Minesweeper Meets Sudoku

[@FlorianWortmann]

Thank you so much for the feature, Simon! A perfect solve along the solvepath I imagined... this made my saturday evening 🙂 We might indeed see more puzzles with the minesweeper rule, there have been ideas of incorporating doublers and other shenanigans.

[@ElDillas]

I'm hoping to expand the rulesets on my puzzles... might give the minesweeper ruleset a try!!

[@Bronzescorpion]

First thank you for the puzzle. Secondly, I find it a bit odd that you say Simon solved it perfectly along the solvepath. The 4-2-9-7 line was already revealed long before he found it and he did it in a roundabout sudoku way, instead of using the rules. He only used the line to remove a deadly pattern, whereas it would have given him clues to the other lines if he had marked it earlier.

[@emilywilliams3237]

This is a very good implementation of the sudoku/minesweeper combo - and then the double arrows! Thanks, Florian.

[@FlorianWortmann]

@@Bronzescorpion Thanks, I see your point and yes, the solve was certainly not flawless. To me, "perfect" has a different meaning. Simon caught all the key steps, maybe not immediately, maybe not in an optimal order, but there were no bypasses of the intended logic and overall the solve was very fun and enjoyable to watch.

[@mikedonnan6541]

One of my favourite puzzles this year. Thank you (from a ‘mere mortal’ level solver) Florian & Simon! 🙏

[@DevonParsons697]

Not only is Minesweeper still around, there are some truly incredible Minesweeper games with handcrafted puzzles available. Tametsi and Hexcells are both fantastic. Lately I've been playing the game Bombe which is truly unbelievable, you program it with the rules to solve minesweeper and then it automatically applies the rules whenever possible in the future. The UI is a little unintuitive but it's one of the most astounding minesweeper games ever created.

[@Minihood31770]

A personal favourite of mine is Hexceed

[@timothyjamison8172]

These are great finds! One game I find amazing is called 14 Minesweeper Variants. Every procedurally-generated board can be and indeed has to be solved logically. If you guess, then it generates and shows a possible mine layout indicating how your guess is wrong based on the clues revealed so far. Another game I like is Globesweeper, where you can play on a spherical map of the Earth.

[@KeiFlox]

Hexceed is my personal favorite Minesweeper version! Love love love minesweeper, was stoked to see this video in my notifications.

[@rea9lizer]

Personally I don't like hexagon-tiled minesweepers, but Tametsi looks cool as it has various tile types. My favorite is 14 Minesweeper Variants

[@TayaTerumi]

Bombe is amazing, thanks for the rec!

[@Orenotter]

There's cars like the graceful Delorean. There's great, mighty robots like Vorian. But most underrated Of things man's created Is this awesome puzzle by Florian.

[@brendonmurley8276]

Chapeaut, Orenotter!

[@johnpauladamovsky86]

At this point in time, I think that Cracking the Cryptic has finally reached its critical-mass, and thus Simon and Mark will have enough new puzzles and demand to continue publishing at least 2 videos a day for the rest of their lives.

[@David_K_Booth]

Thanks to Sven's continuing development of the web app, if you click on a circle and hold, all of the circles are automagically selected. Well done Sven!

[@stevesebzda570]

Or double tap one. It would probably even work if you double clicked one (even faster). You're welcome.

[@koenth2359]

Sven is truly amazing!!!

[@goranpiljic9362]

The way you go back and forth between regular Sudoku, double-arrow Sudoku, Yin-Yang shadings and Minesweeper clues in this one is astounding. Each different sub-game gives hints for the other ones. Fantastic puzzle and great solve.

