What Are THOSE In The Sudoku Fog?!

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

Sandra here (and Nala, but she’s already asleep). Thank you for the lovely feature! I really enjoyed watching it :) Edit: and wow! Thank you all for the beautiful comments and feedback! ❤ so glad to see that many of you enjoyed this one!

[@Gnarlf]

Thank you two for this beautiful puzzle

[@longwaytotipperary]

❤ your puzzle! Nala is adorable!

[@matthewjohnson6360]

I remember the last fog was looking for a ball, found in 9 9 and I think I commented telling you, 'The ball should have been a 3.' now an object was a 3.

[@davidrattner9]

Another majestic setting from you! Loved it!

[@davidrattner9]

​@@longwaytotipperaryNala is so adorable!!

[@bobblebardsley]

Surely it's no coincidence that the second shoe was hidden under a 3 in the corner...? 😛

[@brianwalgren3118]

exactly what I said as soon as box 9 didn't turn up the 2nd shoe!

[@GeneralPotatoSalad]

It's a clever trick, you see: You number the shoes 1 and 3 so everyone wastes time looking for a nonexistent shoe 2.

[@masonsickler2878]

I'm a very novice solver. Took me 92.08, but I had so much fun and was definitely the most difficult puzzle I've been able to solve completely on my own

[@Prometheus_1990]

That's amazing!

[@JellybeanLurker]

I'm very novice as well (I've only completed GAS puzzles), and I keep getting intimidated 😅 this gave me hope

[@zdenekpavlatka609]

WOW! Not only was this a great fog of war puzzle, the colorful lines and cages make it look beautiful! Clearing the fog felt like uncovering an artwork.

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

❤

[@brandied_plum]

I just wanted to say that a couple of weeks ago, the youtube algorithm put you on my home page, and I'm so glad it did! At first I just watched you solve the puzzles, and then I started pulling them up and following along, and the past several days I'll pull up the puzzle and pause you (sorry) while I do what I can, then unpause you when I'm stuck and need your wisdom to get unstuck (and then I pause you again, sorry). My 8yo daughter has watched some of your videos with me and is now interested in sudoku. And as a high school math teacher, I just love all the math tips you share in the videos.

[@KCML82]

Exactly how I got started (and stil play) for the past 2 years!

[@KCML82]

37:47 "That't not affected by things, is it? " While LITERALLY pointing it out. That was hilarious!

[@siorac1147]

47:22 of pure fun. It had so much neat logic with the interplay of cages and lines - I had to work hard from start to finish without ever being really stuck. Lovely.

[@stevieinselby]

As always, Fog of War puzzles are fantastic! This is just the right level of difficulty for me, plenty of challenge there to make me think, but not so much that I can't get through it 👍🏻👍🏻

[@letsmakeit110]

The scrabble guy is Nigel Richards, 5x English champion, most notably famous for winning the French scrabble championship despite not knowing how to speak French. He just memorized the dictionary.

[@MrMouski]

Nigel won 2 french scrabble championships in classic and 3 in a row in duplicate without losing a single point (21 games). Duplicate is the variant where each player has the same board and the same tiles during the whole game. Duplicate is not played in English but certainly should be.

[@swingardium706]

Fun fact: There's a 42% chance of there being at least one 3 in a corner of a random sudoku grid!

[@TimmehTRP]

Actually it's 50%, because either there is OR there isn't

[@annalenastefer4393]

@@TimmehTRP idk if this is a joke but if not you’re confusing probability with possibility

[@TimmehTRP]

@@annalenastefer4393 It's a joke

[@Leeuw96]

Should be 37,6% for at least one 3 in any corner. Because you calculate the chance that not a 3 (8/9) is in all 4 corners (so to the power 4), and subtract that from 1 (i.e. 100%): 1 - (8/9)^4 = 0,3757... = 37,6%

[@swingardium706]

@@Leeuw96 that's the method I used too, but don't forget that the corners affect one another! Once one corner is not a 3, the corners it sees are more likely than usual to be a 3 because they see the value from the first corner. My result has been verified by a friend of mine who wrote a bunch of code to check millions of valid grids. I haven't checked his code, but I do trust his abilities - and it gave an estimation within 0.5% of my calculated value. I'll post the full breakdown of the maths if you'd like?

