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 Any suggestions? 
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Posted on: Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:47 am




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Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:11 am
Post Re: Any suggestions?
giulio wrote:
starling said:
Quote:
If you really are troubled by the single digits on a large puzzle, you're also probably going to be troubled by the puzzle itself

The two things have nothing to do with each other. Filling up the singles is a chore that everybody has to do...
Right, but my point is that if it seems like too much of a chore to fill in what, 8 squares that you get for free, then actively working to solve for the other 73 isn't exactly going to be pleasant.


giulio wrote:
You mentioned difficult 6x6 puzzles. I only do 9x9s and, sometimes, larger CalcuDokus. I usually have no problems in finding the solutions. I like finding the alternatives and weed them out, but I don't like to repeat the process for the same puzzle. Sometimes, a silly mistake creeps in. In those cases, I don't always have fun to start again from scratch and drop solving the puzzle. I have no "checkpoints" to backtrack to because I solve the puzzles on paper.

I only used difficult 6x6 as an example because the patterns usually are the only things that cause me to have to do something other than my typical methods. When I actually take the time to sit down and solve everything, nothing else creates any issues relative to my normal solving method, but the patterned ones do. I'm not saying they're more difficult, I just have to use a slightly different solving method to get them.

This whole section seemed a little out of place(That is, it didn't seem to make any sense as a response to anything said), so I'm going to stop myself from over-reading it now.


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Posted on: Sun Nov 27, 2011 4:20 am




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Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2011 8:52 am
Post Re: Any suggestions?
starling, I agree that we have gone off topic, but you said something I would like to reply to. You said:
Quote:
if it seems like too much of a chore to fill in what, 8 squares that you get for free, then actively working to solve for the other 73 isn't exactly going to be pleasant


We must think very differently! [smile]

I like to solve puzzles because they stimulate my brain. I like the challenge of finding complex strategies. And I like to see them completed. The nine or ten singles that I have to fill in at the beginning do actually put me a bit off.

Patrick, if you would like to create a thread "why CalcuDoku" or something like that, please do not hesitate...


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Posted on: Sun Nov 27, 2011 7:19 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Any suggestions?
giulio wrote:
starling, I agree that we have gone off topic, but you said something I would like to reply to. You said:
Quote:
if it seems like too much of a chore to fill in what, 8 squares that you get for free, then actively working to solve for the other 73 isn't exactly going to be pleasant


We must think very differently! [smile]

I like to solve puzzles because they stimulate my brain. I like the challenge of finding complex strategies. And I like to see them completed. The nine or ten singles that I have to fill in at the beginning do actually put me a bit off.

Patrick, if you would like to create a thread "why CalcuDoku" or something like that, please do not hesitate...


Personally, I don't see how several singles can put someone off as it's not like it takes a long time to fill it in. I don't necessarily fill them in at the beginning either. I use the cursor so whenever I get around to the cell, I fill it in. Takes less than half a second in passing...


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Posted on: Sun Nov 27, 2011 4:06 pm




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Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Any suggestions?
giulio wrote:
Something easy to do would be to display the solution of the 1-cell cages, so that the solver doesn't need to bother with them.

I would also be interested in some information about how you estimate the difficulty of the puzzles. There is no widely (let alone universally) accepted way to estimate how difficult a puzzle is, and we could try to push adption of your method (or what remains of it after we discuss it here [wink] ).


The “solver rating” (the level of difficulty) is a subject that has always generated a great interest here in the Forum. Generally speaking, when the cages are wider, or inversely, if there are many 1-cell cages, the puzzle would be easier but this rule is not always valid, for instance, some of the 6x6 difficult puzzles have 6 individual cells (the 16,67% of the surface) while other easy or medium 6x6’s may have less; another example, the wednesday Nov 16, 2011, 9x9 had eight 1-cell cages while the most difficult 9x9's on tuesdays have usually 12 individual cages (14,81% of the total surface). Some times, as commented, the 2-cell cages are practically “given” (when inmediately solved by a cross to other cages or by crossing them with the given individual cells) so increasing the number of “virtual” individual cells “given”.

In my particular case I also prefer that the program does not write the numbers “given” (more emotion… we feel that at least we have solved part of the puzzle … [love] and more “esthetic”, though this is subjective, to differentiate them from the “sudokus”, but in the “sudokus” the cages have not an operation). In the other hand, it does not really require a lot of time (as commented in the past), i.e., today’s (sun Nov 27, 2011) 12x12 has 12 individual cells (12 seconds?) it’s not too much as compared with, let’s say, one hour for a medium player to solve it (the 0,33% of the required time). In addition to this, for the easy puzzles, the 4x4’s and the 5x5’s easy and medium, let’s say, oriented to children and beginners, it is necessary to leave them empty so they fill it, in the timed puzzles it is interesting to leave them empty to increase a little bit the solving time [crying].

