Since you were kind enough to share your opinion, I'll do the same. I have a few points to make in response; normally I wouldn't expound like this on a puzzle comment - there's enough expounding in my anecdotal entries - but despite this being my journal, I still feel (perhaps because I figure I have a lot of puzzle-only viewers) that my justifying myself on this is not unwarranted.
- I certainly agree that quality is superior to quantity, but when the quality is high, bring on the quantity! (Yes, you should have seen that one coming if you've been paying attention.) It is true that I will often make tough small puzzles and easy large ones, but this coming puzzle will be large and tough.
- The puzzles I've been posting here in my journal are for the most part what I'd refer to as tiny. Take Polyominous, for instance: I've posted two 9×9 [counting my sample at Wikipedia] and one 12×12, and my contest was for construction of a 6×6. I have several books of these puzzles imported from Japan, and the average grid size in one of these books is larger than 17×17, which is more than three-and-a-half times the area of a 9×9 grid. So by saying I'm making a big puzzle in comparison to what I've been presenting, from my perspective I'm really only making a puzzle of average size, if that. In fact, it makes me want to go even larger. Caveat: the type of puzzle really is a major influence on how the size is related to the difficulty. Something like Islands in the Stream or Polyominous isn't affected that much by growth; Magnetic Field would get tougher faster as the grid grows; Quadrum Quandary is a bitch enough at 9×9 and gets geometrically worse as it grows. The size of the grid will depend on the puzzle I build. If QQ wins - perish the thought - 16×16 will be far more than enough, thank you. Islands would likely be closer to 30×30.
Re: but I like small puzzles...
Since you were kind enough to share your opinion, I'll do the same. I have a few points to make in response; normally I wouldn't expound like this on a puzzle comment - there's enough expounding in my anecdotal entries - but despite this being my journal, I still feel (perhaps because I figure I have a lot of puzzle-only viewers) that my justifying myself on this is not unwarranted.
- I certainly agree that quality is superior to quantity, but when the quality is high, bring on the quantity! (Yes, you should have seen that one coming if you've been paying attention.) It is true that I will often make tough small puzzles and easy large ones, but this coming puzzle will be large and tough.
- The puzzles I've been posting here in my journal are for the most part what I'd refer to as tiny. Take Polyominous, for instance: I've posted two 9×9 [counting my sample at Wikipedia] and one 12×12, and my contest was for construction of a 6×6. I have several books of these puzzles imported from Japan, and the average grid size in one of these books is larger than 17×17, which is more than three-and-a-half times the area of a 9×9 grid. So by saying I'm making a big puzzle in comparison to what I've been presenting, from my perspective I'm really only making a puzzle of average size, if that. In fact, it makes me want to go even larger. Caveat: the type of puzzle really is a major influence on how the size is related to the difficulty. Something like Islands in the Stream or Polyominous isn't affected that much by growth; Magnetic Field would get tougher faster as the grid grows; Quadrum Quandary is a bitch enough at 9×9 and gets geometrically worse as it grows. The size of the grid will depend on the puzzle I build. If QQ wins - perish the thought - 16×16 will be far more than enough, thank you. Islands would likely be closer to 30×30.