Thoughts on Competition Scoring Methods

With Tapa Train currently running on LMI, I've been thinking about puzzle contests again. On paper, these all measure one thing: how fast people are at solves the presented puzzles. And this tends to be borne out in the results, with the same group of people near the top every time. But the order is variable, and can vary by quite a bit depending on the format. It's not immediately obvious why, but the way results are aggregated and compared make a huge difference to how these things can feel. I'm going to go into all the formats I can think of and try to pinpoint what they're measuring, beyond the obvious. I'll be citing some example cases, often from my own experiences, and also often from cases where the format has not suited me well. That's not to say that I think I deserve a better placement from using a different system, just that I can speak to my own experiences and how the systems have affected me better than I could someone else.

Puzzle #390 - Known Unknowns (Pencils)

Before tonight, I'd never even considered making a Pencils puzzle. Then djmathman was making one after learning how the type worked and I got interested, and then half-jokingly asked when someone was going to make one with all question marks. You know what happened next.

puzz.link interface

Yep. I made one. Nine minutes later- this has some interesting steps and there's definitely more to explore with this idea.

Puzzle #389 - One Away (Akari)

Akari is always a fun type to make and solve- there's a lot of room for expression and varied deductions, and even the easy ones have a very satisfying sense of flow. This is probably a 3 star puzzle, roughly, and I'm very pleased with the logic I managed to include with this visual theme.

puzz.link interface

I aimed for something Nikoli-style with this and I'm not totally sure I succeeded there. Should be a great puzzle regardless of whether or not I hit that goal.

WSPC Report - WPC side

The WSPC 2021 recently concluded, and so I can post my experiences going through the 10 rounds of the WPC side. I'm writing these shortly after attempting each round, and will update with final placements/relative scores. (1st/10th/my score) Let's go!

Puzzle #388 - Lost in the Labyrinth (Statue Park)

I had another puzzle posted over on GMPuzzles today, this time a Statue Park. I really like this type and at the time hadn't really seen all white puzzles, while all black were reasonably common and I'd even done it myself. Fun fact about this puzzle: I originally made it for prototyping for something else entirely, but decided it wasn't a good fit there and that it was worth submitting to GMP.

Puzzle #387 - Trick or Treat

Recently, someone on Puzzler's Club was solving a Double Choco and made a mistake with a 2, thinking it had to be a certain way that it didn't. That mistake gave me an idea- what if it did have to be that way? So I made this Double Choco with the additional rule that all regions (combined light and dark, so the parts you outline) must be point symmetric, as in Spiral Galaxies. The first two iterations both missed a possibility but this one is unique I swear.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #386 - Almost... (Doppelblock)

I actually made this Doppelblock almost a month ago, but didn't post it because it wasn't quite the theme I was going for. Rather than sit on a nice construction indefinitely because I had to clue R5, I figured I should post the puzzle now. Except somehow I posted the wrong version, no longer have the right version, and came up with this working puzzle from the same start. Oops.

puzz.link interface

I'll probably keep trying to get that theme to work later- it would be really slick and I'm sure it's possible.

In other puzzle news, I haven't had too much constructing time lately and what I have has been going towards the same two projects. One of them will hopefully surface within a year, and the other I'll publicize once it gets closer to completion. Let's just say that it aims to address one of my biggest complaints for now...

There's also been a third project of a Chip's Challenge set that's finished the design phase, now it's just testing and fixes before release. That will also free up a decent chunk of time to not have on my plate.

Puzzle #385 - Triple Question (Tapa)

First up: I haven't made a post in a while because I most of the puzzles I've been making can't be publicly shared- at some point I'll have a lot of puzzles available to post, but that day is kind of far off for two separate projects- arguably three, but I haven't really started on the third yet. Too many other things first!

Second, semiexp added several new puzzle types to pzprRT, and Tapa was among them. I was curious how powerful touching question marks could be after my T pentomino Tapa from a while back, and ended up with this puzzle. It's pretty tricky, I think, but overall fair with some good structural insights.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #384 - A Learning Experience (Every Second Straight)

I believe that I've mentioned that I'm making 1 puzzle for every genre that PuzzleDuel has, to submit in bulk and provide quality puzzles for everyone. Well, I recently got to Every Second Straight, a loop genre that I only knew from the site. To make matters worse, I solved all prior examples by intuition and tweaking, and had no idea where to begin logically. I suspect many solvers of my puzzle were in the same boat, though I promise there's a clean path through this puzzle with the right knowledge.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface      PuzzleDuel interface

Solving tips after the break. And by tips, I mostly mean revealing the biggest secret this genre holds.

Puzzle #383 - Assisted (Yajilin)

I'm not completely sure why, but tonight I decided to try to use semiexp's pzprrt tool to create a fair Yajilin with a difficult to execute theme. I then tested the solve afterwards to make sure it was reasonable and found that there was not only a nice path through, but the difficulty generally increased throughout the solve. The tool assistance definitely helped, but this puzzle wouldn't have turned out as well as it did without the constructing experience I already had to help guide me in directions I knew would be useful. Enjoy!

