UKPA Skyscrapers Contest 25 February - 2 March 2021

[david mcneill]

This is the discussion thread for the upcoming UKPA Skyscrapers Contest. UK and international competitors are welcome. Because there is a Puzzle GP round on the same weekend, the competition window is slightly wider than usual.

Dates: Thursday 25 February 2021 - Tuesday 2 March 2021
Duration: 2 hours
Puzzles: 22 puzzles, including 4 standard Skyscrapers and 2 each of 9 Skyscrapers variants
Instruction booklet: posted at https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=60

[Hausigel]

Skyscrapers - oh happy day!

[detuned]

I love the idea for parkour - you have a wonderful eye for a variation David!

[GarethMoore]

I love the idea for parkour - you have a wonderful eye for a variation David!

Wow - agreed! What a great idea.

[david mcneill]

Just a quick reminder that the UKPA Skyscrapers Contest is about to start. It's open right through to next Tuesday. Good luck to everybody planning to take part. Hoping for lots of happy finishers. Please don't discuss the actual puzzles until the contest is over.

[jupilogy]

Just before I start... Can I confirm that you can submit answers multiple times?

[Feadoor]

Yes, if you notice a mistake you are able to re-submit answers as many times as you like within the contest window, and your final answers will count.

[jupilogy]

I enjoyed the puzzles and got more finished than I expected! However I entered the wrong column key for one of the higher points puzzles I did... I guess I won't make that mistake so easily again

The parkour puzzle was super fun. I was afraid it would be too difficult but actually it was a good difficulty and I enjoyed it.

[david mcneill]

The results of the UKPA Skyscrapers contest are out. Congratulations to the 14 competitors who submitted correct solutions to all the puzzles. Ridiculously good solving from the Voigt brothers. Bragging rights to Roland on this occasion. Endo Ken completed the podium places but spare a thought for Tantan Dai who came so close. Top 3 UK solvers were Freddie, Sam and Neil.

Hope everybody enjoyed it. 79 competitors from all over the world. I'm planning a Masyu contest in a few months. Hope you can all come back then.

[Feadoor]

Thanks for a fun contest David!

I had expected to finish when the contest page said I had 13 minutes remaining with only two puzzles left but it turns out the timer on the page was inaccurate and I ended up scrambling to put in my solution codes! I enjoyed the final two puzzles at a leisurely pace once my heart rate had returned to normal

[Nilz]

Nice contest thanks David. Disappointed I didn't finish. Think I spent too long on the Sums. I did have the easy consecutive done and entered, but I didn't realise/ forgot that the interface doesn't auto-submit when the time runs out. Made no difference luckily.
Glad to hear there's a masyu contest coming up, we'll see if that suits me better!

[Hausigel]

Many thanks for a beautiful contest, David.
My favorites were the Sums and the Consecutives. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical about the latter (usually I prefer this variant with full information, i.e. all possible circles are given), but it turned out they had nice smooth solving paths.

[GarethMoore]

...it turns out the timer on the page was inaccurate and I ended up scrambling to put in my solution codes!

Yes, it doesn't work properly. You need to refresh it regularly or use a separate timer. I sent Alan some replacement timer code when he first put the tournament engine online, years ago, but he never applied it. His code doesn't actually read the elapsed time so the length of a 'second' depends on the speed of the browser. The timer can drift a second or two every minute - or much worse if the browser suspends executing the Javascript at any point, which it might conceivably do if the page isn't visible (such as if backgrounded on a mobile device for example).

[Feadoor]

The timer can drift a second or two every minute - or much worse if the browser suspends executing the Javascript at any point.

Ah, that explains it then! I had some printing errors on a few puzzles so I had the contest booklet open rather than the submission page for much of the duration.

[detuned]

I really enjoyed this contest, thank you David! The puzzles by themselves were great, but I also want to call out the overall selection and balance of puzzles to make up the whole contest - as Hausigel says it was beautiful!

Looking forward to the Masyu contest already!