Puzzle Description Suppressed:Click below to view spoilers

#1: Robert Kummerfeldt (rmkummerfeldt) on Jun 9, 2006

Almost perfect - only flaw is 4 possible solutions for the bridal area. This is one of the most challenging and best images I have done on this site.

Nice puzzle, aside from the little non-unique bits.

Two notes, just FYI: (1) You can edit puzzles after you've published them. If you want to try to fix the non-unique bits, that'd be cool. Though it's guessable enough as is. (2) you can also crop off blank columns. There's a note in the FAQ about how to resize puzzles.

My comment about non-unique puzzles: if there is no unique sokution, it's not a true Nonogram/Griddler/PBN/whatever-you-call-it. To be a true puzzle, it must have a unique solution. I encourage the author to correct the partial section in question, make it unique, then I will be happy to print and try the puzzle. =)

I agree.

I've seen some puzzle sites that don't allow such puzzles to be posted. I don't really agree with that.

This is an amature puzzle site, and of course, many of the puzzles have defects. Some have lousy pictures, some are ridiculously easy, some are not entirely solvable. In this case we have a puzzle with an very nice image, quite challenging to solve, but the last few cells you have to guess at. Still quite an enjoyable experience to solve. I'm happy to have puzzles like this on the site.

At the same time, I know that the problems with this puzzle could be fixed with just a tiny bit more editing. It's so close to being wonderful that it just hurts. So I'm always hoping that people will come back and fix them up.

The puzzles I remove from the site are the ones that are just no fun at all. You spend hours on them, only to discover that there is no solution. Blech!

This one was quite hard. I hope the author fixes the nonunique bits around the bridle.

Thank you all for your comments, I'm happy you like my puzzle. Could commentators please give me the exact coordinates for the part of the bridal that needs to be corrected.
I will try to fix all the issues.

If you fix this, please don't publish it for awhile for my eyes are getting tired of solving it more then twice. It is a nice picture and I hope you don't take my comments the wrong way!

Well, the puzzle has changed, but the ambiguity is still there. The are eight cells that have problems

Row 20, Column 7
Row 20, Column 12
Row 19, Column 8
Row 19, Column 11
Row 26, Column 7
Row 26, Column 12
Row 27, Column 8
Row 27, Column 11

To easily see this yourself, go to the puzzle solving page for the puzzle, starting with it blank. Click the "Helper" button under the puzzle. Wait a bit. You may have to click "OK" when it asks you if it should continue a few times. This runs the puzzle solving program, which will, in this case, solve everything except the unsolvable squares listed above.

Right, still unsolvable without guessing. But still a good picture.

Still requires guessing.

if you just change the 1 in row 23 to a 2 and row 22 to 3 4 5 12 1 1 and row 21 to 1 6 4 12 2. making colum 11 3 9 2, colum 12 3 7 2 and colum 13 8 6 3... It think it will be solvable and the image is still pretty, infact i think it looks better...

But I dont think you are around anymore since this puzzle is 2 years old.

I almost wish that jan whould change it, its a very good puzzle and picture

very interesting and nice image.

Wouldn't that be interesting if Jan COULD go into people's puzzles and change things like this. In fact, he probably can.

I certainly can change any puzzle on this site, quite easily even. I have never edited any puzzle but my own however, and don't expect I ever will.

So close to being logically solvable. It's a nice image and a challenging solve (I had a heck of a time at the start). It's a shame this was never touched up to remove the little bit of guessing.

Jan, why not have someone go through the database from the beginning and work on editing puzzles that are unsolvable without guessing? It seems like a nice thing to do, and the image should still resemble the original in all cases. My comment from June of 2006 (though I can't edit it now, guess it's not attributed to me now) is still valid in a sense, I think having puzzles able to be solved without guessing is important. Clearly this author made an attempt, but it's still not perfect. I'm going to give it a shot myself right now to see.

I've sometimes been tempted to do that. A lot of puzzles are almost fantastic and could be fixed with just a small change.

But I also like respecting people's individual contributions. Not everyone wants their puzzles meddled with. And while it is clear when a puzzle has multiple solutions, deciding which ones require guessing is a tricky call based on a fuzzy definition.

Finally, part of my concept for this site is to build something that can run on auto-pilot when I'm busy, and doesn't require anyone to be constantly baby sitting it. If you set the expectation that every puzzle will be reviewed and fixed by some authority, then that authority always has to be there (and is going to end up being at the center of some controversy eventually).

What I have considered is allowing anybody to post "variants" of other people's puzzles. These wouldn't replace the original puzzle but would give a way for people to tweak other people's puzzles.

That is another idea that came to my mind, too. And ATM I'm stuck on this one, I did manage to get some of the left side done with some edge logic extending out as far as C10. This is a toughie even for me.

How come I solved w/o guessing?

You must have visually guessed, without noticing it was a guess. :)

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