UK Puzzle Association

This is the discussion thread for the 2021 UK Puzzle Championship.

Duration: 2 1/2 hours
Dates: Friday 25th - Monday 28th June 2021
Contest Page: https://ukpuzzles.org/contests.php?contestid=63
Instruction Booklet: Available soon

Please post any questions about the competition here.

The instruction booklet (no points) is now available from the contest page - link above. An updated version with the points will be uploaded as soon as possible.

10,11. Castle walls: the example answer keys contain O instead of X.
19. Coral: the example answer key has an extra X at the beginning.

Is there any chance of having the two sets of clues in Hashi/Hotaru Beam being a different shade? I think it would then be easier to tell them apart at first glance, rather than relying on the presence or otherwise of black dots.

Puzzle_Maestro wrote: ↑Sat 19 Jun, 2021 7:11 am 10,11. Castle walls: the example answer keys contain O instead of X.
19. Coral: the example answer key has an extra X at the beginning.

My bad on both. I will amend when I update with the points (although I'm sure I'd accept either O or X for the unvisited cells in the Castle Walls and Castle Wall Turns.
The coral - I didn't remove my place holder.

Feadoor wrote: ↑Sat 19 Jun, 2021 7:42 am Is there any chance of having the two sets of clues in Hashi/Hotaru Beam being a different shade? I think it would then be easier to tell them apart at first glance, rather than relying on the presence or otherwise of black dots.

The puzzle author will make this change. I will provide updated information in the amended instruction book when the points are added.

Thank you!

The example for 29 Jumping Crossword has an extra word: "HAZIR" which can't be seen in the solution.
Will the contest puzzle have extra words, or is this an error?

kiwijam wrote: ↑Mon 21 Jun, 2021 5:32 am The example for 29 Jumping Crossword has an extra word: "HAZIR" which can't be seen in the solution.
Will the contest puzzle have extra words, or is this an error?

This is an error - the example had been taken from one that did have extra words in the list, I'd removed another but missed that.
The actual puzzle will have all words in the solution.

The amended instruction booklet (including points) is now uploaded.

In the answer form, a couple point values differ from the ones in the instruction booklet: Gaps (35 instead of 20) and Hashi/Hotaru Beam (24 instead of 30). The total 835 in the booklet is wrong, but it matches the values in the answer form.

montelucci wrote: ↑Wed 23 Jun, 2021 7:13 am In the answer form, a couple point values differ from the ones in the instruction booklet: Gaps (35 instead of 20) and Hashi/Hotaru Beam (24 instead of 30). The total 835 in the booklet is wrong, but it matches the values in the answer form.

Thanks for spotting this - on both I've accidentally used the puzzle number in place of the points. The answer form is correct. I've amended now.

I've realised that there was an error in my scoring spreadsheet and as a result a few of the puzzles haven't been awarded enough points. The puzzles affected are: #8 Sashigane (20), #24 Hungarian Pentomino (45), #25 Kuromasu (79), #25 BACA (59), #31 Turning Fences (69).

I've also spotted an error in the Castle Wall instructions - the loop can touch in adjacent cells (as the example does show).

The UKPC is now live. You have until the end of Monday to take part. Good luck and enjoy.

For what it's worth, I've plugged the contest in a couple of puzzly places, not least the 5,000-strong UK Escape Room Enthusiasts Facebook group, where two of the three moderators have played in previous UKPCs. There's not going to be perfect crossover, but hopefully it should attract a few people who didn't know about it otherwise. I'd love to see the number of UK entrants on the scoreboard smash even last year's record! (Pity I'm working night shifts this weekend, but I'll see if I can make time on Monday to enter myself...)

dickoon wrote: ↑Sun 27 Jun, 2021 7:09 am For what it's worth, I've plugged the contest in a couple of puzzly places, not least the 5,000-strong UK Escape Room Enthusiasts Facebook group, where two of the three moderators have played in previous UKPCs. There's not going to be perfect crossover, but hopefully it should attract a few people who didn't know about it otherwise. I'd love to see the number of UK entrants on the scoreboard smash even last year's record! (Pity I'm working night shifts this weekend, but I'll see if I can make time on Monday to enter myself...)

Thanks Chris. Those night shifts are a pain aren't they. Hopefully you'll find time today as you say to have a go.

Not sure if Liane mentioned it, I just wanted to say a thank you here to the people responsible for the two variant ideas I used.

They were both by members of the CTC Discord server.
Castle Wall Turns was a happy accidental interpretation of the usual rules by Danlson over there.

The Hashi/Hotaru combo was an idea of bakpao's (Chiel Beenhakker).

Both ideas were a lot of fun to work with and I hope the participants enjoyed them too!

Puzzle creators this year were:

Helen Arnold: #3 Tapa, #11 Nurikabe, #12 Star Battle, #13 Four Winds, #14 Yajilin, #15 Pentopia, #16 Doppelblock, #19 Coral, #20 Gaps
Bram de Laat: #8 Sashigane, #24 Hungarian Pentomino, #25 Kuromasu, #26 BACA, #31 Turning Fences
Ashish Kumar: #1 Masyu, #4 Mochikoro, #5 Nurimisaki, #6 Sashigane, #9 Castle Wall
Prasanna Seshadri: #2 Tapa, #7 Sashigane, #10 Castle Wall/Turns, #17 Balance Loop, #21 Double Choco, #30 Hashi/Hotaru Beams
Tawan Sunathvanichkul: #18 Cave, #22 Sudokuro, #23 Friendly Seramik, #29 Jumping Crossword
Liane Robinson: #27 Scrabble, #28 Wordsearch

Oh no, I missed it.

I didn't read the finish time properly - I saw Tuesday listed as the date and naively assumed that meant that I had Tuesday on order to complete the test, and just logged in now to find the competition over.



Sorry I didn't get to add one more to the participation total!

Might I humbly suggest that next time the finish time is listed as Monday, 23:59?

eratosthenes wrote: ↑Tue 29 Jun, 2021 7:57 pm Oh no, I missed it.

I didn't read the finish time properly - I saw Tuesday listed as the date and naively assumed that meant that I had Tuesday on order to complete the test, and just logged in now to find the competition over.



Sorry I didn't get to add one more to the participation total!

Might I humbly suggest that next time the finish time is listed as Monday, 23:59?

Sorry about that. They way the timer is set up we can only set it with 5 min windows and so I was trying to give the full day on the Monday. I will try to remember to make this more explicit for next year.

Thanks for the great puzzles!