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 More calcudolics, please 
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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:58 pm




Posts: 246
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:40 pm
Post More calcudolics, please
It's very gratifying to see some countries as Netherlands and United States with a relative great number of puzzlers. What the reason why there aren't such correspondent number of calcudolics in other countries?
I also see with pleasure, at this moment, there are 4 portugueses at the " last 7 days... ". Why aren't there more? And Spanishes, Canadians, Chineses, Russians, Brazilians, etc, etc, etc?

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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:12 pm




Posts: 3295
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
jomapil wrote:
It's very gratifying to see some countries as Netherlands and United States with a relative great number of puzzlers. What the reason why there aren't such correspondent number of calcudolics in other countries?
I also see with pleasure, at this moment, there are 4 portugueses at the " last 7 days... ". Why aren't there more? And Spanishes, Canadians, Chineses, Russians, Brazilians, etc, etc, etc?

It depends on whether the puzzle is already known in the country or not.

In the US and UK the puzzle has been published for a while now under the name "kenken".

In the Netherlands it has been published as "K-doku", "Newdoku", and "Rekendoku".
(I even held a Calcudoku contest in the science museum in Amsterdam in April (!)).

My "Newdoku" books have been published in Spain and Italy, but haven't really caught
the attention there yet. I think that the best advertisement for the puzzle (and site) is
having it in a newspaper.

On and off I've been running facebook ads in several countries (e.g. Mexico, Italy, Russia, etc.),
but people who join from facebook don't tend to stick around.

Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:33 pm




Posts: 246
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:40 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
Some of the puzzles are difficult or impossible for those who don't have enough practice of mathematics. If the site has a database with the past puzzles by level where people can choose the simpler ones to practice till to attain a degree to compete the more difficult...
Including the special puzzles at a level * or ** and not only ***** ( 9x9, 10x10, 12x12, bitwise, exponential, etc ).

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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:46 pm




Posts: 3295
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
jomapil wrote:
Some of the puzzles are difficult or impossible for those who don't have enough practice of mathematics. If the site has a database with the past puzzles by level where people can choose the simpler ones to practice till to attain a degree to compete the more difficult...
Including the special puzzles at a level * or ** and not only ***** ( 9x9, 10x10, 12x12, bitwise, exponential, etc ).

Or maybe have "account levels": only after you've solved a certain number of 6x6 difficult (say),
then you can start solving the 9x9, etc...
Patrick


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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:01 pm




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
I've seen KenKen in the newspaper before. I'm sure they still have it here in Canada at least in some places. We don't actually subscribe, but some time ago they had a promotion and gave us free newspaper for about two weeks which got me into KenKen (they usually only have a 4x4 and a 6x6). After that, I wanted to keep doing it which is how I ended up at this site and there are much more fun and challenging puzzles here!

About the puzzles being too hard for people who don't have enough "practice of mathematics", I would disagree that it is mainly about the math. It's a factor, but the hard puzzles there are other factors like logical deduction and "key searching" that's required, not so much math. Some of clm's helpful tables and tips should help with the math part. When you look at any step-by-step solution that's been posted on this forum, it's hard to address the issue of exactly how one knows where to look (which cages, columns, rows, etc.) or what to look for (parity, elimination, etc.). Of course, when someone points it out, it's easy to follow but it's different in practice.


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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 7:06 pm




Posts: 246
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:40 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
I didn't see here in Portugal, anything about kenken unlike sudoku, kakuro and so on. But it's perhaps an idea to publish one magazine ( monthly perhaps ) with all the variants of the puzzles but easier to gain adherents and distribute it in several countries and at the same time to divulge this site.

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Posted on: Fri Oct 28, 2011 7:12 pm




Posts: 3295
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
jomapil wrote:
I didn't see here in Portugal, anything about kenken unlike sudoku, kakuro and so on. But it's perhaps an idea to publish one magazine ( monthly perhaps ) with all the variants of the puzzles but easier to gain adherents and distribute it in several countries and at the same time to divulge this site.

That is a nice idea, but for that I do need a publisher willing to do this
(or a newspaper wanting to syndicate the puzzle, for example).