[@GumpelLoki]

30:07 "Five and eight add up to eleven" another knowledge bomb from Cracking the Cryptic :P

[@Kheldar633]

I'm glad someone else caught this too... :)

[@bobh6728]

30:05 Knowledge bomb: 5 & 8 add up to 11. 😜

[@cataleal3197]

It did made me smile, fan of Pulp here. I just started following the channel , watching sudokus has helped me un unwind after long days , love the videos❤ Greetings from Chile

[@tylerowens]

49:05 I absolutely love minesweeper and this puzzle was a *blast* from start to finish

[@stevesebzda570]

That's a neat trick , @25:24: Those line cells can't be 5-6 now (adding to 11) because r4c6 (a 56) would have no fill. So, they're 3-8 now. I wonder if Simon will spot that? That moves the 5 over in box2. That's why it's important to look at sudoku always. A nice trick there by the setter though . I noticed. Very cool.

[@hundertzwoelf]

Yup, pretty nice trick. I came to the comments to see if somebody else saw it too 😁

[@stangerrits6712]

Yes, me too. Felt quite good spotting this before Simon :)

[@birbthetopicman2851]

I saw the same thing and went to the comments to find someone else who spotted it :D I love being able to spot things, makes me *think* I’m as smart as Simon.

[@Baer1990]

46:20 One of the smarter people on youtube not seeing they would've created a 3×2 is comforting to me. Makes me feel less disappointed when I miss an obvious pattern 😁 Well done Simon, I love your explanations just as much as the puzzle

[@woahcarlos1611]

I tried this one myself after a few minutes watching Simon, and it really is quite cool how the rules play off of each other. Despite the lengthy rule set, I never felt overwhelmed by the level of nuance. The construction here really leads you step by step, back and forth between each rule. Such a fun solve!

[@ashnikchauhan9103]

Well another good one from Florian Wortmann. I love hybrid sudokus. And thank you sharing the secret Simon, I had forgotten the periemeter secret that one really helped. Keep on cracking

[@LeaAddams]

Thanks so much for the secrets on yin-yangs!!! 😅 I'd spent hours staring at this, trying to figure out how everything connected until it broke. Watched the first couple of minutes of your solve, decided to have another crack at it better informed, and suddenly all of the problems I'd been having just... dropped into place by themselves. Thankfully 2/3 of my deductions from earlier still held. 😅

[@audeng8485]

Wonderful solve! I haven’t seen anyone point out how the finished shading sort of looks like a face smirking/smiling at the viewer. Lovely setting of the puzzle, and even lovelier if intentional!

[@EvaCottontail]

16:40 “…although these would be friends with one another they would have to spend their lives in each other’s company like turtledoves and never meet another living soul.” Such poetry in sudoku!

[@ghandigoots]

At 12:10, I realized that the 1 won't work in the corner because it would force 234 on the line, leaving no low digits for the black dot in the box. I love when there are multiple logic paths that lead to the same deductions

[@tehbertl7926]

31:36 here. Had a lot of fun with this one. I still play Minesweeper daily, it eats into my productivity!

[@danielrehfeldt]

wonderful solve and even more wonderful puzzle. I didn't know either of the Yin-Yang Secrets and could still solve it... wish I knew those tricks before doing this puzzle.

[@tremkl]

I think a cleaner way of doing the finish is that you need a gray next to the 56, so no matter which way you go, the 3 must be green, and then the 8 must be gray, and it resolves from there.

[@bookmarvel1]

Solved it in 85:52, listened to the yin-yang tips and then gave it a shot solving it on my own. I almost exclusively do GAS, with occasionally attempting these harder puzzles and checking the video when I get stuck, but I was able to get through this whole puzzle on my own which I am so very proud of and I had such a fun time doing it :))

[@Jesthers]

Solved all on my own, really impressed with this one! I actually got really stuck near the end because I forgot about the yin-yang restriction on the borders, was gonna watch the video and then saw that Simon pretty much colors the whole border that I had missing (most of the top and right side) near instantly lol Great puzzle! Loved the new rule with the "minesweeper" cells. Highly recommend this one :D

[@956675]

I really enjoyed that puzzle. There was a time I wouldn't attempt a puzzle with a video length of over 25 minutes. This puzzle was 51 for me to solve. I do love the yin-yang variant. Very entertaining Sunday morning for me.

