| Some large handmade puzzles |
Authority
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 3329
Best Total: 9m 56s | Posted - 2011.09.21 04:44:23
I've been constructing some larger puzzles that way exceed the size limits on the editor on this site; these are the 36x20 ones I've made. In my opinion they aren't too hard, maybe a little harder than Nikoli's large puzzles, but I can't really tell since I know all of their secrets. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy! And maybe you'll be inspired to make some of your own, seeing the user created puzzles filled with my name makes me lonely!
Puzzle 1
Puzzle 2
Puzzle 3
Puzzle 4
Puzzle 5
Puzzle 6
Puzzle 7 |
arbor8
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5583
Best Total: 13m 24s | Posted - 2011.09.21 15:53:24
Thanks for the puzzles,Authority. Nice ( At least nr4 ) and maybe a bit harder than basic Nikolis.Also, like in Nikolis, there were long runs where two threads run aside, avoiding each other. |
arbor8
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5583
Best Total: 13m 24s | Posted - 2011.09.21 18:13:24
And #5 and #6 are harder,with a clear KTL flavour |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2011.09.24 07:36:41
Thanks for the puzzles!
(And because I'm competitive, here are my solving times:)
1 - 6m42s
2 - 7m32s
3 - 5m08s
4 - 6m14s
5 - 6m44s
6 - 7m05s
7 - 7m23s
How do you actually make these puzzles by hand? I'm kind of intrigued  . I don't have the time to do any myself, but I can never learn enough.
Have you had a look at the user beast puzzles? They are not handmade, however, but generated with programs like loopy, LoopDeLoop and the like. I have posted some I generated on my own, too. Beware: Some of these are incredibly hard.
Last edited by MondSemmel - 2012.05.01 11:06:13 |
mr_ed
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 701
Best Total: 30m 54s | Posted - 2011.09.27 13:19:41
Thanks - nice ones.
I cannot compete with MondSemmel at all, but anyway, #2 took me 22:40, the others not yet started |
Authority
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 3329
Best Total: 9m 56s | Posted - 2011.09.28 04:58:19
Thanks for the nice comments, guys!
Quote: Originally Posted by MondSemmel How do you actually make these puzzles by hand? I'm kind of intrigued . I don't have the time to do any myself, but I can never learn enough. |
I use an HTML/Javascript editor that I threw together, it's pretty much the same as the one on this site, but it can handle really large puzzles as well as outputting the loopy string of a puzzle.
As far as designing the puzzle, I come up with the pattern of numbers that I want to use, which sometimes change If there is too much empty space. Then I start setting the puzzle, solving it as numbers are added, making sure to change my focus once in a while so that all the solving doesn't radiate from one point. Only occasionally do I try to implement deep guessing, that sort of stuff is better left to the computers.
Then I convert it into a LoopDeLoop save file, and use that to check if it has a unique solution, since I sometimes miss things. If there are multiple solutions or no solutions, I refactor the puzzle until it works. Sometimes they don't turn out very well, sometimes the symmetry gets messed up somehow beyond repair, but it's a fun process. |
Authority
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 3329
Best Total: 9m 56s | Posted - 2012.04.24 05:09:06
I've got some more, all 36x20. The last one is supposed to resemble Mr Pac-man, but it really didn't turn out. Making the puzzle into recognizable art is extremely hard. If someone could make a reasonable rendition of the Mona Lisa as a slitherlink I would be extremely impressed!
Puzzle 8
Puzzle 9
Puzzle 10
Puzzle 11
Puzzle 12
Puzzle 13
Puzzle 14 |
arbor8
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5583
Best Total: 13m 24s | Posted - 2012.04.25 11:36:49
Looks more like impressionist art than Mona Lisa.It's lot easier to
make recognizable figures in Hanjie puzzles than in Slitherlink.
Anyway, thanks for nice puzzles |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.05.01 21:11:41
Thanks for the puzzles, Authority!
Solving times:
08 - 9m00s
09 - 7m38s
10 - 8m55s
11 - 8m45s
12 - 7m47s
13 - 8m21s (this felt like the easiest of the bunch, but I made a mistake)
14 - 7m32s
I'm still looking at the solution to #14, and I see no Pac-Man in there. That being said, Pac-Man is round, right? Why try to create him in a rectangular, non-square puzzle?