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #382 - Subdivided (Slitherlink)

Very minor mechanics spoiler for The Witness below the break.

Puzzle #381 - What. (Non-Consecutive Futoshiki)

Recently (and by recently I mean a couple weeks ago, because I'm slow at updating my blog) wand posted an automated tool for 6x6 and 7x7 non-consecutive Futoshiki puzzles. Futoshiki is a subset of Minarism, so... I played around with it a bit and made an extremely unfriendly 7x7 that I don't want to share, and this 4 clue 6x6. Surprisingly, this one actually has a very nice solve path! I definitely recommend giving it a try before playing with the tool yourself.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #380 - Fixed (Pipelink)

Hi again jkitty, I finally made a vanilla Pipelink. I was curious if it was possible to make a non-trivial puzzle with only one clue type and orientation, and I think I succeeded.

puzz.link interface

Puzzle #379 - Plus One (Yajilin)

I may have forgotten to post my large Yajilin that was posted to GMP while I was going through the puzzles from Hexagony. This one was really fun to make, even though I ran into a lot of issues with resolving the 6x6 areas uniquely. The original version of the puzzle did not have symmetric clue placements, but once I had working logic I liked I moved most of the clues to equivalent locations and added a few useless ones to make everything fully symmetric.

Enjoy the puzzle!

Puzzle #378 - Twin Snakes (LITS)

One of my LITS puzzles was posted on GMP "today"! I like the break-in and theme on this one quite a lot, even if it falls very quickly once getting that break-in like many LITS puzzles do.

But yeah, like usual, no direct link or image since this puzzle is hosted offsite.

Puzzle #377 - Not So Simple Loop

Recently, Logic Showcase 25 on Puzzlers Club concluded, with the prompt being to make a puzzle with a non-square grid. I made a last minute Simple Loop.

Or, you know. A not so simple loop going through 6 different tilings that penpa has. No interface link here, just a loop puzzle that was a lot of fun to make- if any given part wasn't working out, I could just trash it and move to the next one! That actually did happen once, too. I'm quite happy with how this ended up turning out, even if I never want to see another triangular grid again.

Puzzle #376 - Out of Character (Killer Skyscraper Sudoku)

Uhhhh... yeah that's a variant. Killer Skyscraper Sudoku. The rules are as follows: inside the 4x4 grid, place a number from 1 to 4 into each cell such that each row, column and region contain each digit once each. Additionally, each cage must not contain a duplicated number. Any digits placed outside of the grid act as skyscraper clues on the grid.

puzz.link interface (cages are shown by same number links) penpa interface

Yes, I'm aware this is very atypical for my constructions. I was curious if this sort of construction would even be possible, and it was- maybe I'll try a 6x6 with this ruleset? It's pretty interesting.

Puzzles #373, #374 & #375 - Hexagony Password Path

Password Path was not only the last genre on Hexagony, but also the last genre selected for the contest. As mentioned earlier, picking loop and path genres that could make the jump to hexagonal grids proved challenging. Password Path allowing diagonal lines anyway meant that jumping down to 6 adjacent cells from 8 made it easier to work with than the standard version of the puzzle!

penpa interface

The only thing I wanted to do for the example puzzle was show that the password could contain a duplicated symbol, and avoid crossings. It turns out that this is still a pretty easy type to construct and solve- a very fun way to end things off.

penpa interface

This was the only 5 point puzzle on the contest, with an expected solve time for finishing pace being 1 minute. I bet a lot of people crushed that time. The double letter in the password probably made this easier than not having a duplicated symbol, honestly.

penpa interface

And finally, I went for a thematic conclusion. I was tempted to reverse the order of these or put them first, opening the contest with HEXAGON PUZZLE but ultimately I thought that solvers would want a bit of a come down after that Ripple Effect. Puzzle order is the one thing I'm never sure of in a contest like this, there's not really any wrong answer and there's almost always a way to improve the ordering in some way at the cost of something else. But anyway, thanks for checking out these puzzles and solutions! Overall I'm very proud of Hexagony, from concept to execution to the final result, and I'm glad I put it together. Until next time.

Puzzles #370, #371 & #372 - Hexagony Ripple Effect

Alright.

Here's the genre from Hexagony everyone was waiting for, Ripple Effect. The second puzzle here, worth 60 points, was only solved by 6 of the participants in the contest. I highly recommend giving the puzzle a real shot here to discover the logic before watching the walkthrough- I promise a nice logical path exists and is worth your time to discover.

puzz.link interface

I don't know how to make easy Ripple Effect puzzles, and it shows with this example. Regions of size 4 always tend to lead to interesting deductions and this puzzle is no exception.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface

I didn't try too hard to make another clueless Ripple Effect here, though I think it would have been possible with this grid shape and theme. The choice of given numbers was very economical, giving the most information at the right steps without compromising the rest of the intended logic. The break-in here is a bit subtle but should be easily spottable to those with experience.

penpa interface

I did say "another" clueless Ripple Effect. This was the second puzzle that I made for the contest, and oh man was it a struggle. Nicknamed "Six Feet Under" it took me several failed attempts where either I missed a number seeing itself early on or the very last placement before I finally turned up this extremely challenging puzzle. I learned a lot about structure from those failed attempts, and what region shapes would be useful to propagate information. As a result, when I had to recreate the path later, several times, I struggled to find it again! I think it's still my favorite from the contest.

