This round was provided for this year's UKPA Open. The round was themed around arrows. I had thought of making a set themed around arrows before. There's a lot of genres that use them, so it could lead to a varied set. I gathered a lot of different genres and tried to select a set that created a significantly varied set. I think I managed to select types that used arrows in different ways. There were a few genres I had tested, that didn't end in the set as they turned out too difficult, or not very enjoyable. A few of the types turned out harder than I thought and I added an easier puzzle to that section.
The set was 75 minutes during the championship. An instruction booklet can be found here.
Puzzles can be found below.
Showing posts with label Pentopia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pentopia. Show all posts
Friday, 12 May 2017
Friday, 29 April 2016
16th 24-Hour Puzzle Championship
The 16th 24-Hour Puzzle Championship was held in Budapest this weekend. As always the championship featured 14 puzzle sets to be solved over 24 hours, with each round lasting 100 minutes, with only 10 or 20 minute breaks in between. Neil Zussman was this year's winner with a slim 10 point lead over Robert Vollmert in second place and a 23 point lead over Michael Mosshammer in third place. Full results can be found here.
All puzzles of this championship (except round 11) can be found here. If you need an example of any of the puzzles, you can find the instruction booklets here.
I provided a set again this year. It was the 8th set to be solved between 11pm and 12:40am. The set contained 24 puzzles. It featured 12 genres, with one puzzle being a standard and one puzzle being a variant. I was originally going to include only 6 genres and two standard puzzles and two variants. I found it hard to decide on the genres to provide enough variation. I tried to keep all variations different per genre, to add to the variation in the round. I think it ended up being a good mix.
Robert Vollmert was the top scorer of the round with 810 points.
Puzzles can be found below
All puzzles of this championship (except round 11) can be found here. If you need an example of any of the puzzles, you can find the instruction booklets here.
I provided a set again this year. It was the 8th set to be solved between 11pm and 12:40am. The set contained 24 puzzles. It featured 12 genres, with one puzzle being a standard and one puzzle being a variant. I was originally going to include only 6 genres and two standard puzzles and two variants. I found it hard to decide on the genres to provide enough variation. I tried to keep all variations different per genre, to add to the variation in the round. I think it ended up being a good mix.
Robert Vollmert was the top scorer of the round with 810 points.
Puzzles can be found below
Wednesday, 9 March 2016
UKPA Open 2016 Team Round: Stacked
The UKPA Open 2016 was held in Croydon on February 27th-28th. As an intermission between the competition and the ceremonies there are team rounds to keep the competitors busy so they don't cause any trouble. I provided one of the team rounds.
The concept of this team round is a bit easier than last year's. All puzzles in this set are unique by themselves. The interaction between the puzzles doesn't come till you have solved them. I tried to rank the puzzles so people could divide the puzzles between their solvers appropriately. Once you've solved all puzzles the second step of the solve comes into play. You have to divide all puzzles in three sets of 4 puzzles, one from each genre, so that all solutions, when placed on top of each other, use every cell at least once. I thought it would be an interesting idea and I think it worked out well.
I uploaded two versions of the team round onto the drive. The files contain a detailed example of the round structure. File #1 has all puzzles of the genre on a single page, easier when solving alone. File #2 has each puzzle on a single page, easier when solving together with others.
Puzzles can be found below. Enjoy.
The concept of this team round is a bit easier than last year's. All puzzles in this set are unique by themselves. The interaction between the puzzles doesn't come till you have solved them. I tried to rank the puzzles so people could divide the puzzles between their solvers appropriately. Once you've solved all puzzles the second step of the solve comes into play. You have to divide all puzzles in three sets of 4 puzzles, one from each genre, so that all solutions, when placed on top of each other, use every cell at least once. I thought it would be an interesting idea and I think it worked out well.
I uploaded two versions of the team round onto the drive. The files contain a detailed example of the round structure. File #1 has all puzzles of the genre on a single page, easier when solving alone. File #2 has each puzzle on a single page, easier when solving together with others.
Puzzles can be found below. Enjoy.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Polish Puzzle Championships 2014: Individual Round
Last weekend were the Polish Sudoku and Puzzle Championships. The Championship was also open to International solvers this year. The playoffs would feature the best 4 solvers, while having at least two Polish solvers.
The Sudoku playoffs featured Tiit Vunk, Jakub Ondrousek, Jan Mrozowski and Krystian Swiderski. Jakub Ondrousek finish first in the playoffs, followed by Krystian Swiderski, Tiit Vunk and Jan Mrozowski, making Krystian Swiderski the new Polish Sudoku champion. Full results can be found here.
