Any interest in a UK croco-puzzle ladder?

[nickdeller]

Hello! I've been away celebrating my wedding anniversary with my wife.

An excellent choice of person to celebrate it with.

afcwarren 4 oenomel 4 after extra time, excluding bye day; afcwarren wins on total time (but it's close!)

...and this is what happens when oenomel forgets that there was a bye day in his match, thinks the match is already won, and doesn't bother to play the tie-break! Still, I guess it's better that both players skip the tie-break than only one of them...

[dickoon]

Here are the results of last week's fixtures on the croco-puzzle ladder, courtesy as ever of Alan's page.

drsteve 4 afcwarren 2
rodders w/o PuzzleScot
oenomel w/o puzzlemad
erika 10 dickoon 0

Congratulations to our winners! I'd like to make it clear that erika's win over me was a legit ten-nil rather than "just" a walkover. Next week's fixtures are as follows:

drsteve - rodders
afcwarren - oenomel (NB Warren has booked a bye day for Monday)
PuzzleScot - erika
puzzlemad - detuned

Waiting list: Dataman, dickoon

Errors and exceptions excepted, and I'll light the week's matches up on the grid this time round. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. If anyone on the waiting list wants to drop out, that's fine. Feel free to concede a match, or all your future matches. New players are welcome and I shall change the length of the ladder if the waiting list reaches four or zero.

[furudo.erika]

3 seconds

[PuzzleScot]

3 seconds

Unbelievable!!! That must be the closest match in croco-ladder history! I thought my 30m+ time on Wed's laser would be the end of it.
In the end, I knew you had to win 1 of today's puzzles, and complete both in 10:40 to win. You did the first bit, but took 10:44!!
My heart goes out to you, but thanks for a great contest

[edit] I presume you looked like your avatar when you saw the results table?

[furudo.erika]

Unbelievable!!! That must be the closest match in croco-ladder history! I thought my 30m+ time on Wed's laser would be the end of it.
In the end, I knew you had to win 1 of today's puzzles, and complete both in 10:40 to win. You did the first bit, but took 10:44!!
My heart goes out to you, but thanks for a great contest

[edit] I presume you looked like your avatar when you saw the results table?

I knew I just needed a semi-decent time in the Rundweg but I stumbled on the logic around the cube joins which I'm not used to. Guess I'll have to do the LMI Magic Cube test for practise.

[dickoon]

Here are the results of last week's fixtures on the croco-puzzle ladder, courtesy as ever of Alan's page.

drsteve 9 rodders 1
afcwarren 6 oenomel 2
PuzzleScot 6 erika 6 after extra time; PuzzleScot wins on total time by a margin of around 0.08%
puzzlemad 1 detuned 8

Congratulations to our winners! Next week's fixtures are as follows:

drsteve - afcwarren
rodders - PuzzleScot
oenomel - detuend
erika - Dataman

Waiting list: dickoon, puzzlemad

Errors and exceptions excepted, and I'll light the week's matches up on the grid this time round. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. If anyone on the waiting list wants to drop out, that's fine. Feel free to concede a match, or all your future matches. New players are welcome and I shall change the length of the ladder if the waiting list reaches four or zero.

[detuned]

With (at the time of writing) my only current negative matchup coincidentally being the matchup that matters, it is somewhat academic for me to request a bye day for Friday's puzzles, but I'll mention it anyway - I'm not going to be near a computer.

[dickoon]

Here are the results of last week's fixtures on the croco-puzzle ladder, courtesy as ever of Alan's page.

drsteve 7 afcwarren 3
rodders 6 PuzzleScot 4
oenomel 5 detuned 3
erika 7 Dataman 3

Congratulations to our winners! Next week's fixtures are as follows:

drsteve - rodders
oenomel - afcwarren
PuzzleScot - erika
detuned - dickoon

Waiting list: puzzlemad, Dataman

Errors and exceptions excepted. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. If anyone on the waiting list wants to drop out, that's fine. Feel free to concede a match, or all your future matches. New players are welcome and I shall change the length of the ladder if the waiting list reaches four or zero.