Hexagony Aqre

Aqre is a puzzle type created by Eric Fox, my co-constructor for Hexagony. I find the type very challenging to both make and solve, as though the "no four in a row" and "all black cells are connected" rules have so much cool potential, I've always felt like room numbers aren't the best way to use that base. I'm please to say that these two puzzles have partially changed my mind. I still think other clue types can handle the rule better, but these show that the room numbers can be used to great effect. The hexagonal puzzle in particular is by far my favorite Aqre I've ever solved- I really do think that the extra dimension makes it work that much better. Though I can only imagine how tough getting that construction to work was...

Hexagony Double Choco

I'll post the Double Choco walkthroughs first, then get into some thoughts on Eric's puzzles.
Double Choco is a genre that I really like constructing and solving, and I was slightly disappointed that Eric got to making both of these before I got a chance. Both puzzles have a very nice flow to them, with the first reminding me a lot of a more difficult puzzle from @Tarai_puzzle, and the second of the style of another prolific constructor, jkittykitkat. It's probably for the best though, as Hexagony turned out pretty tough and my Double Chocos are... difficult.

Puzzle #369 - Hexagony Yajisan-Kazusan

When picking genres for Hexagony I always wanted to include a "dynasty" genre where shaded cells couldn't share a side. Most genres in that form didn't make the transition very well, but Yajisan-Kazusan did. It still proved difficult to construct but I love how it turned out- a lot of my difficulty was from the theme I went for. This was probably the only overvalued puzzle on the contest, as almost everyone who submitted in groups knocked this out a much better points per minute than other puzzles- I probably should have taken 5 points from this and put it onto something like the 2nd Double Choco. On that note, Double Choco walkthroughs tomorrow, Aqre walkthroughs after that, and then more puzzles from me.

penpa interface

Puzzles #366, #367 & #368 - Hexagony Kakuro

Hexagony needed number placement genres, and the usual latin square genres wouldn't make the jump effectively. The obvious solution was to pick a genre that didn't really care about representing every number in its set, and that was Kakuro. I haven't made too many of these but knew I was up to the task as I've solved a ton and know a lot of cool tricks that sometimes come up. Even still, the hexagonal one was the first puzzle made for Hexagony as I knew that hexagonal number placement would prove to be one of the biggest challenges to get into a good place.

puzz.link interface

I'm actually quite happy with how this example turned out, as it shows everything I wanted to show. Some rows aren't clued at all, large and small restricted sums are used, and min-maxing intersections is important as well. It's not the full Kakuro toolkit, not even close, but it does the job.

puzz.link interface

Much later, I went to fill in some of the missing gaps in construction with the necessary difficulties. An easier puzzle was needed, and so I made this "Plus or Minus" puzzle, which solves in two halves. The bottom is mostly straightforward, while the top is quite tough without a critical insight.

penpa interface

I really wanted to sneak in some triangular min-maxing here, but the addition never quite worked out in the end. Despite only having 13 more cells (33%) more than the first Kakuro in the contest, this was worth 45 points- 3 times as much! Some of the required chaining is hard to spot, and there are a lot more sums that are only used to fill one cell after another is resolved. This one is a bit rough around the edges and could have been better- I'll probably revisit the type some time down the road.

Puzzle #365 - Hexagony Slitherlink

Construction for Hexagony actually stalled for a while here, as I barely had any ideas for how to construct a hexagonal Slitherlink. I had a small piece of a break-in in mind with no ideas for where to go further until one day I just sat down and worked it out.

penpa interface

This puzzle is nicknamed "Off by Three" due to the different sections- I'm actually amazed by the depth of the logic in this layout, given the symmetry and clue theming. I especially love how the last two parts end up resolving.

Puzzles #363 & #364 - Odd Ones Out (Hexagony Caves)

I seem to have a knack for making interesting Cave puzzles, so when it came time to pick genres for Hexagony, it was at the top of my list for types I wanted to make.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface

penpa interface

These two puzzles are themed together, both nicknamed "Odd One Out" for a couple reasons. First and most obvious is that each puzzle is shaped (roughly) like the cell shape of the other grid, something I really wanted to do. The second reason is that each puzzle has a single clue that's off-theme, that being the 8 (not divisible by 3) and 9 (not divisible by 2) in each puzzle, respectively. As an added bonus, the "wrong" clue would fit perfectly in the other puzzle, and the hexagonal grid has the extra clue be off-symmetry. I really like how both of these turned out, giving both an easy and a hard puzzle!