[@stevesebzda570]

Lol nice. I luv how Simon's cursor is sitting on something. Because here (@19:14): That cell (if grey) would create a "checkerboard," so it's green. Now that that's in, the next cell "can't create a 2x2" of green, so it's grey. What's Simon off to now though? I'm checking it out (

[@goldcakes]

You know that moment, where you click the video thinking you haven't seen it or done the puzzle. Then you click the link and you see your previous solution. I just got that.

[@JamieSMB]

My heart stopped when I saw this thumbnail because I love both Minesweeper & Sudoku so I had to click this one. xD

[@annamerkel7266]

Fantastic puzzle, this was such a fun solve! I definitely needed simon's tricks about how to do yin-yang since I've never solved any of those type before, but after that I was off to the races. Loved the ruleset and how the different rules played off of one another. Would love to do more "minesweeper" puzzles in the future for sure.

[@bertbergers9171]

58:30 for me, loved the interactions between the different rules. Now on to watch the video. Thank you Simon, great solve and being a marvellous teacher in the past on the yin yang bit helped a lot, loved this ruleset.

[@victoriam6569]

Thank you for the fun puzzle and a beautiful solve :)

[@mini.opular]

16:40 "We'd have a trapped domino of green in all this and although these would be friends with one another theyd have to spend their lives in each other's company like turtle doves and never meet another living soul." I'm crying????

[@lazarminion2590]

impressive. it took 88 minutes of struggle for me, and you're flying through it.

[@AFT3RDAY5]

Brilliant puzzle 🤩👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Was crazy solving that 👍🏻

[@zacharybufton4092]

Relatively new viewer, and certainly a new subscriber. The legion reference is great and I love the R.E.M reference for any three in the corner. Now, I don't want to break any traditions but I feel like "proving its position" is more apt than "losing its religion" (and the same number of syllables). If possible, my partner Mollie has her 29th birthday on the 18th of this month (July)... She's an avid Sudoku puzzler and would absolutely love a shout out on the channel. Keep on cracking on.

[@JackByrneMusic]

I chuckled when I put 3 in the corner and the software shot out animated confetti!

[@ColinBroderickMaths]

At the end, the wrong domino of grey was easy to identify if you remember you can't separate the two green regions! So easy to forget the rules. I often stare for several minutes at an impossible problem only to realise it was obvious all along!

[@timch5227]

omg i wanted to solve this one for myself and read the rules a bit too quick. Then started treating the lines as in-between lines, which worked for about 20 minutes until the puzzle broke what an absolute genius i am Edit: What a beautiful piece of logic. I used to love playing minesweeper on windows 7 on school-pcs and this just gave me a bit of nostalgia

[@Talsin1989]

Wooo just in time, Chinese ordered

[@emilywilliams3237]

This was a great video - the puzzle is very interesting, and I enjoyed watching you solve it, Simon. I think that this is probably within my ability, so it goes on my list. Thanks!

[@stevesebzda570]

That poem at 2:32 on that page. That adds a whole new meaning to "I caught her eye," you're right.. Funny

[@KSilverlode]

I really enjoyed the logic on the lines in this one, once I got myself to stop thinking of them as between lines, and the minesweeper twist was great as well.

[@longwaytotipperary]

It was a nice Sunday morning for me! 😊

[@Nevir202]

Fun fact: If you like Minesweeper, there are actually at least a half dozen derivative games based on it now. From ones with novel rules, to ones with novel grid types, and even 3D minesweeper. My favorite? Demon Crawl, a minesweeper, fantasy, Rogue-like.

[@Scum42]

I had been working on this puzzle for quite a while on and off before this video, and I was well and truly stuck. I figured I would watch this video because I had already spent too long on it, but then the first thing you did is show some new secrets I'd never heard of that I KNOW are extremely useful with where I left off. Welp, gotta stop watching and keep working I guess!

[@praematura]

32:02 for me (conflict checker off), this was a very cool puzzle! I found it a bit challenging to remember to keep track of all the various rules and stalled a few times when I forgot one. 😄 But a really great puzzle, props to Florian!