[PuzzleScot]

Unbelievable!!! That must be the closest match in croco-ladder history!

I take that back, and wish to apply the quote to THIS week's contest instead. erika was less than a second away from taking our match to a tie-break!! A tie-break that includes 2 of my least favourite puzzle types. Apologies again erika! Perhaps if you hadn't given me a 4-0 head-start, it would have been a different result...

[dickoon]

Here are the results of last week's fixtures on the croco-puzzle ladder, courtesy as ever of Alan's page.

drsteve 8 rodders 2
oenomel 4 afcwarren 6
PuzzleScot 5 erika 4
detuned 10 dickoon 0

Congratulations to our winners! Next week's fixtures are as follows:

drsteve - afcwarren
rodders - PuzzleScot
oenomel - detuned
erika - puzzlemad

Waiting list: Dataman, dickoon

Errors and exceptions excepted. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. If anyone on the waiting list wants to drop out, that's fine. Feel free to concede a match, or all your future matches. New players are welcome and I shall change the length of the ladder if the waiting list reaches four or zero.

[PuzzleScot]

PuzzleScot 5 erika 4

Somewhat academic, but including a non-zero tie, it is without doubt 5.5-4.5

[berni]

Next monday I'll upload a new version of the applets. Behind the sceens a lot has changed and therefore I expect some trouble, although I hope to avoid it somehow. The results of monday will not count for sure and it might even be necessary the remove some more days this week. Therefore it might be wise to skip a week in the croco-puzzle ladder?

[dickoon]

Here are the results of last week's fixtures on the croco-puzzle ladder, courtesy as ever of Alan's page.

drsteve 9 afcwarren 1
rodders 6 PuzzleScot 4
oenomel 3 detuned 7
erika 6 puzzlemad 4

Congratulations to our winners! I'll take berni's advice about suspending the ladder for a week while the new applets bed down - after all, he should know! - but the week after next's fixtures are as follows:

drsteve - rodders
afcwarren - detuned
PuzzleScot - erika
oenomel - Dataman

Waiting list: dickoon, puzzlemad

Errors and exceptions excepted. Byes are available; please give as much notice as possible. If anyone on the waiting list wants to drop out, that's fine. Feel free to concede a match, or all your future matches. New players are welcome and I shall change the length of the ladder if the waiting list reaches four or zero.

[PuzzleScot]

Just noticed that the applets are now misreading the solve times. Some debugging required before my summary page can be relied on. Will notify here when sorted.

[driv4r]

Could anyone explain how could I take part of this? (Yes, I did read the first page but still don't get it ) I understand that I need to play a match against the last one in the league (or sth like that) to have a chance of getting into it but where exactly do I play & what, and how to register?

EDIT: I know the website now and somehow managed to get registered tnx to Google Translate, finally managed to find a link to this guide (http://chris.dreamwidth.org/11676.html) as well on this CrocoPuzzle site, so will try to find out how to navigate my way around. I would add this link somewhere where it's easy to find, so other people like me who can't speak German will find it easily!

[PuzzleScot]

Just noticed that the applets are now misreading the solve times. Some debugging required before my summary page can be relied on. Will notify here when sorted.

Looks ok with my modifications. If you spot anything awry, let me know. (There are no stored times for Monday's croco, so ignore that)

[PuzzleScot]

driv4r - Chris will make contact about adding you. It's meant to be a British puzzlers ladder, but I think living in Cambridge may be qualification enough.
You should have seen my other post regarding translation of all the puzzle applet usage and puzzle rules being in the "Puzzle Rules" area...

[dickoon]

Thanks, Alan! (...and also for updating your croco-times page, and for everything else.)

I've always been a bit vague about precise eligibility criteria. We've had James Mitchell McGowan on the ladder in the past even when he wasn't in the UK, but on the understanding that he was - and, hopefully, still is! - trying to qualify for the UK team. Looking at your "Hello World!" post then I'm glad you're here and happy for you to be on the ladder. In the fullness of time I'd like to do something a little more international, though this croco-puzzle ladder is probably not it.

