A New Type Of Sudoku Fog!!

[@adamheywood113]

Simon: "It's really unnerving when you enter a digit, but you can't confirm because there's no more fog to clear" *Monkey's paw curls a finger*

[@coherentramblings7326]

This puzzle felt like a prank of some sort. The setter crams all the clues in the center of the grid and leaves everything else empty, knowing the solver is waiting to find some new clue to make things easier and will be tortured when it never happens.

[@thespanishinquisition4078]

Yeah, ngl, I don't know how Simon managed to feel good solving one. the start was fine but the circles ran out fast and past that point the only purpose of the fog seemed to be to give false hope. Personally I think the thick fog just shouldn't be used with knights move. The whole point of a fog that obtrusive would be to hide clues for as long as posible so making the puzzle mostly reliant on the one common rule with 0 clues for the fog to cover seems irritating at best. And besides tbh knights move always was a ruleset I didn't particularly care for unless it was combined with something to make it work, like the miracle sudoku. (which tbh only felt as good as it did due to novelty. But that aside, it was actually kinda the antithesis of this one. Completely honest and straightforward and putting pieces made things easier and easier instead of leaving you more and more lost.)

[@kgbgb3663]

Yep, and then that last white dot you have been hoping and praying for ... GIVES YOU NO NEW INFORMATION!

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

@@thespanishinquisition4078 When I read your comment and how many references you had to honesty, I checked your user name to see if there was any relation there. To be completely honest, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition. (Nobody ever does)

[@aquaticIntrovert]

I was having so much fun figuring out the logic on all the little question mark circles and then got to the part where it's just an annoyingly tough regular knight's move sudoku puzzle and stopped having very much fun at all

[@Pablo360able]

I'm pretty sure the dots in r1 doesn't do anything. Maybe it would have in a different solve path, idk

[@RichSmith77]

Okay, I know they were covered by fog, but this has to be the first time a sudoku grid has had 81 given digits in it. 😂

[@RichSmith77]

It makes using the replay function pretty redundant. (It doesn't show the fog being cleared, so it seems to start with a fully completed grid, and the cursor just jumps around the grid appearing to do nothing).

[@karinisvetcool]

What is replay function?@@RichSmith77

[@matthewjohnson6360]

These type of puzzles instead of saying, I haven't got a Scooby DOO you should say, "I haven't the foggiest.

[@HunterJE]

Looking at the dense fog rule would not have imagined anything but a boringly hyper-linear solve, really impressed by how well this actually works!

[@dannstarrjp]

I think it was actually kinda boring tbh, it’s much more fun with the real fog of war puzzles where there are actual clues hidden under the fog (here that was the case only in the beginning).

[@Vendavalez]

Well, a lot of difficult puzzles, by their very nature, have to be pretty linear up to a point. My concern was that it was going to be trivially easy to identify the next weak spot in the puzzle, even if the logic at that spot might have been difficult, all the way through to the end. It didn't end up being that way and I think that deserves some praise even when knight's-move constrain are not my preferred kind of puzzle.

[@vidareggum6118]

I solved it in a different order, so not hyper-linear at least. I really enjoyed this.

[@brianarsuaga5008]

I did the ending of this in a wildly different way than Simon, and yet I still had that white dot telling me something I already knew. I really wonder what the intended solve is for this, because my way was just as tortured as Simon's

[@CalvinNeufeld1]

I solved this and was convinced I missed something obvious seeing that dot. When I watched Simon's response to it I felt much relief that I wasn't just losing it.

[@ecMathGeek]

My white dot was the same and I just thought "Oh, thanks. Very helpful."

[@troyen3869]

I somehow ended up with the 3 first and used the white dot to get the 2 so I at least found it useful. But it seems that's an uncommon solve path.

[@tinakerr8163]

ditto

[@neokart2660]

I just noticed that this sudoku had 81 givens, and I just remembered a puzzle where a bug didn't allow all the fog around a cell to clear when the digit you discovered was also given. (The video was titled "the worst puzzle..." or something like that). That bug apparently allows this puzzle to work.

