Can Our Sudoku Rat Solve The Maze?

[@martysears]

Hi all 🐀 thrilled to see the 2nd instalment of Rat Run on CTC this evening. Simon you did such a brilliant job of explaining that break-in in box 7… the way you systematically proved it was even more elegant and simpler to understand than the way I had thought about it. This was originally going to be the first puzzle of the series, but a 6x6 version of it where adjacent cells had to add to at least 8 instead of 10. The break-in was logically equivalent, having to miss 1 off the line, and the rest had very similar logic too. Then I thought of the idea for Primer, and decided to make that the first puzzle instead, because of the title and also because I liked the idea of making this one into an 8x8 (for a gradual complexity increase) and summing to at least 10 seemed nicer as it is a round number. Loved the part where Simon correctly guessed that Finkz would turn North from r5c4, without yet knowing why. Made it more fun where he got to the point where the reason became apparent. Thanks so much for another feature, and all the humour, enthusiasm and joy you bring to each video too ❤

[@jsharvey1961]

Thank you for making this puzzle! :-)

[@davidrattner9]

Another beauty from you Marty as only you can produce!! Loved this sequel!!

[@BijickY]

The rat maze is a really cool idea - and the resulting puzzles are wonderful. Thanks❤

[@cawleym]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you for setting it. You are awesome!

[@dicebar_]

This was a lot of fun to solve and I'm looking forward to seeing episode 3 on the channel!

[@andrewnelson2525]

Waiting for Simon to see the 5 staring at the 57 pair -- instead he spots a naked single in the adjacent cell. Never take the easy path, Simon!

[@malvoliosf]

Simon and Mark could get rich by live-streaming their solves and charging viewers £50 to send them hints. “Simon, there is a 5 in the lower-right!”

[@iabervon]

I saw the 45 looking at the 4567 in that cell when he was wondering how the alternation would go, and I predicted that he'd find some way to figure it out without using that step.

[@athomasone]

When all else fails, resort to sudoku.

[@Vorash00]

Let’s just be glad Simon isn’t in the maze if he refuses the easy path

[@Hakucho64]

@@malvoliosf yeah but then they'd be incentivised not to see things, making things even worse.

[@efa666]

Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage.

[@elLooto]

0

[@iabervon]

This puzzle doesn't have cages. Today, it's: Despite all my wrath, I am still just a rat on a path.

[@tntblender6802]

GRJ

[@stevieinselby]

All we need now is for Sven to animate the rat moving along the path 🐀!

[@alanclarke4646]

I really hope Sven is reading these comments!

[@RajAgarwal-pg7kn]

I love the sheer joy Simon gets when he makes a breakthrough. Your cheer is infectious.❤

[@martysears]

I love that too. The channel wouldn’t be the same without it

[@mrrobotman5299]

I really like that Marty Sears extends the box borders past the edge of the grid. It really helps to see the boxes.

[@martysears]

Thankyou… since this video was recorded I have also made the box borders dotted which I think helps a lot too

[@davidrattner9]

You solving Simon is such a joy and pleasure for us. You bring so much warmth, love , happiness as you go about every deduction. 600,000 is quite an accomplishment!

[@jsharvey1961]

Sorry Simon, but I was (very quietly) "yelling" at the screen over the 7 in row four column eight for quite a while. :-) It is a joy to watch you do these videos. Thank you.

[@CrankyOtter]

It’s like once he decided he didn’t have the info to solve it, he stopped seeing it. Because he continued to not see it when it was the sole remaining unsolved cell in column 8.

[@anthonymelvin2391]

I'm shocked there aren't more comments that the path ends up looking like a rat.

[@martysears]

Haha I see it! Nice spot 🐀

[@GeekRedux]

Ha! Nice.

[@Gnarlf]

🤣 I haven't seen that. Great catch!

[@PassionPopsicle]

This is one of those puzzles where Simon loses time because he prefers not to pencilmark. I would love to see Mark do it, to see how the pencil Marks would compare 😅

[@Hakucho64]

Yep, pencil marking was the quickest way to see how a sequence of four numbers could be ordered legally.

