An Extraordinary New Sudoku Rule

** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
We've had lots of recommendations to try this sudoku from CaptZebraCakes - it's called Mislabeled Killers and we just want to say that this is a BEAUTIFUL puzzle. The logic is fresh and fascinating and, although it has a 4* rating for difficulty, it's incredibly fun to solve once you cotton on to some of the key ideas.
Play the puzzle at the link below:
sudokupad.app/ejfmnsdqaf
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Every cage is a “killer cage” where digits cannot repeat. The two-digit pill in each cage forms a two-digit number when read from left to right, and this two-digit number represents the sum of a different killer cage (i.e. a two-digit pill value cannot be the sum of the cage that contains that pill). No two killer cages have the same sum.
(The musical intro today was inspired by watching Coldplay at Glastonbury with Michael J Fox last night.)
Thanks to all of you who have helped us achieve the milestone of 600,000 subscribers on KZbin. Below you can find a link to a free puzzle pack we have curated to celebrate :)
/ ctc-600k-pack-106717179
** THE LORD OF THE RINGS SUDOKU HUNT RELEASED ON 1 JUNE **
We've just launched the sudoku event of the summer! Blobz' puzzles and Ted Nasmith artistry combined in one of the most beautiful, approachable and fun hunts we've ever published. Get hyped!!! Teaser puzzle here:
sudokupad.app/blobz/a-long-ex...
Play the full version here:
/ crackingthecryptic
Other treats on Patreon include:
- Simon's solve of Sky-Skyscraper by Phistomefel has just been uploaded for our patrons.
- and Mark's latest solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword
** LAST NIGHT'S BRAID STREAM **
You can watch our stream from last night at this link:
kzbin.infoWcqUhQkwUSY
▶ SUDOKU PAD - Use Our Software For Your Puzzles ◀
You can input classic sudoku puzzles into our software and help support Sven, the programmer responsible for the wonderful user interface we all use to play these puzzles everyday. The app also comes with 12 handmade puzzles from us:
iOS:
apps.apple.com/us/app/svens-s...
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/17...
Android:
play.google.com/store/apps/de...
ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”
▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:51 Paws' Sudoku Hunt Incoming
3:12 Free 600k subscriber puzzle pack
3:49 Happy Birthdays & other messages
6:29 Rules
8:26 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking
▶ Contact Us ◀
Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic
email: [e-mail]
Our PO Box address:
Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB
(Please note to use our real names rather than 'Cracking The Cryptic'.)
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We also post the Wordle In A Minute videos on TikTok.

[@CaptZebraCakes]

Thank you Simon for featuring this puzzle! It was a lot of fun to construct, and I am so glad you and others have enjoyed it. Wishing you and the CTC team all the best!

[@dinane]

I loved it. Thank you!

[@puritan7473]

This was a wonderful puzzle sir, I agree 100% with Simons comments!! Thank you for such a creation.

[@davidrattner9]

Wonderful setting from you!!! Excellent job!!

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

Loved watching the solve. Bit too sick to try myself now. Thought it was genius. Excellent.

[@nickellis999]

Brilliant puzzle. Thank you very much.

[@michaelmatter1222]

Indexing idea: Use the pen tool to draw a line between the two pilled digits, and then use that same color to highlight the indexed cage.

[@nathanmays7926]

i colored each region, and flashed the pills with the region color

[@parksantiago3511]

If you did enough, coloring the pill the color of the rest of the region it is indexing also works and it looks less mess imo

[@Tsunami14]

Exactly my thought as well. Otherwise, it gets taxing very quickly to keep track of the relationships.

[@johnharriman85]

@@parksantiago3511 small point IMHO: the 39 pill serves as complete cage AND pill, so I think flashing helps to keep all the region colors unique.

[@jimmyh2137]

Instead of a line between use it around the border of the (pill's) cells

[@studgerbil9081]

"Alexa, I seem to be stuck" "It's sudoku, Simon."

[@CrankyOtter]

Very Simon to deduce the two 6 options in box 8 from logic in Box 3/5 rather than seeing that the 6s can only be where they fix the 6/8 pair in box 5.

[@nilsleder2957]

This is such a fantastic puzzle. Already after testing it, I was sure it had to go here. I think you have done a great job of adapting to the new ruleset and explaining the logic that comes from it, Simon. In particular, I liked your tricks with the 12 candidates. There were some logical steps I had missed in my own solve. Thanks for this great video solve! And, of course, big thanks to CaptZebraCakes for setting this gem!