[@Rubrickety]

It's remarkable that this solves with so few clues in the grid. Every time I placed a digit, I said "Where are the clues?? I need clues!!"

[@RichSmith77]

I know. I mean, five of the boxes (including all three along the bottom) are clueless for heaven's sake! I guess that's the power of the knight's move constraint. Edit: I guess I've forgotten about the diagonal clues going through four of those boxes. They also help. 😂

[@thiscat4426]

89 minutes. That sinking feeling I got as I revealed all the 8s and realized ‘oh, this is gonna be all knight’s move sudoku from here isn’t it’ was amazing

[@markschaal6050]

The dense fog rule removes the joy of discovery that normal fog gives. Maybe if there were a lot more hidden clues?

[@Orenotter]

At puzzles I'm normally sucky But this time I got really lucky. I was first to get through! But credit were due: I watched you at all times I got stucky. (Leaves a virtual cupcake with a highly attentive cat drawn on top)

[@emilywilliams3237]

love it!

[@jacobcombs1106]

00:53:59 - Just 3% slower than Simon, substantially better than my normal 100-200% slower range. I was really proud of how quickly I identified the 5 in the center of the board.

[@scollyb]

Slightly easier step at around 47 is to look at 2s in box 2 which forces the 2 in box 1

[@AngryKettle]

Yeah, knight shapes were doing a lot of work in this puzzle but as Simon said, he's a bit out of practice.

[@juledevries243]

can you explain? I dont get it

[@AngryKettle]

@@juledevries243 2 in box 2 can only go in the top left three cells. With the knight move restriction, they all see r1c2, so the 2 in box 1 can only go in r2c1, which is good for progress

[@juledevries243]

@@AngryKettleohhhh right i forgot about knight move for the third two, thank you!!

[@christophercordes951]

The break-in and first half of this puzzle were ok, but this one was too tough for me. I started bifurcating and accidentally filled in a bunch of numbers, forgetting about the dense fog, by the time I figured out I was clearing fog making guesses it was too late and had uncovered more clues that I couldn't ignore.

[@MartinFindon]

Fog of war with no cleared cells are always good, looking forward to this!

[@photobirder75]

Love your channel. You've been my lunchtime entertainment for over three years. I've learned a lot, though still struggle with most puzzles. You mentioned Phistomefel early in the video and there was a point where, given your various pencil markings, you could have used the P-ring to deduce that "1" was in the upper right corner of square three.

[@stevieinselby]

We have to forgive Simon for any time he found scanning difficult here - with all the digits being black, there was no way he could see them 😉 (I assume the black digits were something to do with the technical gubbins to allow the dense fog rule)

[@averygaron994]

Something was disconcerting me about the puzzle for quite a while before I realized the digits were the wrong color XD

[@thespanishinquisition4078]

If I had to guess, its because the way this sudoku works, its just a single image of the fully cleared sudoku that had the grey square png put on top of each cell to make the fog. I think that because deleting a digit causes the fog to come back (which makes sense as if you accidentally added a correct digit and then erase it, you don't wanna have the square there reminding you it was solved) so they didn't bother programing the number being layered on top, they just, yknow, pasted it into the image, and therefore as far as the program is concerned, its all presolved, you're just cleaning it up to see what's already below.

[@abcadef6171]

@@thespanishinquisition4078 The "coming back when deleted" thing is true of all fog puzzles in this programme, and most of them have blue digits.

[@thespanishinquisition4078]

@@abcadef6171 yes but my point is, normally the fog clears empty spaces. This time the fog can only clear solved spaces, that's why if you see a blue digit the fog doesn't clear (the digit is wrong), so since the fog's only ever gonna show solved spaces the map they added simply has all the digits already in it. (btw I have since corroborated this is the case, because if you make a timelapse after finishing the fog is cleared from the start, and in this puzzle it just shows all the digits preset and the cursor moving around as if its doing nothing. Yet another reason I really dislike this puzzle...)

