Can You Solve The Big Zipper?!

[@cgjhuber]

CtC is the perfect mix of slowly falling asleep and screaming madly at the screen when an obvious deduction is being missed. And I mean this as a big compliment.

[@juliedaigle6762]

I agree. I am Canadian but I use my best imitation of a British accent and "kindly" yell at my Tv: "common Simon", "get the low lying fruit, Simon". I have tried a few puzzles and it has knocked me off my high horse: I may get annoyed when Simon misses something obvious but without his break-ins and his astute deduction, I am nothing! Simon, I am in awe at your solving ability...and let's not forget your own kindness and your ability to create a supportive and kind community around solving puzzles.

[@martysears]

Hi all! Well, this feature was a complete surprise to me (but obviously a delightful one!) Not least because, I was just in the middle of deciding which one of my puzzles I wanted to submit to CTC this month, and this is the one I had chosen. I had started making the solve guide for it, and was half way through making it. Then tonight it got featured before I even submitted it 🤣 which is quite a coincidence considering it has been out for a month and a half. Shout out to Jaze who invented this brilliant line - I loved it immediately and have had a lot of fun exploring and setting with it... and to gdc whose zipper puzzles have all been excellent. Lovely solve as always by Simon. I was particularly happy with the break-in for this puzzle, but funnily enough I thought about it in quite a different way to Simon. Simon proved the centre spot was 8 by thinking about r2c2 and reasoning that it must be 4. I had never considered it in that way before, so I found that very cool. My way was this: I considered r1c1 instead. Call r1c1 X. If the centre spot is 9, X will clearly be lower than 9. Now, where does X's counterpart (9-X) go in row 1 or column 1? Well we don't know exactly but it couldn't be in either of the empty spaces (those would both be 9), and it couldn't go in box 1 in both the row and column. In either row 1 or column 1 (or both), X's counterpart (9-X) would have to go on one of the long straight ends of the line. And wherever it goes, it would reflect X onto the opposite long straight end, clashing with r1c1. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around how this is ok for 8 but not for 9 ( I still find it difficult to fully grasp it!) I found it very pleasing though, because I think everyone's intuition is that the zipper centre spot will be 9, because it surely has most flexibility. Was very fun to go against that expectation. The most useful way to solve this is definitely to differentiate between the two components of each coloured pair, as Simon eventually did with his grey and black system, which was perfect. I just used 6 different colours when I did it, and remembered which colours paired together. I think most people would struggle to solve this until they come up with this kind of system. I also labelled each position along both sides of the zipper A-V, which makes finding and colouring the corresponding pairs a lot easier. Secret: the Big Zipper has 45 cells ;) Thanks again Simon for another entertaining and wholly unexpected feature. And I loved the thumbnail... the purple roller coaster was absolutely perfect! 💜

[@blackjackfitz]

I’ve actually taken to using the letters to differentiate two versions of one color, instead of grey black flashes like Simon does. I find that sometimes you get into a situation where it can be either orange grey or yellow black (for example) and having 4 colors would be too hard for me. Navigating between colors and letters can be annoying but I find it less confusing.

[@mrrobotman5299]

I went with 6 colors also and am thrilled that that was the "intended" way. Hopefully Simon does the disambiguation at the end by using the secret on box 9. That was pleasing to me. Excellent puzzle as always.

[@davidrattner9]

Constantly cherish your explanations on how you set your puzzles and your logic!! Brilliant again from you!!

[@snjyjn]

Thanks Marty for the puzzle, and Simon for the solve. I also used letters - though I went with a simple AB CD EF as the pairs, and 4. That way, after the 8 and 9 were filled in, I went around goodlifing the entire zip lines, and solving it through letters - I find that much easier than colours. I finally had to use the constraints originating from the zip line in box 9 to actually get numbers, and then solve for it.

[@ExSxTxHxExR]

I completely agree with your approach, was just about to type out the exact same thing. It made things surprisingly simple. I believe it is solvable in under 20 minutes if you use this method.@@snjyjn

[@AnnaVahtera]

The coincidence of every low digit being /black and every high digit being /grey was more satisfying than I care to admit.

