LMI: Fillomino Fillia 2 (27-29 Oct 2012)

[PuzzleScot]

You may start "Fillomino Fillia 2" any time during the 72-hour period during the weekend of 27-29 Oct 2012.
Your timer will start when you click "Start Fillomino Fillia 2" — then you will have 120 minutes to solve and submit your answers.

http://logicmastersindia.com/FF2/

[kiwijam]

A lot of positive reviews of these puzzles, which I agree with. I think the contest is open for another day.
And UK has two top-ten finishes (top-four if you exclude Japan!).

In a holiday house, I solved my puzzles at the other end of the house from the computer, and because of the instant-marking system I decided it was better to enter them as I went while they were still fresh in my mind in case I could fix them (rather than wait until the end), so that was about 6 round trips of 15 seconds each.
Which only mattered when I finished a little puzzle as the clock ran out, and needed another 10 seconds to enter it in...

@Neil: I notice you had a whole 2 seconds remaining after your final correct submission. Out of curiosity, how many points was that final puzzle worth?

[emma]

I'll be having a go tomorrow if the daughter can be persuaded to play happily for 90 minutes (it's half-term).

[Nilz]

A lot of positive reviews of these puzzles, which I agree with. I think the contest is open for another day.
And UK has two top-ten finishes (top-four if you exclude Japan!).

In a holiday house, I solved my puzzles at the other end of the house from the computer, and because of the instant-marking system I decided it was better to enter them as I went while they were still fresh in my mind in case I could fix them (rather than wait until the end), so that was about 6 round trips of 15 seconds each.
Which only mattered when I finished a little puzzle as the clock ran out, and needed another 10 seconds to enter it in...

@Neil: I notice you had a whole 2 seconds remaining after your final correct submission. Out of curiosity, how many points was that final puzzle worth?

Agreed, I really enjoyed this test, which was clearly reflected in my performance. I'll be very happy if I can keep my current position on the non-Japan podium until the end of the test.

You'll probably be pleased to learn, James, that the last puzzle I solved was the 2 point snake. (I actually had it ready to submit with about 10 seconds left, but had solved it so quickly, I thought there was an better-than-normal chance of a mistake, so I dithered whilst considering whether it was worth the risk of penalty points.)

I'll be having a go tomorrow if the daughter can be persuaded to play happily for 90 minutes (it's half-term).

Given that the test is 120 mins, I'd just like to say how refreshing it is to see such optimism!

[emma]

I was confusing it with the Halas one. I've now managed 8 hours of puzzling, which given an exceptionally busy weekend with other things, was surprising. Some of it was with Peppa Pig videos, piano practice (Jingle Bells) and other playing noises in the same room, so I'll blame all mistakes on that.

I thought the second skyscrapers one was great. (I might have thought the first one was great if I'd managed to get it out.)

[david mcneill]

What a beautiful set of puzzles. Congratulations to Neil and James for almost emulating the mighty Japanese. Quite happy with my performance as Fillomino has never been a strong puzzle type for me. I seemed to spend too much time on the second Non-Consecutive. The single 1 in the bottom right corner eluded me for ages. With hindsight, I should have tackled the second Skyscrapers puzzle. I also didn't attempt the Sum puzzle during the test. Absolutely loved it afterwards. Would argue that the second Walls puzzle was easier than the first one. The fourth Classic was very difficult in my opinion. I had to make a 50:50 guess and fill almost half the grid before finding an impossibility. Then went with the other guess and also reached an impossibility. Solved it OK later, but still had to bifurcate as before. Any better insights?

[sknight]

Here's a walkthrough on the 4th classic.

The first insight here involves all those 3's around the outside edge.
None of them has enough room to poke more than one square into the interior of the puzzle,
but also none can have two additional squares on the outside edge (since it would cascade
around to the opposite side of the puzzle and squeeze a 3 into the center).
So we can fill in exactly one "3" poking inward on each of the outside 3's (diagonally on the corner,
directly inward on the middles), and also know that the 3's will "spiral" either clockwise or
counterclockwise around the outside edge, with one square spacing between each block of 3's.

We can also fill in some places where the 5's have to poke inward to the interior of the puzzle.
The 3 corners with 5's diagonally placed we can fill a 5 connecting them (eg r3c3), and there have to be
5's poking in towards the center for each of the "52" pairs.

Now let's consider the inner ring of 3's. Again, we know that the 3's will spiral around in a square,
but here the extra 3 could either then stick outward or inward (they must be L-shaped of course).
We note however that we can have at most 2 pointing inward, and they would have to be diagonally
opposite. Now, if the 3 spiral pointed clockwise from each corner, neither the top left or top right 3 in
the inner square could turn outward (blocked by those 5's), but they can't both point inward. So the
inner ring of 3's must spiral counter clockwise.

Now let's look at those 52 pairs. If both of the 2's point inward, the 5's next to them get shoved
into the very center, where they bump up against each other. So at least one of the 2's must
point outward. But this forces the direction of the outer 3 spiral to also be clockwise from each clue.

After that things fall together pretty quickly.