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Free online puzzles, integrated solver

 
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gaby

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 120
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:58 pm    Post subject: Free online puzzles, integrated solver Reply with quote

Hi,

I've created the first version of my online solver/database. It features:

- 6 grades of puzzle from easy to extreme
- Nearly 90000 puzzles in the database, more being added every day
- Printable versions of all puzzles
- A daily suokdu
- Random sudoku selection
- JavaScript solving tool (in basic form at the moment)
- Information about all the various solving techniques mentioned in this forum
- Updates, additions and new features added daily!

Please have a look at:

http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/

There is a feedback form on the site, or you can reply on the forum. I'd really appreciate any feedback or comments. I also have a links section that I'd like to populate with as much Sudoku related information as possible. If you have any good links for me to add, please let me know.

Gaby
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Free daily sudoku - Online puzzle database
http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/
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Ruud
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 708
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Location: Netherlands

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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You probably need to recalibrate your rating system.

I completed todays "fiendish" rated 2.2.0.1 with only very basic techniques.
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gaby

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 120
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How long did it take you to do? What rating would you have given it? I'm fairly certain that I need to tweak the ratings distribution. The individual difficulty ratings are provided by my solver, which tries to rank them in as human-like a manner as possible. I think my ratings need to be shuffled down a bit? The ratings are distributed here:

http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/stats.browse.php

I think I need to tweak the solver a bit, see how it produces the ratings.

Thanks for the feedback Ruud Smile Apart from that, what did you think of the site? The design is only temporary, I have two friends of mine working on more pleasing layouts...
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Free daily sudoku - Online puzzle database
http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There have been a few interesting discussions on this forum concerning ratings.

My own rough classification would be:

Easy - singles only
Medium - easy + row/column/box interactions
Hard - medium + subsets and/or x-wing
Very hard - hard + swordfish, xy-wing and/or coloring and/or uniqueness test
Extreme - any form of forced chains, supercoloring or guesswork needed

The fiendish I tried yesterday should have been medium, according to these classifications. However, I tried another fiendish, that could only be solved with some well-aimed guesses, so that one should have been extreme.

Comments on the website:

Strange to have the givens in blue, and your own entries in black. When I solve a sudoku in the paper, the colors are just the other way around.

Would be nice to show candidates for the more difficult puzzles.
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gaby

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 120
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The colour styling issue has been raised before. I chose those colours because the mimic the Sudoku program at Sudoku.com. In the long term, you'll be able to pick your own colours for the solver.

I'm trying to work out an HTML-based way to show candidates in the same grid as the numbers, whilst still letting them be filled in with big numbers. The classifications of the solving techniques are found at:

http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/ratings.php

Perhaps it's the way the solver rates the puzzles that causes the ratings to be a bit skew. I know that it doesn't bother with X-wing, because it's covered by Swordfish N=2, likewise matched pairs because they're number chains where N=2. These need to be separated into separate analysis methods I think, and it might end up pushing all the puzzles down a rating or two...
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Free daily sudoku - Online puzzle database
http://vanhegan.net/sudoku/
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you can configure your solver by turning individual techniques on and off, you can test puzzles with different configurations. You can then determine how many different ways there are to solve a puzzle.

In your case, you can make 5 predefined configurations, enabling the techniques from easy to extreme. The lowest setting that can solve a puzzle gives you the rating.

My solver also has a single routine to deal with x-wing, swordfish and the likes, but once it has found one, it knows the value of N, which can be used in ratings. Same with naked/hidden subsets. Also, it is possible to set a limit to these functions. That limit can be part of the configuration.
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