LMI's "Evergreens II" puzzle contest this weekend

[chris]

After extended consideration, I have renamed my Dreamwidth journal to "The games blog I always wanted to write", for that is a more accurate reflection of its contents and closer to being a mission statement for what I am most likely to write in the future. This does not exclude lifeblogging as and when it seems interesting, or other content, but it seems only honest to acknowledge the focus and I enjoy taking an extremely wide interpretation of what comes under the category of games. If this doesn't appeal to you, feel free to bow out and there will certainly be no hard feelings.

For my first post under this new banner, I will concentrate on the subset of one-player games known as puzzles. The organisation responsible for the Indian entry into the World Puzzle Championship and World Sudoku Championships, Logic Masters India, are holding their "Evergreens II" puzzle contest online this weekend; I took part today and enjoyed it greatly.

You can choose when you wish to start the contest; at this point, you are given a password to decrypt the .pdf file containing the puzzles and you are allowed 80 minutes to submit answers to as many of those puzzles as you like. Submissions are permitted until 23:59 GMT on the 5th of September, i.e. 00:59 BST on the 6th of September, 19:59 EDT on the 5th of September, 16:59 PDT on the 5th of September or your local equivalent; you have a little under twenty-seven hours left to take part, as I type. The title, "Evergreens II", refers to the fact that the puzzles are evergreen, classic puzzle formats; there are some neat variations, but also some unashamedly relatively famous types as well.

There are two reasons why I would particuarly recommend the test:

1) It is deliberately intended to be more accessible than, say, the US Puzzle Championship or most other World Puzzle Championship qualifying events. There are twenty-five puzzles in the test and it is intended that a world-class solver can complete them all with time to spare. This means that even a very moderate recreational solver, like me, can find plenty to get their teeth into, and 80 minutes is not an overwhelming commitment. (I solved seven puzzles in 80 minutes, and managed to enter solutions for five of them correctly. There were a couple of others that I didn't solve, but enjoyed getting close on as well.) Experienced solvers might consider them to be speedwork, but experienced solvers know about this contest already.

2) LMI deserve encouragement; time-limited puzzle contests are the only ones that I am motivated enough to spend thought and effort on these days, LMI have a good user interface for running such tests, the format that permits you to compete at a time of your choice is an unusually flexible and convenient one (*), they produce interesting material with admirable frequency and it's admirable that they do run competitions with less competitive solvers in mind, as well as aiming to entertain the usual suspects. I don't have time for (even inadvertent) snobbery when it comes to puzzle difficulty and consider the words "hard" and "easy" to be relative at best; for me, this contest succeeds at being "as much fun as possible for as many people as possible", recognising that the potential participant base will always be self-selecting.

(*) Admittedly it does present the potential for cheating, by virtue of the ability to see the questions and work on them before your 80 minutes starts - but if you want to cheat on a puzzle test badly enough, you'll find ways to do it anyway.

The standard is such that if you enjoy - say - newspaper sudoku, but don't necessarily consider yourself particularly expert at them, then you are likely to find puzzles here with both a difficulty level and originality that you will enjoy. You don't need to be an ARG-level puzzle solver, let alone a MIT Mystery Hunt level solver, to enjoy yourself here. Even if you've never entered a puzzle contest before, or if you haven't entered one for years, do have a look; I have set you a target to beat of 85 points. Here you go; now go have a go!

Comments

[slytherincess]

I always find it surprising - although I probably should not - that there is snobbery everywhere. There is snobbery in non-video games and regular games, in Harry Potter fandom, and in the Hip Domestic community. It is just in the human's nature to be uppity at times.

I enjoy the crossword puzzle in New York magazine. That's pretty specific. They're themed crosswords with plays on words. The only problem is that I have to subscribe to the magazine to get the crossword. Now I love New York mag, but I think it would be so awesome if they made their crossword available online, to print out. At least at my last check it was not available online.

[chris]

Thanks for your comment; you've (inadvertently?) pointed out that I need to do some swift pedal-oral extraction, because my comment certainly could have been read in an unintended way. The majority of puzzle bloggers seem to be quite lovely, are often demonstrably extremely generous with sharing the efforts of their time and labour and are not snobbish people; it's just quite possible to focus upon the puzzles that are of particular interest to you and that offer the right level of challenge for your particular preferred level of difficulty, to the point of being (again, inadvertently?) slightly less complimentary about those puzzles which you consider "too easy" or "too hard".

I also reject the concepts that (a) the harder a puzzle is, the more interesting it is and (b) the purpose of solving puzzles is preparation for solving harder and harder puzzles; certainly there are interesting things you can do in puzzles which will have the effect of making them very difficult, but it's also a real challenge to make a puzzle that is both unusually interesting and deliberately highly accessible.

[oenomel]

(B) - this might well generate a full entry rather than a comment thread, but do you have a view on what the purpose(s) of solving puzzles might be? For that matter, is it necessary that there even IS a purpose?

[chris]

Very interesting question. Gut feeling: I think they work well even at the purely hedonistic level. Some puzzles have clear practical applications, others less clear but identifiably non-zero ones. Not sure these are they, though, and I don't mind that.

On reflection over the course of the day, I do think that if you have the intention to set puzzles for others to solve, you really need to fully understand the type of puzzle you're about to set, particularly if you're about to add to the sum of human puzzle creativity through your own original variant. That definitely is an area where prowess is requried and a large part of the reason why I have set logic puzzles of this style... once, possibly, years ago.

[slytherincess]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you were being snobby - certainly not! I did not get that vibe from your post. Just your mention of how there can sometimes be some snobbery in the hardcore gamers' circles kind of piqued my interest. Hence my response. I definitely agree with you that people become partial to their particular favorites, and can then become dismissive of another person's favorite. For example, here in the states, to do the New York Times Sunday crossword (or any NYT crossword) in pen is the penultimate crossword experience and proof of crossword prowess. I don't know - I do all my crosswords in pen because I don't like pencils, and I sure do make mistakes - all the time!

I agree with your latter two points about puzzle difficulty and the purpose of a puzzle being to prepare a person for an even harder puzzle. Some of us are happy to enjoy crosswords at a specific level and have no ambition to go higher, at least not at this time. I don't see the fun in making a puzzle only a means to a more intellectual or difficult end.

I promise you didn't sound snobby and that I wasn't referring to you! :D

[daweaver]

You don't need to be an ARG-level puzzle solver

"I'm not going to *tell* you the password is wisdom."

What, there's another sort of ARG out there?

[chris]

I see what you did there! Or, perhaps, what someone else did, several years ago, probably more by happy coincidence than anything else. It'll always be cute, though.

(For the confused.)

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the link! 85 points here too, although I would argue that their answer to the hashi is wrong and so I deserve more...

Zoomy

[chris]

Might I refer you to the discussion here, please? Can't say I touched the hashi myself, but the UKPA forums are full of people who smoked that particular puzzle.

As in solved it so fast that... eh, I'll stop while I'm not too far behind.