The Puzzle playoffs featured Przemysław Dębiak, Matus Demiger, Zoltan Horvath and Tomasz Stróżak. The final results remained almost the same with Przemyslaw Dębiak finishing first, followed by Zoltan Horvath, Matus Demiger and Tomasz Stróżak. Full results can be found here.
I contributed a set for the Puzzle Championships for the individual round and wrote a team round together with Zoltan Horvath.
You can find all puzzles of the Championships in the following link: Sudoku Rounds + Team Round, Puzzle Rounds. My puzzle set is round 4. This post will feature all the puzzles from my individual round. Tomorrow I will post the Team round puzzles with a special surprise.
Last year's set was a bit on the difficult side, so I tried to think of a way to rectify that this year. I decided to write 2 puzzles per type, one smaller/easier one and a larger/harder one. I didn't want to make any too difficult. I selected 10 varying types of puzzles. I was hoping to average about 1.5 minutes per puzzle on the smaller ones and about 4.5 minutes per puzzle on the larger ones. I had the set tested by Prasanna Seshadri, James McGowan and Stefan Gaspar. The smaller puzzles made that average pretty well, but the larger puzzles were more inching towards 5-5.5 average and all of them had some outliers. I couldn't really decide well which puzzles to cut so I sent in the whole set and let them know that they could leave out a puzzle type if necessary. During their testing 3 of the larger puzzles seem to have cause some problems as they went up in score. I think the set will have worked well none-the-less for all solvers with the easier puzzles to work with as well, but I'd love to hear some feedback form those who were there.
Puzzles can be found below.
The Sudoku playoffs featured Tiit Vunk, Jakub Ondrousek, Jan Mrozowski and Krystian Swiderski. Jakub Ondrousek finish first in the playoffs, followed by Krystian Swiderski, Tiit Vunk and Jan Mrozowski, making Krystian Swiderski the new Polish Sudoku champion. Full results can be found here.
The Puzzle playoffs featured Przemysław Dębiak, Matus Demiger, Zoltan Horvath and Tomasz Stróżak. The final results remained almost the same with Przemyslaw Dębiak finishing first, followed by Zoltan Horvath, Matus Demiger and Tomasz Stróżak. Full results can be found here.
I contributed a set for the Puzzle Championships for the individual round and wrote a team round together with Zoltan Horvath.
You can find all puzzles of the Championships in the following link: Sudoku Rounds + Team Round, Puzzle Rounds. My puzzle set is round 4. This post will feature all the puzzles from my individual round. Tomorrow I will post the Team round puzzles with a special surprise.
Last year's set was a bit on the difficult side, so I tried to think of a way to rectify that this year. I decided to write 2 puzzles per type, one smaller/easier one and a larger/harder one. I didn't want to make any too difficult. I selected 10 varying types of puzzles. I was hoping to average about 1.5 minutes per puzzle on the smaller ones and about 4.5 minutes per puzzle on the larger ones. I had the set tested by Prasanna Seshadri, James McGowan and Stefan Gaspar. The smaller puzzles made that average pretty well, but the larger puzzles were more inching towards 5-5.5 average and all of them had some outliers. I couldn't really decide well which puzzles to cut so I sent in the whole set and let them know that they could leave out a puzzle type if necessary. During their testing 3 of the larger puzzles seem to have cause some problems as they went up in score. I think the set will have worked well none-the-less for all solvers with the easier puzzles to work with as well, but I'd love to hear some feedback form those who were there.
Puzzles can be found below.
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Puzzle #162: Pentopia
I should be in Australia by now, getting used to driving on the left, kangaroos and koalas, still not liking meat pies and trying to understand what cold means in Australia. This post is written 6 days ago though, so I might be completely wrong.
These two puzzles I have also written earlier. Checking the number of tags on my blog, it's no surprise that I would have chosen to write Yajilin and Pentopia puzzles. They're just types that come very easy to me and I always find fun to write and hope people actually like to solve. But they generally seem well received. Pentopia featured on the USPC this year, after also featuring on the WPC last year. They've also been published in Breinbrekers. So I guess that means it is getting more exposure than just my blog.
The puzzles are pretty good. The first one is a 10 clue puzzle that has a fun opening, but I couldn't get it unique with that 10th clue in a symmetrical position, so I moved one of the clues to acchieve a unique puzzle. The second puzzle has an easy opening, but takes a bit more finesse to finish.
