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Themed 5th Anniversary Puzzle Design Contest
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Johan


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Joined: 22/12/2006 20:08:51
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Dear puzzle fans,

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of PuzzlePicnic.com's conception, we are happy to announce a themed contest for puzzle designers. Details can be found below. We hope you will enjoy our challenge and we look forward to receiving your submissions! The deadline for submissions is June 30th, 2011.

Best regards,
Johan de Ruiter


CONTEST DESCRIPTION
Your task is to design a puzzle that displays antisymmetry and somehow relates to PuzzlePicnic's 5 year anniversary in any of the genres supported by PuzzlePicnic. These themes may be interpreted liberally. For example, a puzzle in which all givens are in a symmetric position but with opposite values/colors (depending on the genre) may count as antisymmetry, or a puzzle in which positions of givens match with symmetric positions without givens and vice versa, or perhaps only givens of a certain type follow antisymmetry while another type is used normally. Here symmetry could be axial or rotation symmetry, or even refer to two small puzzles side by side. You are free to interpret the theme as you wish, but in the end it should be an elegant puzzle.

CONTEST RULES
  • Every contestant needs to be a member of PuzzlePicnic.com to participate (membership is free).
  • Every contestant is allowed two submissions.
  • Every submission must be made using the regular puzzle studio, and be accompanied by a message saying "5 year anniversary contest submission".
  • A valid email address must be present in the profile of a contestant, so PuzzlePicnic.com staff can contact contestants regarding their entries and/or prize.
  • Submissions received after June 30th, 2011 at 23:59 Honolulu time, will not be eligible to win.
  • Submissions must be the original work of the contestant alone and must not have been published or be published, online and/or in print, before October 1st, 2011, without the written consent of PuzzlePicnic.com.
  • The copyrights of a submission remain with the contestant, but the contestant will license PuzzlePicnic.com to publish the submission online and/or in print (or through any other medium as provided by our Terms of Use) and this license will be exclusive to PuzzlePicnic.com until October 1st, 2011. PuzzlePicnic.com will always credit the contestant when a submission is published.
  • Submissions will be evaluated on elegance (both visual elegance and elegance of solving) and adherence to the theme.
  • Submitted puzzles should have a unique solution. Non-uniqueness at the time of submission will negatively affect the odds of winning a prize.
  • The contest winners will be chosen subjectively by PuzzlePicnic.com admins and judges, and this decision is final.

    PRIZES
    The three best submissions will be rewarded with an exclusive PuzzlePicnic.com T-shirt. 

  • Maarten


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    Dear puzzlers and puzzle crafters,

    The waiting is over: the contest submissions have been judged, and a winner has been chosen! First of all, we would like to thank everyone who submitted; we received a nice number of quality puzzles and it hasn't been easy to pick a winner.

    We will be releasing the submissions over the course of the next days. The puzzles will be released in pairs in no particular order, until we reach the top 5, and then we will release nrs 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.

    To kick things off, today we released the first submission, which unfortunately did not qualify for the prizes since its author is a judge. Nonetheless, we were quite impressed by the combination of the themes "5" and "antisymmetry" in this Tapa by Bram. Enjoy!

    your friendly admins
    Thierry


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    We are pleased to present two great submissions that unfortunately did not make the top 5.

    Akademik managed to express his "love at first sight" in a cute Sudoku puzzle. Anurag.sahay crafted a Masyu puzzle that displays the '5 year PuzzlePicnic' theme in a tasty "birthday cake".

    Thanks Akademik and anurag.sahay for your submissions, and keep up the good work!

    How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
    Johan


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    Today we release the second batch of two contest submissions.

    Jfo managed to get three 8x8 Sudokus to overlap. We were not quite sure how this puzzle incorporates the contest themes, but we did notice the overlapping region closely resembles an upside down P and thumbs up at the same time. Interestingly, the second puzzle released today breaks the symmetry by placing both of its P-shapes right side up. This well-designed Fillomino by NikolaZ also features two groups of five 5's in a dice pattern.

    Thanks to both of you for your efforts!
    Maarten


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    Hello again! I couldn't be more pleased to give you no less than two new submissions to our 5th anniversary contest today.

    In the contest rules we specified two themes: "PuzzlePicnic's 5 year anniversary" and "antisymmetry". We noticed that it was quite challenging to combine both themes in a single puzzle, and many submissions focussed on only one of the two themes. Todays puzzles are an example of this.