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

Rather than coloring I just used place holders: A, B, C, D, E, F. (With AF, BE and CD forming the 8-pairs) for the numbers besides 4, 8 and 9. Eventually the whole sudoku could be done. The ninth lower right box can then be used to compute the exact values, since it turned out to be B=E+C=A+D. Since B must be the highest value below 8, it turns out to be 7. Which makes E the 1. C the 6. A and D then must be a 25-pair because 16 and 34-pairs have been ruled out. Lovely puzzle.

[@steveunderwood3683]

I started colouring, realised letters might be clearer, but kept ploughing on to a horrible rainbow mess. It worked out, though. :)

[@snjyjn]

Same here - except that I paired AB / CD / EF...

[@nmappraiser9926]

For me the combo worked and I think it was most efficient, Blue A/B, Green A/B, Yellow A/B, and Red for 4s quickly sorted out the pairs. Simon spent so much time on pedantic explanations he skipped steps and missed easy conclusions. I wish he would start gearing his videos for experienced solvers instead of pretending every video has to be an introduction to Sudoku and basic arithmetic.

[@johnh2052]

After the 8s, 9s, and 4s, I placed a 7, 5, and 3. Then, I just coloured, using similar colours for each pair. The whole grid filled with colour, and I spent the last 15 seconds of the solve replacing the colours with digits.

[@SamAHill]

Me too; whenever Simon breaks out the grey flashes that's a cue for me to switch to letter pairs. :)

[@chris5619]

I was so excited to get the email that the fog of war kickstarter was super successful! Can't wait for it! Congrats!

[@zoot3000]

Same. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is it being rediculously impossible to do. Does anyone know if there's a forum or something to get help? I assume it's not going to be as difficult as the rediculous ones they do on this channel?

[@leximcnally2386]

@@zoot3000 I heard that the base puzzles (the ones by Sandra and Nala) are supposed to be approachable

[@chris5619]

@@leximcnally2386 I absolutely love FoW puzzles and I absolutely love Sandra and Nala puzzles!

[@PhilBoswell]

@@zoot3000I imagine that help will be forthcoming on the Discord Server for those in need, link always in the Description.

[@stevesebzda570]

​@@leximcnally2386Thanks. You just reminded me of Sandra and Nala's "Advent Calendar" fogs. Thanks again

[@patrickgass787]

The remarkable thing is, as beautiful and as incredible as the setting is in this puzzle, the best Marty Sears puzzles still have yet to be featured. Looking forward to the next!

[@gilbertschwarz2829]

Marks a 9 in row 9 ... 1 second ... forgets he marked a 9 in row 9 ... Instant screaming heard in the far distance ... 😅

[@Hakucho64]

I know, he can make brilliant deductions one second then miss completely obvious sudoku logic the next. It's infuriating.

[@titusadduxas]

Wow; what a great puzzle. It took me over an hour and a half as I kept changing my mind on how to do the placeholding, but once I’d settled on that I did it in 51:34. How on earth Marty Sears created this I’ll never know but it was a thing of beauty.

[@abcadef6171]

A nice way I spotted of finding lower bounds on the central digits of these zippers - find the sudoku unit (box, row, column) with the most non-central cells of the line in. The values in those cells are n different sudoku digits, and are all less than the central cell, so the central digit is at least n+1. In this case, the 7 cells in row 1 (or column 1, or box 2, or column 6, or row 3) immediately tell you that the central cell is at least 8. It also seems to be useful in the previously-shown zipper line puzzles.

[@statsy150]

I’m not done with it yet, but this is one of my favourite puzzles I’ve seen on the channel!!! Not only cause just having one big zipper makes the solve super satisfying but also because a lot of the big breakthroughs I was able to figure out on my own and in a different way then you did! I soved for red using some insane arithmetics and I completed the color map for box 5 before putting 5 in there. I’m very new to the channel but I love this sooo much already

[@biaberg3448]

Simon turned The Big zipper into an explosion of colors 💥 The way he broke into the puzzle was amazing.

[@hewholimpsmartin]

You give me laughs and make me smile, every day, Simon; I don't think anyone else does that near as regularly - thank you, Sir. Excellent puzzle, fantastic solve, always a pleasure.