[@grimanium]

I like how at the end he was relieved that it was right... even though each digit lifted fog xD

[@arturocaissut1071]

The dense fog is cool, particularly in synergy with the quads, although I was expecting more of those: after a little while it became quite linear leveranging on the Ring. All in all a fun solve, I'm eager to see more puzzles with dense fog in the future.

[@titusadduxas]

1:48:02 - Phew. The minimal clues given really does show the power of the knights move constraint! I didn’t need the rookie in box 2, but I struggled after the initial easy break in.

[@volkerschwill2918]

Sorry, I just realised that I should probably ask this someone who has solved the puzzle: Please, can somebody explain to me the condition in the rules: "All numbers in the quad are sorted from smallest to largest left-right, and top-bottom." and how this condition is fulfilled in the five quads given. I am not on this level of puzzle solving, but I am trying to get there, and this is a part of the rules I simply do not understand. Thank you!

[@titusadduxas]

@@volkerschwill2918 All the numbers in the quad must appear in the 4 cells surrounding the circle. The numbers in the circle are in ascending order, but of course could contain two of the same digit. ( they would be diagonally opposite each other ) The numbers in the 4 squares surrounding the quad circle are NOT necessarily in ascending order though. Hope that explains it. If not, let me know which bit isn’t clear.

[@LillaJag]

Does no one notice that the digit Simon puts in are black? They have always been blue right?

[@flinty8121]

That’ll be how the setter managed to ensure only 1 cell was revealed. It’s very clever use of the setting software.

[@LillaJag]

​@@flinty8121Ah, so it I what I thought they was. That they are already printed in the grid and reveled then the right number is written in that cell..?

[@MrGrog90]

@@LillaJag Yes, the grid is solved under the fog which "tricks" the sudokupad logic into not revealing the surrounding cells.

[@LillaJag]

@MrGrog90 its actually really cool that you can do tricks like that!

[@Coyotek4]

40:05 ... I did like how the puzzle self-checked by clearing fog one square at a time Nice puzzle!

[@stumbling]

The innovation in this community never ends! A record for me: 0.75 S³ (Simon Solving Speed). Very nice as I've been missing a lot of puzzles lately.

[@grithog5399]

I was amazed at how quickly Simon picked up the 8s “break-in” (around the 25” mark). I was stuck for ages there, thinking I was missing some obvious clue.

[@ericpraline1302]

This was surprisingly knotty. I thought the constraint would render it a pretty straightforward linear path, but the setter constructed it very cleverly.

[@roccov3614]

The thing I like about dense fog is that every digit placed lets you know if you made a mistake.

[@darkthunder312]

To use the 6 at 33:00 , it locks the 6-1 pair into box 6, leaving a naked single 4 in box 4 Edit: he finds it 10 minutes later

[@MaxPower417]

Yes, one of those examples where Simon called attention to an area saying something like “there must be something to do with this 6 here”. I happened to spot it when he didn’t which made the next 10min a bit painful, especially with a fog puzzle because it limits you from following that deduction along further.

[@JakeRoeder]

I can't believe it! This is the first time I've ever solved faster than Simon's time (my solve time was 37:20). If you've seen me comment before, you know how much I love the fog of war variation. So I gave this one a shot and managed to logic my way through it without a single hint. So great. Thanks for the awesome puzzle!

[@felix_irgendwas]

24:04 for me. Took me a while to find all the 8s in the grid and to then get the next digit afterwards, but from there on the puzzle pretty much solved itself smoothly.

[@AnnaNicole.]

58:25 I am glad I wasn't the only one who thought the dot in row 1 was kind of useless.

[@Kirbyfan87827]

Finished in 38:47. Proud to have completed this on my own.

