Oh Oh - I'm in trouble

Monday, December 1, 2003

“Five Kids”, a large PAP (Pic-a-Pix) B&W published on November 2, turned out to be the most challenging puzzle ever published in the Review a Puzzle and Win a T-shirt section. As a result this puzzle was made available for another week and got a total of 56 reviews.

After two weeks of interesting forum discussions Adrienne Isnard from Townsville, Australia, won the Conceptis T-shirt for her Five Kids puzzle review.

This 85x50 centerfold puzzle was so difficult and challenging that many puzzlers either had the time of their lives (40% saying it was Fantastic), or didn’t enjoy it at all (23% saying it was No Fun) mostly because they couldn’t solve the puzzle to the end. Grappling with this tough puzzle even inspired SthnPride to write a few lines of poetry. SthnPride, a community member from New Zealand, started this puzzle’s discussion thread in the Puzzle Support forum on November 4, 2003, earning the title of this PUZZLETIMES item:

Oh Oh - I'm in trouble

• I can't start this weeks Review Puzzle
• Have pondered and thought
• Just where to begin
• But can't get it right
• It's a tough little thing
• Hints and advice would go a long way
• Of I might pull hair... Go bald in one day
• I just need a tip on where I should start
• Or those men in white coats - away with me they'll cart!”

Five happy children

According to Dave Green's weekly review summary, the average puzzle difficulty was rated as Challenging to Too Difficult; with 45% claiming it was Challenging and 52% describing it as Too Difficult to solve. Only a few solvers, 3%, found this week’s puzzle to be Moderate.

Adrienne Isnard from Townsville Australia, who also won this puzzle T-shirt, said it was "A dastardly devilish puzzle” which has simply defeated here… for now”. After 3 hours, K Johnson from CO USA had only 239 of 4250 pixels designated fill or no fill. Ria Peperkamp from 's-Hertogenbosch Nederland “counted and counted again” and even tried several things for good luck but only got “a few spots here and there”.

The average results for the picture quality were excellent, with 79% of the solvers voting that the picture was Excellent or Good, and 15% finding it Moderate and 6% saying that the picture quality was Poor.

Carolina Martin from Puerto de Santiago Spain also recognized "Five happy children”. Anat Karlin from Haifa Israel saw a “great picture of 5 kids”. Tamas Kasznar, from Mosonszentmiklos Hungary, who could see five happy dancing men and even suspected they might be drunk, said "Huh! It was quite challenging, but it's a good picture”.

Regarding the fun, this week 60% of the solvers said that the puzzle was Fantastic or Great Fun, 17% said that the puzzle was Medium Fun and 23% commented that the puzzle was No Fun at all.

Angela Verbruggen, from Boxtel, Netherlands described it as a “fantastic puzzle” and asked for “more of these please!!!" Mary Crenshaw from CA, USA said it has been her “favorite puzzle to date!” and added “I would love to do more puzzles like this one - you really feel like you have accomplished something when you are done, and the picture is really cute."

Related resources

• Conceptis Pic-a-Pix