[@scarbo3697]

48:14 for me. Probably the best puzzle I've done all year!

[@flash24g]

From 43:15: Around the 4 circle, exactly one of 3 and 8 is shaded (otherwise we would have a 2×2 or a chequerboard). We have 7 shaded already, and at least one of the 9 and 2 left of the 4 is shaded (else we would have a 2×2). This means at most one of the 1 and 2 below the 4 is shaded. Shading the 1 would thus mean we have a chequerboard, hence the 1 is unshaded.

[@piarittersporn]

Wonderful and exciting puzzle.

[@0Clewi0]

Haven't done much sudoku lately because I've been doing minesweeper so decided to give this a try, it was a slow 2 and a half hour solve, but surprised of seeing the 3 in a corner animation.

[@ymiros0953]

48:00 It's even simpler than that, if you shade the 3 cells below the 4 you simply cannot shade a 4th cell without creating a green 2x2.

[@RainDancer98]

I slipped up somewhere with my 3s and had to watch part of the video to restart down the correct solve path. In total it took nearly 2 and a half hours. It was a nifty solution, once I got it

[@Kezian2late]

In a rather unexpected turn, I was able to solve the sudoku *Without* completing the entire minesweeper: I basically didn't do anything minesweeper-related in boxes 4 or 7, and never finished boxes 5 or 8. This was very curious! I've never encountered one of these double-game Sudokus where you can solve the sudoku without fully completing the other!

[@tiarkrezar]

Same here, I ended up solving it pretty much the same way. Kinda surprising how those last few boxes can be solved just with the sudoku and sum constraints.

[@crystalgehrt8861]

I didn't have as easy a time as Simon, but I did very much enjoy this puzzle and it gave me a bit more practice with yin and yang puzzles.

[@six_5000]

Got the numbers in exactly 60 minutes… final shading took some extra brain power

[@CrankyOtter]

Sven, please add white outlines to the center pencilmarks so they stand out enough to remind Simon they exist.

[@ArtemensiaK]

The green with the gray lines and the gray shading was quite something, I must admit. I could see it, but it challenged my concentration. The contrast was quite low, but who cares about something like that, when one can see Simon solve a puzzle

[@stevesebzda570]

This solved nice (with a little help from Simon). The thing to recognize here though @30:39 was that the 7s were on the outside in boxes3&9. (I had to look twice to make sure) That would have disambiguated them. Yay, I spotted something Simon didn't. Yay. Solved nice, though. 😂👍🏻👍🏽 Cheers

[@wanderlustwarrior]

39:21 for me as I catch up on old puzzles I haven't finished yet.

[@brendonmurley8276]

44:08 for me, with a major mistake 3/4 the way through that took me ages to work out. Great puzzle, thanks Florian!

[@chipsounder4633]

Great solve

[@fruit3193]

Very solid puzzle

[@siricz]

35:12 (in vid) that's an advice I should have followed when I was younger

[@Coyotek4]

23:11 ... I fared far better on this one than I originally expected. I'm fine with that. Nice puzzle!

[@greenruby1000]

this puzzle took me about 90 minutes, would have been longer but when I got throughly stumped I watched this video until he pointed out something obvious I'd missed. when I finished the puzzle I was about 30 minutes into the video

[@Fallenangel_85]

Stumbling around towards the end, missing the 2x2 green issue that instantly solves it, well done until then.

[@LeonardLew]

“We’re filling it in almost” 29 minutes left in the video 👀😄❤️

[@ghandigoots]

"why did I say that?" 😂😂

[@eve_the_eevee_rh]

54:14 this was really fun! Took me a while, but it was a fun while!

[@gabiballetje]

What in the... NO !!! XD This is nuts. And it's thursday afternoon now, how could you not know that after figuring all of this out ? XD

[@koenth2359]

I finished the numbers and it said it was correct before I finished the shading. I understand that the software cannot check the shading, but in principle, what do you think: is the shading part of the puzzle, or is it just a means to find the digits? Would a puzzle with an ambiguous shading be acceptable?