Puzzle #362 - Hexagony Star Battle

There's a funny thing about the Star Battle puzzles from Hexagony. Eric Fox made both the square and hexagonal grid contest puzzles, but we still needed an example. And so, I set out to make the most interesting 1 star Star Battle I could on a 6x6 grid. I'd definitely say I succeeded, even if one of my intended core steps can be circumvented.

puzz.link interface

I'd highly recommend checking out the other two Star Battles before watching the solution video below- I promise they're both well worth it!

Puzzle #361 - Hexagony Tapa

Making a Tapa on a hexagonal grid was something that I'd wanted to do for quite a while, and Hexagony was the perfect opportunity to make it.

penpa interface

I started with the 12 and 3 clues for their interaction- similar to a 14 and 4 in regular Tapa. Once I had that starting point in place, it was a lot of fun to try to work the rest of the grid around the outer edges. This solve path is probably one of my favorites in the whole contest, though there's a few that I'm much happier with the construction of.

Puzzles #359 & #360 - Hexagony Fillomino

So, Fillomino was an obvious choice for inclusion in Hexagony. The rules don't care at all about the shape of the cells, only edge connections. The two contest puzzles both took a completely different style, while for the example I ended up with something similar to Eric's contribution.

puzz.link interface

I tried really, really hard to not need that 6 to make everything resolve uniquely in the way I wanted it to... Ultimately it was necessary, no matter what I changed to try to use 5s instead.

penpa interface

Hexagonal Fillomino is quite tough to construct, as everything has so many possible options for where to expand. I ended up with a somewhat subtle break-in here, and then I just made the rest of the puzzle flow around. This was still worth 15 points, however, as tracking connections to see where things are forced is somewhat time consuming.

Puzzles #356, #357 & #358 - Hexagony Bosnian Road

Getting loopy puzzles into Hexagony proved challenging. The solution was to pick a snaky type, and I chose Bosnian Road because I like the way the clues work. One problem: I'd literally never made one of these before! It was definitely a learning experience and none of these three puzzles turned out too difficult, but I still managed to work some nice steps into the contest puzzles.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface

My entire goal with the example was to show that the clues weren't Tapa-like, and were instead Minesweeper-like. I honestly didn't put much effort into this construction other than making something that worked and was symmetric.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface

I did put a lot of effort into this puzzle, however. I started with the layout of givens as I was certain it could yield an interesting puzzle, and then placed the clues necessary for the break-in because I really wanted to use that sort of deduction. Cleaning up the rest of the puzzle took a lot more effort to get right than it does to solve, creating a reasonable challenge perfect for an early spot in the contest.

puzz.link interface      penpa interface

On a hexagonal grid, a snaky path is just as forcing as on a square grid, and I used a different core trick for the hardest step here. Again, it shouldn't be too bad to figure out, but if you get stuck I do have a solution video for these as well.

Hexagony Kurotto

None of the Kurotto puzzles written for Hexagony were written by me, so I only have some comments and walkthroughs for you today. First, here's the solution video:

All three of these puzzles have very nice solution paths, with some varied deductive techniques required. My favorite of the three is the square grid one- the way the 4 touching clues interact is such a clever thing to include, and to have it used multiple times in different ways is such a slick construction. Kudos to Eric Fox for these!

Puzzle #355 - Hexagony Akari

I only have one Akari puzzle to post today, as I re-used the example from Puzzle Zodiac for use in Hexagony. I'm very happy with how this one turned out, I think it uses the hexagonal grid very well. All of the puzzle types selected for Hexagony were picked for their rules being able to immediately translate to other grid shapes, and also solving somewhat differently. Most of the hexagonal grids were constructed first as they would be the harder ones to get working satisfactorily, so I was quite surprised when my initial spiral idea just worked. Akari was placed as the second type on the contest as I felt having the difficulty across both puzzles of a type ramp up throughout the contest, except the thematic first and last choices.

penpa interface

Puzzles #352, #353 & #354 - Hexagony Spiral Galaxies

It's kind of impossible to have missed that I recently ran a puzzle contest named Hexagony. Over the next two weeks, I'll be posting all of the puzzles I constructed for the contest (including examples), alongside a solution video walkthrough for the puzzles from that type. There were a few types where Eric Fox, my co-constructor, contributed all 3 necessary puzzles. On those days, I'll just post the solution video and some thoughts on the puzzles.