[@angec9908]

I love Finkz and want to give Finkz all the cupcakes. Can’t wait for part 3!

[@six_5000]

39:05 for me. I spent quite a few minutes being dumb trying to plot where the nines could go 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@sly1024]

😂😂😂

[@Mark199201]

What a fun puzzle! Thank you Marty Sears and Simon!

[@David_K_Booth]

Made an error in box 3 and eventually had to backtrack, but went on to complete in 38m. Really enjoyed this - well done, Marty.

[@Gnarlf]

It took me a smidge over an hour, but it was such an enjoyable solve. Great work Marty and a lovely video from Simon as usual.

[@jurgnobs1308]

it's of course similar to the first one as both of them are essentially parity along the line. instead of having even and odd alternating like the first one (with the exception of the 1 1 combination), this one has high and low digits alternating. so, in essence they work the same way

[@henriknobinder7395]

This puzzle got deceptively tricky about halfway through for me.

[@emdiar6588]

I was going to say, I was bemused that it only had 2 stars for difficulty at that point, but I thought it must have been me, being slow. Last week I went through a 5 star puzzle that really flowed for me, logic wise. I thought "No way is this a 5, or I'd have definitely struggled more". It strikes me that difficulty-ratings must be somewhat subjective.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 38:25 minutes. I'm really enjoying these set of themed puzzles. They feel so nice to navigate through. I made a mistake early on and had to rewind to nearly the beginning after realizing it. I would have beat Simon's time too, so you got lucky this time, Simon! I'm looking forward to this series continuing. Great Puzzle!

[@Travis_Varga]

“Finkz continues to surpass predicted outcomes across all four cognitive performance metrics, and will therefore progress to a full-size maze in stage 3, with no further training required.” We are all Finkz, being trained to solve puzzles.

[@PlumCrumble]

I really love this 'rat run' theme of puzzle - Marty is an absolute legend for not only coming up with the rule set, but creating such beautiful and (relatively) approachable puzzles that use it! I really hope this becomes one of the sudoku trends that get other setters exploring the theme, combining it with other rule sets, and generally pushing it to its limit! Will we ever see Finkz trying to negotiate a fillomino star battle chaos construction sudoku maze??

[@martysears]

Stay tuned, there is lots more planned for Finkz 😉

[@praematura]

I didn't try the first maze puzzle, but decided to give this one a shot and actually completed it in 24:42 (conflict checker off). Amazing puzzle, many thanks to Marty for it! Some really nice deductions made along the way.

[@uigrad]

Got 22:10 in mine (with conflict checker on). Without it, I would have definitely taken 2-3 minutes more.

[@BigAsciiHappyStar]

I bet the 5 star difficulty version will involve some variant of Theseus And The Minotaur 🤪

[@cparks1000000]

The fact that "3" must be flanked by "8" and "7" could have been used a few times in the solve.

[@TheBioRules]

Very much so, those were my 3 (ha) keys to this puzzle: 1 can never be on the line; 2 can only be next to two 8s or be the start/end of the line; and 3 must be next to both 7 and 8 if its on the line.

[@HunterJE]

13:28 Doesn't 2 in that position necessarily break because the 8 position it forces leaves no valid position for the 2 in the box above?

[@PassionPopsicle]

This was my break-in! Made the wrong assumption first and had to backtrack

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

I solved this one after finding out about the series, and I liked it even more than the first one. Really hope they keep coming!

[@EricMill]

The third one is out

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

@@EricMill Thanks for the heads-up, I’ll check it out!

[@doujutsugg184]

i solved this kinda sudoku first time in my life. took me 86 minutes. it was super good brain test. thanks a lot

[@Pathogenus]

lovely puzzle, i love when they incorporate a kind of game into the rules and solving. i figured out box 7 pretty fast by thinking if almost all digits have to appear on line, it has to work similar to german whispers with 8 different digits on it and have pretty strict sequence. and rest of puzzle went quite smooth thanks to extensive pencil marking making it easier to see what are the possible paths

[@tormit_]

1st Time finishing before Simon! Usually take at least twice the time he takes but what helped me in this 1 was color coding 2,3,4,5 as low and 6,7,8 as high to visualize and managed to do it in 33 minutes. Really like these mouse/snake rules.

