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.
Thursday, December 30, 2021
Monday, December 6, 2021
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.
Yep. I made one. Nine minutes later- this has some interesting steps and there's definitely more to explore with this idea.