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 Difficult bonus puzzle 
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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 2:35 pm




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Difficult bonus puzzle
I was always under the impression that the bonus puzzles were supposed to be relatively straightforward and represented an easy 10 points that could usually be picked up within a few minutes or so.

Not so, the one I am currently trying to do. It’s an 8x8 addition only puzzles with 13 single cell cages, 9 3-cell cages, 2 6-cell cages and one 12-cell cage. I have been really struggling to make any significant headway on this puzzle over the last couple of days. [confused] [cursing]

I’m not looking for any hints, but I would be interested to know whether other members remember coming across this puzzle and would also be interested to hear from Patrick regarding what proportion of people who were given this puzzle actually managed to solve it.


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:00 pm




Posts: 212
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:11 am
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
I think I've had a couple like that, and yeah they're definitely a bit harder than the other bonus puzzles. It has a 4x4 ring in the middle, right?


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:27 pm




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
starling wrote:
I think I've had a couple like that, and yeah they're definitely a bit harder than the other bonus puzzles. It has a 4x4 ring in the middle, right?


Thanks starling. That’s the one alright. Well remembered!

If I can’t figure something out soon, I’m going to resort to trial and error. I have another couple of days before my next bonus puzzle comes up.


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 3:51 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
paulv66 wrote:
If I can’t figure something out soon, I’m going to resort to trial and error. I have another couple of days before my next bonus puzzle comes up.


If you want, send me what you have so far, and I can send you a hint?

Maybe a bonus puzzle should always have a "hint" button [blink]


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:00 pm




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
pnm wrote:
paulv66 wrote:
If I can’t figure something out soon, I’m going to resort to trial and error. I have another couple of days before my next bonus puzzle comes up.


If you want, send me what you have so far, and I can send you a hint?

Maybe a bonus puzzle should always have a "hint" button [blink]


Many thanks for the offer Patrick, but I’m going to try to work it out unaided.

As I said in my initial post, I don’t remember any other bonus puzzle being anything more than moderately difficult. This one has me stumped, but hopefully I’ll figure out a way of getting a hook into it. I usually find that those puzzles that are very difficult at the start tend to have everything fall into place quite neatly once you get over the initial hump. Hopefully, that’s what will happen here.

Do you have any stats on the proportion of bonus puzzles that are solved and can you identify the puzzle in question from my description?


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:51 pm




Posts: 691
Joined: Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:20 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
Recently, I had two puzzles that were exponentiation with zero. They were small, maybe 6 x 6. And not as hard as Exponentiation with Zero in the books.
There is a frustrating 9 x 9 pattern that I have seen twice.

I don't recall having one like you have described so I probably haven't seen it.

There are some Bonus puzzles that are more difficult than others.

I thought Patrick said there were originally 1000 Bonus puzzles loaded into the system, and I thought it was clm who needed a new set of puzzles. I have solved a few more than 800. It takes a while to use up the original 1000 puzzles.


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Posted on: Thu Mar 03, 2022 10:35 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
eclipsegirl wrote:
I thought Patrick said there were originally 1000 Bonus puzzles loaded into the system, and I thought it was clm who needed a new set of puzzles. I have solved a few more than 800. It takes a while to use up the original 1000 puzzles.


There are now 1491 in the system, with clm at ~ 1420 solved or so [scared]


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Posted on: Fri Mar 04, 2022 12:53 pm




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
Got there! It took a fair bit of time, but I concentrated on one side of the puzzle and after a bit of trial and error, found the only combination that worked. After that, it didn’t take too long to solve the rest of the puzzle. But it is definitely the most difficult bonus puzzle I remember solving.


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Posted on: Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:49 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
paulv66 wrote:
Got there! It took a fair bit of time, but I concentrated on one side of the puzzle and after a bit of trial and error, found the only combination that worked. After that, it didn’t take too long to solve the rest of the puzzle. But it is definitely the most difficult bonus puzzle I remember solving.


I'll think about adding a "hint" button to the bonus puzzle.


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Posted on: Fri Mar 04, 2022 5:08 pm




Posts: 956
Location: Ukraine
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:03 pm
Post Re: Difficult bonus puzzle
pnm wrote:
paulv66 wrote:
Got there! It took a fair bit of time, but I concentrated on one side of the puzzle and after a bit of trial and error, found the only combination that worked. After that, it didn’t take too long to solve the rest of the puzzle. But it is definitely the most difficult bonus puzzle I remember solving.


I'll think about adding a "hint" button to the bonus puzzle.


No, don’t do that! [thumbdn]

I want other people to suffer the way I did. :-)


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