[@katiekawaii]

Sandra & Nala have become my favorite puzzle setters. Their puzzles are always pure enjoyment. 💜

[@ElysaraCh]

at 37:50 Simon laments that R1C4 is "not affected by things" as his mouse literally hovers over to the 5 that's in the same cage :D

[@rabiaonal5813]

23:52 for me, fog of war puzzles are just my favorite!

[@LiquorStoreJon]

LOVE Fog Puzzles!

[@longwaytotipperary]

Same!

[@Zardox2]

49:58 !!! Yay me! Ok... I know MANY of you got much quicker times... but for ME, this is a great accomplishment. 😁 And for anyone who wasn't able to do it... don't worry. A year ago I would have struggled for hours before giving up and watching the solve. Honestly... I'm kind of shocked that I solved this one at all! 🎉 (3 in the corner!...😂)

[@Raven-Creations]

This is the first FoW that I've not done. Not because it's too hard, but because it's not colour-blind friendly. I couldn't even make the first deduction, because I couldn't be certain that the two circles were the same colour. Colour perception is context sensitive, which is why a famous optical illusion shows what appears to be red strawberries but they are actually grey. The different cage colours were sufficient to give each circle a different enough context, to suggest they may be different (albeit badly chosen) colours. Another example is that the sun is white, but it appears yellow because it's on a background of blue.

[@Mrpapayaheadrulesall]

This is a great point. I wonder if they could include symbols in the box dashed lines and along lines to support colour blindness.

[@Antinomiste]

This was a pure 46:01 delight! I got a bit stuck at the third of the time, but then it was all smooth logic. Loved it. The shoes were very joyful to find!

[@Sam_weiqi]

I think I enjoyed finding the second shoe a little bit too much :)

[@icedbear]

The second one I was expecting to be a 3 in the corner, but the first one surprised me!

[@chlorophyll1767]

Fog of War is by far my favourite ruleset, always love seeing one pop up on the channel!

[@itsandrew04]

i enjoy watching simon's videos so much while I'm doing my math's homework. his voice makes me feel so relaxed and focused. it just calms my adhd ^o^

[@Crystal-ef3dm]

I always find it interesting how differently I approach puzzles from Simon. Like in the beginning, I saw the visible digit on the green line had to be a 4, but didn't consider how far the line went (which I could see once I got the 4). Even after solving the puzzle, it's still really helpful to see Simon solve it to see the alternative strategies and pathways I could've taken to the same solution!

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in exactly 23:00 minutes. It was a little hard to see that the 6 cage was three cells long, but once I saw that, I went going. This was very fun utilizing the double arrow to worm my way around the fog. I was so excited when I found the first shoe and even more excited to find the final shoe with a 3 inside of it. As always, it feels good to beat Simon's time. Great Puzzle!

[@lwinton60]

little over an hour to solve and beautiful and very findable logic the entire way, big fan, particularly with the usage of colour

[@HunterJE]

41:32 "I guess it could wiggle..." if you look reeeeally close (confirmed with screenshot and zoom) you can actually see that it does wiggle - the tiniest bit of diagonal line is visible in the corner of r5c8

[@maximilianisaacs4370]

It’s getting so hard to watch one of my most favorite and genius minds i’ve ever seen struggle to see incredibly simple sudoku. But I know you know so I love you anyways

[@Whyyyyyy]

I am once again putting in a vote for a Fog Sudoku app!

[@titusadduxas]

55:16 of excellence topped out with the final digit being the second shoe. Loved it.

[@Roblilley999]

I love it that you refer to your children as Little people

[@stevieinselby]

I also love the way Simon completely disrupts the flow of the video by apologising at great length for disappearing, as though we had been sitting watching an empty chair for 5 minutes, when in most cases he could just have spliced the video together and we probably wouldn't even have noticed the jump cut 🤣

[@davidkomai]

34:10 for me. That was such a fun fog puzzle to sort thru. I would’ve had it done faster but for some reason by the time I had made it to the bottom right section my brain quit doing math properly. Lol

[@bossdoorpodcast]

I'm pretty new to trying my hand at these puzzles, but I actually completed this one! Fog of war puzzles are great

[@ЮлияИванова-т8ц9л]

You can see green cage against green background better than blue, because the human eye is the most sensitive to green light.