[@gibbbon]

i quite liked this puzzle, i finished it 5 min faster! i usually get 2 or 3 times the time, it's rare that i get it faster

[@tfh535]

I was really hoping the alternate high/low would've broken in the 5647 line. It would've been a great wrinkle

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 20:10. Lovely constraint mixed with the maze to force the only path possible. Fun puzzle!

[@davidholt4327]

The corner blindness in this one was a little painful but a neat puzzle!

[@PauxloE]

Nice puzzle. (After finding the Rat Run 5, I'm now doing the others in order.) As before, I started with drawing a graph of all possible combinations of digits connected by the rat path. 8×8 Sudoku is in some ways easier, in other ways harder than the 9×9, as having a box filled has quite different effect on rows and columns. 43:51 in total, solve counter 7003.

[@titusadduxas]

33:34 - Another lovely puzzle. Thanks Marty

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:07 Let's Get Cracking: 06:46 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Bobbins: 1x (39:13) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (18:58) Three In the Corner: 1x (19:04) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 15x (10:44, 12:16, 22:44, 26:44, 26:44, 26:44, 27:08, 29:29, 29:46, 30:33, 33:55, 36:34, 37:25, 39:31, 40:34) Sorry: 5x (10:35, 12:40, 21:30, 24:26, 26:34) By Sudoku: 5x (19:44, 27:31, 31:04, 32:44, 39:16) Hang On: 5x (10:55, 15:07, 24:53, 37:15) Incredible: 4x (01:18, 01:18, 01:50, 03:00) Pencil Mark/mark: 4x (20:51, 20:54, 21:39, 34:33) Good Grief: 3x (03:42, 39:19, 40:51) Beautiful: 3x (18:08, 31:24, 40:51) Obviously: 3x (22:50, 23:43, 27:48) Naked Single: 2x (35:41, 39:53) Naughty: 2x (05:52, 27:03) Brilliant: 2x (03:19, 03:51) Gorgeous: 2x (26:58, 37:29) Fabulous: 2x (01:45, 03:17) Cake!: 2x (03:21, 04:02) Goodness: 1x (04:13) In the Spotlight: 1x (19:06) Stuck: 1x (20:52) Lovely: 1x (09:43) Shouting: 1x (03:39) Of All Things: 1x (32:44) Surely: 1x (20:07) Puzzling: 1x (01:30) Whoopsie: 1x (31:40) Marries Up: 1x (35:33) Progress: 1x (41:09) What Does This Mean?: 1x (35:47) That's Huge: 1x (40:06) Nature: 1x (20:31) Weird: 1x (02:14) Most popular number(>9) and digit this video: Ten (13 mentions) Two (68 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (12) - Low (1) Odd (3) - Even (1) Higher (2) - Lower (0) Row (7) - Column (6) 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!

[@Hakucho64]

Had to restart a couple of times because I broke the puzzle, but got there in the end, lovely setting.

[@MattYDdraig]

30:15 Great to see Finkz again! Thanks Marty for another fabulous puzzle.

[@puritan7473]

I think that was the first time I was crying out for Simon to do more pencil marks!!

[@Coyotek4]

18:32 ... loving the maze craze after 2 episodes Nice puzzle!

[@Kelarys]

it really feels like he completed the puzzle without properly respecting that a 3 on the path can only be sandwiched by a combination of 7s and 8s. He had to take the long way around finding out how to finish the puzzle instead of looking at where the 3 could go in box 8, because that would have saved him a few minutes finalizing the path

[@Mephistahpheles]

@26:09 "...that's got no restriction really". Really? It's a naked single. Heh.

