Season 2: Rat Run Sudoku returns!!

[@martysears]

Hello! Hehe lovely and unexpected to see this featured less than 24 hours after I published it. I've been beavering away over the last few weeks making lots of shiny new episodes for phase 2. This felt like one of the easier ones, and a good one to kick things off with, as well as a good introduction to the redcurrants. It was originally a bit easier, as an extra wall forced the pathway at the beginning, giving the 1 and 2 in box 1 straight away. So I tried removing the wall, and that cheeky redcurrant in box 7 was a last minute 'addition', and seems to be the thing that people are taking a while to spot, which makes me happy :) I think it's because it's a bit far away from box 1, where its effects are felt, so is easy to overlook. But hopefully that makes it more satisfying and unexpected when noticed. Thankyou for the lovely feature Simon, you did a few bits differently from how I thought about it, but that's to be expected in a puzzle with a ruleset this powerful, where lots of digits come at once, giving you lots of potential places to derive similar information from. But overall you broadly followed the solve path :) Thanks to all the kind commenters too! And to Chinstrap for his very generous and thorough testing and very useful feedback. 💜

[@MasterHigure]

I thought the redcurrant in box 7 was wonderful. Seems like the prefect disambiguator if you ask me. I also like redcurrants better than blackcurrants personally, so I'm glad to see them included.

[@Andizottel]

I always love your comments (and your puzzles, of course) with all the bits of interesting extra information. I especially appreciate the parts about your setting process, since I dabble a bit in setting myself. Thank you very much!

[@jurgnobs1308]

but the red currant does give the 1 and 2 straight away, does it not? it defines that the numbers in columns 1 and 2 are an odd number apart, meankng row 1 column 2 has to be odd, or am I missing something?

[@martysears]

@@jurgnobs1308 it does, if you spot it :) well done

[@jurgnobs1308]

@@martysears yea I spotted basically from the start that columns 1 and 2 are sort of "parallel" to eachother. always a pair of digits with the same difference. and of course the same goes for rows 1 and 2. and then the redcurrant of course is the quite obvious little clue that then resolves the parity. of course you know that all, so not sure why I'm even explaining haha I really like this series.

[@sjm6280]

I'd never have thought seeing a rat would instantly make me this happy!

[@Norion_Artifice]

@@sjm6280 I feel you!

[@francoisduez601]

Same for me 😊

[@MariaVlasiou]

Couldn't have said it better!

[@TheArbieo]

We've been classically conditioned like rats in a cage 😂

[@tessabrisac7423]

… and for me!

[@Timlagor]

Love Simon finding the hardest conceivable way to work everything out and then saying the puzzle isn't easy!

[@eefaaf]

Just using sudoku is too trivial to him ;)

[@studgerbil9081]

Finding that 6 in Col 1 when there's an 8 staring at him in Col 8 was priceless an of course simple addition in boxes 8 and 9 to find the path.

[@A_CC_K]

Yes Rat Run is back, I clicked so fast on the video when I saw the title. Thank you Marty for creating these puzzles and thanks to Simon for solving them brilliantly.

[@MaryVidal-pt8bx]

I’m sad for those who skip directly to the puzzle. Yesterday’s letter and poem had me reflecting on how they miss the lovely sense of community we have in this corner of the internet. Compassion for those who feel lost. Happiness at celebrating the birthdays, weddings, new babies, anniversaries - of people we’ve never met. Even joy at the reappearance of a little rat! What a gift Simon has given us.

[@danwagner3720]

"It's easy to get distracted." That's why I watch you Simon, you are quite entertaining when you get distracted. And, even with the distributions, you are able to solve puzzles that I can't even start.

[@brianj959]

“It’s very easy to get distracted with Simon’s brain”. I fixed the statement up. Bless.

[@patrickgass787]

The madlad is back at it! Such a sneaky little thing with that red currant but so fair, a classic Marty tactic. You can always trust Marty not to lead you on a wild goosechase - if you're having trouble spotting the next step, there's never a need to get lost in the weeds with his puzzles (which is always appreciated), you merely have to spot the trick to it.

