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Deckardv 2024 Puzzle Night 3 Recap + Experience

Deckardv hosted another "puzzle night" (speed setting competition) on his puzzle server! I participated and placed... 5th out of 27 participants! (the "purple zone"). My goal was the "blue zone" or higher, so I'm glad I accomplished that!

If you're wondering why I'm using these "colored zones", here are my names for each zone and their associated rankings (they are numbered this way in Deckardv's server):

1st - 3rd: Podium
4th - 5th: Purple Zone
6th - 10th: Blue Zone
11th - 20th: Green Zone
21th and below: Red Zone

This night was titled "See Example", and the description implied instructionless puzzles, Since I didn't make the main puzzles, I won't be posting them here. If you want to see them, they're on Deckardv's puzzle server.

Puzzle 1: Instructionless Loop I - "Number Loop" \ Time: 12:24 \ Placement: 9th

First, up was a loop-based instructionless puzzle similar to Touch Slitherlink. There were some outside clues as well. I thought I placed ok, but not that many people participated in this round.

Puzzle 2: Instructionless Region Division I - "Tetrominoes" \ Time: 15:42 \ Placement: 5th

Next up was a region division puzzle that claimed to be one of the hardest of the night. So, there wasn't a high completion rate. I managed to complete this puzzle after a few hints.

Puzzle 3: Instructionless Region Division II - "Squares" \ Time: 2:01 \ Placement: 9th

Next up was another region division puzzle, but this one claimed to be the easiest. I guess the time and ranking showed that.

However, due to the rankings for this puzzle being a hot mess (according to Brady i.e. Deckardv), there were some changes in DNPs and overall rankings.

Puzzle 4: Instructionless Shading/Number Placement - "Ternary" \ Time: 15:58 \ Placement: 8th

Next up, a shading puzzle! This one was a tri-color puzzle similar to "dynasty" shading genres, Sudoku, and Binairo. The colors were each associated with a number, most likely for colorblind participants attempting the puzzle (so this acted as both a shading and number placement puzzle). Unfortunately, the puzzle was non-unique, but fortunately, the two solutions were accepted. because of the ambiguity, there was a 5 minute extension for this puzzle.

Puzzle 5: Instructionless Loop II - "Double Loop" \ Time: DNF \ Placement: 14th

Lastly, a double loop puzzle! By double loop, I mean you have to draw two separate loops in one grid. This one, while creative and fun, was the most agonizing for me. It was my only DNF for the entire night, but I put up a good fight.

Practice Puzzles

Unlike previous nights, I made a practice set! Frequently, setters participating in puzzle competitions make practice puzzles for themselves/their team from that competition's IB (instruction booklet). Since I didn't know the actual puzzles, I took guesses on potential categories of the event puzzles. I set a grand total of 2 instructionless puzzles to prepare for this event because I wasn't too comfortable with instructionless puzzles before the event. The former was a 6x6 instructionless sudoku set in a Diwali-themed speed-setting competition on the CTC server (which is why the author will show as "???", but it's really just me). The latter was set in my own free time and uses two examples instead of one. The creator's times may seem a bit "unrealistic". This is because I knew the rules and/or didn't have much time for testing. The difficulties are not seen from my point of view and may be off by a big margin.

Practice 1: Kolam \ Creator's Time: 0:43.4 \ Difficulty: 8/14

Online interface (Penpa+)

Practice 2: Unique Shadings \ Creator's Time: 0:52.0 \ Difficulty: 7/14

Online interface (Penpa+)

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