[@artsenor254]

Oooh, I've been looking forward for this one !

[@artsenor254]

And I wasn't disappointed, this was a blast to solve !

[@puritan7473]

This Puzzle was great fun, thank you Marty and Simon!! I don't know who set the phrase upon completion but that made my day!

[@dinidini4000]

the cupcake number was basicly never used for the rest of the puzzle feels for the poor cupcake it was only a means to the line nothing more in simons eyes

[@karlmortenlunna2417]

Lovely puzzle. I actually think this was easier than the first one. 15:13 for me. I am sure Simon will keep doing this puzzles, but if you cant wait the third puzzle is published on LMD.

[@petrie911]

Whenever there's a sum to 10 condition on adjacent cells, seems like there's always some trick to get 5 + 5 in there.

[@RoderickEtheria]

Finkz managed a time of 29:04 when he ran through my grid. Simon's run with Finkz, he was a little blind.

[@caspianmaclean8122]

After around 21:15 in the video I worked the path out in a different way, by looking at where the 2 goes in column 3. One option was ruled out for requiring a second 8 in box 3, and the others all blocked off one path.

[@Mandragorn]

This may have been one of the hardest yet i was able to get! These ar eso fun to have to double check when things go awry

[@ericpraline1302]

That was fun, thanks. Every time I thought I had reached a dead-end, I found a way out. I liked Simon's point about 2345, I hadn't quite looked at it that way.

[@dinane]

I. Love. These. Puzzles. !!!

[@CauchyIntegralFormula]

18m08s. I like these rat mazes, excited for the third

[@LaatiMafia]

This felt a lot easier than the first one. Now we need a 9 x 9 final boss with German whispers, Dutch whispers, palindrome lines and fog.

[@estherwestbroek]

I don't know if rules for experiment animals would allow such agony for Finkz😅

[@TheDarkNerd]

Put a bunch of circles in the maze. Every time Finkz steps on a circle, one line type ends, and another begins. What kind of line? That's up for the solver to figure out.

[@kierkegaard54]

there's no need to now the complete path to solve the puzzle

[@sarahnash7174]

Thanks for helping me reach the cake Simon.... I needed that delicious buttercream by the time I'd run through the maze! It's quite a long way for a little rat! Loving watching you solve these puzzles, loving solving these puzzles myself! Re: the box 5 route not entering into box 6, I've developed a bit of a trick in Marty Puzzles which is....would Marty take the easy route and therefore avoid slotting some beautiful logic in?! Nope.....then what has he done to avoid it? (Very similar to your initial Gut Feeling) Another stunner from Marty! 💜

[@martysears]

This is a good strategy to be fair 😊

[@awilliams1701]

lol you never did see the 4/5 pair in c8 made R4C8 a 6 or a 7 giving you the high/low of that line.

[@samanthahill1525]

Oh that 5 just drove me insane watching him. :)

[@TheSwitzer1234]

This was actually slightly lucky. When Simon "learned" row 4 oscillates, he never actually disproved 6 and 7 being in r4c6 and r4c7. I was hoping he wouldn't use the false logic; he only employed it on the final 6 cells of the puzzle, where it would be trivial to disprove.

[@KANPAI666OPPAI]

35:46 - this was a really clever ruleset!

[@grahamania]

00:20:35 for me. Both rat maze puzzles have been great! Loved it! Kind comment.

[@HunterJE]

34:25 One way to show Finkz doesn't go r6c5-r7c5-if it does r7c5-6 must be 46, but that forces the 7 and 3 and Finkz would have to go from a 46 to a 3...

[@Yttria]

Another fun one. Finished in a relaxing 27:05.

[@Kirbyfan87827]

Finished in 19:07 with help from the video.

[@jmurt6379]

Lovely puzzle! Very much enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised to complete it in a very quick time (16:12)

[@piarittersporn]

Brilliant puzzle.

[@THETowandAA]

the blood pressure I get screaming at Simon that r4c8 see 4 and 5 since a gazillion years....