[@Forbizz]

The column 7 logic with the 7 & 8 broke me. I understand leaving simple sudoku to mop up later but that deduction was made 3 times and he didn’t wrap it up.

[@jadezki]

That three _sneaking_ in the corner was wonderful!! 😁

[@GuilhermeCarvalhoComposer]

oh my god *I LOVED THIS PUZZLE* !! Such clear steps, really fun interplay between the clues, _and the little shoes!!_ 😍😍Absolutely brilliant :) Edited to add: unsurprisingly, the solve count is already above 10k now, and well deserved!

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

Thank you

[@brianarsuaga5008]

This one was really really fun. I often like fog puzzles, as they tend to be a bit more accessible (with so much less possible to look at). This is my favorite of them so far, though, using the very neat color addition, as well as the double-headed arrows which I'd never seen. I strongly suspect I couldn't have done this puzzle if it HAD been revealed.

[@Mer134]

Always love fog of war puzzles. GIves you a hint of where to look to move forward.

[@HunterJE]

17:07 I agree that shading is almost always bad for fog puzzles (even when it seems distinguishable it can hide isolated unrevealed cells, this has burned Simon in the past), so perhaps pen tool to outline the known cage shape like this would have been a good idea here?

[@LithmusEarth]

I ALWAYS want him to just DRAW the borders with the pen, like make his cages, its always what i assume he's going to do, and then he shades, and I go, oh?! BUT the trick is the shading has no borders, whereas penning, absolutely puts in a border potentially that could be a problem, but when you know the exact size of the cage it shouldn't matter. I just it keeps happening with these fog puzzles, I keep expecting the pen-tool.

[@jimhawking11]

52:26. Simon's use of colors helped me here for sure.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

14:47 for me. Great puzzle, always love it when it's FoW!!

[@dustyburwell592]

It seems like constructors must be explicitly placing 3s in corners just to make Simon happy.

[@madsohm]

I don't know why I got surprised by the second shoe in the corner. My brain just farted and said "Of course, there's two shoes!". 26:09 for me.

[@emilylussier6498]

I also have a Nala and can confirm she goes for the first thing that looks like a toy. I loved this puzzle! ❤ and my Nala enjoyed the solve too. 😊

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

❤

[@gilliancrowley1363]

Great puzzle; I had a lot of fun. I got the three in the corner as the very last digit I entered in, completely by accident, which was very exciting.

[@callmemarcy77]

came in just over an hour and i'm pretty proud of that! got mega stuck at a couple of points, but this was a beautiful puzzle

[@roccov3614]

Another doable Nala puzzle. I think I have to look for more by Sandra & Nala.

[@fakjbf3129]

Finished in 81:37, about twenty minutes of that was spent staring at a mostly filled in grid with every possibility penciled in for each remaining cell. Finally I made the same realization as Simon did at 39:40 which allowed me to remove some possible digits from r8c7,8,9 and then a bit of math on the purple line caused everything to fall into place.

[@ashtonavocado]

35:24 for me! This was a super fun puzzle. I love fog puzzles and this was no exception

[@Emmibean77]

Great puzzle Sandra and Nala! And well done Simon with the solve! I love seeing pictures of Nala

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

❤

[@MichaelGreen831]

For all the OCDs out there, we have confirmation at 39:18 that Simon is using different software than us. It's always bugged me that his green was different than what I was seeing. Could it be something about youtube or computer pallets? Well now we know for sure. That shoe is different than the show we see when we play. Relief is washing over me.

[@RichSmith77]

I don't know about the shoe, but it's possible to customise the colour palettes within the software, and we saw Simon do this in an old video when the functionality was first released. So different colour palettes mean nothing.

[@ClairvoyantTruth]

"Suddenly we are cooking with gas here" - Let him cook!

[@natalias.1561]

What a beautiful puzzle! 38 minutes for me, surprisingly, I usually struggle way longer, but I guess the beautiful puppy motivated me 🎉

[@joshrobbins4853]

Excellent puzzle. More fog puzzles please! Love these

[@lmao7744]

This puzzle was truly amazing, a joy to solve from start to finish

[@kingofbritons]

What a great puzzle. I absolutely enjoyed the solve and helping Nala find her (your?) shoes.