I started off the contest with Spiral Galaxies, not because I thought it would be the smoothest start, but because of the hidden theme in the first contest puzzle. Remember that for the participants, they would have no idea that half of the puzzles had hexagonal grids before beginning. First though, here's the example puzzle I put together.

puzz.link interface

The first contest puzzle ended up being one of the hardest puzzles in the entire contest, as well as one of the largest. The size was necessary for the theme, which is something I wonder if people caught on to while solving and inferred how things were likely to go. It's a very satisfying logical solve, however.

puzz.link interface

And finally, the only working puzzle that was rejected for the contest- I posted this with the results, but am reposting it here to canonize it in my numbered puzzles. It's a fun solve- I did not record a solution to this puzzle, but that shouldn't be an issue as it's much easier than the main contest puzzle.

puzz.link interface

Hexagony Results (and Post-Mortem)

Hexagony, the puzzle contest constructed by Eric Fox and me, has now concluded. Before getting into the results, I want to take a bit of time to talk about the conception process of this contest. If you're not interested, then scroll down a bit for the results and stats. At some point last year, I had the idea to have a contest where half of the puzzles had hexagonal grids as a surprise twist. This was the entire conceit, and the entire point, and I brainstormed about a dozen possible genres that could have the same wording of the rules work for both a standard grid and a hexagonal one. I thought some savvy solvers might guess the gimmick in advance, and PuzzleCraig was actually half right shortly after the first draft of the instructions booklet- instead guessing everything was hexagonal. Kudos to him! I also briefly considered Honey Islands as an inversion- with a surprise square grid- but thought that would ruin part of the surprise and I also really didn't want to make them. This was originally going to be a Puzzle Ramayan style contest- 22 puzzles, 90 minutes, and if it wasn't for the surprise twist being potentially unfair, I would have asked Rakesh if LMI could host again because it went well for Puzzle Zodiac. The other mission statement that I picked up partway through was to make a low-stakes, fun contest that even newcomers could feel comfortable giving a try: given how many new names I saw in the results, I'd say this was a complete success- and without sacrificing the experience for the rest of the solvers, too. One of the biggest successes that I hope to see other contests emulate is the casual entry option- there's a lot of people who just want to solve the puzzles used in competitions without having to sign up and get a 0, or wait until the period is over. I had 34 different people take this option, compared to 95 competitors. But that's getting ahead of myself, a bit.

It took until March of 2021 to decide to really get this into motion, and I reached out to Eric Fox with an offer to help with test-solving and other checking the back-end parts of the process. While I was typing the message, I realized that a collaborative construction process could be a great benefit as our construction styles and strengths differ somewhat, and we quickly realized we had more than enough ideas to extend my original idea of 11 genres out to 15. The construction and testing process went smoother than any contest I've worked on before- Eric was a wonderful partner, and having every puzzle tested shortly after it was made really helped compared to separating the making and testing processes, and we were done constructing by the start of May. There were only a few ideas that needed to be scrapped- I made a hexagonal Heyawake that was broken from the break-in and didn't realize, Eric had a failed attempt at a hexagonal Star Battle before the successful one that I caught the same day, and I also made a second Spiral Galaxies (the starting image for this post, in fact) for a potential lead-off puzzle, before Eric suggested going with the other one for being more logically interesting. It was obvious in hindsight, but it's hard to be objective about your creations. We then brought in calica, TostCronch, A Sickly Silver Moon, and shyeheya for checking the rules and getting test timings. Of these four I'd especially like to thank calica for continued feedback on administrative decisions and always being there to help check over things that needed checking.

Alright, onto the actual contest results! As I said I would do, some answers were manually given credit despite the written key being incorrect in some small way, if that small way was both obviously incorrect and close to the correct answer. I'll call out all the changes I made below the results table, and include some unadjusted scores if you're against the idea of manual corrections. Additionally, the rules I wrote didn't adequately cover what to do for late submissions- for the future, I'll incorporate a TVC-style penalty for submissions up to 5 minutes late, and anybody more than 5 minutes late is just out of luck. For this contest, I elected to let it slide up to 30 seconds late after the first late submission, and for any later submissions, I would reach out to the solver to determine what was solved last (and thus, late) and not score that puzzle. Again, I'll call out where I did this, but I consider the "Score" column below the true results.

*this submission was more than 30 seconds late, anything solved after this time was not scored, but I do not have an earlier submission time to use