[@maljamin]

Around 18:20 when moving into the second box, can anyone explain why Simon would mark the cell as 2345, rather than 5678? Since it was adjacent already to 2345, the adjacent digits that could possibly reach 10 have to be 5678. 5 being the oddball that works across the diagonal and flips the oscillation? Other comments hint at something awry there - I'm just really hoping someone can explain. No doubt, Simon could've seen something much more advanced that I missed that let him "flip" without first narrowing to the 5-5 using other logic.

[@katiekawaii]

Because he's seeing that the two boxes are mirror images of one another (rather than seeing the upper box as a continuation of the lower one).

[@phuybrechts6875]

The 5-value cake was missed 😉

[@travisporco]

I appreciate that Finkz' name ends in a "z", but I still feel as though an opportunity was lost to call him "Finx".

[@RtyuioDfghj-x3c]

Let's not jinx the poor rodent! 😅

[@Landis963]

66:42! Would have been faster if I'd been more diligent about my sudoku logic, but still. Very fun puzzle!

[@NaHBrO733]

25:02 for me Sum to at least 10 is a much easier constraint than sum to prime

[@anaayoung9142]

"It is sudoku that we are missing?" Yes, Simon, it is sudoku!! 😅

[@psiphiorg]

I found this one more challenging than I should have, probably just making assumptions that I'm not testing before putting in. My time was 67:37, solver number 6746.

[@Raven-Creations]

17:27 for me. "We still don't know how this line goes, pointing at the left half of R4. There's 4 and 5 in the column, looking at a 567. You also missed a few tricks. From R4C3 it couldn't go straight up, because you had 2367 and there's no way to make a continuous line out of those digits. Similarly, the right half of R7 was 3467. The only way to make that work is 3746, but with 46 on one end you'd need 3 on the other end but it can't be because it would be next to a 5. It was obvious from very early on if you'd pencil-marked 1s in R5 that it could never go via R5C7. You claim not to like putting in pencil-marks because they confuse you, but that's because when you do make them, you put utter nonsense in them. So many times you put in candidates that have already been ruled out, either because they see a digit or corner-marks, or they would break some other rule. If you took care, you'd have meaningful pencil-marks that didn't appear to give you all sorts of confusing possibilities, most of which would have been ruled out. You also fail to remove candidates when you place digits (like R4C8). Considering how much you wanted to tell which were the 45s and which the 67s, why would you not take every opportunity to eliminate candidates?

[@HunterJE]

28:48 Weird side effect if not terribly useful - removing 7 from r4c5 here actually lets you remove 6 from r4c7...

[@trudain]

30 mins for me. Thanks!

[@QuadraticPerplexity]

"Tenacity" and "Primer", indeed

[@emsouemsou]

34:33 here! Great puzzle

[@nagranoth_]

18:20 wait, what? Why do they have to be low? I would think the previous box ends low so they have to be high.... oh ok, someone mentioned if 2 were at the end of the first box there would be no place for the 2 in the following box. But Simon didn't mention that, so was there another reason?

[@maljamin]

Right! This seems completely wrong to me. On entering that box Simon should've placed 5678 (just in terms of what could sum to 10+). Then made the deduction about the needed position for 2 in that box. Which allows you to rule out 8, then 7 and 6 can be ruled out similarly. I'm really confused how you can even lump 5 in as a low digit consistently, since what it does there IS flip the oscillation (like on a Dutch Whisper). I can't see why Simon would've brushed past all that.

[@RichSmith77]

They have to be "low" (2345) because there are four of these low digits on the seven cell line and they all have to be kept apart. It's the same point he made about box 7 at 16:50.