[@entitree.]

This is the first 'not normal' sudoku puzzle I've ever done myself. Started watching this channel in 2020 when I was going through a rough time, but never played along because I found the videos entertaining enough. Decided to try this one for myself for the first time. Completed in 131:25, which I'm honestly happy with given I'm a super novice and have never played with other constraints before. Haven't watched this video yet but I look forward to seeing if I came to the same conclusions you did, albeit a lot slower

[@crystalgehrt8861]

Tight, beautiful logic, and lots of fun to be had!

[@57thorns]

Took me about an hour and it was lovely all the way. Very interesting deduction along the way.

[@cecinkm]

51:22 , one of my first bigger completions!! super enjoyed that puzzle.

[@Replica413]

Sir, I have been obsessed with your channel lately. Seeing your thought process is always so interesting. Keep it up ^^

[@rasikagogate4063]

Hie Simon, I literally start my day with your sudoku and end it with Marks wordle in a minute... I have been following this channel for a while... though I have a huge respect for you both, I really feel disappointed when you do not keep the 3 in the corner party at last☹️ a humble request to end the puzzle with it whenever pencil marks allow you to do so.. much love to the channel❤❤

[@robert36902]

It took me over an hour, but I managed to get it in the end. Nice puzzle!

[@piarittersporn]

What a lovely puzzle and funny idea with the hidden shoes. 👍🏻❤

[@OverkillSD]

30:11 was my time, which I find a somewhat "fitting" time :) What a fun puzzle! The logic was challenging, but not brutal. Everything had a very specific flow and each deduction felt like an "AHA!" moment. Absolutely wonderful.

[@hyperactvehuman]

Quite approachable! 30:37! Just needed the killer sudoku guide for the 22 cage. Others were pretty easy!

[@Urutsini]

Rather than shading cells, you can use the line tool to border the cages, then you don't need to worry about visibility. Indeed, the setter seems to have matched the line tool colour selections with the chosen colours in the grid.

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

A beautifully themed puzzle by FullDog & Missing A Few Shoes... 🙂

[@AFT3RDAY5]

What a clever fun puzzle 🤩👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 I had a little problem proving the correct outcome of the bottom right arrow but it was such a joy. And there’s a 3 in the corner 🎉

[@karinisvetcool]

Loved this puzzle! Wasn't able to do it completely on my own but with a bit of help from the video when I got stuck I completed it! 99 minutes lol

[@joadbreslin5819]

At 27:30, instead of using the 'B' label, it might be clearer to use a letter such as 'F', far enough away from A and B. That way, you can reserve 'B' for the 8/9 digits you know are not A (such as r8c4). With this approach, the r7c2 cell can then be labeled 'G'.

[@n_mckean]

Honestly, the proportionr of 3s in the corner is statistically improbable - meaning constructors are doing it to hear you sing.

[@amandasnyder3874]

I love watching these videos, even though I only ever do the New York Times puzzles. It would be awesome to see and updated Sudoku 101 series with Sven’s software 😊

[@ffets-SEP]

Found both shoes after 110 minutes. Great puzzle!

[@YassinWalid]

34:33 just amazing, words cannot describe the puzzle

[@josephbentley7780]

41:04 for me, thanks for the puzzle. Pretty much enjoy just about every fog puzzle, would love to see more

[@bertbergers9171]

Thank you, Nala, Sandra and Simon, lovely challenging puzzle and a lot of nice moments on the solvepath for Simon to discover and show in the video. So the video was nice aswell. I forgot to pause while being on the phone with my brother (some 44 minutes), so time is not representative 97:39 I did do some work during the call, i think an hour then. Not too bad, was a hard puzzle, but not monstrous, just had to find the next step each time, sometimes that flowed for me, sometimes i had to work really hard.

[@Coyotek4]

31:32 ... gotta get some sleep after starting this one past midnight Nice puzzle!

[@bigboi1004]

I solved this, but it took me ages because I didn't work out which cells were 8 and 9 until I was in the rightmost three boxes. Super fun puzzle though!

[@Max16hr]

I love those fog puzzles :) Took me 105 minutes to find both shoes ^.^

[@dorien99]

41:53 could have been faster, but I got annoyed at not knowing how long the yellow line was and spend too long trying to figure that out. Great puzzle, as only Fog of War puzzles can be!