	Solver	Score	Elapsed Time	Correct	Attempted	Unadjusted
1.	EKBM	650	1:51:40	30	30	650
2.	Freddie Hand	565	1:56:12	28	30	510
3.	Walker	515	1:57:01	28	28	500
4.	rob	445	1:57:54	24	26	410
4.	Tiralmo	445	1:58:02	24	26	445
4.	EctoPlasma	445	1:59:04	25	25	445
7.	Prasanna Seshadri	435	2:13:08*	24	24	325
8.	Anderson	395	1:59:30	21	21	365
9.	montelucci	390	1:58:14	22	24	390
10.	Wei-Hwa Huang/onigame	385	1:52:53	20	20	385
11.	Ben Cosman	370	1:58:25	21	21	370
12.	apiad	350	1:56:16	20	21	290
13.	Vincent	345	1:56:31	19	19	345
14.	tckmn	340	1:57:59	22	22	310
15.	Will/TheGreatEscaper	330	1:51:34	19	21	330
15.	Timjamiller	330	1:58:42	20	20	330
17.	Nikola Zivanovic	320	1:55:38	18	19	320
17.	Joseph Howard	320	1:56:00	20	21	295
17.	qw014052	320	1:59:06	17	19	310
17.	pleiades	320	1:59:26	18	19	295
21.	Kithyane	310	1:50:59	19	19	310
22.	ksun	305	1:59:20	19	21	305
23.	not_coal	295	1:50:33	16	16	295
23.	pista	295	1:54:21	20	20	295
25.	Marco W.	290	1:45:02	18	18	290
25.	James McGowan / kiwijam	290	1:54:30	14	15	290
25.	Aubin Danzo	290	1:57:30	21	23	290
28.	Gavriel Hirsch	285	1:57:22	17	19	260
29.	Swaroop	280	2:00:12	16	17	280
30.	sinnedk	275	1:47:45	13	13	260
30.	UNP	275	1:51:30	18	18	275
32.	Rajesh Kumar	255	1:57:32	14	14	220
33.	Jack Bross	245	1:51:53	15	15	245
34.	hanaoka_	235	1:59:22	17	17	235
34.	@Whitehill9	235	2:00:17	12	13	235
36.	summitwei	225	1:58:00	16	16	225
36.	Qhaces	225	2:00:25	14	14	210
36.	ft029	225	2:00:30	16	18	225
39.	KuroTent	220	1:53:04	15	17	195
40.	Adam Bissett	210	1:42:49	13	13	210
40.	xiao01wei	210	1:57:35	13	15	210
42.	jkittykitkat	200	1:59:25	12	15	200
43.	Roxis	195	1:57:36	12	16	180
44.	Jaipal Reddy	185	1:57:28	10	11	150
44.	sstackho	185	1:58:51	12	12	185
46.	xoned	180	1:55:31	11	11	180
47.	athin	170	1:56:16	12	12	170
47.	Tom Coward / Polman Poppins	170	2:01:10*	10	12	155
49.	Nicholas Allendorf/Shogia	165	1:33:18	9	9	165
50.	a	155	1:58:53	11	11	155
51.	Gennady Korotkevich (tourist)	150	1:58:20	11	11	150
51.	TangentOfA	150	1:59:36	9	9	150
53.	padi	145	1:59:50	11	12	145
54.	stefano forcolin	140	1:26:46	10	10	140
54.	Bob Zwetsloot	140	1:53:48	8	8	140
54.	3Strikerz	140	1:55:28	10	10	140
57.	Blecon François	135	1:58:22	9	11	135
57.	Michael A. (randomperson1729/Some Guy)	135	1:58:33	9	9	135
59.	jupilogy	130	1:56:09	7	7	130
60.	KeiON1t	125	1:55:59	10	10	125
61.	SudOx	120	1:27:13	9	11	120
61.	Sébastien Tainon	120	2:03:35*	8	9	0
63.	pet	115	1:20:57	9	9	115
63.	Nikhil Khetan	115	1:47:54	8	8	115
63.	Veronika Kolvekova	115	1:52:55	9	9	115
66.	Pontier Garance/ Rubia	110	1:52:44	7	8	110
67.	Harmeet/harmeet	105	1:58:43	7	7	105
67.	dragoon	105	2:01:56*	9	9	75
69.	fu-nantoka-san	100	1:48:18	8	8	85
69.	jamesa7171	100	1:58:33	7	8	100
71.	hpoddar08	95	1:55:21	7	9	95
71.	majickace	95	1:57:55	5	6	95
71.	Paul Revenant	95	1:59:32	8	8	95
74.	Swagatam Islam Sarkar	85	1:38:50	6	6	85
74.	Christian Romon	85	2:00:13	5	5	85
76.	嘉和逆天	80	0:20:00	4	4	80
77.	Jo97	75	1:59:33	3	6	75
78.	Sean Day	70	1:47:25	7	8	70
79.	jw119	65	1:30:07	5	7	65
79.	Gaurav Kumar Jain	65	1:39:21	5	7	55
81.	SudoKanard	60	0:28:09	2	2	60
82.	Cheshire	55	1:49:49	4	6	55
83.	Puzlifouk (Nicolas Sigler)	50	1:40:15	3	3	50
84.	Chandrachud Nanduri	45	1:43:06	4	4	45
84.	sentenced	45	1:49:14	4	4	45
86.	Kem	40	1:59:26	4	4	40
87.	Markku Lahti	30	1:35:22	2	4	30
87.	Paul Smith	30	1:51:44	3	3	30
89.	docvivek	25	1:45:50	2	3	25
90.	ut	20	0:31:09	2	2	20
91.	kousek-nebe	0	0:00:00	0	0	0
91.	hayam	0	0:00:00	0	0	0
91.	manzoku	0	0:00:00	0	0	0
91.	Rakesh Rai	0	0:00:00	0	0	0
91.	Alexander Kirlitsa	0	0:00:00	0	0	0

Congratulations to Ken Endo for winning Hexagony and being the only clean finisher of the contest! Also congrats to Freddie Hand and Walker Anderson for scoring 500+, and rob, EctoPlasma and Tiralmo for a three-way tie for 4th at 445. I'm blown away by the fact that this had 95 entrants in total, with another 34 casual participants. Going in, I was anticipating about 25, maybe 50 on the upper end. Thank you to everyone who participated- you all made the extra effort I put in to run this as a contest instead of a stand-alone set of puzzles completely worth it- and I put in so, so much extra effort. The back-end stuff was mostly a solo effort with no established infrastructure, and I knew that going in. Even still, it took more than I expected.

