~2008 Preliminary Statistics~
3342 New Threads (As of December 16th) [32% increase from 2007]
49586 New Posts (As of December 16th) [16% increase from 2007]
40 Nominated Builders
105 Nominated Modifications

Hello, and welcome to the beginning of the 2008 edition and second annual Puzzle of the Year competition highlighting new and noteworthy custom puzzles released by members of this great forum. First off, please remember this list is not final. The competition will be open to entries up until the last day of the year. Also, this is a compilation I constructed over the course of 3 days that involved a single person sifting through hundreds of threads. It is entirely possible I have missed something that should be included or possibly included something that shouldn't be for whatever reason. Please do not hesitate to bring these things to my attention.

Also, as you will notice, there are a handful of entries after the list of nominees that are in a section titled "Questionable". These are the entries that I was not entirely sure if they are valid for whatever reason. My thoughts as to why they are in this section are included with each possible nominee.

Another issue that has come up within the last year has to do with the surge of STL files. The question remains as to who should be credited for the puzzle; the builder or the designer. The method I used in the creation of this thread credits both the builder and designer, however, the puzzles in question will be listed under the builders name, with specific mention of the designer of the STL files in each case. The puzzles are also noted under the designer’s name; however these are listed under a subsection dubbed “Design Accreditation”, which acknowledges their involvement in the puzzles creation. Of course, this is not set in stone, so please, discuss the method you feel will work best for this situation.

The last thing that needs to be discussed is how the voting process is going to narrow down the initial 100+ entries down to 10 finalists and eventually 1 puzzle. Given the numerous amount of puzzles worthy of at least making it to the final 10, it seems a little unfair to narrow down the first round straight to 10. An option that has come to mind is to break up the entries into groups; for example clumping up the months into three 4 month (trimesters) clusters or four 3 month (quarters) clusters. However grouping them in this manner leaves unbalanced groups with ranges of 19 and 15 for trimesters and quarters respectively. However, clustering them in an irregular manner (January-May / June-September / October-December) leaves a range of only 4 between the groups. From here, separate threads can be constructed to run preliminary rounds of voting to narrow down each of the three groups down to 10 puzzles per group.

If the previously mentioned process is used, the semi-finals can be run one of two ways. One option is to narrow down the three groups of 10 down to 3 finalists per group, and then hosting the finals with the nine remaining entries. The other way to run semi-finals would be to combine the 3 groups of 10 into a single group of 30, then once again narrow it down to 10 finalists. I believe the second choice would be better, as it would allow more than 3 puzzles per month based group to be eligible for finals in case that there are more entries worthy of being in the final 10 in a single group. This is just one possible method that can be used for voting, and I’m open to hear opinions and suggestions on this matter.

Summing up, there are several things that I would like feedback from the community on to make this annual event a smooth running and memorable one that everyone can enjoy.

There is one final thing I would like to add, and I just want to say that I am aware of how dull and pictureless this thread is. Have no fear, come voting time, there will be plenty.

Questionable:
I was unable to make a decision on the following modifications and would like input from the community for their fate in this competition.

Offsite Honorable Mentions:

-Alexander Solonenko's 2x2 Ball in Cage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpqz3zZAv7c

-Olivier Polspoel's Unnamed Square-1/2x2 mod
http://www.tiex.de/cubecorner/images/dc ... 132037.jpg

-Alexandre's 2 Layer Square-1
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11460

Newly Mass Produced Puzzles of 2008:
- 4 Layer Square-1
- Hidetoshi's "Rubik's Mirror Blocks"
- Okamoto's Void Cube
- Face Turning Octahedron
- V-Cubes 5-7
- Meffert's Pyraminx Crystal (Based off of Aleh's designs)
- Ball-B
- Hungarian Supernova (Rerelease)
- Magic E-cube

:shock:
WOW! I can't believe there were so many new puzzles made! Unreal!
Great list, and great work compiling all that info.

One small change- Adam Cowan also designed the twist cubie, listed under my builds.

No mention of the recent Shade Cube by Hidetoshi? It's a sticker mod, but with very different stickers.

Noah,

Much appreciated. I know I have mentioned that we should have a Puzzle of the Month/Year thread - I'm glad you actually got to it! Great Job! I know it must've taken a long time to put together, especially with all that info.


THANK YOU!

Please add my Kilominx, completed July 23 2008, smack in the middle of 2008.

As exciting as this thread is - it makes me realize my collection will NEVER be complete.... lol

I think the only collection that ever really has a chance of being complete is the twistypuzzles database.

...If it gets going again

Quote:
Daddrivesmecrazy
- Skewb Gem (May 3rd)
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9692
- Square-3 (May 12th)
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9761

Aww man, snubbed again...