Patrick


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Posted on: Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:44 am




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
jomapil wrote:
It's very gratifying to see some countries as Netherlands and United States with a relative great number of puzzlers. What the reason why there aren't such correspondent number of calcudolics in other countries?
I also see with pleasure, at this moment, there are 4 portugueses at the " last 7 days... ". Why aren't there more? And Spanishes, Canadians, Chineses, Russians, Brazilians, etc, etc, etc?


Yes, but there are 12 persons from Portugal in the "all time" list. Today, for instance, the percentages ("last 7 days" with respect to "all time") are:

World 22,20%
Americas 21,98%
Europe 23,63%
Asia 20,00%
Australia and New Zealand 24,53%
USA 25,81%
Netherlands 23,67% (being USA and Netherlands the countries with more "all time" puzzlers).

Generally speaking, the 77% of the players are not constant (sometimes it may be observed a lot of people from the same country coming in two or three days, like a school...). In the past I was surprised by the fact that being Calcudoku a japanese invention no japaneses appeared but Patrick explained me that probably due to the different name "Kenken", perhaps the language (the page is not in japanese), and the probable existance of web pages or magazines in Japan where they participate. But the number of puzzlers here increases continuously (actually is 1645 for those with >= 20 points in total, this is not very significative, but the half, 823, for those with >= 200 points, and 606 for those with >= 500 points). However, I have a curious printout of Sep 09, 2010 (10 months of existance of the page more or less) that shows a total of 188 "all time" puzzlers, 179 of them with >= 20 points, 112 with >= 200 and 73 with >= 500 points (for reference, the first total, mparisi, was 12111 points).


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Posted on: Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:25 am




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
sneaklyfox wrote:
... 4x4 and a 6x6). After that, I wanted to keep doing it which is how I ended up at this site and there are much more fun and challenging puzzles here!

About the puzzles being too hard for people who don't have enough "practice of mathematics", I would disagree that it is mainly about the math. It's a factor, but the hard puzzles there are other factors like logical deduction and "key searching" that's required, not so much math. Some of clm's helpful tables and tips should help with the math part. When you look at any step-by-step solution that's been posted on this forum, it's hard to address the issue of exactly how one knows where to look (which cages, columns, rows, etc.) or what to look for (parity, elimination, etc.). Of course, when someone points it out, it's easy to follow but it's different in practice.


I agree with you, the 4x4´s and 6x6's in the newspapers (New York Times, etc...) are easy but may serve for moving the interest and the curiosity. However, for the hard puzzles, some "basic" math is necessary (to break into prime factors, to manage the powers, the mod function or the bitwise OR, the negative numbers, ...). We assume that people interested in Calcudoku has already this background but perhaps it is not so in all cases. Apart of the logical deduction, I think it is important to be very patient (as you know, in the 9x9's, 10x10's and 12x12's, sometimes there is a big number of combinations for an "nx" cage when "n" is really big and with a big number of cells, even 20 combinations or more in a 12x12).

Certainly the "step by step" can be focused from different aspects and we may follow different ways (these here are only a "snack") since every puzzle is different and unique and there is no way to replace the logical analysis. Would it be useful a "step by step" of a tuesday very difficult 9x9? (i.e., the step-by-step of the 8x8 has very few visits). I would agree with you that probably not because the people who solves these 9x9 puzzles already know how to do them and the other people would not "study" 10 or 11 graphics and in fact for the next similar puzzle they would not know how "to start", what strategy to apply, ..., as you well underline (I suppose that for beginners or medium chess players "to open" a game is a terrible decission).


Last edited by clm on Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.



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Posted on: Sat Oct 29, 2011 5:21 pm




Posts: 246
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:40 pm
Post Re: More calcudolics, please
I think there isn't any publicity about Calcudoku and most of the people arrive here by chance ( as me ). Each of us must do the required publicity. By example at the several foruns we participate we can write our signature ( I think it is so called ) as www.calcudoku.org. This will go to kindle the interest of many people. From now on I will do this in all " my " foruns.

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