[@JaymanOttawa]

A rare case where I wish KZbin allowed us to give two thumbs up. These RatRun puzzles are that good!

[@davidrattner9]

Simon..Simon...by far today my favorite part is your love and enjoyment when @ 18:00 - 18:42..you explained your joy for getting the 3 and mentioning poo poing ..😁 Just again more magic from you Marty with this series!! Huge thank you to both!!!

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 59:19 minutes. I don't think I've clicked on a video as soon as I saw it this fast before. I've been waiting on the return of this series and it was completely worth the wait. The test constraint for this one was wild and I was so excited to immediately rule out row and column 1. The rest became a very fun parity puzzle. I really enjoy when I can see the pathway a puzzle will take and have to prove it. It feels like I got a glimpse of the future and current me has to make sure it happens. I think my favorite part was the limitation of the 8 in column 9 that forced the pathway to take an expediated path through and away from the portals. Marty and Finkz did not disappoint. Great Puzzle!

[@danbanks9325]

Great to see the return of Finkz 😊 Sears you’re a genius 🤘

[@angec9908]

So happy to see Finkz after a 10 hour drive. Perfect end to the day. I remain forever #TeamFinkz.

[@randms2fake]

Loved it. It's nice to have these easy puzzles featured time to time. (Puzzles I can actually solve.)

[@JRTJunk]

"Let's check that the path is continuous, taking into account teleportation." This channel sometimes, the things you say with such a natural seriousness.

[@artursruseckis4242]

No wonder Simon thinks that puzzle rating is too low. He keeps missing easy deductions and arrives at same result via crazy multi-step logic. Apart from first steps almost every other digit Simon got in completely different way than I did, coming from completely different side. I had Finkz path figured out way before I got all the digits, in fact - I used the path to deduct some of them. Simon did everything the other way around - got all numbers and tried to identify the path... my favorite quote from todays solve - "it resolved in completely different way than I expected"... yes, Simon, you had 4 already filled in that box, there was no logic required any more... yet you found one, just to avoid the easiest path. What I can't understand, and I have noticed that in many videos, - it feels that Simon starts solving very slowly, not noticing easy clues and overcomplicating things, I always feel that I am at least 3-5 minutes ahead of him... yet at the end his solution time is much much faster than mine. How that happens I have no clue. At one point Simon just starts flying and finishes puzzle in a time that completely embarrasses what I have achieved... This puzzle is one of the extremes. I remember vividly how I quickly understood the nature of two long paths at the beginning and watching Simon made me scream at the monitor. Yet final result.... I just don't get it, how can I lose so much time in the second part of the solve, especially - when I see that Simon is using way more complex deductions and ignoring easy clues... I just don't understand...

[@matt_tressel]

Marty also 'got me' (23:50) several times in this one! Had me shaking my head at things I missed, or bad assumptions I made. The sneaky redcurrant, thinking I had broken the puzzle after forgetting about diagonal movement in box 6, one always must be careful when going head to head with Marty Sears! So many perfectly placed clues, just a wonderful puzzle! Thanks for the video Simon, always a pleasure to see the joy you have even in the simple things like 1+2=3 :)

[@dikinebaks]

35:13 FINKZ!!!! I missed you little buddy :D

[@mordirit8727]

34:23 I'm so happy Finkz is back in the lab! Loved how the Test Constraint slowly morphed from a source of annoyance to a step by step guide to finish the path as more of R1 and C1 got filled

[@arkremling]

After a truly awful week at work, starting my day with breakfast and a Marty sears rat run puzzle has given me much needed hope for the day ahead.

[@blobz-1]

Such an awesome puzzle. A worthy addition to the series!! Excellent setting, Marty~!

[@agoristtaxadvice]

YAY! Love rat puzzles- second favorite rule set after fog

[@Hybban]

I wanna go to a party with Mark, Simon, the wonderful people of Numberphile, 3 Brown 1 Blue, etc. That would be the most interesting of parties!