[@ericpraline1302]

Ooh quite tough for me. I concentrated too much on yin-yang when I should have been concentrating on boring old sudoku. Drat it gets even worse, I completely forgot about the boundary change rule.

[@Landis963]

75:54 For me. Got a bit stuck on the perimeter logic partway through - couldn't initially see why the shaded portion necessarily needed to be larger than the unshaded, but still a respectable time, I think.

[@revandesigns]

Would have liked to see you find out that the 5,6 between the 2,3 double arrow would automatically knock out the 5,6 version of the 11 to make naked singles of the 3,8 along the line, very clever setting in that small corner of 4 digits

[@benjiboy1337]

I spent a good half hour flummoxed trying to work out logic, because I missed the importance of the black dot in the first box and didn't have the needed information...

[@57thorns]

34 minus for me and this was a lovely Sunday morning puzzle.

[@stevesebzda570]

Oh, I see (Simon posing the question about the border

[@stevesebzda570]

@19:24

[@stevesebzda570]

19:54 Even better, the whole stretch just shy of that corner 2x2 is grey. Excellent spot, Simon. 👍🏻👍🏽😂

[@MartinFindon]

32:28 Sixy sudoku things! Ha ha!

[@Squirrel42300]

Wow I love minesweeper AND I love sudoku! This is the video for meeee :)

[@the_mad_bunnyx9537]

I don't know if it was just me but I didn't notice that this was a cracking the cryptic puzzle at first. I thought it was a youtube video about minesweeper ;(.

[@jenniferlenfestey5335]

Wonderful puzzle, and not too hard. I'm beginning to enjoy yin-yang puzzles, and adding in the minesweeper hybrid is a lucky strike extra. 80:36

[@Aliessil]

Didn't think I'd be able to do this with no given digits, but finished in 43:30. Would've been quicker but I kept forgetting whether the circles were supposed to be shaded or unshaded, and checking the rules YET AGAIN!! 🤣

[@OjingeoChaemuchim]

32:23 not bad for minesweeper player with 53 second expert PB

[@JustLansky]

I was like, lets try one of these myself, so I tried this for around 1 hour and got 1 number and 1 cell shaded, I decided to watch the video and he said that it was only a 3/5 stars😭😭😭

[@valeryolympia]

62:48, loved it!

[@kindlin]

93m for me, a good puzzle to wile away the day.

[@adamkarnbrink1210]

The most difficult puzzle I've ever solved, 191 minutes for me

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

I solved this one a few days ago and it was awesome!!

[@AvatarBowler]

I actually thought the reason the circle at the start of the puzzle couldn’t be 1 in the corner would be because 2 gray cells would surround it, leading to a contradiction.

[@Squishy3757]

You were missing that the left side greens were not connected to the right side at the end unless you chose your solution.

[@RichSmith77]

? The only thing preventing greens joining in the "other" solution would be the creation of 2x2s in green though (or an incorrect count of greys). In other words, the exact reason Simon found.

[@stevesebzda570]

What's an "inverted comma," Simon mentioned here? @7:43 ? Those double commas at the bottom sometimes ya see?? That's a mystery (Not really, I could Google it - I thought I'd ask here though) ?? Cheers and enjoy. 🤔

[@RichSmith77]

Inverted commas are just another name for quotation marks. If you're reading out loud the description: 'This is a "simple" puzzle.' to someone, you would likely say "This is a simple, in inverted commas, puzzle" to clarify to the listener that this isn't simply 'a simple puzzle', it's 'a "simple" puzzle', and therefore may not be simple. 🙂 (You may also, optionally, do air quotes with your fingers).

