New Hardest Level?

[DiMono]

I made a 25x25 level called Guaranteed Unique a couple nights ago. I attempted it today, and it took me over 2 hours to solve including a mistake that cost me about 20 minutes backtracking. Anyone care to go through it and let me know if it's actually as hard as I think it is, or if I was just really mentally tired when I attempted it? One other person has completed it, but the time is unrealistically fast for someone solving a complex 25x25 for the first time, so I don't think it's legitimate.

[jgallant]

Been at this one for 20 minutes now. This one is legitimately possibly the hardest puzzle. I added it to the dev curated list.

[L0rd Juli0]

I've just did it in 59:13

[Shilag]

I've been at this on and off for over an hour, and I really need some help. I've checked every line and column a dozen times, but I can't see what I can possibly do at this point.

http://i.imgur.com/A5Gwm6z.png

[DiMono]

Originally posted by jgallant:

Been at this one for 20 minutes now. This one is legitimately possibly the hardest puzzle. I added it to the dev curated list.

Cool, thanks! It took five minutes for the engine to solve it, so I suspected it might be a difficult one.

Shilag, on the one hand I want to help you find the next move. On the other hand, I've been down that rabbit hole before, and it is a frightening place. I think the next step is to figure out what will happen if specific squares are part of a 2, and use that to identify a couple that must be solo in order to get some more X's on the board.

Or it could be that you made a mistake, like I did, and have to scrap everything in the middle. I had to do that twice when I solved it. It was not amazing.

[DiMono]

I just took a second run at it, and finished in 55:34. Which is a marked improvement over my original time of 124 minutes. I must have been far more tired than I thought the first time.

[zephyr_goldwing]

Well, this wasn't the thread I was looking for, but on the flip side, I now know who to blame for Unique xD I'll beat it eventually, I swear!

Since it's the puzzle giving me the most grief without it, any chance we can get an additional 'possible' marker for the board - a bit like minesweeper, where you can clear a square, flag it as a mine, or flag it as '?' to check later when there's more info.

[jgallant]

What is the difference between that and a blank tile?

[zephyr_goldwing]

Originally posted by jgallant:

What is the difference between that and a blank tile?

Unlike a blank tile, it tells me that I've looked at the numbers in that row/column and need to look elsewhere to knock something loose, or if said something elsewhere impacts on one of those tiles, I know I can go back and re-check (you end up flip/flopping between that and blank depending on your approach).

Maybe it's a symptom of my approach to solving these puzzles being not as logical as it should be, but certainly on complicated puzzles like Unique, I struggle to keep things straight in my head when I have to mark things as 'is' or 'isn't' and then need to backtrack because I've misread the column/row numbers or miscounted completed/missing numbers. Maybe I'm being too stubborn in refusing to 'intuit' rather than 'logic' where things go. *shrugs*

If it really seems like functionality that's more trouble than it's worth to implement, that's fine. I'll just have to try and find a mental set-square to un-skew my logic xD

[DaBlanka]

Originally posted by jgallant:

Been at this one for 20 minutes now. This one is legitimately possibly the hardest puzzle. I added it to the dev curated list.

Are there any other random scribble puzzles on the dev curated list? That is exactly the kind of puzzle I'm trying to avoid. Maybe make a section for cool pictures, and another section for random blobs. It was a really hard puzzle though, longest one I've tried out of about 1000.

[jgallant]

Noted. I mainly added that puzzle because of its difficulty. I don't plan on adding any more.

[DiMono]

Originally posted by DaBlanka:

Originally posted by jgallant:

Been at this one for 20 minutes now. This one is legitimately possibly the hardest puzzle. I added it to the dev curated list.

Are there any other random scribble puzzles on the dev curated list? That is exactly the kind of puzzle I'm trying to avoid. Maybe make a section for cool pictures, and another section for random blobs. It was a really hard puzzle though, longest one I've tried out of about 1000.

It's a fingerprint. That's why the title is "Guaranteed Unique" ;)

Also, if you want difficult puzzles, check out my favourites list. I only favourite levels that I found difficult AND that took me a long time to finish for the first time considering their size.

[DaBlanka]

I thought it was just another random spiral puzzle, the title makes sense now. I'll check out your favorites.