[@rhoadeshouse]

I love Simons Pronounciation of "Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte" more though i like the fact, he knows of it, for it is my mothers favorite kind of cake. For those not knowing what it's supposed to be: It is a cake, which has its origins in germany, to be precise: it is said to have its origins in "Schwarzwald" which means black forest (hence the name), but this is no longer possible to proof. It is made with sour cherry, cream and... lets be honest i dont know the recipe. It would probably have been easyer to say, it is what in america is called black forest cake, but i startet it and was to stubboen to delete the whole text...😂 kudos simon.

[@WhaleWaffles]

Spent the last few days solving the first 10, so happy to see Finkz back in action

[@ericpraline1302]

A welcome return, thanks. I took rather a long time to spot something obvious, but enjoyed a few nuggets of logic here. That red dot was my favourite trick I’ve seen in a while.

[@dangrene617]

Was intimidated by the video runtime, but had to give it a shot hoping the first race of the season would be more accessible than the later ones in the previous serious I gave up on even trying. Glad I did! What a joy! 19:47 solve time.

[@bobbie0976]

Glad to see Finkz back!! Once again I got stuck and had to start over. Don’t know what it is about Finkz, there’s always this one path that I initially miss. Sneaky Rat 😊

[@RoderickEtheria]

Doesn't seem like Finkz really likes Red Currants as much as Black.

[@martysears]

😂

[@aburks41]

Rat run puzzles are the best!

[@piarittersporn]

Absolutely wonderful and lovely puzzle. I love these puzzles with Finkz so much.

[@chrismacgillivray]

Oh snap! Love rat run puzzles!!!

[@CrazyIvanTR]

At 38:20 you said is this how this works and there's an easier way to see it. You just look at the cells below 2 and 3 only valid options for them are 4578 so the one below 2 could only ever be 4 or 7 since the one below 3 needs to be 1 more than the one below 2. So, it's just 4 in this case since you can't add 4 different numbers to 7 and get valid digits.

[@ashnose]

Classic Simon 😅. Uses hardest method possible

[@artyheartylife8588]

Yayyy! This gets a like before the theme music even finishes!

[@A_CC_K]

Same here

[@10prozenthimmel]

Oooh, Finkz, what a treat. Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte is not strictly a chocolate cake. The icing is just whipped cream, and there is a cherry filling between the chocolate sponge cakes. Not sure if that would pass the Simon test. At least it’s not yellow 😂

[@kathyjohnson2043]

SK is absolutely yummy, even to a chocolate addict like me!

[@WeaselOnaStick]

My guess the teleporter overheated because it has digit 8 and Finks herself has digit 8 at the start

[@zackwaters6131]

@@WeaselOnaStick I was going to guess because it’s the only even valued teleport, but this makes more sense!

[@gerbenwierda9683]

elegance in the mirrored restriction between path & 'index' digits / Flinkz is a beautiful series.

[@Aliessil]

Finished in 32:08, it's great to see Finkz is back! I was half-expecting to use the yellow, orange and red teleporters when I first saw the puzzle 😀 It helped that as I filled in row & column 1, I marked off every referenced cell which couldn't possibly be on the line.

[@franzelmagetower]

Yay Finkz, our favorite rat is back. Just no flowers for Finkz please!

[@tessabrisac7423]

So I am not the only one to welcome Finkz with a smile and a thought for Algernon! That feels goog…

[@steventhornton4506]

Finally solved a puzzle before watching the video! Loved the first rat run series, wish I'd have given the puzzles a proper go but this was the perfect jumping in point for me. Found it really strange to then see Simon solve in a totally different order to me (I got the path first and had quite a bit of sudoku left to sort out at the end, all resolved by placing the 1 in the right position on the recurrent in box 5 first) 10/10 for me!

[@HeadMed]

I tend to grasp these Marty Sears puzzles easier than a lot of other puzzles, so seeing Simon flounder around frustrated me a bit. Figuring out the 2 index in column 8 based on the large number of cells visited in that column was key to my solve.

[@jurgnobs1308]

i spotted pretty early pm that columns 1 and 2 are essentially parallalel. meaning, they always have the same difference. that differnece being the indexing number up in row 1 column 2. now, the red currant says the cells must have opposite parity. the difference between two numbers of opposite parity is always an odd value. hence r1c2 has to ve an odd number. which gives you the 1 there pretty much straight away. I think you didn't pay enough attention on these red dots there, Simon! as always, these rat puzzles are brilliant

[@HunterJE]

I am normally not a fan of overshading but it feels like maybe as digits and pencil marks started filling in later in the puzzle it might have been a helpful exercise to start shading cells based on whether they could or could not be on the path based on the indexing rule?