[@jsbrads1]

If the top right corner cell of box five is 5 or 6, then the line between 5&6 have to be the 38

[@Bronzescorpion]

Man, in this puzzle Simon seemed so unwillingly adamant to not follow through with what he was doing. Having completely colored circle that he won't count, only put in one number on a line, even though the other is then given and not coloring the perimeter completely when he can. What is going on? Did he put his best trolling pants on or what? I don't think there have ever been a puzzle, where I tried to demand through the screen, that he should fill in some cells so many times. Edit: I even wrote this comment before the total failure of not looking at the 4-2-9-7 line. He even looked at the other line that shared one of the circles and then refused to look at the other already solved on. He really missed some beauty in this puzzle.

[@elLooto]

Yeah, like missing that 56 was brilliantly eliminated from the 5-3-8-6 line early on. Good thing this puzzle didnt have a tight solve path.

[@brettduffin8412]

30:07 knowledge bomb. 5 and 8 add up to 11. Wow.

[@Kelarys]

lately I've just been doing the GAS puzzles but I do consider myself a very good minesweeper player (this turned out to matter very little haha) so I took a crack at this and I'm glad I did

[@Silvergrooves42]

You could say that in this ruleset... 7 is a monogamous (circle) digit :D

[@AleksandrYgA]

29:26 for me. This ruleset has quite strong restrictions so it felt pretty easy

[@facilvenir]

So sad to know that the minesweeper game in the back was lost.

[@Swisswavey]

Yeah, nice puzzle. Just under 40 minutes for me. I struggle with the pencil puzzle variants 😅

[@flycationstudios]

Hey Simon, my friend Alex has a birthday on the 10th of July and loves watching your channel and your ability to solve these sudoku puzzles. Could you give him a shout-out for his birthday? That would be amazing.

[@inspiringsand123]

Let's Get Cracking: 01:13 Simon's time: 47m17s Puzzle Solved: 48:30 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 10x (07:58, 08:04, 08:09, 08:14, 08:20, 10:30, 19:21, 19:25, 19:28, 19:34) Bobbins: 2x (20:49, 41:28) Maverick: 2x (24:48, 37:32) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (29:01) Three In the Corner: 1x (34:31) Diddly Squat: 1x (30:12) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 15x (13:03, 13:33, 14:00, 15:09, 20:49, 22:28, 24:48, 27:40, 32:30, 37:28, 37:35, 40:53, 41:28, 41:28, 42:37) Checkerboard: 13x (08:29, 09:32, 10:54, 11:43, 13:43, 18:59, 19:01, 20:22, 46:13, 46:17, 46:55, 47:13, 48:05) By Sudoku: 11x (23:32, 24:56, 29:08, 29:13, 29:19, 29:24, 31:31, 33:02, 35:26, 35:45, 39:52) Hang On: 6x (13:03, 23:55, 44:03, 45:28, 45:59, 47:16) Sorry: 4x (11:20, 12:31, 22:53, 38:22) Beautiful: 4x (14:00, 14:00, 30:20, 48:38) Gorgeous: 4x (03:46, 20:28, 20:30, 27:40) Lovely: 3x (00:22, 17:21, 48:42) Deadly Pattern: 3x (42:32, 42:35, 42:41) Wow: 3x (28:14, 30:20, 30:20) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (29:24, 32:52, 35:54) Cake!: 3x (03:13, 03:16, 03:17) Goodness: 2x (21:11, 35:00) Stuck: 2x (01:37, 01:43) Shouting: 2x (03:09, 03:11) Naked Single: 1x (40:28) Elegant: 1x (46:40) Take a Bow: 1x (49:07) Famous Last Words: 1x (20:41) In Fact: 1x (12:40) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (39:32) Marries Up: 1x (36:03) Progress: 1x (42:04) Unstuck: 1x (01:49) Bar Humbug: 1x (28:34) What Does This Mean?: 1x (23:51) That's Huge: 1x (35:42) Have a Think: 1x (26:10) Nature: 1x (15:09) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Eleven (6 mentions) Two (96 mentions) Green (56 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (2) - Low (1) Shaded (23) - Unshaded (8) Black (7) - White (0) Column (7) - Row (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!

[@joshybratwurst1398]

10:30 KZbinrs trying not to get cancelled