I'll put you on the end of the waiting list. There wasn't a match for the week just gone, but the ladder is back in play this week. Accordingly your first match is expected to be based on your performance from Monday 4th June to Friday 8th June - or maybe earlier if we have another person (re?)joining the ladder and go back to five matches. This will give you plenty of time to keep practising the puzzles and the interface, then hit the ground running. I hope you enjoy the ladder!

[driv4r]

driv4r - Chris will make contact about adding you. It's meant to be a British puzzlers ladder, but I think living in Cambridge may be qualification enough.
You should have seen my other post regarding translation of all the puzzle applet usage and puzzle rules being in the "Puzzle Rules" area...

Cool, I will probably be easy to beat at first anyway

Actually I checked the thread in the Puzzle Rules and did find the rules for different puzzles but I didn't see much about the navigation, registration etc. there, so I kinda improvised first and used Google Translate until I found the guide I linked above.

Thanks, Alan! (...and also for updating your croco-times page, and for everything else.)

I've always been a bit vague about precise eligibility criteria. We've had James Mitchell on the ladder in the past even when he wasn't in the UK, but on the understanding that he was - and, hopefully, still is! - trying to qualify for the UK team. Looking at your "Hello World!" post then I'm glad you're here and happy for you to be on the ladder. In the fullness of time I'd like to do something a little more international, though this croco-puzzle ladder is probably not it.

I'll put you on the end of the waiting list. There wasn't a match for the week just gone, but the ladder is back in play this week. Accordingly your first match is expected to be based on your performance from Monday 4th June to Friday 8th June - or maybe earlier if we have another person (re?)joining the ladder and go back to five matches. This will give you plenty of time to keep practising the puzzles and the interface, then hit the ground running. I hope you enjoy the ladder!

Great, I keep practising for now then, there will be loads of completely new puzzles for me as I had only solved classic 6x6, 9x9, 12x12, diagonal 9x9 and a couple of irregular ones before. Gave one of the daily ones a try on Friday night (1 of 2, Buildings or however it's called) and gotta say it was tough for me (even though it was only 6x6 in size) and I hadn't solved anything like that before. So, it took a long time and I finished in low 315th place out of 317 but at least I didn't make mistakes and got it done.

[sknight]

Gave one of the daily ones a try on Friday night (1 of 2, Buildings or however it's called) and gotta say it was tough for me (even though it was only 6x6 in size) and I hadn't solved anything like that before.

Most Skyscraper puzzles are 6x6 -- it doesn't tell you much of anything about the difficulty level of the puzzle.
In fact, since the median time on that one was around 7-8 minutes, I'd say it was a reasonably hard puzzle.
Also, just getting through your first puzzle of a given type is a good start.

In general, for Skyscrapers, I'd recommend starting by figuring out where the 6's and 5's have to be if possible.

Also a couple general interface notes that help on a lot of puzzles (including hard skyscrapers), in case you hadn't tried them out yet:
1) hitting # toggles "candidate" or "pencil marks" mode, where you can list possibilities. I find this handy in skyscrapers, kropkis, and sudokus especially.
2) The puzzles can be done in "layers" -- if you look on the app where there's a "Stufe: 0" and a "+", you can branch/bifurcate your solution if needed.
For example, suppose you realize that there are two basic ways the 5 can go in a certain row. Click the "+" to switch the layer to "1" and try it one way. If it works, great. If not, click back
to "0" (by hitting "-") and the puzzle reverts to where you branched (and you can put the 5 in the other place). Definitely do as much as you can without branching, but always good to have as an option.

(Another option for "branching" is to switch colors, but for many puzzle types this is actually a bit clunky. In general it doesn't work well with pencil marks, but it's fine for puzzles like Tapa.
The only puzzle where I always use multi-colors is Sternenhimmel (Starry Night). I quickly mark all the possible star locations in red, then mark which places the stars can't be in black, then delete the red...)

[PuzzleScot]

The only puzzle where I always use multi-colors is Sternenhimmel (Starry Night). I quickly mark all the possible star locations in red, then mark which places the stars can't be in black, then delete the red...)

