Is the Numbrix(tm) Well Running Dry?

[Cymon]

I noticed the new interface and noticed the leaderboards. Well that's a bad idea right there. I don't need to know that someone memorized the puzzle and typed it in in 30 seconds. I finished in a minute thirty four and that's the score I'm sticking with.

That and it seems to be painfully slower.

Seriously, she should be generating  new paths every time, not just polishing the view of the old ones. Maybe she's got something big planned for mid-october.

[mikebeeler]

UPDATE, 9/13/2009 -- Still no new paths.  The unpublished stock is now
4 Vanilla, 12 Strawberry, 1 Caramel, and 5 Pistachio puzzles.

[Cymon]

Thanks for keeping us updated. What truly makes me sad is I feel like sh'es being held accountable for the quality of these puzzles, she's not taking any action. Most people on the marilynvossavant.com forums don't like the Numbrix puzzles, and Marilyn is maintaining her usual silence.

I think I'm with you. I don't want her to extend the life of the existing paths any more. I'd like to see new paths!

[mikebeeler]

UPDATE, 9/28/2009 -- Still no new paths.  The unpublished stock is now
zero Vanilla, 9 Strawberry, 1 Caramel, and 3 Pistachio.

[Cymon]

UPDATE, 9/28/2009 -- Still no new paths.  The unpublished stock is now
zero Vanilla, 9 Strawberry, 1 Caramel, and 3 Pistachio.

Ooh, 2 weeks left!

[mikebeeler]

FINAL UPDATE, 10/11/2009 -- No new paths; the same 100 keep being reused.  424 9x9 Numbrix puzzles have been published to date.

The unpublished stock of patterns applied to the 100 paths is:
Vanilla (V): zero remain.  The most recent new V (100th) appeared 9/26/2009.
Strawberry (S): 9 remain, though one of these appears as the example shown by the How To Play button.  The most recent new S (91st) appeared 9/24/2009.
Caramel (C): 1 remains.  The most recent new C (99th) appeared 8/2/2009.
Pistachio (P): 1 remains, and will have 2 solutions if published as the most common ("P1") pattern.  The most recent new P (99th) appeared 10/4/2009.

In recent weeks, the trend changed, away from using mostly unpublished patterns applied to the 100 paths, and toward many repeats (although with new rotations) and Blueberry patterns.  Seeing publication of all 4 patterns applied to all 100 paths seems an increasingly elusive goal.  Accordingly, this will probably be my last update to this thread.

The online Numbrix puzzles have also changed to a new format, and several times shown bugs that prevent the puzzle from displaying in many users' browsers.  These are irrelevant to the mathematics of Numbrix, but surely alienate users.

New Blueberry patterns, B2 and B3, appeared 10/5/2009 and 10/6/2009.  A new Pistachio pattern, P8, appeared 10/7/2009.  It seems the Numbrix team is expanding their palette of patterns of given cells.

All published Numbrix have horizontal and vertical reflection symmetry and 90 degree rotational symmetry.  Assuming this is a requirement, it is not hard to calculate the number of patterns possible for various numbers of given cell values.

There are 1794 Numbrix patterns with 32 given cells (Vanilla).
There are 1344 Numbrix patterns with 28 given cells (Strawberry).
There are  888 Numbrix patterns with 24 given cells (Caramel).
There are  512 Numbrix patterns with 20 given cells (Pistachio).
There are  253 Numbrix patterns with 16 given cells (Blueberry).

When applied to a specific path, many of these patterns probably result in a puzzle with more than one solution, thus not a real Numbrix puzzle.  But the size of these counts shows that there are many patterns the Numbrix team can try.

To answer my own question, yes, the Numbrix well is running dry.  It can live a long time repeating old puzzles with new rotations and/or Blueberry patterns, but those variations aren't very interesting.  Joe's generator is definitely the way for Numbrix fans to go.