[@MattYDdraig]

19:00 An absolute masterpiece. I am in awe of the construction skills of CaptZebraCakes. 👏

[@RianneOK]

I was very proud of myself that I worked out the 45 cage and the pill that had to say 45 because of the 2-cell cage that had to be 39 and so on. And I did the mapping of the digits in the 45 cage that were missing in its box as well. But all this took me already nearly 50 min (that I started last night before bed and continued this evening for a bit) and then I didn't know how to deal with all the 5-cell cages... still I had a great time with this. I am always happy when I can do a little of it without Simon's help but I still get to watch Simon solve it. When I solve it myself completely I don't usually have the patience anymore to watch Simon solve the same puzzle.

[@MartinaNegro]

I didn't know how much I needed Simon to play Fix you but that alone made my whole week, thank you

[@erickaguirre4888]

I have absolutely no idea how to even begin with this puzzle lol

[@joelwagg8314]

It took me a while (I'm getting quicker though the more I try!), but the first important thing is that the most limited digit is the tens column of the pills. That combined with the fact cages cannot sum to 10 or 11 is suddenly interesting for the two cell cage...

[@NorkasLP]

I loved this puzzle. Can't wait for Simon to love it too.

[@MaryVidal-pt8bx]

A Simon guitar intro had me hit “like” before even watching the video.

[@DWargs]

Simon to a Puzzle: "I will tryyyyy to solve you!"

[@CapKhoury]

Wow. Wow wow wow. I'm so glad that I tried this one before I watched Simon's solve. What a spectacular puzzle, and what a beautiful solve path when you go about it the right way.

[@pzaan]

This puzzle was a fun exercise in notation. I tried a few options and settled on drawing a colored line through each pill corresponding to a colored fill of each cage.

[@ericpraline1302]

That was really neat, thanks. At first look a bit of a headscratcher, but once I got my eye in my biggest challenge was understanding my own notation for which sum related to which cage.

[@brianj959]

Beautiful puzzle, beautiful solve, topped off with Simon overcoming chromatic disappointment to clean up redundant colouring! 😉👏

[@ashg231]

I was screaming about the 5 in box 5 as soon as you filled the 14 pill! Very interesting puzzle though!

[@guywithoutpfp]

I was waiting for him to notice the 3 in box five from about halfway through the video, and had to wait until the very end

[@andymoss]

There’s no way in hell I could even start a puzzle like this never mind finish it, but Simon’s abject basic sudoku towards the end was hilarious!

[@davidrattner9]

Lovely puzzle and great new rule set!! Wonderful guitar playing for us Simon!!

[@stevieinselby]

Very neat solve! Unfortunately I had a complete spasm and mistakenly thought that the cage with the 12-pill had to add up to _more than 20_ (as Simon would say, "naughty brain!") because I knew it couldn't add up to exactly 20, and so ruled out all of the 4-cell cages as options ... and funnily enough, everything went wrong after that 😢

[@skid68]

Love watching Simon solve a puzzle like this, it makes me so happy and you feel no problems in the world when he is solving it :)

[@marytataryn5144]

The back of my head feels like its expanding or being tickled everytime I listen to his logic

[@LyuboRyuk]

Very beautiful ruleset ❤ And the puzzle is perfect. Good job Captain ❤

[@Piatato]

Yes!!! Excellent puzzle 😊

[@corin3029]

I am always amazed at watching these videos. You look like you have so much fun with these puzzles. I hope that one day, my logic and puzzle skills allow me to enjoy puzzles of this difficulty.

[@AwareOCE]

Your birthday wishes and genuine personality just make my day, the puzzles are also great 😅 This is an incredible ruleset though, almost remids me of a game of Risk in a few ways.

[@MyriamTT]

A great puzzle. Thank you !

[@avishagkelhamer]

yet another satisfying and intelligent solve! I'm a very casual sudoku solver so this is way beyond my level of capabilities but your videos are always so fun and relaxing to watch and I understand every single solution you explain, thank you:)

[@mery1973able]

53:30 - Time to be remembered. At that time Simon placed 2 consecutive digits in the grid WITHOUT mistiping!!!!🤣

[@JohnGottschalk]

With the amount of unlabeled killer cage puzzles you do, it would be really nice to have a way to mark killer cages where the markings: 1. Sit nice and small in the corner 2. Don't disappear when you enter a digit 3. Order based on input (eg. so you can type 21).

[@sheepdude860]

I got stuck on this one but it made a lot of sense when I watched the video!

[@jurgenbaumann67]

42:10 Directly after founding R1C2 is 6 or bigger I saw C2 has 3x 6,7,8 and 9 and once only 7 and 8. So the 2, 7 and 8 had to be a 2.