And I second the suggestion that Hanjie puzzles (also known as Nonograms and various other names) are natural candidates for what you are trying to do. In case somebody doesn't know these puzzles, here is a German website with more than 1400 of them. They can be solved online with a java applet, but if you don't know any German, getting used to the applet might take a bit of time. (And you'll have to google search for English puzzle rules.) That said, to get started, click "Sortiert nach Schwierigkeitsgrad" on the puzzle page: That lists puzzles in order of increasing difficulty (actually, just in order of average solving time). |
prj
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 2356
Best Total: 18m 20s | Posted - 2012.05.02 02:05:01
Quote: Originally Posted by MondSemmel I'm still looking at the solution to #14, and I see no Pac-Man in there. |
Try looking at the blank puzzle, not the solution. |
Darklady
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5369
Best Total: 9m 37s | Posted - 2012.05.02 06:58:56
My solving times:
08 - 7:52
09 - 9:26
10 - 8:43
11 - 9:50
12 - 6:56
13 - 4:44
14 - 5:51
I took a break and exercised a bit before the last three, and I think it helped my times on them. Also, I try to avoid drawing in the x marks, which I think works especially well on large-but-easy puzzles like these. |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.05.02 09:58:55
Quote: Originally Posted by Darklady I took a break and exercised a bit before the last three, and I think it helped my times on them. Also, I try to avoid drawing in the x marks, which I think works especially well on large-but-easy puzzles like these. |
I did use tons of x'es, like you mentioned.
More importantly, I usually solve non-weekly Slitherlink puzzles while I do something else - in this case, I listened to a podcast while doing the puzzles one after another. That's a kind of multitasking that works for me: Listening and solving puzzles simultaneously. But I have also read about tons of research stating that humans are not good at multitasking and that it usually results in worse performance than doing one thing after another with utmost concentration.
When I solve puzzles like this, I don't really notice whether I'm doing as well as usual. But I really wonder now whether there's a noticeable drop in performance when I'm multitasking...
(Exercise might help, too, but I don't do any. I know, I should, but...)
Last edited by MondSemmel - 2012.05.02 10:00:32 |
Authority
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 3329
Best Total: 9m 56s | Posted - 2012.09.10 18:24:53
Here are some more, fresh out of the oven. #20 might be the hardest one but on the whole they are not too hard. They are certainly easier than the generated beast puzzles and monthly beasts, so everybody on the site should have fun with them. I might try doing 30x40 puzzles next, but these already take a long time to construct, so we'll see.
Oh, and I think they are more fun when highlander techniques are not used but if speed is your goal then go right ahead.
Puzzle 15
Puzzle 16
Puzzle 17
Puzzle 18
Puzzle 19
Puzzle 20
Puzzle 21 |
Zyntax
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6533
Best Total: 13m 6s | Posted - 2012.09.11 03:08:51
I've always enjoyed your puzzles Authority. While I enjoy the beasts, they usually take me a few sittings to solve them just because of how complex they can get, but yours I can solve without hitting any significant snags.
Whatever generator you use, I give it 2 thumbs up! |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.09.11 10:07:22
Quote: Originally Posted by Zyntax Whatever generator you use, I give it 2 thumbs up! |
|
Zyntax
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6533
Best Total: 13m 6s | Posted - 2012.09.11 17:41:47
Yeah I should have paid attention to that part before posting. That does make more sense - it reminds me of the larger Slitherlink puzzles on nikoli.com which are handmade. While they are easier, I do find them more enjoyable to solve. |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.09.16 16:31:08
I got around to solving your current batch of handmade puzzles, Authority. Thanks again.
Comments and times:
#15: 5m58s
#16: 7m57s - I love the way the loop looks in the end; I think it looks rather different than the normal weekly puzzles, although I couldn't say precisely in what ways.
#17: 9m36s - Progress through this puzzle was a bit circuitous. I liked that.
#18: 11m+ - I thought this was your best puzzle among the ones I had tried at that point (i.e. #15-#1 . Until I noticed I had made a mistake at some point and got two separate loops right when the puzzle seemed finished. Then I didn't like it anymore :p. 7m58s in my second attempt.
#19: 7m57s - Easy but quite neat.
#20: 6m45s
#21: 8m33s |
Authority
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 3329
Best Total: 9m 56s | Posted - 2012.11.07 04:28:31
I didn't end up trying any larger sizes this time, this size seems about right. They might be getting a little harder, but still nowhere near the difficulty of the monthly beasts. I especially enjoy number 25. Enjoy!
Puzzle 22
Puzzle 23
Puzzle 24
Puzzle 25
Puzzle 26
Puzzle 27
Puzzle 28 |
Darklady
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 5369
Best Total: 9m 37s | Posted - 2012.11.10 08:48:46
Thanks for more of these! My times:
22 - 28:49 (I, um, made a few mistakes on this one. It also seemed harder than the rest, but that might've just been me completely forgetting how to solve this style of puzzle.)
23 - 5:31
24 - 7:23
25 - 10:03
26 - 7:21
27 - 6:32
28 - 6:55 |
MondSemmel
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6159
Best Total: 7m 47s | Posted - 2012.11.15 00:44:28
Again, thanks for posting these puzzles. They really do feel different from generated ones .
My times:
22 - 16m06s (Darklady: I agree that this seemed much harder than the rest. Thanks for the warning.)
23 - 07m16s
24 - 06m02s
25 - 08m15s
26 - 06m22s
27 - 07m26s
28 - 06m51s |
