I liked all of the Maze solving puzzles. this was a good year for the best maze solving skills to be put to the test. at the end, I disliked 14, 15, and 17 for the simple fact that I am not well versed in solving those types of challenges and it is hard to visualize in my head properly. Did they push me? yes, but enjoyment was less than I had with the other puzzles.
I also enjoyed some of the corrupted memory solving puzzles like day 3 because I got to optimize with either .index( ) or straight regex. I really enjoyed it. however, that pales to the pattern recognition puzzle that day 19 had. Day 19 was extremely fun. many people had to hand roll some kind of pattern solver. I eventually found a solution using Aho-Corasick Algorithm which brought my solution for part 1 and 2 to just about ~55 ms. it was extremely fast as I already had a solver that only took ~120 ms. (in python3) however, now that I looked in the solutions thread, it seems I was not the only one to think of trie ~~and my solution was still slower than their solution, sad me. lol~~ nvm I found I was rebuilding the trie everytime, only need to build it once, dropped to solve ot ~7 ms
I am still solving some of the later puzzles due to holidays but I had fun so far, even though some days I was not well equipped to solve efficiently or at all.