[@dr.rishabhgautam]

How he did that @ 26:20 when he said "I got a 1,2 pair in coloumn 5. So that's a 3". How did he pull out that one? Can someone explain plz...

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 38:12. It helps to figure out what the limits are for each cage and use that by process of elimination with the unique killer cage sum rule to figure out which pill represents which cage. Fun puzzle!

[@HalfBakedLunatic]

Very clever all around!

[@bait6652]

Fascinating design....looks to have 7 solutions without the given...crazy how a given can wrok a rulset. Interestinf how the cages are grouped into 7 pillset and 2pillset

[@longwaytotipperary]

❤ the guitar intro - just what I needed!!

[@davidrattner9]

Guitar intros from Simon are just magical and special..💜🤎

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@davidrattner9 🧡💙

[@MatthewBouyack]

I found this puzzle quite enjoyable. Not actually too difficult - though I got stuck for a while after forgetting that I had to have a 1-2 pair in a cage label somewhere. 1:52:17 for me!

[@paulanderson5704]

40:52 my time, 2nd time in my life faster than Simon! I only saw the rules and got a thought, that I must solve it myself. Brilliant puzzle!

[@crazypantaloons]

Teenage cages are a great idea! Both in sudoku, and for teenagers.

[@LithmusEarth]

9.5 minutes in i'm like, that pill-is-cage one, i'm like okay, it's gotta be a 2 digit number so it's going to be like 3+something high, but it has to be at least 12 so it's two different digits... and i'm like 3+9 boom.

[@y_prime]

solved in 23:52 - very good idea. I liked trying to keep track of which cages had which totals

[@OverkillSD]

Just barely beat Simon's time, coming in at 45:06 What a marvelous puzzle!!!!!

[@TegukiSix]

Took a little under four hours. (Then again, I wasn't pausing while running errands.) I deduced the bottom pill and the 45 quite quickly, filled out most of the 1s and 2s, and everything was smooth from there. I finished it to the tune of "God Only Knows" and "The Other Side of the Wall". I haven't solved in a while -- this was a great puzzle to come back to.

[@davidhughes7174]

A new rule. yes please. thank you Simon and CaptZebraCakes!

[@inawoodenhouse]

Simon decided to go cracking the Coldplay today I see 😍 a beautiful intro, a beautiful tribute to the most beautiful band 😍

[@geminimaxxim]

This new pill rule is actually really exciting. Imagine applying it to something other than killer cages, like a diagonal clue for example. There's so many possibilities

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

15:44 for me. What an interesting idea, I really enjoyed this one. Fantastic puzzle!!

[@Rubrickety]

Amazing puzzle! Glad I managed to solve it, despite botching the second half multiple times (as is my MO).

[@piarittersporn]

Brilliant puzzle.

[@Kinada]

Very cool puzzle, and not has hard as I had expected. Took me a bit over and hour even with distractions.

[@Etterbeer]

Very fun solve. Took me around 80mins but I wouldnt call it too difficult.

[@ethanl9845]

Great opening serenade

[@mikepictor]

44 minutes....that took some very delicate colouring and flagging. It's not obvious, but the clues are there.

[@user-ot3rn8pu7t]

I was not expecting to see Simon playing the guitar, but it was very nice!

[@DarkChasm]

crazy puzzle but loved it :)❤❤❤

[@debrabowen4276]

Lovely guitar!

[@johnallegood4469]

I got mixed up thinking the cage in box 1 was the 14 cage, rather than the one in box 8/9. Otherwise I managed to follow the logic very well! A challenging and fun puzzle to be sure

[@MarkBennet10001]

Went for it when I saw it was featured and I hadn't solved it - maintaining the quality, I would say - great puzzle.

[@MarkBennet10001]

And I would say I was ahead on some things, but the thing that held me up was (having done all the thinking) not realising that the 23 total was the maximum for one of the cages ... That wasted me a few minutes thinking time. Simon, you are such a good solver - the clarity of your thinking (and the consistency of that) is ahead of mine

[@soocool78]

14:50 -- Zebra Cakes is a US pastry snack, like a Twinkie (only its not).

[@Lutterot]

What a clever puzzle!

[@MORISENSEIISGOD]

For this puzzle, shouldn’t there be a rule that prevents two pills indexing the same cage? As that was the assumption used to solve after filling in the 45 pill in box 2, then deleting 4 as an option in the tens position if every other pill at 17:41

[@AFT3RDAY5]

That was a fun one 😄👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍🏻

[@Jacobi111]

Do you post covers to KZbin? I would be genuinely interested in listening

[@joelwagg8314]

The one frustrating thing about solving then watching is that Simon inevitably chooses different colours to me.