Rules for Pentopia
These two puzzles I have also written earlier. Checking the number of tags on my blog, it's no surprise that I would have chosen to write Yajilin and Pentopia puzzles. They're just types that come very easy to me and I always find fun to write and hope people actually like to solve. But they generally seem well received. Pentopia featured on the USPC this year, after also featuring on the WPC last year. They've also been published in Breinbrekers. So I guess that means it is getting more exposure than just my blog.
The puzzles are pretty good. The first one is a 10 clue puzzle that has a fun opening, but I couldn't get it unique with that 10th clue in a symmetrical position, so I moved one of the clues to acchieve a unique puzzle. The second puzzle has an easy opening, but takes a bit more finesse to finish.
Rules for Pentopia
Puzzle #1
Puzzle #2
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Puzzle #138: Pentopia
This seems to be one of the puzzle types I come back to regularly. I just like constructing them. People seem to generally like the type and it's hard to find any of them anywhere else. Last year there was a one on the World Puzzle Championships made by Zoltan Horvath. Another one will feature in this weekend's 24 Hour Puzzle Championhip made by Prasanna Seshadri. These puzzles both need all 12 pentominos to be used, which is something I tend to steer clear of. I think the highest I ever went to was 11. I'd probably could make puzzles of size 13x13 or 14x14, which use all pentominos. But then it still wouldn't be a rule that you'd have to.
Rules for Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
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| Click to enlarge |
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Puzzle #118: Pentopia
This is the first 12x12 Pentopia puzzle I've made that only has 10 clues. Most of my puzzles have 12 given clues. That just seems the total that's mostly needed to make the puzzle unique. Just like that most my 10x10 Yajilin puzzles use 10 clues. The opening to this puzzle is tricky, but after that it shouldn't cause too many problems.
Rules for Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
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| Click to enlarge |
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Puzzle #96: Pentopia
I still like this genre, especially the clue type. I've been trying to incorporate it in other genres, but so far nothing popped out that seemed to work well. Maybe I can just make it work well with pentominos (Pentopia) and loops (Myopia) as those are the two logic puzzle constructs I enjoy most.
Rules for Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Puzzle #45: Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
The booklet for the World Puzzle Championships came out today. As this genre will feature at the championship I'm posting another one. The puzzle in the championship is probably a bit bigger than mine as it will have all pentomino pieces in it (as the rules seem to indicate). Even though 12 by 12 grids are the standard size for pentomino puzzles, they don't work very well for this genre to fit all 12 in as you eliminate a lot of space with the clue type. Also thought it was somewhat funny that the example was the same one I made for my LMI-test.
The booklet for the World Puzzle Championships came out today. As this genre will feature at the championship I'm posting another one. The puzzle in the championship is probably a bit bigger than mine as it will have all pentomino pieces in it (as the rules seem to indicate). Even though 12 by 12 grids are the standard size for pentomino puzzles, they don't work very well for this genre to fit all 12 in as you eliminate a lot of space with the clue type. Also thought it was somewhat funny that the example was the same one I made for my LMI-test.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Puzzle #29: Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
Somehow I almost always seem to end up with 12 clues in a 12x12 grid with these puzzles. I don't really know why that is. I'm guessing it is because too many clues makes the grid too packed.
Somehow I almost always seem to end up with 12 clues in a 12x12 grid with these puzzles. I don't really know why that is. I'm guessing it is because too many clues makes the grid too packed.
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Puzzle #15: Pentopia
Rules for Pentopia
I was originally planning on posting a Sudoku, but after the USSC I really didn't feel like it. So instead I'm posting another Pentopia puzzle. This is in my opinion the hardest puzzle on this blog so far. So approach it carefully.
I was originally planning on posting a Sudoku, but after the USSC I really didn't feel like it. So instead I'm posting another Pentopia puzzle. This is in my opinion the hardest puzzle on this blog so far. So approach it carefully.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Rules: Pentopia
This genre is developed by myself.
Place pentominos in the grid without repeating any shape. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape. The pentominos are not allowed to touch, not even at the corners. The lines in the grid indicate the direction(s) in which the pentominos is/are closest when looking from that square.
Pentominos
Place pentominos in the grid without repeating any shape. Rotations and reflections are considered the same shape. The pentominos are not allowed to touch, not even at the corners. The lines in the grid indicate the direction(s) in which the pentominos is/are closest when looking from that square.
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