croco-puzzle

[david mcneill]

Nick,

I presume you start by trying to place the high-value pills. That seemed to work well on today's puzzle. I used to start by blacking out cells which couldn't be part of rows and columns with low totals, but this is too slow.

David.

[nickdeller]

David,

As the puzzle's still 'live', I'll only make the most vague of comment - but yes, I think you're right, it's just actually applying it that gives me the problems.

[dickoon]

I realise that W places a single horizontal link, E places a double horizontal link, S places a single vertical link and D places a double vertical link.

This is a good tip, possibly a better one than you thought, at least for me. I knew about W and E, but not about S and D - and, indeed, always wondered why W and E didn't have a counterpart. The moral of the story is that the "Weiter" buttons can sometimes lead to more keyboard shortcuts than at first appear.

I had the world's daftest Fehlversuche in the Pillen today. Before I clicked on a single cell, I went to check the instructions to check the numbers of the pills, missed the instructions button and got the "Test" button instead. D'oh!

[ronaldx]

Is 397 players (so far on the Hashi) a record?

[berni]

Is 397 players (so far on the Hashi) a record?

Yes it is. Taking both puzzles together, we crossed the 400 for the first time. It took only 4 months to get from 300 to 400 (11 months from 200 to 300, 17 1/2 from 100 to 200).Now I'm curious, how long it takes to reach the 500...

[ronaldx]

berni - your website is really excellent and this loyalty and growth is enviable and a credit to your hard work.
I'm sure croco-puzzle will continue to grow and I hope you get some reward for this!!

[dickoon]

Not sure if he's a forum member, but he's definitely British, he's definitely known to at least three of us and he's definitely a brand new 20th kyu: well done, daweaver! The gang's all here now, in the land of the kyu... unless I'm missing someone?

I'm going to resolve to enjoy croco-puzzle more and obsess over it less, I think. I enjoy solving the daily Ue-puzzles that I choose to start, but I rather less enjoy spending 40+ minutes on a puzzle in order to drop only 3 rating points instead of 4, and I've struggled very long and hard with some of the puzzles recently. There was a Magnet puzzle that I came out with a 2 hour result on recently; there was a gap where I was solving at my wife's library, then her computers shut down and I had to take her home and go to the shops and and and... but I still spent a good, ooh, 75-90 minutes on it, maybe longer, and that doesn't represent a healthy puzzle-life balance.

It's nice to have a "puzzles solved" stat of over 99%, and to know that I've solved 100% of croco-puzzle puzzles that I've started deliberately - as opposed to the second one I ever did, which I started by mistake. But it's not the be all and end all, and it's OK to leave puzzles unsolved and get on with the rest of my life. And yet...

[detuned]

Oooh another potential #1 there? Although probably not if Mssrs Snyder and Ondrousek have anything to say about it

[motris]

Oooh another potential #1 there? Although probably not if Mssrs Snyder and Ondrousek have anything to say about it

Sorry Tom. I still expect a 38 from Jaku111 though. Misko will probably top us too.

[detuned]

Haha a mere 36 from Jaku! I swear half of it must just be a system of being quick on a computer though - I mean he's obviously about as quick as anyone on paper but hardly to the same level of his dominance online.

Speaking of which, how on earth did you get such a good time on the Masyu?? I thought I had the horribly clunky interface reasonably mastered - and granted I made a minor mistake - but when I resolved could only manage in the order of 2.30. Normally some puzzle types leave me utterly bemused by how quickly the best people can solve them, but Masyu is definitely not one of them and I can't quite work out where an extra 40 seconds comes from!!

[motris]

I'd have to imagine all the online playing has helped. He's a bit faster on easy puzzles on paper, but when you remove the ability to write down notes like I do, he becomes significantly faster online. I've never felt motivated to learn online solving, since there are no real online-only sudoku I feel like solving (and I'm reaching my wit's end with Nikoli puzzles now too!).

When Masyu didn't let you click and drag I could buy your time as the max, but I think the dragging (and sometimes just clicking) combination has worked well for me. I had a little pause at one time as I figured out how to not close a loop but 1:50 is my "drawing the answer" time just about. The recent puzzle that got the most online attention though was the 32" Rundweg from a couple days ago. There I again had the fortune of thinking of the solution correctly, particularly with the two border 4's. That and being pretty good at holding down the draw key while moving the mouse can get me fast times.

[PuzzleScot]

I was quite chuffed to be within 1 second of uvo today - on a killer sudoku no less. I'm astounded at the level of participation on croco-puzzle - talk about feeling average!

[detuned]

Yeah, I suspect the proportion of regular WSCers has increased quite a bit recently.

I now have to add a (former) Sudoku "world record" holder to the list who beat me today. Oh well

Thomas: I'm still clicking in the masyu pieces - I didn't realise you could drag now. Although if it's anything like the numberlink I might need a bit of practice! EDIT: 1.54 now with some clunky dragging, a few fixed misclicks but no pausing to think.