[@adrianhead6272]

A fine example of GEOMETRY and LOGIC leading to a "fairly" straightforward solve. Completed in 13m17s.

[@Cymindis]

I really enjoyed this puzzle, though I needed some Simon hints at moments

[@Mikey-rj4fg]

Coldplay jumpscare. lol, loved it.

[@srwapo]

56:55, I got to the 3,9 cage in box 7 and didn't know what to do from there. Decided to watch the video long enough to be reminded that the 3,9 meant another cage summed to 39 and slapped myself on the forehead and went back to the puzzle to solve it. It was still hard and I seemed to have screwed up a lot at the end and had to undo a bit of work.

[@SonGoku-tz9vt]

@@srwapo could you explain to me why that cage has to be 39, I didn‘t understand it

[@srwapo]

​@@SonGoku-tz9vtI had to go back and redo my work, lol. It has to sum to a two digit number that shows up in a "pill" in another cage. Both those digits see each other, so it can't be a repeat (eg, 11) and can't have a 0. Those two digits, read left to right, must also be the sum of another cage. That means the "tens" digit can't be larger than a 4. Its in a two cell cage, so it's totally can't be larger than 17 (8+9). So I just worked out the numbers 12 through 17. Working backwards, things like 17 and 16 would make that cage, at a minimum, 8+9 and 7+9, which would mean the sum of another cage is 89 or 79. Way too big. So make the tens digit a 4. The biggest that could be is a 4,5, which would sum to 9, which is too small to me called out in any of the other pills. So drop the tens digit to a 3. You can get 3,9 which sums to 12, which is possible in another pill. 3,8 sums to 11, which would have a repeat. 3,7 sums to 10, which would have a zero. Anything lower would sum to a single digit number. You can try a 2 in the tens digit, but the largest it can be a 2,9, which sums to 11 (repeat), then 2,8, which sums to 10 (zero), then everything else sums too small. A 1 in the tens digit is also way too small for the sum to appear in any of the other pills. So, 3,9, in that order, is the only thing that can work there. Sorry, rambling a bit trying to remember all my logic from a few weeks ago, haha.

[@sanctionbuster]

45:39. Even with the chat at the start I beat you! I think for the second time ever. This padwan of yours is learning...

[@whelmking6497]

Wow.. one of the most enjoyable hard (very hard for me) puzzles I've solved. Brillant eureka moments. 100:19.

[@martysears]

👨🏻‍✈️🦓🧁🧁, that was fantastic! Lovely simple concept, delivered with expertise and panache. That moment when the 1s and 2s were unravelled was immensely satisfying 👌 absolutely deserved the feature

[@mery1973able]

Masterpiece!

[@andrewdipplecomedy]

I was so sure I found something that could have busted the whole thing wide open ... Literally ended up being the last digit he placed 😂😂😂

[@psiphiorg]

Quite a puzzle here! My time tody was 39:38, solver number 4832.

[@zirco77]

30:05 I made the same mistake 😅and figured it out a moment later. Had I not seen it, I would have got it right by luck (as it sometimes happens to Simon as well, but that's probably only a couple of times a year, quite less than mere mortals like us)

[@iaincook5835]

Simon, following that superb guitar intro, can you next do Steve Hackets "Horizons" from Genesis' Foxtrot?

[@awilliams1701]

any chance the 600k puzzles could be put on the CTC app?

[@LillaJag]

I hope. The app is the best way to solve on. Patreon is not something everybody has access to..

[@awilliams1701]

@@LillaJag I mean patreon is just a website, so you can get it, but the app is better than sudoku pad. If I tap a number it highlights them. Sudoku pad doesn't. Also I can get smart hints, which don't always work, but sometimes they do. I kind of hate how the steam version of the older apps don't have that (like classic). The android versions all have smart hint though. Honestly they should release everything on CTC. I'd be happy to buy all the packs again. And even the empty stars is a nice feature so I can keep track of my progess when I redo the puzzles again.

[@ronjohnson6916]

I used letters to link the cages. A in the first position means it's clueing A in the second position. Coloring just got too confusing for me.

[@AdamHansen95]

Simon could break enigma

[@MasterPredator93]

Which song is it?? Good idea to do the intro with the guitar!

[@pixihawk]

Fix You by Coldplay!

[@MasterPredator93]

@@pixihawk oh thanks!