[@marcodossantos5366]

@@maljamin it's because of how you split high/low. Simon puts 5 with low digits as they can't be next to each other in the same box. So you have 4 low (2-3-4-5) and 3 high (6-7-8). This is looking at box only, since you know all 8 digits apart from 1 are on the path, which forces the oscillation. You can't really put 5 with the high digits because it can't go with any of the low digits. 5 is a bit in the weird spot because it needs to be next to a high digit or itself

[@marcodossantos5366]

to add to my previous comment. You are not splitting digits from 1 to 8 between low and high, you are splitting digits from 2 to 8 that need to add to at least 10 where the low can't be next to each other, as such 5 needs to be with the low group

[@zmaj12321]

33:50, smooth then tough then done

[@paulanderson5704]

Wow! First time I completed puzzle faster than Simon! His time was 35:59, mine 35:57

[@titirenee]

Titi's Time: 25:26

[@GeekRedux]

One thing that Simon and Mark both do that I don't understand is complain about "chocolate teapot" triples and how useless they are. I don't get that, because a triple is a triple, right? I use them in solves all the time. Once the chocolate teapot triple is revealed at 39:22 , it can immediately lead to placing 6 digits, which then immediately leads to resolving the teapot triple itself. Why are those kinds of triples called useless by Simon and Mark?

[@Poet13xRatedRKO]

Solved in 30:44.

[@wordclover]

Lovely puzzle, Marty. Thoroughly enjoyed it after an initial hiccup where I thought I'd broken the puzzle because I didn't see that 5+5=10. One thing, though, puzzled me in Simon's solve: Why do the 6 and 7 in box 4 have to alternate? Isn't low-high-high-low also valid?

[@martysears]

Yes it is, I think he realised that shortly afterwards?

[@Jonasz314]

Wait are you a fan of The Wheel of Time? Shieldmaiden is a reference to Norse mythology, but was also used in the epic saga from Robert Jordan. I read the first 9 books something like 3 times. When I reached the end, just read it again. Until the 10th book where wheels started to fall off, and the author was trying to find a way to end the entangled mess they created.

[@hunbun101]

599k soo close😅

[@Foxyjosh]

Can you ask Spen to program the mouse following the path on completion of the puzzle?

[@Hakucho64]

As a programmer, I can tell you the amount of work involved is not worth it for what's maybe a 3-5 puzzle series.

[@upallninetyone]

I don't know if it's intentional (it probably is, which is really cool), but the finished maze also looks like a rat.

[@martinomasolo8833]

He even unwillingly added little eyes in the right spot

[@henrygifford544]

So good

[@farbiarnarrr4767]

00:46:35

[@daniellucas5522]

Wasted 10 minutes staring at the grid with the 8 in column 8 looking at my 5/8 pair on the cupcake. Just utterly blind today - sorry Finkz!

[@jurgnobs1308]

you really shouldn't call yourself a rat, Simon

[@LednacekZ]

17:27 for me. i thought it would be harder

[@kierkegaard54]

How do I draw a line in the grid? or x's?

[@martysears]

Go into your settings and make sure pen / drawing tool is enabled

[@jurgenbaumann67]

When I use the App to solve it (also with other sudokus) my pencil marks get red if it is in conflicted with a number I fixxed. If you had this, too, you had seen long ago R4C8 is not 5, cause cupcake is.

[@elLooto]

Simon deliberately turns that error checking off. He is trying to solve without error checking, because it makes the solves a bit more exciting to watch.

[@CrankyOtter]

Solving half & only half of the puzzle is novel!

[@林老師-i5d]

28:06 for me nice puzzle

[@jurgenbaumann67]

There were two possible fields for the 2 in Box 7 . Also there were only two possible fields for the 2 in Box 5. I checked R7C4 for 2. That woulöd mean, R5C4 couldn´t be 2 cause sudoku and R6C3 couldn´t be 2 cause 2+2=4. So R7C4 couldn´t be 2. With this start I came to same result. Also 8 couldn´t be on R7C4, which means, 2 couldn´t be on R6C3 and has to be on R5C4. And this turns the directions of th rat to north, cause 8-2-8 on a line isn´t possible.

[@theredstoneengineer6934]

22:42 for me

[@thitherword]

No more Braid?

[@arsalanahmed3184]

Lmaooo not Simon casually ignoring the 5 on the pie 🤣😭