[@jaredgudnason4400]

solved before watching Simon.. I must say, it was rather nice watching Simon struggle so much on the knights move logic and the slow slog to solve, as I went through a similar experience... Makes my pain feel better when shared!! lol

[@inspiringsand123]

Let's Get Cracking: 10:36 Simon's time: 49m47s Puzzle Solved: 1:00:23 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Phistomefel: 4x (13:42, 14:10, 14:23, 14:45) Bobbins: 3x (32:56, 36:11, 37:41) Maverick: 2x (08:35, 26:45) Three In the Corner: 1x (56:53) ​Scooby-Doo: 1x (24:34) You Rotten Thing: 1x (37:37) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 13x (14:52, 19:09, 26:52, 29:10, 38:13, 39:44, 40:10, 40:16, 42:21, 46:44, 57:21, 59:24, 1:00:13) Pencil Mark/mark: 11x (25:55, 34:19, 35:47, 36:04, 37:25, 42:42, 44:39, 47:28, 52:47, 55:53, 57:47) Hang On: 8x (18:12, 18:52, 20:18, 23:16, 28:40, 32:41, 39:49, 43:06) Cake!: 7x (03:50, 05:23, 05:57, 05:59, 05:59, 06:01, 06:53) By Sudoku: 6x (19:52, 29:25, 33:54, 43:29, 49:00, 56:36) In Fact: 6x (13:33, 13:53, 18:09, 24:08, 26:08, 42:21) Wow: 6x (30:40, 38:46, 49:10, 49:10, 56:14, 56:14) Obviously: 4x (03:39, 07:50, 09:10, 09:32) Useless: 3x (17:19, 17:32, 58:31) Nonsense: 3x (49:17, 49:19, 49:22) Clever: 3x (18:00, 21:11, 1:00:40) Goodness: 2x (30:46, 44:44) The Answer is: 2x (39:32, 39:56) Lovely: 2x (02:55, 26:00) Deadly Pattern: 2x (59:39, 1:00:00) Bizarre: 2x (01:50, 24:28) Surely: 2x (40:32, 44:39) We Can Do Better Than That: 2x (37:00, 48:10) That's Huge: 2x (42:51, 43:26) What on Earth: 1x (00:43) Sorry: 1x (04:45) Naked Single: 1x (33:37) Out of Nowhere: 1x (48:42) Naughty: 1x (07:54) In the Spotlight: 1x (56:57) I Have no Clue: 1x (27:47) Brilliant: 1x (04:21) Take a Bow: 1x (1:00:35) Shouting: 1x (04:04) Alacrity: 1x (53:44) Whoopsie: 1x (30:53) Thingy Thing: 1x (26:37) Nature: 1x (19:59) Symmetry: 1x (16:50) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Thirty Seven, Sixty Eight, Seventy (4 mentions) One (96 mentions) White (9 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (2) - Low (2) Even (9) - Odd (0) White (9) - Black (5) Row (16) - Column (14) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!

[@RakoGamesOfficial]

You might wanna try iskall85, it would work great with these stats

[@gnocchi5326]

This is such a fun statistic

[@PointComplix]

came back from doing the puzzle because i'm confused by the rules. doesn't the 9 in r4c4 break the rule of the numbers in a quad being in order? it seems to me that whatever the question mark digit is must be smaller than 9 and appear below/to the right of the 9. am i misunderstanding the rule? edit: just realized i think the instruction means that they're in order in the clue, not in the solution

[@colinekszczecin]

I know. I am confused by this as well. Edit: I think the clue refers to the order of numbers in the circle clue, not the actual numbers around it?

[@spatulamahn]

@@colinekszczecin This is correct - whatever numbers are around the clue, must be in order in the clue, but not in the squares around the clue.

[@studgerbil9081]

@@colinekszczecin yes, the rules he posted are unclear. I'm guessing the original rules stated that the numbers in the quad CLUE must read that way, not just in the quad, which refers to the four cells themselves. It happens sometimes here, where they post the rules incorrectly and I am sure he will mention it in his next video.

[@christhecyclist5998]

​@@studgerbil9081There is nothing wrong with the rules. The word 'quad', is defined as the white circle two sentences before the sentence about sorting, while the 'surrounding cells' are referred to as such.

[@NeatChill]

@@christhecyclist5998 It is confusing, I thought the same thing. The "quad" could easily be seen as the four (quad being four) cells surrounding the circle by people who do not know the terms. It should be clearly defined in the rules themselves.

