Proposal: Add 15 Puzzle as an official event

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Should 15 puzzle be added as an event?


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Deleted member 19792

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Hello there.

The 15 puzzle, over the last year, has gained some popularity, whether it is physical or virtual. And in the meantime, we ask "what event comes next?"

The 15 puzzle would be a great idea of a new event to add. Problem is, we don't really know WHAT it fits?

According to Lucas Garron, the criteria for adding a new event to the WCA would be:

Lucas Garron said:
Community Interest
Practicality
Consistent with the spirit and mission of the WCA, as well as Regulation 9a (though any of these could change).
Interesting to solve and watch (from Sarah)

I am going to go through this criteria and put out some of my points on why this should be considered as an event.

Community Interest

Since around September 2013, the 15 puzzle community, via Ben's SlidySim program and physical puzzles, have grown dramatically since they first started to resurface on the forum, then started to spread to those outside of the forum. I still find myself speaking to newsliders on tips and tricks on how to improve.

Practicality

Running 15 puzzle can be pretty simple as a matter of fact:

SCRAMBLING:

When scrambling, a set "state" should be set out on the program to be "solved", considering the cube to be scrambled.

PENALTIES:

Some puzzles are always different than others, and they tend to have their own flaws. One major flaw, is misalignment upon completing the attempt. Upon doing a simple 3-cycle then dropping the puzzle on the mat 50 times, there were at least 30 misaligned states of what was past the "halfway" mark, on most pieces from the bottom or right layer. Penalties should only be DNF if the solved state was two individual moves from the intended finish. So for example, a DNF would be as follows:

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 15 11
13 14 0 12

While a solved state would be:

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
0 13 14 15

The difference from an individual move from a group move would be:

Individual R U L D
Group, 2R 2U 2L 2D


Consistency

The 15 puzzle is obviously consistent with the theme, spirit, goal, and mission of the WCA.

--It is stated that the mission does govern all puzzles labeled "twisty", but the Rubik's Clock doesn't fit that criteria. [With the exception of it being labeled as a Rubik's Puzzle.]

Fun to watch

Considering the count on some of Ben's videos, they look really fun to watch and it is pretty cool to see most of the solutions.

Brand of puzzles

There are two types of 15 puzzles, plastic, and metal, and both are really good after some wear in time.

Noting that when Skewb became an event, most people used a LanLan brand skewb, mainly because a good Skewb was not out yet. Would we be able to wait for a good 15 puzzle to come out after it has been added as an event?

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Thanks, please leave comments on how this should be conducted and whether this should be added as an event or not.


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User quotes: {Will update periodically}

Brandon Mikel/Mikel said:
The 15 puzzle might be a good idea to add, since it can attract most competitors that don't really know how to solve the Rubik's Cube

I do agree with this, however, it takes away the "meaning" of the WCA. Most competitors only come for 3x3 as their main event, and, although 15 puzzle is something I would like to see added, I would not like to see it kill 3x3 as the main event for every new competitor. [Unless they do not really know 15 puzzle is in there yet.]

Feliks Zemdegs/fazrulz said:
No, no please. No. Not 15 puzzle
 
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I think it needs more thought, and I think people do prefer the sim as Mattia mentioned, but I ultimately would like to see this be an official puzzle.
 
I don't agree with it being added. Because the WCA is about Rubik's Cubes. I really don't want Clock to be an official event either.

However, it would be cool if this were to get added. Maybe add the 8 puzzle to.

A problem with this is that an 8 puzzle needs a computer to run, and if they use a physical puzzle it's harder, but it will work.

Overall, I don't think, and hope it won't get added, but if it does, half of me is happy, no need to cry ;)
 
--It is stated that the mission does govern all puzzles labeled "twisty", but the Rubik's Clock doesn't fit that criteria. [With the exception of it being labeled as a Rubik's Puzzle.
The Rubik's clock twists (you can twist the dial things. Forgot what they're called) And it's a puzzle. So it's a twisty puzzle.
 
