This week is a variety week on GMPuzzles, so I decided to see if I could emulate these puzzles on my own blog. More specifically, my goal is to replicate both the genre and (approximate) difficulty of the puzzles posted each day this week on the blog. Of course, creating a week of high-quality puzzles is pretty hard, hence the name 🙂 We'll see how this goes; I probably won't be able to match the difficulty or quality of the Saturday puzzle, but I can certainly try. (In particular, I would appreciate comments on difficulty, since I'm still at the point of construction where estimating difficulty is hard.)
First up, a 1 star Araf puzzle. Araf is a strange type that I don't have too much experience with; I have the e-book but haven't gotten too far in it, for instance. Here's my attempt at constructing a puzzle in this genre.
Nice one! I'm excited for a week of double the GMP :)
ReplyDeleteI would certainly agree with the rating of this one: Difficulty 1 Araf.
I disagree with the 1-star rating. Everything before and after this point (https://puzz.link/p?type=player&pzprv3/araf/8/8/.%20.%206%205%20.%20.%20.%20.%20/.%206%207%208%2010%20.%20.%20.%20/.%20.%205%201%20.%20.%20.%20.%20/.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20/.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20.%20/.%20.%20.%20.%2015%205%20.%20.%20/.%20.%20.%208%207%201%2024%20.%20/.%20.%20.%20.%2010%2025%20.%20.%20/-1%20-1%201%200%200%200%200%20/1%201%201%200%200%200%200%20/1%201%201%200%200%200%200%20/1%201%200%200%200%200%200%20/1%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/0%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/0%200%200%201%200%200%200%20/0%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/-1%201%201%200%200%200%200%200%20/-1%20-1%20-1%200%200%200%200%200%20/-1%20-1%20-1%200%200%200%200%200%20/-1%20-1%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/-1%200%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/0%200%200%200%200%200%200%200%20/0%200%200%200%200%200%200%200%20//) is 1-star, but the step you have to do to make progress from right there is definitely harder than the **very local** logic that characterizes the rest of this puzzle and the *entirety* of the 1-star GMP puzzle (unless there's an easier way to proceed from this point I didn't find?)
ReplyDelete(I'm not sure if that makes it 2-star or only 1.5. But it's definitely a step up from 1.)
DeleteAgreed on that step being harder than anything in the GMP puzzle (you're not the only person to mention that). My goal isn't necessarily to emulate the style of the puzzles exactly, but rather to try to write puzzles with unknown parameters on a daily basis.
DeleteAs for the actual rating, it's hard to say. It'd be very hard for this puzzle to be a 2, I believe, since one consequence of the way GMP usually assigns ratings is that smaller grids generally have lower ratings. But this is probably more a 1.5 than a 1, yea.