[@rhysbart]

I think the trolling dot was meant to be discovered a lot earlier 😂 The 2 in row 2 was available for about half an hour (couldn't put it in box 2 due to K-move constraint) but silly old Simon went completely round the houses to find it. Still very entertaining, tho not sure I'm convinced we need any more dense fog... I like it when fog clears! If I didn't want fog to clear I would just do a regular sudoku 😅😅😅!

[@user-qj2fz4yt8m]

Birthday conundrum of October 27th being so popular, 9 month gestation for human beans. Lots of winter conceptions going on there.

[@redlopa1]

20:16 Here I am, shouting at the screen again. :) C3R4 must be a 3. The rugby ball numbers are sorted according to size so the rugby ball quadrant in that cell must be 1, 2 or 3 since the second number in the rugby ball is a 3. But the cell sees a 1 and a 2. Edit: So I skipped ahead to check I was right and I beat Simon to filling in R4C3 by about 40 minutes! A record for me. Feeling very clever now!

[@joshusername22]

I noticed the same thing. It drove me nuts that he never saw that. It's crazy that he was able to move beyond that point without ever seeing it.

[@kgbgb3663]

Couldn't it be a number x between 3 and 9? You would have 2, 3, x and 9 around the ball, so you would still get 3 in the second place in the ball.

[@bethbromley9590]

So I thought that too...and put a 3 there - but I think the logic is wrong. You have a two and a three around that quad already...so there is no need to have another low digit.

[@joshusername22]

​@@bethbromley9590damn, I think you are right. We just got lucky that 3 was correct even though our logic was flawed.

[@TheXynariz]

I got it in 56:03 I somehow got tricked into doing a knight's move sudoku! Still a very enjoyable solve, to my surprise. I very much enjoyed the break-in, and then I kept waiting for more quad clues or dense fog..

[@Yttria]

Gave it a try and got stuck at the point of recognizing how the possible locations of 8's in box 3 bounced to box 1 then box 4. After that it was smoothish sailing to the end. It was interesting that we were given an extra white dot in row 1 that wasn't needed for the solve. By the time it was uncovered the only options left next to the 2 were 1 and 3 for me.

[@16m49x3]

I think a major fault of fog of war puzzles is that they sometimes don't actually use the fog of war. The fog of war here is used at the start for the breakein, but then is completely irrelevant. It just becomes a regular knights move puzzle There was another fog of war puzzle a few weeks ago where you broke it in with some kind of set theory and I don't think a single one of the revelations actually did anything. I wish the setters of these puzzles didn't make their puzzles fog of war just for the sake of it Even the breakin here was a lot easier than the rest of the puzzle so I don't think just removing the fog entirely would even make it any less difficult

[@NeatChill]

I agree.

[@superdave3000]

Took me over 2 hours to do this one but remembering the Phistomephel Ring helped me narrow down the possibilities and allowed me to continue when I was stuck after getting the 8s.

[@thesolarfutureenthusiast1102]

Where you got a little stuck and then found the 1,3 thing. There were only 3 places for a 2 in box 2, which ruled out one of the two places for a 2 in box 1.

[@RichSmith77]

And I was feeling pleased with myself that I found a 256 triple in the top row, that further reduced it to two places in box 2 for a 2. Seems that wasn't required.

[@PathOfShrines]

Neat. Felt like all the interesting logic was exhausted pretty early, though, and the rest was just searching. Still worth solving for the idea, though. 41:59

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

Beat it in an hour, same as the video run time. Longest puzzle I've solved in the same run time as the video. Beaten it for shorter ones, but nothing this long. I usually don't attempt a puzzle if the runtime exceeds an hour, but I really like the fog puzzles and I know I can cheat if I need a hint. In this one, I didn't cheat and still got it. Got stuck a few times, but eventually found the logical path to solve it. Not sure I always found the intended path. The 2 in the top row has a white dot next to it. By the time I got that, I already had the cell on the other side narrowed down to a 1-3 pair, so that white dot didn't come into play at all. I think it is solvable without that.

[@sivsuikki9428]

Skulle inte kunna lösa en siffra själv men det är fantastiskt att se någon som kan, använda logik på detta sätt. Tack!

