Issue 16???

Hi Gareth

Off on hols at end of next week and running dangerously short of good puzzles. Any chance new issue will be appearing before I go?

I hope all is well. The gap between issues seems to be expanding a bit so hope its not becoming a burden to you. There is still nothing around which compares to Xtra (unless someone on here can point me to something equally good).

Hoping for new version soon.....

Sue

Dear Sue,

there exist different interesting puzzle magazines around the world. Breinbrekers from dutch tazuku is very good. You can solve almost all puzzles without understanding dutch.

Akil Oyunlari, a turkish puzzle magazine with english explanation via Internet.

Last, but not least, denksel from croco-puzzle in germany.

greetings,

Niels

Hi Sue

I think Gareth is issuing SudokuXtra bi-monthly now.

I needed puzzles to keep me going too so started to investigate the sites of the contributors to the community section [web addresses are on the pages of their puzzles]. So far I have had many hours of pleasure from the hundrdeds of puzzles on Grant Fikes site, especially the giant puzzles which I particularly enjoy. Grant has given all the puzzles different names so you need to work out which ones are which first. David Millar has some good puzzles too.

I also intend to order a book of giant puzzles from nikoli [their address is on grant's site] who created a lot of the japanese logic puzzles and have a huge variety of books for sale, but that wont be any good for your hols as I believe they take several weeks to arrive.

Hope that helps....nothing out there to beat SudokuXtra of course!!

Nikki

Hello Neils and Nikki

Thanks for the advice. I will have a look at your suggestions. Always good to find new sources. My holiday puzzling sounds sorted then if Issue 16 doesn't appear in time.

Cheers, Sue

Hello everyone!

Nikki is correct in that we plan to issue the magazine bi-monthly now, but Gareth's other works and some personal problems on my end have resulted in a bit more of a gap than we'd ideally like. Gareth and I are still working hard on issue 16 and hoping to have it out before too long.

All that's left from the community section is a bit of additional author info, some redrawing of puzzle artwork, and double (or triple) checking to ensure everything is solvable. I'm excited to mention that we're featuring new contributor Bastien Vial-Jaime (known in the puzzle community as Ours brun), along side past contributors including Tom Collyer, Debbie Rahav, Deb Mohanty, Grant Fikes, and others. I'm even throwing in several of my hybrid slitherlink/masyu/corral "Area 51" puzzles for issue 16 as well.

I apologize for my bit in keeping you all waiting, but hope that you'll really enjoy the community section. It shouldn't be too much longer now.

Dave

Hiya everyone,

As David says, issue 16 is almost ready and amongst other treats it's going to have an amazingly packed Community Puzzles section! Along with the names mentioned above, we have some lovely new shape puzzles from Vexus Puzzle Design that I really enjoyed solving, plus some Battleship puzzles from Clarity Media, and some great new puzzles from Anuraag which include Heytori (a mix of heyawake and hitori) and Restricted Masyu (masyu with extra-long segments!). Elliott has also sent two fun puzzles from his Enigma magazine, plus there's even more! And that's just the back of the magazine.

I've made a thermometers and a star battle puzzle for the main section, since both were requested previously here, and there's a giant Tapa for the cover.

Sudoku 16 will certainly be ready within the next two weeks because I am getting married in just over 2 weeks and I need to have it finished beforehand!


Gareth

Hi Gareth

Well no wonder Issue 16 is a bit delayed then! All the very best with forthcoming nuptuals and your future. Happy news.

I take it I missed the announcement that Xtra was going to be bi-monthly from now on then. I will have to pace myself a bit better in future and save some for the summer months when I have more time. I never seemed to keep up in the early "monthly" days and still have a few from early issues to keep me going for a bit!

All the very best then and look forward to 16 as and when,

Sue

I don't think I explicitly announced it would be bi-monthly - I just extended the "next issue will be available" dates inside the magazine a bit each issue. In fact I'm not directly aiming for bi-monthly but rather "not less than 1 month and not greater than 2 months" between issues - ideally I'd like to have each issue no more than a month and a half from the previous one in fact. I really love Sudoku Xtra magazine and it's been a great pleasure working with all of the community puzzles contributors too (and solving their puzzles!), so I have no intentions of giving up on it in the near future.

And thank you - I have a lot to finish beforehand, not least of all Sudoku Xtra 16, but at the very least I can be sure it will be available before then!

Oh I didn't miss anything then! That makes a change. 6 weekly is about perfect for my abilities I think so that sounds good to me.

Have a great day,

Sue

Just returned from a weeks holiday and must admit that for once I didn't look at a single puzzle - I just sat and read books in all my spare moments which was quite a novelty since having become addicted to puzzles a few years ago now, I have read so much less and puzzled so much more! Needless to say I'm raring to go again now and Issue 16 sounds brilliant.