[@Sidnv]

Is there a rule missing from this puzzle that states that every killer cage must have its total referred to by a pill? Simon's argument for why the 2 cell cage must be a 3 9 relies on some other cage's pill pointing to that cage, which isn't necessary from the rules as given. You could just have two pills be the same and point to the same cage that is not either of the cages containing the pills.

[@moodragonx2]

Yeah it's enough to say the mapping is injective or surjective, but neither is technically given. It would also be enough to say no two pills are the same, which would be enough to encompass the last rule as well (ie. replace "no two killer cages have the same sum").

[@CrankyOtter]

Because all cages have 1 pill and every pill indexes a cage total & no cage totals repeat, yes, functionally the rules are that each pill must reference a cage total and those totals are unique. If all pills have a cage total, and pills=cages, this does mean that there are no cages without a given pill for the total.

[@abcdentminded]

@@CrankyOtter Taking the written rules at face value, two pills could potentially refer to the same cage's total. It isn't explicitly written than every cage's sum must appear in a pill

[@Sidnv]

@@CrankyOtter No it doesn't. Cage totals cannot repeat but there's no rule that says pills cannot repeat. The rules do not identify either an injection or surjection, which would be sufficient as the other commenter stated. In the rules as stated, ignoring sudoku restrictions, you could have the pills sharing as few as two total values. 8 pills point to cage 1 and cage 1's pill points to some other cage, while every cage could still have a different value.

[@Anarelion]

Tried to get tickets for Coldplay for the last 2 months, I was late. /me goes to cry in a corner

[@boman987]

Mark and Simon are on my Avengers roster alongside the likes of Bob Ross and Mr Rogers.

[@tank2045]

One additional feature I wouldn't mind seeing on Sven's programming: On the completion screen it shows how many people have solved the puzzle PLUS how long it took you to finish the puzzle...Adding the average time for all solvers would let you know how you did compared to others...

[@letsmakeit110]

this is already a pretty gatekept hobby with every other comment being "took me 10 minutes. pretty slow teehee". Your feature would suck all the joy of solving for beginners. the best solvers solve the most puzzles so most ppl would be below average.

[@Anne_Mahoney]

@@letsmakeit110 Good point; so make it an optional feature, for those who are currently working on speed. Those who will just find it frustrating to be told "the average solve time on this puzzle was 1/50th of your time" can turn it off.

[@thomasreuter1614]

53:24 , took a while to click but then it was smooth

[@timjensen4320]

For the hopefully next puzzle with these rules, use the pen tool to re-outline all the cages in different colors then color the pills to match

[@AndrewMooreMar]

The only downside to that is when the cells you want to outline with different colors are adjacent (like the pills on row 5). A cell border can only be colored as one type, so it ends up being a little confusing. I've thought of that approach on different previous cage puzzles, and had to step back for that reason Anyway, I still think it's a great idea, and in this particular puzzle, there would be only two troublesome cell borders

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

37:01 for me - took me about 10 minutes to find where to start.

[@RoderickEtheria]

Solved in 37:01, but not without having to correct myself a few times.

[@honigschlecker1]

Cool puzzle - one step leads smoothely to the other.... if you spot it. That was the problem for me, so it took me 67 minutes.

[@PineappleTheft]

60:25, wasted like 10 minutes thinking cage minimum sum was 11

[@therealAQ]

same

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

Broooo this was so funny, what happened next?

[@sidrat2009]

I was disappointed at the lack of reaction to the MJF reveal at Glastonbury. At least that's how it came across on the BBC iplayer clip. Granted many people at Glastonbury weren't born in 1985.

[@pacman52280]

Well, you and I both know that MJF is better than us, and we know it.

[@nicocost33]

57.31 for me. Not easy, but fun.

[@Mason11987]

I think Simon assumed that each cage must be represented by a pill in another cage, but do the rules really say that? I think

[@jonathanlesser5931]

alternative puzzle name or name for the genre: poison pills

[@six_5000]

😫 took me over two hours... but I got there

[@rtheben]

131 mins solve, that’s what I managed to do

[@emilywilliams3237]

I thought this was really interesting, but even more than how interesting the puzzle was, I was fascinated by how smoothly and easily you could figure out the relationships, Simon. I always enjoy the videos, especially when they're this kind of fun!

[@davidrattner9]

We agree on this kind of fun. 😁

[@titirenee]

39:20 and I am very proud of my time

[@LednacekZ]

36:20 for me. quite hard.

[@_-_-Sipita-_-_]

24:27 for me.