Home
 
 
17 September 2006 @ 08:36 pm
 
I finally finished another set of 3 of these puzzles that play with some different aspects of symmetry, clue minimization, and increased difficulty. The first of these three was posted earlier this week under an "Easy As Pi" name given the puzzle's obvious theme. I've deleted that old entry as it has now been absorbed into this one. The next two that follow are likely even harder.

For those unfamiliar with my Battleship Sudoku, please refer to this earlier post. The rules here are the same although now some ship placements are given as clues in addition to numbers. All given numbers can be considered seas.

For this set of three puzzles, I've erred on the side of very hard and I apologize if you find this frustrating; I can write easier puzzles, and will likely do so and send some off to GAMES or another publisher, but I wanted some more difficult examples here on my blog. All of these can be solved using logical steps forced by either the battleships, the sudoku, or both combined.

 
 
( 8 comments — Post a new comment )
Tyler[info]rpipuzzleguy on September 18th, 2006 01:11 am (UTC)
I didn't see the pi thing, for the record. Very clever. Looking forward to trying the latter two; I found the first no pushover, but not too hard.
Georgi Benev[info]benevg on September 18th, 2006 06:04 am (UTC)
seconded re the difficulty of the first one. looking forard to trying the others :)
[info]jdyer on September 18th, 2006 04:14 pm (UTC)
Still solving. Your puzzles are hard enough that I'm getting a backlog.

How does submitting to GAMES work? I don't ever recall seeing a "preferred format" rubric or such.

Incidentally, if you're looking for more WPC practice, check the second reply to my most recent worldpuzzle post. (Thanks, burakbeyoglu!)
motris[info]motris on September 18th, 2006 05:35 pm (UTC)
That's a really nice link; thanks for pointing out the new reply on your post as I would have missed it otherwise. I just got the 06 bulgarian tests to practice but it never hurts to reinforce my puzzle backlog.

Not sure on a specific format and method for GAMES submissions. I was going to check with some people who would best know before I sent anything there but I'm guessing this puzzle type is harder than say a crossword where the formatting is pretty much set. Also (and solvers can comment on this), I'm guessing the preferred grid size would be a fair bit larger than the standard battleship/sudoku puzzle size that currently appears, although I'd still hope for 6 puzzles (2 easy, 2 medium, 2 hard) if and when it ever appeared.
(Anonymous) on September 26th, 2006 11:15 am (UTC)
fabulous puzzles!
I really enjoy solving them. However, I don't think these three are too hard.
(Anonymous) on September 26th, 2006 11:18 am (UTC)
Motris
What's the link for the WPC like puzzles practice? Thanks
motris[info]motris on September 26th, 2006 02:52 pm (UTC)
Re: Motris
These two links will be useful:

First, the worldpuzzle.livejournal.com community lists national qualifier tests that you can access online - provided you are familiar enough with the kinds of puzzles you will see, the fact the instructions are often not in English will not be a problem. I personally am a big fan of the Kronos Romanian qualifier test as it has a fair number of new puzzle ideas and all are described in English (at least the 2003 and 2004 exams, I don't have anything more recent).

http://www.esnips.com/web/wpcsiskoturk is the specific site that was linked to by a commenter on jdyer's thread at worldpuzzle. You'll find lots of files there relevant to wpc-style puzzles, most being other national qualifying tests from the last couple years.
XSG - 1 G 2 Many[info]xsg on October 14th, 2006 05:52 pm (UTC)
Gives me an idea...

First, Battleship is played on a 10x10 board, not 9x9, so I'm going to try to expand this to 10x10, which will necessitate non-square sections.

Second, the non-square sections can be puzzle pieces, so in order to play, you'll have to align the pieces onto the 10x10 board...

Third, some of the puzzle pieces have the same shape, but initial numbers or ship-parts will help to determine proper orientation.

I consider this a team effort; I wouldn't have had this idea if you hadn't done the battleship/sudoku cross, so... you're getting credit when I post. :)

By the way: nice job at WPC. I'm envious, and I'll always be envious...