Larger puzzles of other websites… (9x9 K puzzle today Nov 27 has only one 1-cell cage, 9x9 Z puzzle today has three 1-cell cages). We even could think of supressing the 1-cell cages in the higher puzzles (configuring them from 2-cell cages onwards) but we would have two problems: 1) it would probably make more difficult the stablishment of the unique solution; 2) it would probably make those puzzles less atractive to the beginners and/or medium players in order to try them (if they don't see some point to start).

With respect to the level of difficulty itself I would relate it with (not necessarily in the same sequence):

A) The size of the puzzle
B) The presence of “strange operations” (new or unknown for many people) like the bitwise OR, the mod function, the exponentiation, the negative numbers, … (in part subjective, since just an overlook may bring the idea of “this is very difficult”)
C) The total number of cages (relative to the size)
D) The number of possible combinations (and not necessarily the number of prime factors because sometimes when there are more prime factors there are less combinations) for the “x” cages (the “:” cages usually have few combinations)
E) The number of possible combinations for the “-“ cages
F) The time elapsed by the computer in finding the unique solution.

It would be necessary to “weight” some, and possibly other, of these conditions, to have a good algorithm for the “solver rating”.


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Posted on: Sun Dec 11, 2011 3:32 am




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Post Re: Any suggestions?
Change consecutive days solving puzzles to have no max. (Right now it's at 100.) It'd be interesting to see how long people have been doing puzzles on a daily basis. There are so many people at 100. Maybe also keep all-time longest streak.


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Posted on: Sun Dec 11, 2011 11:09 am




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Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Any suggestions?
sneaklyfox wrote:
Change consecutive days solving puzzles to have no max. (Right now it's at 100.) It'd be interesting to see how long people have been doing puzzles on a daily basis. There are so many people at 100. Maybe also keep all-time longest streak.

You're right, maybe it's time to at least increase that number..
Patrick


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Posted on: Sun Dec 11, 2011 5:22 pm




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Post Re: Any suggestions?
It would be interesting to know how many days anyone solved all the puzzles of a day, the last 30 days ( or 50, or 100... ) anyone solved all the puzzles of a day ( maybe a column at the rankings ).

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Posted on: Mon Dec 12, 2011 10:37 am




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Post Re: Any suggestions?
pnm wrote:
sneaklyfox wrote:
Change consecutive days solving puzzles to have no max. (Right now it's at 100.) It'd be interesting to see how long people have been doing puzzles on a daily basis. There are so many people at 100. Maybe also keep all-time longest streak.

You're right, maybe it's time to at least increase that number..
Patrick


Perhaps you can go up to 300 days (that excludes in some way the vacation, that is, after the vacation one could start again the "consecutive..."); and perhaps you could motivate this continuity by giving some bonus points, for instance: 15, 35, 80 and 125, for 50, 100, 200 and 300 days, using some "geometric" formula that avoids "breaking" the continuity to get the bonus, that is, you would get more points with, let's say, 100 days than twice 50 days, or 200 days than four times 50 days.


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Posted on: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:01 am




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Post Re: Any suggestions?
jomapil wrote:
It would be interesting to know how many days anyone solved all the puzzles of a day, the last 30 days ( or 50, or 100... ) anyone solved all the puzzles of a day ( maybe a column at the rankings ).


This could be done (I think this subject arised some time ago) by giving a colour to the position number, for instance, if "bitwiseOR" occupies position 25 in any of the rankings this "25" could be:

black (as actually) if no puzzle was solved today, then using different colours
... if at least one puzzle has been solved today (regular or timed)
... if all today's regular puzzles have been solved
... if all today's regular puzzles plus any of the timed have been solved today
... if all regular plus all three types of timed have been solved today
... if all timed have been solved today (but no regular)
... if all regular have been solved for 100 consecutive days
... if all regular have been solved for 200 consecutive days
... if all timed have been solved for 100 consecutive days
... if all timed have been solved for 200 consecutive days, etc. (to include all possible situations)

... even the book puzzles solved could be indicated, i.e, by adding an asterisk or similar to that position number the day a book solution has been sent.


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Posted on: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:25 am




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Post Re: Any suggestions?
clm wrote:
black (as actually) if no puzzle was solved today, then using different colours
... if at least one puzzle has been solved today (regular or timed)
... if all today's regular puzzles have been solved
... if all today's regular puzzles plus any of the timed have been solved today
... if all regular plus all three types of timed have been solved today
... if all timed have been solved today (but no regular)
... if all regular have been solved for 100 consecutive days
... if all regular have been solved for 200 consecutive days
... if all timed have been solved for 100 consecutive days
... if all timed have been solved for 200 consecutive days, etc. (to include all possible situations)

... even the book puzzles solved could be indicated, i.e, by adding an asterisk or similar to that position number the day a book solution has been sent.

I see I have to get busy :-)


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