May I add my congratulations to everyone elses Gareth - hope you and your future wife have a lovely wedding day and a long and happy future together. Very best wishes, Christine

Hello Gareth et al,

Hurray and thank you for new issue which looks excellent (and just in time for my relaxing holiday).

However, I seem unable to save my copy to my computer this time. Have you blocked this feature or is it just me being computerthick? I find it very useful to store each issue and reprint the odd page when I mess up (oh yes, this happens!) plus occasionally I check solutions on screen as I never bother to print them. Also, to save my creaky printer, I only print the ones I like or new interesting looking ones at first but like to go back to other puzzles later on, often after comments on the forum.

Presumably as if I can't save a copy anymore I will be able to download another version should I need to? Or maybe someone more ICT literate can tell me how to save the copy....

Thanks for new issue regardless. It is very welcome!

Sue

Hi,
Sounds like your web browser is trying to be clever - sometimes I find it very hard to work out how to save a PDF too! There's nothing different about this issue, however. Have you tried right-clicking (ALT-clicking on a Mac) on the download link and choosing "Save as" / "Save Target As..." or similar? This will work.

Hope this helps! If not I can email you the PDF directly - mail me your email address using the 'Contact' link on the main website.


Gareth



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2011 03:07PM by gareth.

Cheers, Gareth. Your idea worked.

Sorry to have bothered you. Computers are a mixed blessing at times. They seem to waste more time than they save some days!

Enjoy your wedding day

Sue

Lovely surprise to log on and find Issue 16 awaiting. Needless to say I have downloaded it immediately! It looks really excellent as usual - don't know where to begin, but lucky for me I still have three weeks of the school holidays left before I go back to work,so plenty of extra time to fathom out how to do some of the new puzzle types! I think between you and Dave you've managed to rope in a very large proportion of the international puzzling community now! I will more than likely be back at some point for a bit of assistance with some of them, but until then I'm away to get solving! Thanks once again for the hard work.

Glad you've downloaded it okay, Sue - honestly I sometimes struggle to save PDFs myself. Google Chrome is particularly bad for this - really it is very badly designed in this respect - but also the Adobe embedded PDF reader also often hides this function away too.

Good news that issue 16 is going down well so far!

Issue 16 looks fantastic!

Once everyone has made their way through the incredible number of puzzles on offer, can I take the opportunity to ask for feedback on Tiktaka? This is the first place where the puzzle has been published so I am really interested in how people found the instructions, if they enjoyed the puzzle and whether they have any alternative name suggestions.

Quote
VexusPD
Issue 16 looks fantastic!

Once everyone has made their way through the incredible number of puzzles on offer, can I take the opportunity to ask for feedback on Tiktaka? This is the first place where the puzzle has been published so I am really interested in how people found the instructions, if they enjoyed the puzzle and whether they have any alternative name suggestions.

Personally, I really enjoyed this puzzle. I found the instructions to be fine, but after the first of the three puzzles I originally thought the rule where each shape is only visited once limited the puzzle. It turns out that was wrong, and I think my only issue was that the first of the set was deceptively easy compared to the other two puzzles.

As far as the name is concerned, the idea of taking apart something and reusing the pieces makes me want to hear a "re" in the name; maybe something like "reconstruction", "re-fence", or something like that?

I look forward to seeing more of this type in this and other puzzle magazines.

For my part I think Tiktaka is fantastic - it's one of the most interesting new puzzles I've seen in a long time, and I really enjoyed them all. I think being able to consider shapes individually helps you tackle it in manageable chunks as you go, so it's not too intimidating. That said I'd love to see some harder ones too. (I didn't include Vexus's ratings in the magazine but these were all labelled 'easy'!)

Back to irritating "saving" problem...... Good guess, it is Google Chrome that I use just in case anyone else having same problem. Solved by saving into download file and then copy/pasting to my Puzzles folder. Annoying but it worked. Printer jamming now! I'm sure the puzzles will be worth all this aggravation. If nothing else they have taught me the value of perseverance!

Sue

If anyone else is having trouble saving the PDF from Google Chrome, you can do one of the following from the download page:

Right-click the download link, choose "Save as..." and then choose the folder you want to save to.

OR

Click the link, which opens it in the Google Chrome PDF viewer (unless it randomly stops working, which happens sometimes. If it takes forever to load close the window and try again!). Then when the PDF opens, right-click and choose "Save as..." and proceed as above.

To avoid hijacking this thread about Issue #16 I have started a new topic asking for feedback on Tiktaka.

Tiktaka feedback

Thanks.