Puzzle Description:

Just Neat, Not hard

#1: Rebecca Cary (rec3) on Sep 22, 2008

Multiple solutions & massive guessing required. Try using the solver tool to design puzzles with a single logical solution.

You forgot to put a red dot in the very bottom row, 5th column from the right. Somewhat easy to guess based on symmetry, but otherwise this was IMPOSSIBLE, with nothing to do but guess.

Pretty easy if you assume perfect symmetry. Not really a puzzle, though, as I couldn't use logic to solve it. And you forgot one red dot.

Wow, deja vu #3, seeing as how I wrote almost the EXACT SAME THING in #2! lol :-)

Based on the big red question mark next to the puzzle, I luckily just started with guessing. It turned out okay for me that way. I'm just glad it was already rated or I would have gotten frustrated really fast.

I don't understand what designates a puzzle as "difficult." Is this a difficult puzzle or not? When massive is guessing is required, I would think that makes a difficult puzzle, doesn't it? So why is this puzzle barely over a "2" on difficulty when so much guessing is required? Just wondering.
I was going to rate this very difficult, but seeing what people have given this puzzle, maybe I won't rate it.

I rated it as not very difficult because the guessing was pretty obvious if you assumed symmetry. The necessity for massive guessing got penalized on the quality scale in this case.

I agree, For puzzles with many solutions, like this one, 'Difficulty' should be a combination of the difficulty level of the parts which have one solution (in this case the green and the red), and how easy it is to guess the rest of the solution.

I think the guessing should be penalized on the difficulty scale not on the quality. Quality in my mind is "how did this puzzle look?" or "Did I like this image, did it resemble what it was supposed to resemble."

Thank you Telly. That was perfectly stated.

WOT!!! Multiple solutions puzzles aren't PBN puzzles. The description should be "..., Not hard, but not solvable"

I think the difficulty scale range was properly set for unique solution puzzles, it does not consider puzzles which needs prediction of what the author has in mind. Multiple solutions puzzles could only be graded with negative values for both difficulty and quality.

Goto next topic

You must register and log in to be able to participate in this discussion.