[@davardi]

I was thinking for a bit at the point where Simon at 56:30. My "break" that cleared all the rest was noticing that R1C2 has two possible numbers, 2 and 6, except would make 2 impossible to place in box 2, and then the rest of the puzzle just collapsed to sudoku with some small knight constraint.

[@MattYDdraig]

26:51 As usual fog makes finding the path to get started relatively easy, but as usual knight's move proves elusive after, balancing things out 😂 The path proved very neat once I got my head straight.

[@uigrad]

41:41 for me. The trickiest part for me was seeing naked singles and asking questions like where 6 can go in box 6. I ended up pencil-marking far more than was really necessary, because I just didn't know where else to look.

[@_JustinCider_]

I enjoyed that, and on reflection believe that after the break in with the quad clues, the fog made little difference to the solve.

[@eddieharwood7788]

That was fantastic. After an early hiatus, once I remebered the knight's move restraint things generally went okay, but very slowly.

[@longwaytotipperary]

I like foggys better when solving a digit opens up more grid. Still enjoyed Simon’s solve!

[@davidrattner9]

Mixed emotions also about it..but always cherish anything Simon solves for us with his panache. 😁💜🩵

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 well said my friend! 😁❤️

[@user-jp7tw3sd3x]

Simon, you were right, the 13 deduction in box1 was not the intended path. In Box1 you had pencil-marked '2', they formed a pattern that eliminated a cell (R2C4) in box2, together with the cells eliminated by '2' from box3, they reveal that in box2 '2' are in row1, striking back in box1 and revealing the '2' there. Also, please... start your videos with explaining the rules fully and give all greetings while we solve the puzzle. You almost started this video by explaining the rules.

[@jaytrox4599]

The deduction starting at 23:45 had me stuck and made me give up to check how you are supposed to continue here. Had fun up until that point and then it was pure frustration..

[@Antiknight]

00:20:31 for me! The puzzle switched to a pure Antiknight puzzle after the nice break-in!

[@davidrattner9]

That is such a filthy time from you!! Of course expect nothing less. 🙂 Hope you have been doing well!!

[@fawful9992]

Don't you hate it when you have to check the video for a hint only to see that you missed a simple knight's move?

[@shawnmichajluk2044]

Wow, what a puzzle! Expecting more clues when fog cleared but left disappointed. When in doubt, probably missed a knight's move somewhere.

[@laszloliptak611]

Excellent puzzle. I solved it in 50:22. At 56:10 Simon could have also found a 256 triple in row 1 had he filled in the candidates, eliminating 2 from r1c5, and the 2-s in box 1 eliminate 2 from r2c4, placing 2 to r1c4.

[@pedrosaraiva1411]

I misunderstood the rules and though the numbers in the grid around the quads had to be in order , instead of only the numbers in a clue had to be in order. After realizing my mistake I didnt have any problems with this one

[@longwaytotipperary]

I thought that at first also…

[@Daiwie44]

at 49:50 you said, "You see, there's got to be some sort of knight's trick that I'm not spotting", While tapping on the 3s surrounding row 3 xD

[@alicecrawford1033]

60:44 I struggled with the end of this puzzle. I eventually started pencil marking everything, and found a pair that ended up unwinding the rest of the puzzle

[@bradmccallum1]

the 13 pair in the top row is what finally did it for me!

[@FryGuy1013]

I liked the beginning of this, then it got hard and mainly felt like poking around trying to find all the knights move stuff. The white dot on the 2 in r1c45 is mean!

[@dollarsing]

Continuously brutal! Thank you!

[@ariel_haymarket]

a 1-2-3 pair ... Good thing I lined up in a circle

[@user-ox9oo6wp6d]

I had exactly the same reaction as Simon on the white dot revealed by the 2. I even want to paint it black to make it useful lmao!

[@AREmrys]

I'm sure the Rolling Stones like that idea. 😁

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@AREmrys😄

[@tbttfox]

I heard from an EMT once that they call very dense fog "Double-Zero" fog... I wonder if you could make a good puzzle that requires two digits whose areas overlap to do the reveal.

