Doctor’s Note #11 – And Then There Were Two…
I hope you enjoyed the first week with Grant Fikes contributing puzzles. Grant will be a regular author in the future, and has already sent in a lot of outstanding puzzles for The Art of Puzzles. While his best puzzles and his largest puzzles (sometimes one and the same) will be saved for that publication, a lot of fine leftovers will still end up here on a weekly basis. In other words, if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen here you’ll be amazed by what is in the book. Still, if you’d like to see some “Giants” from Grant, please check out the three he released last weekend 600 (LITS/”Tetra Firma”), 601 (Shakashaka/”Proof of Quilt”), and 602 (Norinori/”Dominnocuous”).
Who will our next Contributing Puzzlemaster be and when will his or her puzzles first appear? Only time will tell. For now I wanted to announce that the weekly release schedule will be going through a few changes. Since I have been publishing Sudoku and puzzles in five other genres (object placement, number placement, loops, shading, and region division), for most weeks going forward there will now be one puzzle in each of those six areas. Every other week will have a change in types (for example Masyu this week, Slitherlink the next) so there will be some balance in what gets posted. Over time, the genres will cycle through each day of the week so that easier and harder puzzles of all styles appear. That’s the basic plan, but there may be a few other surprises in store.
Finally, since a small number have been asking for more hints on the hidden contest (which remains undiscovered), and since I’ve not been responding privately for the sake of fairness, now seems a good time to narrow the hunt somewhat. While there have been a lot of posts here, from Doctor’s Notes to solving tutorials, this site is primarily about the puzzles. Somewhere in those 60 posts is what you need to find the “+1 puzzle” and possibly win a free book.
Regards, Dr. S.
PS: There will be no “Ask Dr. Sudoku” this week, but if you have any questions you would like answered in a future column, or past puzzles that have appeared here that were not covered that you would like some more insights on, this is the time to inquire. Going forward, I intend the “Asking” to be more active and cover just about anything (from puzzle that use baskets to NCAA tournament brackets). Solving/construction tutorials are interesting, but are not meant to be the only kind of topic.
Hm… I can ask these questions in public right?
When is The Art of Puzzles going to be released? When are the deadlines for submissions?
The questions are because finals are messing with my puzzle making time, but I still hope to send in puzzles for The Art of Puzzles (mostly to aim for that book prize of having an accepted puzzle 😛 but also to challenge myself against top puzzle constructors of the world).
…okay one more question then. What puzzle book are you planning to release after The Art of Puzzles?
This is really the first/second time I’ve heard about this hidden contest on this blog. Did you e-mail something about it to people, or did I miss a post somewhere?
If I understand it, there is a +1 puzzle that we need to solve to get a chance at winning a book, correct?
The tricky thing with hidden contests I’m learning is knowing when or how to announce they exist, particularly if solvers aren’t looking out for them.
It’s only been mentioned in the last few Doctor’s Notes, and the first three people to submit a valid entry will get a signed book. The first set of 60 puzzles contains the hidden task somewhere inside it.
In the case of hidden contests, it might be better to follow the example of GAMES magazine and announce they will be there, but not where they are exactly. At least people will try to search for it that way.
As for future columns, it might be interesting to hear where the various fans of this site stand on other, non-logic puzzles like crosswords. I know they tend to require different skill sets to do well, but I’d be interested to see how much overlap there is between the audiences of the types.
Fair enough. Last week I explicitly announced it. Now I’m in nudging mode.
I love word puzzles but am worried I’ll lose half of my audience or more if I started to do them very frequently. That said, my current book project is finishing a set of Tile Crosswords with Mike Selinker. So maybe some will show up eventually.
I think I’ve found which post it is, but I’m not sure how to interpret the clue… but maybe it’s just a red herring.
Question though: (Which perhaps you cannot answer, but I’ll ask anyways) Will there be a place to enter the solution for the “+1” puzzle?
When you have a solution for the “+1” puzzle, you’ll know where to submit it.
I’m not sure there’s anything I can say about that hidden contest without giving something away, so I’ll just say I’m very relieved to finally have found it so I can get back to spending time with my family. Oh, and that I hope I found it soon enough. 🙂
As of this morning there are now three successful entrants, but I may still offer extra prizes to any creative entries that come before this weekend.
I have scanned the whole site .I am not getting a clue about where the hidden puzzle might be?!
I guessed it might be the Bonus TAPA or the very first GM Puzzle sudoku but you have said in a post that it is not both.
Come on motris, atleast for scanning the whole site give me an outside clue.Is it something related to the YRBGW?Or the championship sudoku trophy puzzle you referred to in a doctor’s note? or it is hidden somewhere in the info page of puzzles?or is it in no way related to whatever i have been gabbing so far in my post?
Give me a clue motris.:)
Anything you need to find is strictly on 60 puzzles I mentioned: the “Dr. Sudoku Prescribes #XX” posts. It is not your usual kind of puzzle, and there are no instructions, which makes it hard to find if you aren’t very observant.
Is it in one specific post or is it in multiple posts?
I think the only possible answer to that is: “Yes”. (Sorry. 🙂 )
Is the contest over? Can you provide more hints?
I was planning to announce the winners tomorrow as I’ve now had several correct submissions.
I was therefore not intending any more hints, but if you want to try to continue your search today I can say that not only is the secret in the 60 puzzles I posted, but the +1 puzzle wasn’t complete until all of those posts were online. Search broadly.
I looked and looked and looked and finally, not having fun anymore gave up. Then I went to my own blog to post a quick puzzle I wrote today, had a flash of inspiration, and found the answer immediately. Hopefully I got in before the buzzer!
And now I see I *didn’t* beat the buzzer…but maybe Thomas will feel sorry for me for not noticing his other comment. 🙂