[@stevieinselby]

It would certainly have made more sense than shading _some_ cells that couldn't be on the path in grey, and putting a red X in _some_ cells that couldn't be on the path, and a few cells getting both markings!

[@aliengeo]

Hunter, I misunderstood why Simon was shading the index cells, thought what you described was his intent, and continued to shade unvisitable cells through my solve. It made the puzzle much easier to scan.

[@RichSmith77]

​@@stevieinselbyI could see why he didn't want to apply colour shading to the teleporter cells, since it would interfere with their colouring, so I didn't mind the large X's while it was possible the path visited them. I think they could have been removed later though. I did shade cells that couldn't be on the path later on, and ended up completing the path before the sudoku, unlike Simon.

[@mscha]

That's what I did, yes, and that made finding the path a bit easier. It also makes you remember to do the maths for the cells when it becomes available - which Simon tended to miss. And finally, it allows you to see that the path goes through every single allowed cell!

[@leestoddart7014]

I can't understand why Simon didn't shade cells that could not be on the path - I'm sure that would have helped significantly.

[@Rubrickety]

Another terrific addition to the series. The simple introduction of walls to snake-based sudoku opens up so many wonderful new logical ideas, as well as providing some nice narrowing of focus (similar to FoW).

[@johnallegood4469]

Managed in just under 30 minutes, Marty's rat runs are always a joy to solve!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

19:45 for me. Took me a while to grasp the idea for the break-in. Very glad to see this series is back, fantastic puzzle!!

[@pairot01]

27:35 OMG that's incredible! New season, new dots, new tricks it seems.

[@Coyotek4]

43:08 (over two sessions) ... This series is a big reason why I came back to the CTC after about a year's hiatus, and I'm thrilled to see more of these! Nice puzzle!

[@markp7262]

Yay! Finkz is back to take his place among the legends: Splinter, Remy, and Ratigan. Can't wait to see what is next! 25:36 finish. A very nice, straightforward puzzle once you get your head around the concept. Quite enjoyable, excellent!

[@AlphaNumericNZ0]

Yup. Still love these. Such a blast to complete!

[@3Max]

This was a fun one to watch! It seemed really tough at first, but then resolved quickly. Great puzzle and great solve. I hope there's another fog of war rat run coming soon... :)

[@oliefan3722]

I recently started watching you guys again and binged the rat race series last week. Just in time for season 2!

[@gavindeane3670]

Best notification I've had all day 🙂 Just gonna hit the like button first, then I'll get on with trying the puzzle.

[@alexsmart2612]

This is the first time I have ever seen Simon prioritize doing the Sudoku over the "special rules" of the puzzle.

[@MattYDdraig]

21:49 Welcome back, Finkz!!!!

[@prahas777]

What an original, delightful puzzle. My first encounter with the Rat series. :-) And in the beginning of the solve, I enjoyed how Simon had several pieces of the logic, but just slightly in the wrong order.... until they sorted out! Yay! /// And of course the path at the end was so fun and frivolous! :-)

[@Gnarlf]

It took me way to long, but this was an awesome experience. Thanks Marty for the great puzzle and Simon for the entertaining solve.

[@StewartyMac]

Classic Simon moment #3214 = Working out the logic that 1 had to either go at the end of row 2 or the bottom of column really early in the puzzle only to completely forget it when it was forced. Even deducing all the other 1's by saying 1 couldn't be on the path, and only ending up getting the 1 in row 2 via old fashioned sudoku. Never change!

[@sleepingstarsasteria]

I finished playing and watching the first season of this series and I open the app just to see the next one has just started. Wonderful timing

[@munkeysama]

Love this series, but this time I found the full path with a lot of squares left to fill in. It felt a bit academic to just do sudoku after Finkz had his cupcake

[@srwapo]

35:28, I made a few mistakes, but Finkz gave me the confidence to undo my work and fix my errors instead of "peaking" at the video and I got there in the end.