I thought it was just me that did that!

[dickoon]

I hope you enjoy it! Croco-puzzle is definitely more fun on the way up than on the way down; take things gently and don't feel you need to try any particular puzzle on any particular day if it looks like it's going to take more time than you want to spend on it. If you're not familiar with many of the standard formats then you may enjoy the upcoming UKPA Beginners' Contests. I for one am looking forward to the first of them, not least because (a) I'm lousy at Slitherlinks in general (called Rundweg on Croco-Puzzle) and (b) I can't actually remember which sorts of puzzles Nurikabe and Shikaku even are in the first place, which suggests that I might have managed not to ever have solved either of them.

(Edit: no, of course I've solved shikaku in the past; I just couldn't remember the name for them!)

[drsteve]

The only puzzle where I always use multi-colors is Sternenhimmel (Starry Night). I quickly mark all the possible star locations in red, then mark which places the stars can't be in black, then delete the red...)

I thought it was just me that did that!

No, me too.

[driv4r]

Gave one of the daily ones a try on Friday night (1 of 2, Buildings or however it's called) and gotta say it was tough for me (even though it was only 6x6 in size) and I hadn't solved anything like that before.

Most Skyscraper puzzles are 6x6 -- it doesn't tell you much of anything about the difficulty level of the puzzle.
In fact, since the median time on that one was around 7-8 minutes, I'd say it was a reasonably hard puzzle.
Also, just getting through your first puzzle of a given type is a good start.

In general, for Skyscrapers, I'd recommend starting by figuring out where the 6's and 5's have to be if possible.

Also a couple general interface notes that help on a lot of puzzles (including hard skyscrapers), in case you hadn't tried them out yet:
1) hitting # toggles "candidate" or "pencil marks" mode, where you can list possibilities. I find this handy in skyscrapers, kropkis, and sudokus especially.
2) The puzzles can be done in "layers" -- if you look on the app where there's a "Stufe: 0" and a "+", you can branch/bifurcate your solution if needed.
For example, suppose you realize that there are two basic ways the 5 can go in a certain row. Click the "+" to switch the layer to "1" and try it one way. If it works, great. If not, click back
to "0" (by hitting "-") and the puzzle reverts to where you branched (and you can put the 5 in the other place). Definitely do as much as you can without branching, but always good to have as an option.

(Another option for "branching" is to switch colors, but for many puzzle types this is actually a bit clunky. In general it doesn't work well with pencil marks, but it's fine for puzzles like Tapa.
The only puzzle where I always use multi-colors is Sternenhimmel (Starry Night). I quickly mark all the possible star locations in red, then mark which places the stars can't be in black, then delete the red...)

Thanks for the tips!

I did figure out that 6 was the easiest one to go for soon after I started but there was only one really straight forward 6 to be placed and it took quite some time until I got going.

I haven't used layers and pencil marks yet, might give them a try if there is a need. However, I did try different colours (black, blue & orange) to test in multiple option cases. Now after reading your post I think that layers might have been a faster way...

Btw, solved another one of those daily surprise puzzles (Kropki I think) Sunday and once again it was tough to get going as I had never done it before but compared to the Skyscrapers it was easier. And once I got few numbers in, it was quite easy and I didn't have to use any help of switching colours etc. Managed to beat only 3 in the day's results though.

[kiwijam]

The only puzzle where I always use multi-colors is Sternenhimmel (Starry Night). I quickly mark all the possible star locations in red, then mark which places the stars can't be in black, then delete the red...)

I thought it was just me that did that!

No, me too.

That's a good tip.
For comparison, I'd go through each square and if I couldn't see any arrows pointing at it and then I cross it out. This is 50% to 100% slower to get to the same 'half-way-point' of the puzzle, so I don't recommend it.

PS Chris, I'm guessing you were referring to me earlier (the surname didn't match but the other details did! ). Yes I'm still hoping to qualify for the UK team, there are two spots remaining which I am able to compete for from my far-flung location...