't recover from my mistake. So Almost in such short test, I wasted like 20-25 min. So could have done lot better.
Black Hole tapa, i was afraid of, but looking at puzzle during contest, I thought I can attempt it, and well luck favors the brave, it solved logically and flawlessly.
Anyways, wonderful test and beautiful puzzles.


Edited by swaroop2011 2016-01-20 4:40 AM

Thanks for the puzzles!
Decided to go for the three-highest pointers and it took most of the solving time :(

What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	Just right
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	Just right
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Many puzzles were worth too much or too little
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right

I like the 75-minute limit.

How balanced do you think the puzzle types of this test were?	A bit skewed
What was your opinion of the distribution of easy/hard puzzles?	A bit hard
What did you think about the puzzle quality of the test?	Fairly Nice
How did you feel about the length / time limit for this test?	A bit too many puzzles
Of the puzzles you solved/attempted, how well did the point values reflect the difficulty?	Most puzzles were worth the right amount
What was your opinion of the booklet formatting and printing?	Just right