Ok that heading’s probably meh. Anyway, I have finally (and I mean finally!) reached back home. I thought I’ll take some rest and then start the bunch of write-ups but I’m feeling wide awake and there’s no reason to delay. I should say that a lot of these write-ups will be based, whether deliberately or not, on comparisons with last year since that is the only year I have participated in these events before this.
For Team India’s practice, I made some puzzles. Now a lot of these were from the newer types, and I needed practice myself in creating them. One of these was Rural Tourism. The ruleset here was so long that I ended up missing a sentence in creating the first puzzle. So the first puzzle doesn’t need to have houses adjacent to wells at all. In the second puzzle I missed that the adjacency rule has to be within the same farm. So this one has a house adjacent to each cell but not necessarily in the same farm. I finally got everything working right in the 3rd one.
This, and the title, are just a vague linking to one of the problems I had at the WSC WPCs. Upon arrival, it was apparent that there was a real limit on places that had water. It was then apparent that, during the breaks between rounds, was the only time water was freely available. During meals, there were some meals where there were juices, but otherwise, all drinks had to be paid for.
Now lets continue this vague write-up(how typical of me) on to some other little things, before I get to the main competition stuff. So anyway, the trip there was long and painful just like last year’s trip to Eger, but thats obviously just my own flaw of not being able to sleep on planes. One thing that was irritating was a 1 hour stop in Budapest where we just sat in the plane as it emptied and all of 1-2 persons got in to go to Zagreb. So when we arrive, with me at least feeling tired already, we then have a 3+ hour bus ride to Kraljevica from Zagreb, and then almost immediately after we get shown the rooms(which, compared to Eger at least, were pretty far away from the competition or restaurant or anything), there was an opening ceremony, dinner and a doubts session that went on till 11 or so. I remembered Tiit Vunk from Estonia telling me that his team was stuck in Trieste(I think this was a problem for many people) and missed the doubts session. He was pretty upset about this, as he should be. I hate how these things are on such a tight schedule.
After this exhausting opening, and many people arriving late, there was the WSC the very next day scheduled to start in the morning and go on till the late evening. There’s a whole rushed feeling to the tournament which I didn’t feel as much last year. This is all for now. I should say though, that there were many things I enjoyed on this trip too. All shall come in due time, with a write-up on the WSC tomorrow. For now, here are the above mentioned Rural Tourism puzzles. Please do pay attention to the rule changes.
Rules, as taken from WPC IB(with the necessary part omitted to make the first puzzle work) – There are 10 farms (areas with thick borders) in the grid. Locate 2 houses, 1 well and 1 farmer(some symbols are already given) on each farm so that there are also 2 houses, 1 well and 1 farmer in each column. Two houses from different farms cannot touch, not even diagonally. The same goes for two wells and for two farmers. Two houses on the same farm can be adjacent. Numbers on the right indicate the number of houses in the corresponding row while numbers on the left indicate the combined number of wells and farmers in the corresponding row.
Notations – Again as taken from the IB, the grey circle is a well and the other figure is a farmer.
RT 1
Added rule for the 2nd one – Each well must have a house adjacent to it. The house need not be on the same farm.
RT2
Added rule for 3rd one – Each well must have a house adjacent to it on the same farm.
RT3
PS's puzzles + 