Before getting into why I made the scoring adjustments I made, here's some stats on the puzzles themselves.

	Type	Correct	Subs	Percentage
1	Spiral Galaxies	31	31	100.00%
2	Spiral Galaxies	34	36	94.44%
3	Akari	72	75	96.00%
4	Akari	48	58	82.76%
5	Kurotto	38	38	100.00%
6	Kurotto	38	38	100.00%
7	Bosnian Road	40	44	90.91%
8	Bosnian Road	35	37	94.59%
9	Fillomino	64	69	92.75%
10	Fillomino	39	40	97.50%
11	Tapa	50	54	92.59%
12	Tapa	36	39	92.31%
13	Star Battle	57	59	96.61%
14	Star Battle	47	50	94.00%
15	Cave	56	56	100.00%
16	Cave	21	26	80.77%
17	Slitherlink	53	53	100.00%
18	Slitherlink	28	28	100.00%
19	Kakuro	43	49	87.76%
20	Kakuro	18	21	85.71%
21	Yajisan-Kazusan	32	33	96.97%
22	Yajisan-Kazusan	17	18	94.44%
23	Double Choco	48	48	100.00%
24	Double Choco	28	29	96.55%
25	Aqre	23	23	100.00%
26	Aqre	14	18	77.78%
27	Ripple Effect	22	24	91.67%
28	Ripple Effect	6	6	100.00%
29	Password Path	55	58	94.83%
30	Password Path	42	42	100.00%

The most submitted puzzle was Akari 1- I expected this would be the case as one of the easiest puzzles in the entire contest, and so I placed it early on to give people something manageable to work on at the start. The least submitted was Ripple Effect 2, to no surprise as the highest point value puzzle on the contest. Freddie Hand, Tiralmo, Swaroop, Ken Endo, sinnedk, and Wei-Hwa Huang were the only solvers who got through this very tough challenge.

10 puzzles had no incorrectly graded submissions, with Cave 1 having the most submissions of these 10. Conversely, Cave 2 had the highest error rate of all the puzzles- from experience when constructing, miscounting a clue is surprisingly easy here. Overall I think the point values were largely representative of the difficulty, unfamiliarity, and time to solve, with only a few like YK2 being a bit off, but always in the high direction.

In ranking order, any changes I made to the score from just tallying up the correct keys:

• Many people: Akari 2 and Star Battle 2, marking "column" numbering as correct. I thought "index" numbering would be more intuitive as it was for me, I thought wrong. Both of these were marked correct.
• Ken Endo: Completely clean, no manual adjustments necessary other than calculating a 50 point bonus for finishing 8 minutes and 20 seconds early. Again, well done!
• Freddie Hand: Spiral Galaxies 1 and Tapa 1 both have "111" instead of "1111" in the codes. Awarded because a checksum (such as "the key must have a sum of 10") would catch and prevent this.
• Walker: Slitherlink 1 has the answer keys in the wrong order: both given keys are correct.
• rob: Aqre 1 is missing the second key. I deliberated on this for almost a week before deciding to award full points. The first key both is last to resolve and contains the critical connections, and splitting the entry field into multiple fields as most contests would do would prevent this from happening.
• Prasanna Seshadri: Prasanna submitted at 1:35, 2:13, and 2:38 from misunderstanding the time limit. I reached out in order to determine what puzzles were definitely completed on time. Specifically, the 2:13 submission was after being stalled on Ripple Effect 2 for "a while" and working mostly in order. It's possible that Ripple Effect 1 was completed on time, but certain that everything else submitted was.
• Anderson: Ripple Effect 1 first key is missing its final digit, however that digit is specified by the remainder of the keys.
• Wei-Hwa Huang: An additional submission was made 1 minute late, containing a solve of Kakuro 2. This submission was not scored, but it was correct. I'm noting these instances for transparency, and so that if you believe I should have applied a "reverse bonus" for late submissions, you may do so yourself.
• apiad: Four solution keys across three puzzles contained an extra 1: Spiral Galaxies 1, Kurotto 2, and Bosnian Road 2. All of these were part of a string of multiple 1s, and would be caught by a checksum.
• tckmn: Over the course of multiple submissions (not edited submissions!) the key for Bosnian Road 1 was submitted over Bosnian Road 2. As both keys were correctly submitted and this wouldn't have happened on editing submissions, points for both were maintained.
• Joseph Howard: Yajisan-Kazusan 2 begins "314..." instead of "315...". The second key is correct and would force 315, and a checksum would catch this.
• qw014052: Answer keys for Double Choco 1 were reversed.
• pleiades: Aqre 2 2nd key is missing a number (21211 instead of 212211), but the 1st, more error prone key is correct and a checksum would catch this error.
• ksun: Cave 1 has a checksum error- first key sums to 10 and not 11, clearly a miscount or typo. Kakuro 1 has a transposition that I felt confident was a typo, with the first key ending "17" instead of "71". The former would place both digits into sums where they immediately break, and so I awared the points.
• not_coal: A correct submission on Aqre 2 was made 33 seconds late. With "reverse bonus" scoring, this would be worth 316.7 points. I feel really bad about this one being on the bubble of how lenient I was being, but changing the rules based on the circumstances that arise was a slippery slope I wasn't going to go down.
• James McGowan: An additional submission was made 1 minute late, adding a solve of Star Battle 1. This was not scored.
• Gavriel Hirsch: Cave 2 answer keys were input in the wrong order. This was marked incorrect for the first posting of these results, and has since been corrected to match treatment of other key transpositions.
• Swaroop: Swaroop made multiple submissions: the last was 12 seconds (-1.2 points, if I were to apply the reverse bonus) late, adding only the first Kakuro (15 points). This was scored.
• sinnedk: Bosnian Road 2 second key begins "2321" instead of "233": this would result in having a shaded clue, so it's likely counting the "2" clue as its own entry by mistake.
• Rajesh Kumar: Spiral Galaxies 1 has a miscount (151 instead of 141) at the end of the 2nd key, a checksum would catch this.
• Whitehill9: Multiple submissions were made, the last (17 seconds late) added only Password Path 2. As with the rest of the submissions up to 30 seconds late, no adjustment was made.
• Qhaces: Slitherlink 1 is missing half of the second key: I decided to award the points because of how the keys intersect, and the order of resolution in the puzzle. Password Path 1 (5 points) was added in an extra submission 25 seconds late, which as mentioned I decided to score as if it was on time.
• ft029: ft's only submission came 30 seconds late: I had decided to not penalize submissions up to 30 seconds late before this submission came in as the first late submission as only submission. The alternative would be a "reverse bonus" for going over time, which would cost 3 points here. I didn't think this would be fair to apply to everyone (it would reward breaking the submission time, and penalize those who stop a bit early) nor did I think it would be fair to apply unevenly.
• Roxis: Akari 2 key begins "46004" instead of "46005". Awarded because placing a bulb at (5, 4) would immediately break the central 2- this is either a typo or a miscount. Additionally, a submission was made 1 minute late, adding Password Path 1, which was not scored.
• Jaipal Reddy: Fillomino 1 1st key was submitted as "77544431444", which is the beginning of the correct row followed by the remainder of row 1. This is too many characters, and the 2nd key is the more critical one, and so I elected to award the points. Star Battle 2 used column indexing, except ending "41586" instead of "43586". Row 8 does not contain a cell in "column 1" and so it's clear that this was autopiloted.
• Polman Poppins: Polman Poppins submitted only once, 1 minute late: as the standard for > 30 seconds late submissions, I would remove anything solved after that time, which in this case was the 2nd Aqre (and it was wrong anyway!) Additionally, Fillomino 1 first key was missing a given 6.
• stefano forcolin: An additional submission was made 1 minute late, adding Tapa 2. This was not scored.
• Sébastien Tainon: Only submission was 3:35 late, and I tried to get in contact to determine the last puzzle solved but could not. I removed the highest scoring puzzle submission (Kakuro 2, which was correct) and scored the rest. If I were to apply "reverse bonus" scoring to this submission, it would be worth 153.5 points. Along with rob's missing key, these were the two hardest scoring decisions I had to make.
• dragoon: Slitherlink 1 was the last puzzle worked on, it was not scored for being over time. Akari 2 contains an index miscount ("9179" and not "8179" for column indexing- two 9s there would have two bulbs seeing each other), and Fillomino 1 has the second key begin "33,333" instead of "331333". The 1 is a given digit, and so I could determine it was correct.
• fu-nantoka-san: Password Path 2 answer keys were input in the wrong order, but both were correct.
• jamesa7171: The erroneous submission is literally "something,7413256" on Kakuro 1. While technically correct, I can't actually award the points here. This wasn't an adjustment but I did think it was funny.
• Christian Romon: Submission was within 30 seconds over, allowed without adjustment.
• 嘉和逆天: A submission with all puzzles was made at 2:50. If I were to apply "reverse bonus" scoring, the score would be 575 (Cave 2 incorrect) - (50*6) = 275 points. As no contact information was given, I scored only the last intermediate submission, 20 minutes in.
• Gaurav Kumar Jain: The solution to Akari 1 was placed in the box for Akari 2.

That's everything. Whew, I had a lot write on this. I'll post my puzzles with comments on each set (and possibly solution walkthroughs? If you're reading this far, let me know if you want them or not!) in the near future, but for now? I'm going to relax.

Thanks again everyone!