[@MrMW2nd]

welcome back finkz

[@dariusmartin6012]

Great Solve Simon. As I was watching the finish I noticed that r7 c6 indexed in reverse with 7-4=3. On that note I was wondering if anyone in the comments knew of any "reverse indexing" sudoku?

[@OddLittleShoppingBag]

See, I remember Schwarzwalder Kirchetorte from my rapt and detailed attention to Young Frankenstein, not from my spotty and dubious attention to my German classes.

[@gasp1424]

The goat returns!!! Marty you have done it again

[@gzuskupfer5822]

Gotta say, I am god awful at sudoku but I enjoy the puzzle solving. Started playing your game through steam. Great videos!

[@kathyjohnson2043]

I'm quite bad at anything but the most basic but Simon explains his logic so well, I love following along

[@arkadeusz91]

The first thing that I figured out after starting this puzzle was the parity of R1C2 and then I pondered for about half an hour what to do about it. And then I see both from the video and Marty's comment that it was the hardest thing about the puzzle and the rest of it should be easy :D I think I'm slowly turning into Simon...

[@eddieharwood7788]

I love Finkz puzzles, but with limited time I did on a couple of occasions look at Simon's path, have a quick ahha moment and get back to it. I am sure I would have done it but rather more slowly. For me it is the hardest Finkz puzzle yet.

[@Zeekfox]

Simon's convoluted way of finding the 4 in r3c1 is wild. After pointing out that a digit that is at least 4 by sudoku is added to at least three pieces of path of different digits (which really is four if you include the path cell in box 1), the value can't be higher than 6. But we corner marked a 6 in the box already. So r3c1 can't be 6, and can't be 5, because it would add to 1 and sum to 6. So it must be exactly 4.

[@williamthomasmi10]

Took me just over 100 minutes. noticed I got a little lucky early on with an assumption but luckily I was able to prove my assumption correct later on and continue without backtracking. Really fun puzzle, kinda hard for me to start but zoomed through the end. I don't watch CtC often anymore so this was a fun one back.

[@57thorns]

25 minutes to follow Finkz to the cupcake. Welcome back!

[@basilefff]

Solved it in 00:41:23. Very nice one, love all the rat sudoku!

[@myfyrmadocjones]

Simon, you need to update the count for Mark’s latest win. 😀

[@mstmar]

Yay a finkz puzzle. The deduction at 27:20 was my favorite in this puzzle. it's so obvious when you see it, but tucked away so you can't see it right away.

[@tullnfloyd]

All your 8's are belong to us! ... Excellent

[@thomasklinkhammer782]

Simon often says, you need to ask the right question. After pencilmarking box 1, I was shouting to him : Where do you put 8 in box 1? Many minutes later he found a hilarous way to place 4 in box 1 and finaly placing 8 in that box.

[@Glamador]

I loathe doing sudoku, so once I had the digits in both row 1 and column 1, I used the indexing to rule out all of the cells that, if on the path, would add to more than 9. That solved the rat maze very early and I was left to simply polish off the sudoku after.

[@martysears]

thats how I did it too :D

[@snoesnoe590]

Solved, feel a bit better after seeing Simon also take a while to see that red current resolves 1/2

[@MeriaDuck]

Love these puzzles. Too hard for me to solve, but they are so great to watch Simon use his party brain for. As many others here, I'd love being at a party with you 🎉😂

[@SarahLivne]

Brilliant as usual. Now since I know there will be more of these and I will want to do them all - I have to make a pesky little request to whoever is listening - the colours of the puzzle elements (walls, teleporters) are way too dark and bright which makes it so hard to see the actual digit and pencil marks and to scan the grid for digits existing or missing or in fact even notice the box borders properly. Perhaps tone them down a bit? Also, I'm pretty confident one of these days we will have a Finkz puzzle where she actually does take the easiest most straight-forward path straight to the cupcake and all we have to do is prove that anything else is impossible. This sounds like the only trick Marty Sears hasn't played on us yet...