[uvo]

I was quite chuffed to be within 1 second of uvo today - on a killer sudoku no less. I'm astounded at the level of participation on croco-puzzle - talk about feeling average!

For the past few days, I have been making silly mistakes - I may need a break...

Killer Sudoku: 4+5+2=9
Hitori: Forgot to fill in the last black square.
Doppelstern: Putting three stars in the same column leads to problems later on. Actually, I made that mistake twice in the same puzzle...

[ronaldx]

Croco Puzzle has been hurting my eyes in recent days. Some of the puzzles come up simply too small - I can't see the puzzle, never mind any notation marks that I want to make (e.g. "8-9").

Any tips? Increasing the browser zoom doesn't seem to affect the size of the applet. Not having much fun with these

[Calavera]

Any tips?

There is a possibility to set the size of the applet in your settings. They can be found in the tab "Benutzerkonto" (user account). If it is not directly shown when selecting this tab, the German word for settings is "Einstellungen".

The topic you should be looking for is "Appletabmessungen". Also interesting might be the checkbox below that ("Rechte Spalte"). By checking it the right column (with highscores news, etc.) is not displayed when the applet or other big contents are shown so that there is more space for the applet. As too big an applet might also be undesired at times you might consider to first check the size of the puzzle without starting it and then enter the settings to change them accordingly.


Calavera

[david mcneill]

I couldn't see the numbers in today's Kakuro. Like Ronald, I couldn't work out how to zoom, and in fiddling around I ended up in a mode where I couldn't type numbers into the cells. I had to come out of the puzzle and start all over again.

David McNeill.

[Calavera]

Most certainly you ended up using another color with which you are unable to fill cells that contain numbers of a different color (or a candidate list of another color). If you were also unable to fill empty cells I suspect a bug there...

[detuned]

Thanks for mentioning the zoom thing. I could just about squint and get the kakuro in a reasonable time, but it's made things where you have to drag a line much easier!

[dickoon]

Huh, I'm pretty sure that I'll wind up with two >1500 performances today. That's not a huge achievement in the scheme of things, but unless I miss my guess, it's a first for me. Hurrah!

I wonder if it would be interesting (well, to begin with, I'll start with practically possible) to try to declare whether certain types of puzzles correlate well with each other? I'm relatively good at Kakuro, Killer Sudoku, the other one like Killer Sudoku but where you can repeat numbers in a cell, Japanese Sums and Double Block, which all involve addition. I'm relatively poor at things like Snake, Fences, Masyu, Laser... things that involve taking lines for walks. It would be interesting to see if there are other identifiable relationships where if you are relatively good at one type of puzzle in a family, you are relatively likely to be relatively good at other types of puzzles in the same family - or relatively poor, likewise.

[ronaldx]

hmm, making the puzzle bigger seemed to make a big difference. I'm at the top of the list!

Or, perhaps... Hausigel, uvo, pwahs, Calavera etc are late today.

[Calavera]

I wonder if it would be interesting (well, to begin with, I'll start with practically possible) to try to declare whether certain types of puzzles correlate well with each other? I'm relatively good at Kakuro, Killer Sudoku, the other one like Killer Sudoku but where you can repeat numbers in a cell, Japanese Sums and Double Block, which all involve addition. I'm relatively poor at things like Snake, Fences, Masyu, Laser... things that involve taking lines for walks. It would be interesting to see if there are other identifiable relationships where if you are relatively good at one type of puzzle in a family, you are relatively likely to be relatively good at other types of puzzles in the same family - or relatively poor, likewise.

If you've enough time you can check this for yourself. After all when clicking on a name in the rating list you can see his/her rating for each puzzle type and the number of puzzles he participated...

[detuned]

hmm, making the puzzle bigger seemed to make a big difference. I'm at the top of the list!

Or, perhaps... Hausigel, uvo, pwahs, Calavera etc are late today.

I'd suggest for list-toppers (for sudoku anyway) you'd be better off watching for mars, jaku111, Gotroch, willwc, DavidMcN, and maybe even detuned if he hasn't tried to do puzzles having come in from the pub at midnight

Still, not to say some of the aforementioned times today aren't pretty good, and that's without mentioning your own great time!

[ronaldx]

and misko and Uhu and flooser and Semax do well at sudoku. but i was picking all-rounders who often play close to midnight

[drsteve]

OK, can someone explain something to a Croco-Puzzle newbie?

Just registered and all that and clicked on the Überraschungsrätsel link and all I get is a pageful of text - no Java applet at all.

Am i doing something wrong?

Steve

EDIT: Just logged out and in again - this time on URatsel 1, the Java logo appears briefly in the middle of the screen and then nothing.

EDIT AGAIN: Works fine in Google Chrome, just not Internet Explorer. Any techies out there with a fix?