Introduction
Before I work up to an explanation of the contest rules, let me give you this warm-up puzzle to try out. To enter the contest, you'll need to solve a more difficult puzzle of a similar kind.
Each square of the above 8x8 grid will contain a forward deflector, a backward deflector, or nothing at all. Your job is to deduce what each square contains given some clues. Imagine that laser beams are shot through the grid, entering at each column and row along the perimeter. If there are no deflectors in the path of the beam, it will continue straight across the grid and exit on the opposite side, like so:
If a deflector is in the beam's path, the beam will turn 90 degrees in one of two directions depending on the type of deflector. A forward deflector (shaped like a forward slash) sends a south beam west, and a west beam south. I suppose to be thorough I should also point out that a north beam will be deflected east, and an east beam deflected north. But you can just look at the shape of the deflector and intuitively guess this behavior, if you just think of the deflector as a polished mirror that reflects the light of a laser beam. An example of a forward deflector is shown below.
A backward deflector (shaped like a backward slash) sends a south beam east, and an east beam south. An example of a backward deflector is shown below.
A collection of deflectors can produce more convoluted paths with multiple turns.
Returning to the unsolved puzzle, you'll see symbols along the perimeter. They come in pairs and mark the endpoints of one beam's route across the grid. Note that sending a beam into the grid from either end will always follow the same path. So the question to answer is: how can deflectors be placed on the grid to produce beams with endpoints matching the symbols?
Below in secret tags is the answer to the puzzle shown at the beginning of this post. Try to solve the puzzle before looking at the secreted answer.
Click here to view the secret text
×
Using the notation that will be required for the contest, the answer is specified as "
A1/ A4/ B4/ B6\\ C7/ D3\\ E5/ E6/ F1\\ G3/ G8\\ H6\\"
.
The Actual Contest
You'll be racing against other players to solve a deflector puzzle first. Four different puzzles will be released at 6 hour intervals on February 20th, The idea here is that people from different time zones won't be unfairly disadvantaged. You'll be allowed to enter just one, so choose the puzzle time most convenient to you.
Puzzle 1 - Local Time:02-20-2006 at 12:00 AM
Puzzle 2 - Local Time:02-20-2006 at 06:00 AM
Puzzle 3 - Local Time:02-20-2006 at 12:00 PM
Puzzle 4 - Local Time:02-20-2006 at 06:00 PM
The times above are already adjusted to match your local timezone. Just be sure your timezone is set correctly in your profile.
Submitting a Contest Answer
The puzzles will be posted later in separate topics on the "
Contests"
board. You enter your answer in a reply post to these topics. With forum magic, your reply post will only be visible to you and me in the puzzle topic, so you don't have to worry about other people seeing your answer. Likewise, you won't be able to see other players' answers that are posted.
Your answer should follow the format, row letter + column number + deflector type. Order the list of deflector coordinates by row and column so I don't go crazy checking everybodys' answers. So for example the answer could look like this: "
A7/ C3\\ C5\\ D1\\ D3/ G8/ H2\\"
.
You can only post one answer. If you see a mistake you made in your posted answer, it is too late to correct it.
Don't edit your post. I won't know if you've tried to change your answer or not, so if you edit your post, I'll have to disqualify you.
Winning
Your standing among other players will be judged by the time elapsed when you give your answer since the release of the puzzle to which you are answering. So if one player solves puzzle 1 in an hour, and a second player solves puzzle 4 in a half hour, the second player has beaten the first.
Everyone who provides a correct answer to a puzzle will get 4 rank points, regardless of how much time the solution took. If you aren't able to solve a puzzle, you should still provide a description of how far you got before giving up. If you at least tried, I'll give you participation credit for the contest.
The fastest player is the winner, and will receive 100 rank points and an item of his choosing from
The Prize Pile. Second place winner gets 50 rank points, and third place winner gets 25 rank points. Any participants who have never entered a contest with us before, get an extra 10 rank points.
Strategy
It's a timed contest, so you want to be pretty fast at figuring these puzzles out before it begins. Your speed can be improved with practice. You could play some computer games similar to this one such as
Aargon,
Chromatron, or
Black Box. You could also make your own puzzles like the example. It's pretty easy--just fill in a grid randomly with deflectors, determine the endpoints, and then make a copy of the grid with just the endpoints. You might not be good enough at forgetting the positions of the deflectors, in which case you could get somebody else to make puzzles for you or perhaps exchange puzzles with each other.
On contest day, you'll want to have some scratch medium available that is good for fast work. Maybe you like plain old paper and pencil. Maybe opening a copy of notepad is better for you.
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 02-16-2006 07:19 PM]