[@CPTEP46]

Simon doing his best Goodliffe impersonation with all of those pencil marks. 😊

[@G.Aaron.Fisher]

Did anyone else not need the kropki dot in row 1? I'm worried that I screwed up somewhere since it was already disambiguated by the time I revealed it.

[@elvishfiend]

21:42 - much better than I was expecting based on the full duration of the video

[@JohnRandomness105]

This puzzle took me a *long* time and I needed some help from the video. I got the trolling white dot as well.

[@leojs5673]

19:42 for me! amazing puzzle!

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 46:51. This was really mainly a knight's move sudoku, which I'm not very good at.

[@VeritasUnae]

Definitely needed to co-solve this one along with Simon, and also was confused by the white dot in box 2. An interesting puzzle for sure.

[@Pablo360able]

38:39 for me! I really blitzed through this one by my standards, despite an early cockup where I accidentally learned something about r4c3 (I deliberately ignored that and eventually "learned" it legitimately). Just based on the concept alone I figured the puzzle would start by proving what the middle tile was, and I had a pretty good sense of what that would prove to be, but I made sure my deduction was rigorous before actually placing a digit there.

[@PineappleTheft]

00:53:29 awesome puzzle

[@Afterthoughtbtw]

That felt borderline magical to solve. I really enjoyed it.

[@DrZZZee]

I feel like the point of the fog should be to gradually reveal clues, that otherwise would make the puzzle too simple or boring, simultaniously providing sensation of discovery, like a treasure hunt. In this case though the puzzle would solve exactly the same with or without fog, and that only added to the frustration after every single digit you put in. In short, this I believe is the first fog puzzle I personally found more annoying than exciting. Even though I was able to almost match Simon's time.

[@rafazieba9982]

Duplicates are allowed in quads but there is nothing that says that double digit means two occurrences. I worked out 67 and 34 pairs in the middle box but I thought I can't use it.

[@stevieinselby]

The 4 digits given in the circle must appear in the 4 cells around it. If a digit appears twice in the circle then the only logical interpretation is that it appears twice in the 4 surrounding cells.

[@StealthAngel667]

Big fan of the break-in, but the lack of clues afterwards made it very much a normal knight's move puzzle after that. I think the mechanics are worth exploring more, though.

[@BigAsciiHappyStar]

Simon missed an early song opportunity in box 5 - "5,6,7,8" by British group Steps 😁

[@karsaanita]

57:11 for me. Great puzzle! I enjoyed the fog clearing every time I got a digit right.

[@Robertlavigne1]

Feeling a lot less incompetent about the sheer number of pencil marks it took me to resolve this after watching Simon struggle as well. Fun start. Rough finish.

[@Xiuhtec]

Took me about 80 minutes, I'm not super fast at seeing Knight's moves. I similarly found the white dot at the top to have no use, so not sure if there was an alternative path neither Simon nor I saw that would use that to make things easier.

[@kevinerose]

Today I got stuck on that darn 6. Thanks for finding it for me Simon 42:30

[@shteevuk]

Fog of War Sudoku feels like the creator is sitting next to you slapping you in the face if you try to deviate from the prescribed solution path

[@nathanmays7926]

The dot in R1C4 made my day, and I already had a really good day.

[@michaelhoffman2011]

Took me 80 mins. Always a favour the fog puzzle, but i found this one difficult to figure out what was the next move. Great puzzle

[@samplename5159]

The last white dot trolled me too! Really makes one question how far from intended solve path that is. I also resolved some 3s at one point, not directly with the tricky knight's move like Simon did but with 23 coloring; perhaps that's the divergence point and we're supposed to reveal the last white dot differently?

[@karagrant5778]

It would be cool to have some sort of a blizzard-like sudoku where after you clear one layer, one puzzle, it “melts” to reveal a new layer or a puzzle within a puzzle, and then when the snow fully melts you see the final puzzle to complete. The layering could be related somehow too. Not sure if that makes sense.