    On the one hand, we have a sudoku by Akademik, where we see an interesting interpretation of the antisymmetry theme: in each pair of centrally opposite 3x3 boxes, the clues are placed in the same pattern, but the pattern has been rotated and/or mirrored. Also, in the solution, the central box displays... but I shouldn't spoil it for those of you who still want to solve the puzzle. On the other hand, this masyu by NikolaZ focussed purely on the anniversary theme and features one big bicoloured 5.

    Thanks to Akademik and NikolaZ for your efforts, and we hope to see more puzzles from you in the future!
    Lord_Farin



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    You have mixed up the references to the puzzles...
    Maarten


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    Lord_Farin wrote:
    You have mixed up the references to the puzzles...  



    should be good now!
    Thierry


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    Before we start our countdown from #5 to #1, we have two more puzzles to show that did not make the final cut.

    Anurag.sahay came very close with his Rectangles puzzle that has given clues in symmetric positions with the 5 in a dominant role. The other numbers are mapped on either themselves or their doubles.

    The other puzzle released today is a challenging Sudoku by Jfo, who explores relationships between different grids. Different regions with the same striped background contain the same digits in the same order.


    How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
    Johan


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    It is time to reveal the puzzle that earned the 5th place! The Masyu puzzle submitted by xevs displays two fives and at first glance seems completely symmetrical, but when you look more closely, you will notice that there is in fact one ball that breaks the symmetry, resulting in a quite asymmetrical solution. Thank you xevs for your contribution and congratulations!
    Maarten


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    Ladies and gentlemen! As we are getting closer and closer to the winner of the anniversary design contest, let us pause today to admire a very interesting fillomino by Shvegait. In this puzzle, we see a mirror symmetry between places with clues and places without clues. What's more, without revealing too much, I can say that the solution contains a very familiar hidden pattern. Most importantly, even with these two restrictions, Shvegait managed to construct a puzzle that is fun to solve, and requires some different types of logic.

    Congratulations Shvegait on your 4th place!
    mathgrant


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    Maarten wrote:
    Without revealing too much, I can say that the solution contains a very familiar hidden pattern.  


    You mean [when you shade in all of the polyominoes with more than 5 squares]? Wouldn't have seen that without the heads up. Fascinating.

    A Cleverly-Titled Logic Puzzle Blog
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    Johan


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    The 3rd prize goes to Valezius for his Masyu puzzle. The puzzle consists of four fives placed with 90-degree rotional symmetry. Each of the fives exhibits the same color pattern (in itself rather anti-symmetric), except that the five in the lower left has black and white interchanged. We were very impressed with the quality of this puzzle. Congratulations Valezius!
    Thierry


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    The second prize is awarded to mathgrant for a remarkable and fun Fillomino puzzle!

    The design of Mathgrant's Fillomino puzzle is very creative. He combined the anti symmetry theme with the 5 theme by making every given above the diagonal - and none of the others - a 5. The grid is rotationally symmetric except for the 2 shape in the lower right, that appropriately turns into a 5 in the upper left (by a reflection rather than a rotation). On top of that he managed to include an extra pattern in the solution. Congratulations to mathgrant!


    How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
    Maarten


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    Dear puzzles and puzzle makers! The moment of truth is upon us. We will not leave you in suspension any longer. Not that the winner is likely to be very much in suspension anymore, if he knows anything about deduction by elimination. Nonetheless, I am proud to present to you...
    the winner of the PuzzlePicnic.com 5th Anniversary Puzzle Design Contest...

    Valezius!

    He shaped this Fillomino puzzle after the PuzzlePicnic logo, and only used the digit 5 in his design. Furthermore, the pattern of the clues is symmetric in the main diagonal, but the shape of the domain breaks the symmetry and actually causes a quite asymmetric solution. We were impressed with the way these three quite restrictive design choices still led to a unique puzzle, which is even quite fun to solve, needing some global insight complemented with more traditional local fillomino logic.

    Congratulations to Valezius and the other winners! And once again, thanks to all the participants. It's been fun to solve your puzzles.
    Johan


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    Congratulations Valezius!! I would like to once again thank all competitors for their contributions.

    Because of the high quality of the submissions and the fun we had judging the puzzles, we have decided to award a prize to everyone in the top 5. We will contact the winners shortly.
     
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