UK Puzzle Association

Regarding Puzzle Duel, I don’t see an issue with giving everyone the same solving medium. After a very interesting discussion about writing speeds and notations, I like the idea of levelling that particular playing field. If it doesn’t work well, we can change it for 2021-2022. It's only level if I...

Don't worry, everyone else is baffled by that too.

Thanks Liane :) 4. Yin Yang appears to be missing the rule about 2x2 areas In 8. Anglers, are all cells used by a fishing line? I think this is a standard rule but I have seen contests where it isn't used. What does "excluding directions pointing away from the edge of the grid" mean in 23. Panoramic...

Very nicely done, Freddie!

It doesn't read to me, Tom, as if anyone is shooting down your ideas or trying to have an argument. Just like you have expressed your views on the matter, so have others. No bad faith to my eyes.

For a dissenting opinion, I find the puzzle GP rules to be written very clearly, and I think it's been particularly noticeable this year that there has been a push for consistent terminology between puzzle types and consistent phrasing of common rules - for example the definition that is used for a ...

I ended up eating my words about the Triple Sum Sudoku. When I came to it during the test I thought it didn't look as fiddly as other puzzles I've done of the type, so I gave it a go and flew through it.

That is what I did - maybe I did get it after all then! I was also looking at something for some clone interactions that might have involved the four cells at R5 C1,9 and R1,9 C5 for example. The polished way of looking at it is (ROT13): Vs gur zvqqyr nern vf gur rkgen ertvba, fb gung gur bgure gjb...

detuned wrote: ↑

Mon 27 Apr, 2020 3:16 pm

I think I might have missed this neat break-in. After a lot of staring at it, I did a short bit of trial and error to determine the extra regions area (which I'd already narrowed down to one of two possibilities). Any chance of a hint?

You can work it out using only the 1s.

ashaash11ash wrote: ↑

Mon 20 Apr, 2020 11:35 am

And i think you are motivating me to author next year

I'll have to get some practice in then!

You may revisit your opinion after seeing the competition puzzle for number 10, Freddie. They can be very fiddly, and may be given with a completely empty grid. Pure conjecture, of course, but I expect I won't enjoy that puzzle and will probably avoid it if at all possible. I'm somewhat relieved not...

I'm back with some more puzzles. These are, I think, all quite difficult. Nonetheless, they are all logically solvable. Have fun!

Nice puzzles - were you approached to write them specifically for the article, or were they pre-existing?

Round 4 results - two UK finishers:

37. Tom Collyer - 102.2 (87:46)
40. Sam Cappleman-Lynes - 100.7 (89:16)
51. Freddie Hand - 88.6

Have you been practising your Sudoku, Freddie?

The 9x9 Little Killer was obviously the big story of this test. It took me over 30 minutes to solve

Puzzle_Maestro wrote: ↑

Thu 09 Apr, 2020 7:13 am

The Instruction Booklet now has some points. Turns out that if you want to aim for 600+, you are going to have to attempt the monstrous 125-point arrows...

One of the positives to not being good enough for that sort of points total is that it means I am free to discount puzzles like that

You're certainly not alone in that :) There were three things that stopped me from enjoying it so much, two that are my own fault and one that I'm still a bit peeved at. The two that are my own fault are a silly transposition in Classic 5, and entering the answer code for the wrong puzzle into the T...

Ken finishing in 20 minutes is positively inhuman. There were... *checks notes* ... 22 puzzles. Factoring in time for printing and answer keys, you're probably looking at about 45-50 seconds a puzzle, which I think is about as fast as I could do it if I was just copying the answers. Well done to yo...

Round 4 instruction booklet: https://gp.worldpuzzle.org/content/instruction-booklet

Crazy looking round which throws the 40/40/20 split for classic/familiar/novel completely out of the window. Puzzle 8 seems inspired by one of my creations.

Yep - they're screenshotted PNGs from my online tool for creating Sudoku puzzles (the same one used by Cracking the Cryptic). I thought about learning to use either TikZ or something like Inkscape, but I didn't have that much spare time.

Hi everyone,

During my enforced isolation from the world, I have taken advantage of some extra spare time to produce a set of Sudoku puzzles very loosely inspired by current events. I hope you enjoy solving them, if you also find yourself with some spare time. Some of them are quite difficult.

Sam

I think my earlier comment comes across as very harsh and overly critical of people who have worked hard to prepare this contest. If anyone involved in preparing the round reads this, I'd like to apologise, and let you know that I really did enjoy the puzzles. Thank you for your efforts.

While on the topic of formatting... It baffles me that the four puzzle types with dashed grid lines (Domino Search, Pentomino Division, Hitori, Statue Park) all used different styles for the grid lines themselves! Four different thicknesses, four different shades of grey... The Hitori ones were so l...

The thing is, being a total amateur, and knowing that these puzzles in general are for people with a fair share of knowledge in sudoku and the other grid based stuff, so I've set a goal to enter in this contests in a year from now. So I have 12 months to learn techniques and be a better puzzle solv...

Sorry that I couldn't be there this year. I hope everyone enjoyed the Sudoku tournament today, and good luck with the remainder of the Puzzle tournament tomorrow!

After some delay, the results for Round 3 have been published. UK top 3 are as follows:

16. Tom Collyer - 133.0 (57:00)
17. Sam Cappleman-Lynes - 131.75 (58:15)
74. Matthew White - 85