[@frodopeter]

I find a nice solution when I have 37 in X wing. (37 in R4C3, R6C3, R4C7, R6C7) and a 67 in R7C4, The Phistomefel Ring is showing three 7 in the ring but only 2 possible 7 in the quadrants. That take away the 7 in the 67 pair. Just what I find. :) Nice sudoku this was.

[@AWanderingSwordsman]

Man, this gave me a really cool idea for a trick in a puzzle but I don't have the know how or drive to make an entire puzzle but that 2, 4 deadly pair near the end had an interesting way to solve it that I think would make a cool forced way to solve a different puzzle with the same heavy fog rule. Since there must be a single unique solution, we can for sure know that there MUST be a disambiguator for the deadly pair. You can hide that in the fog and have the solver place it by elimination. For instance in this case it was a 1 in a ratio dot to disambiguate the 2,4 pair. However, even before seeing that there is a dot, we know there MUST be a dot hidden there connecting those two and that it MUST be either a 1, 5, or 8. It can't be 2 or 4 because of sudoku and the deadly pair. All surrounding cells are in the boxes with the deadly pair and therefor can't contain either number. It can't be a 3 because that wouldn't disambiguate things. A 3 could white dot to a 2 or 4. So 1 of the cells surrounding the deadly pair must contain a dot and must contain either a 1 linking it to a 2 or a 5 or 8 linking it to a 4. If we can design the puzzle to make sure that 2 of those 3 can't be in the surrounding cells, we can guarantee in order to have 1 unique solution there must be dot with the remaining number linking to one of the cells. Hell you might be able to have a puzzle without fog where the solver has to place dots (or maybe a single dot) in a way that forces a single solution as part of the puzzle but that seems more complicated. To set this up the easiest you would use a deadly square touching the edge of the grid so that it rules out the 2 numbers by default (in this puzzles case, 2 and 4). I just love the idea of using the hidden rule of sudoku (that there must be a SINGLE solution) as a way to solve the puzzle but without this fog rule specifically, it seems hard to set up. Heavy fog makes it quite easy though because you just need to fog the deadly pair and at least 1 cell connected to it. Hopefully some setter reads this and also finds it interesting and that I described it well enough.

[@tchpowdog]

It wasn't until the very end that I realized this might be the fewest clues I've seen in a fog puzzle. And no given digits!

[@stubbsz]

59 minutes. It felt both shorter and longer than this. How is that possible? I found the Quad rule super confusing andI wasted a lot of time trying to make sense of it and make it help in the puzzle. I was amazed how many times I got stuck when I thought it was unwinding. For me, that was a puzzle from which I got a huge sense of achievement.

[@EmonEconomist]

62:18. I swear I used to be faster at solving these sudokus! I spent a long time stuck but got there eventually.

[@flinty8121]

Incredible setting. Take. A. Bow.

[@themorebeer3072]

I really enjoyed the fog and circle logic in this puzzle. I didn't enjoy the hunt for the mid-puzzle digits. Would've enjoyed it a lot more if, say, the spate of 8s resolving showed more circles so I'd maintain flow instead of having to hunt for anti-knight sudoku cells.

[@MaierFlorian]

Taking into account how little number of clues are given in total, I think that white dot in row 1 could have been revealed in another way, making the middle of the solve more smooth. If you find the right cell to look at, which I don't.

[@bethbromley9590]

hmm...I very confidently put a 3 in row 4 column 3. I think it was a stray pencil mark, but I was so damn sure. And it was right. It didn't immediately help, I still followed mostly the same path as Simon till about half way through, then it really helped a lot. I wish I could believe I had a good reason...but if I did, then it's gone now....

[@Aliessil]

Finished in 28:32, loved the break-in!

[@warren_r]

I finished this one in about 45 minutes. Hardest puzzle I've finished in a little while so I'm pleased about that. Interesting concept but the fog element felt very secondary somehow.

[@koschkathedeathless]

I had a really great time with this puzzle!

[@Anomaly92]

To me it wasn't completely clear, whether there are always four digits in the circles. But at some points this is an important assumption for progress. Yeah, it states "circle quads" in the rules but a addendum like "there are alyways four digits in a circle" would have been a bit more clear.