[@Jukka70]

I love these rat race puzzles, they're genius. I saw the clip pop up on KZbin, because of the subscription, I was like woohoo another rat race puzzle

[@MasterHigure]

I came across the puzzle by happenstance on logic-masters, and went straight in to trying to solve it. Unfortunately I have yet to have time to really sit down with it, so I haven't gotten far. But I expected this video to come out quickly. Last round I watched the videos without solving the puzzles myself, and then a month ago I went through them all and solved them, having forgotten all the details but remembering maybe a bit of the overall strategy for each of them. This time I'll try earnestly to solve first. Edit: The timer stopped at 93:54 for me. Spent a lot of time staring at the puzzle after filling in the first few numbers in box 1. Took way too long to see that A was impossible.

[@JohnPretty1]

Thank you Simon, yes I very much enjoyed watching you solve the puzzle. I think you need some warfarin though.

[@debrabowen4276]

Such a joy to watch!

[@constanza1648]

I made a couple of wrong deductions but I could recover easily as they breaks quickly. Even If the puzzle was a little hard for me, I could manage to do it in less than the video length. Nice.

[@Jonas.Nilsson]

Hell yeah!! 54 minutes for me! Fun puzzle!

[@Landis963]

1:17:42! A very fun puzzle, even if I failed to find a way to disambiguate the chain of redcurrants at the end without resorting to bifurcation (was that meant to be something along the lines of counting the numbers of each parity?). One nit to pick, though - the testing log at the end said that Teleport B overheated when Finks entered it, but the path never went through Teleport B! I suppose it must have failed before it could send her.

[@HunterJE]

SPOILERS FOR END TEXT: Another teleporter malfunction, really hope at some point we get an evil Finkz from a mirror universe, maybe for a liar/wrogn puzzle?

[@HunterJE]

Ooh or a puzzle where every time Finkz uses a teleporter she swaps with her mirror self, and the doppelganger obeys an opposite or otherwise different movement ruleset?

[@RichSmith77]

Keeping my fingers crossed that Finkz doesn't enter a teleporter at the same time as a fly.

[@gappy3234]

A fun puzzle, as it took a while to get started, and then just accelerated the further I got through it. I was interested to see how I made some deductions differently from Simon.

[@Tringard]

53:07 Interesting that you could solve the sudoku before finishing the path. I paid a lot more attention to where the path could go at any given time, so had the path finished quite a bit before my grid was filled out.

[@highpath4776]

Why would teleport B overheat ?

[@RichSmith77]

One end is sandwiched between two other teleporters. Probably lacking the necessary ventilation.

[@highpath4776]

@@RichSmith77 indeed so it is.

[@ryanrinaldo9147]

Perhaps the teleport overheated because it is the same digit as Finkz

[@Weaseltube]

It occurs to me that using this first row+column rule, the path can never contain a digit 'n' more than n-1 times, as that is how many unique sums that can add to n without without repeating the same digits (which would require a repeat digit in the first row or column) As it turns out, Marty fully used his allotment of 2s, 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s, making the path almost as long as it could possibly have been; 31 cells long out of a maximum of 36.

[@dannstarrjp]

As always great puzzle by Marty - really love that series. But I also don’t see how it can be 2*, yes it wasn’t my finest solve but it took me over an hour which is what 4* puzzles sometimes take me.

[@annesorensen4004]

Yay🎉 Fun with Finkz ❤

[@dustanloot]

First digit made me think, where is fog when we need it. Just confirming a number placed correctly

[@PinkSupervisor]

Simon ended up using a lot more Sudoku a lot earlier than me.

[@DarrenNakamura]

Been stuck on this for a while. I might have to watch the video to see what I'm missing.

[@nicka3697]

40 minutes in and I'm still waiting for Simon to make the devastating deduction that 1 + 1= 2 in column 2.

[@ventsiR]

ive probably watched every single rat run video and only now realized that the problem solving rat finkz's name is a homophone for "thinks"

[@grahamania]

00:41:58 for me. Another great puzzle worthy of this amazing series! Kind comment.

[@LithmusEarth]

49 minutes into this puzzle i might be the kind of person if i was doing it, would be crossing off spots and circling spots that can and can't be on the path now that you now all the indexing numbers.