Ok I think any slidy puzzles should NOT be a WCA event because:

Consistency
slidy puzzle is obviously inconsistent with regulation 9a:
9a) The WCA governs competitions for:
9a1) Puzzles known as Rubik's puzzles.
9a2) Other puzzles that are manipulated by twisting the sides, commonly known as "twisty puzzles".
Slidy puzzle is definitely not a Rubik's puzzle and not a twisty puzzle either. Rubik's clock is a Rubik's puzzle and all other official puzzles are definitely twisty puzzles.
It just doesn't belong under WCA.
 
Ok I think any slidy puzzles should NOT be a WCA event because:

Consistency
slidy puzzle is obviously inconsistent with regulation 9a:

Slidy puzzle is definitely not a Rubik's puzzle and not a twisty puzzle either. Rubik's clock is a Rubik's puzzle and all other official puzzles are definitely twisty puzzles.
It just doesn't belong under WCA.

Agreed, not WCA puzzle for me either.
 
I honestly don't want it in as an official event. Like tseitsei said it's inconsistent with regulation 9a. Not only that but it is still something that not a lot of people know about yet, and not many have solved it if people even have it.
 
I tried a few solves and it does feel very much like cubing because of the speedsolving aspect, however I have to agree with the twisty requirement. also, like Rubik's clock, its hard to watch compared to twisty puzzles.
 
I think it would really boring to watch. If you're sitting opposite to the competitor, you can't even see anything. But even you could watch the competitors fingers moving the tiles around fast, I would still find it quite boring anyway...

I can't see many people getting excited over someone solving these puzzles in real life.
 
I have nothing constructive to add, I just want to state that I would love to see this as an official event. I would also like to point out that 15 puzzle was being hosted at Danish Special 2013. (I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was more than half of the competitors)

I can see why people don't want it to become official as it is a slidy puzzle instead of a twisty puzzle.
 
Community Interest

Since around September 2013, the 15 puzzle community, via Ben's SlidySim program and physical puzzles, have grown dramatically since they first started to resurface on the forum, then started to spread to those outside of the forum. I still find myself speaking to newsliders on tips and tricks on how to improve.

Not quite sure what the popularity assumption is based on, since the poll results certainly contradict this. Even if there is interest, based on your assumption, it will be for the 15 puzzle sim. You have no evidence to say that there is interest in having a physical 15 puzzle in competition.

Brand of puzzles

There are two types of 15 puzzles, plastic, and metal, and both are really good after some wear in time.

Noting that when Skewb became an event, most people used a LanLan brand skewb, mainly because a good Skewb was not out yet. Would we be able to wait for a good 15 puzzle to come out after it has been added as an event?

This isn't an argument for adding 15 puzzle, this assumes that we are going to add 15 puzzle and proposes what we do in terms of hardware after it is made official. Hardware isn't an issue for any puzzle - if the demand for a good puzzle is there, designers will make it.

You also haven't explained how +2s might work, or if we bother to have them at all. I am also assuming you want a physical 15 puzzle as an event and not a sim, but to be honest I feel like most of the OP is vaguely worded in that respect and that you might try and flip flop between both ideas.
 
Presumably +2 if more than half the piece is in the wrong slot.
I don't see how this puzzle fits in with the WCA at all.
Clock is also a borderline one, and is really only there because it is already there and is Rubik's.
15 puzzle is another few steps further away.

I'm happy just to watch slidysim videos. They're much more interested than solving irl imo :)
If people want to compete, you could set up some sort of online competition, using the same scrambles, live streaming etc. I would enjoy watching that (or even taking part)
 
This should be obvious, a move on 15 puzzle is quite easily definable.

The quote was
You also haven't explained how +2s might work, or if we bother to have them at all
because of cases like these:


At the end, two pieces are misaligned but can be fixed in one 'slide' and since he did not give a definition of a move in his Penalties section, it is slightly ambiguous as to whether this is a +2 or a DNF
 
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Do you all mean 15x15 or something?

No, he's referring to the sliding puzzle, the 15 puzzle. It was the rage like a decade ago I guess. I have this old plastic one at home. Overall, there's nothing wrong in adding it as an event, but really, I don't think it suits the WCA. Special emphasis on 'Twisty'.
 
Not for me because of 9a as others have said.
If you go down that road, there are lots of other puzzles which aren't twisty that might be fun to speedsolve; they just don't seem to have much to do with the WCA imo
 
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