[@kc8igd]

What a wonderful puzzle! It was my first solve that I paused at Simon's "let's get cracking" phrase and didn't have to advance the video for help. Sure it was 293:51 after I discovered a blunder midway through my first attempt, but it is a solve nonetheless. Now I get to watch a master take it on.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Fog of war is always welcom and this one was particularly clever. 👍👍👍Another fascinating variant that I would like to see more often featured here is *Chaos Construction.* I mean *3x3 boxes* placed by the solver chaotically inside an *11x11 grid.*

[@creativename3256]

37:21 for me. Completely ignored the red double arrow at the end and stared blankly at what felt like a deadly pattern for at least 10 minutes

[@ericpraline1302]

Lovely puzzle, thanks, and a very geometrically aware canine I see. I made a mistake with my pencil marking late on which caused some head scratching.

[@Crystal-ef3dm]

Ah it took me quite a while for this one (65:53). I was so close to giving up and watching how Simon solved it before I started thinking about 789 in box 2 (and in the blue cage). Definitely a very fun fog of war, and quite challenging for me!

[@fakjbf3129]

Similar for me except it took me twenty minutes to figure out how to solve the purple line. Finally I saw that the three in the green cage had to be in c7, removing three from r8c7 and then putting a 3,4 pair in r8c8,9. Then a little math later and boom the puzzle was done. Not going to lie it stung a bit to see Simon almost immediately able to remove the three from r8c7 as soon as he uncovered it.

[@Cpchurch87]

28:12 for me, and first time beating Simon! The rule set was right up my street. Great puzzle

[@BenjiFriedman]

30:42 great deduction here!

[@kevynmstr]

The only thing I would have changed about this puzzle is hiding the first shoe under a 3 as well then the pair of shoes would have formed a pair with the 3s. Otherwise quite a fun puzzle I really enjoyed it.

[@HunterJE]

32:02 Isn't it possible to relate B/C with A now? The cell below the C in box 7 must be B, which means the 89 pencil marked in box 8 must be C, which means A must be B... :edit: And then Simon removes the (admittedly confusing - maybe would have been better to jump around in the alphabet to e.g. X/Y to avoid association with the existing A) lettering he already did to make it harder on himself...

[@PauxloE]

Nice puzzle. Ending with a 3 in the corner is extra nice. Took me 87:53, solve counter 1261.

[@samgillmusic]

Really enjoyed the interaction of the cages and lines on this one - took me 62:36

[@iabervon]

32:08 for me, but I forgot about the possibility of two circles on the same line having the same digit until a while after the puzzle had confirmed the digits I'd placed assuming they were different. I'm not sure how much longer it would have taken if I had waited until I'd proven that, or if it had been wrong.

[@steve470]

37:34 for me. That was really enjoyable. Thanks Sandra (and Nala)!

[@Sandra_and_Nala]

You’re very welcome! Happy to hear you enjoyed it 😊

[@l3wieh495]

45:49 for me, this was a great puzzle and the best solving I’ve done in a while too

[@katrinz.8389]

64:51 i loved the logic, even though it took me some time to get some things it was a lot of fun :)

[@GQSmoos]

Finished this one in 69 minutes and only got it after making a rule assumption [that the ends of a line cannot be the same digit] I’d I’m being honest, I don’t think that was a fair assumption to make but I was very stuck and the whole puzzle collapsed in 5 minutes after I did it. I’m very excited to watch the solve to see what I surely missed.

[@ayas606]

Not really sure but I think that we have found 2 possible solutions to this puzzle, yet the app only accepts one of them.

[@karinisvetcool]

Wait really?!

[@y_prime]

solved in 31:28 - cool deductions especially with the middle boxes and 4/5/6. though maybe my approach was different

[@Orenotter]

I should write a rhyme 'bout your score And of finding shoes 'neath for of war But I'm sick with a cough, So I'll take the night off And I won't write this limerick no more.

[@daitrialz]

That 3 in the corner was a SHOE-IN

[@chipsounder4633]

Playing killer sudoku, simon mentions a chance of a 3 in the corner, the next digit i got in my puzzle was a 3 in the bottom right corner 😂😂😂😂😂