[@cramias1]

at 31:15, R7C5 must be yellow/black, which will let you resolve the orange/yellow ambiguity much earlier than Simon did

[@Da_Rauch]

Saw it immediately and was soo proud of my self!

[@TehFilmFanatic]

I found this puzzle very satisfying when i just coloured the whole puzzle first and then did the Box 9 logic right at the end

[@martysears]

That is what I sort of hoped people would do 😀

[@peaches760a]

Same, much more beautiful that way. I love the second color palette for this sort of thing. I used Red and Green for the 8s and 9s, then dark blue for the 4s. This left 3 pairs of colors (dusty pink and brown, yellow and light blue, hot pink and purple). No need for accenting second colors which makes the color sudoku SO much easier.

[@ErikLeppen]

I love how it's actually the little zipper in the corner that resolves which color is which digit, which only works because it has a different sum/center.

[@remork138]

36:15 mind = blown after screaming BLUE GRAY at the screen for two minutes :) classic simon, refusing to do sudoku

[@jimi02468]

This is one of the coolest puzzles that I've seen on the channel

[@Grammulka]

After placing all 4s, 8s and 9s I just used letter tool. It allowed to actually deduce every other cell to be a single letter. After that all you have to do is prove that r9c9 is not 6, and the puzzle is solved!

[@crowbar_the_rogue]

Yeah, it got significantly easier once I proved it was a 7. It still took me a long time because I kept messing up and forgetting to subtract from 8 when moving the numbers to the other side of the line.

[@xenia6103]

This was actually lots of fun! This was one of the ones I instantly knew I had to try and I loved it, I actually colored the entire grid after putting in 8 and 9, putting 4 in along the way. It was super satisfying to just click through the colors after putting them all in and seeing the forced 7 in box 9

[@markmcb42]

Excellent puzzle, really enjoyed it. I actually decided to have a different color for each digit that sum to 8, i.e., 1,2,3, 5,6,7, instead of doing the grey/black flash thing. Was able to color the entire grid, then click each color to set the value, which was very satisfying

[@leeannadimoulas5163]

Loved this one! I didn't look at the small corner zipper till i colored it. So i colored the entire puzzle before i put numbers in. That was great. Also, if you use the other pages of colors, you can use light and dark of the same color, do then you don't need the flashes which get too confusing for me personally. Loved this solve. Ty Simon

[@martysears]

perfect! I like it when people save the 7 zipper til the end :D

[@JLujan4492]

When you were cooking regarding the ends of the zipper in row 1 and column 1, I exclaimed out loud, “the symmetry!” And I knew the spot in box 1 was going to be 8.

[@markp7262]

34:32 finish. I was going to color pairs the same color, then decided to do color adjacent pairs. So red-orange, yellow-green, blue-purple were what I used. It tripped me up once or twice, but only for a short time. Fun puzzle!

[@martysears]

thats pretty mucb exactly what I did. But i used complimetary colours on the colour wheel, so yellow-purple, blue-orange and red-green... so I would remember more easily :)

[@iambicpentakill]

I would love it if you would get rid of colors after they are no longer necessary. The red and green made the cacophony of colors overwhelming to me and made the puzzle much harder to follow

[@jonbrowne]

My Grandmother used to make quilts of this design!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

I think this beautiful sudoku becomes simpler to notate and hence easier to solve if you use *placeholder digits,* instead of letters or colours, to represent all pairs that add up to *8* (except for 4+4, of course). I discussed this with *JC Godart* about one month ago. He solved using letters. You don't even need colours to remember the pairings: *1-7* *2-6* *3-5* *4-4* This is not at all one of the most powerful applications of placeholders. There are several kinds of puzzles in which notation becomes much more intricate if you don't use them. You might not need placeholders in this particular puzzle, if you can scan *letters* more skillfully (or less badly 🤪) than I can scan digits. However, simplifying notation, even so slightly, *significantly* reduced the risk of making mistakes during my solve and made my scanning *significantly* more effective. I have no doubt about that. Also, do not forget that using placeholders is fun, if you can use them properly. It takes time to learn how, but it is worth.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Here is how to use them most effectively in this case: 🔹After placing *eights* and *nines,* fill in the whole grid with placeholders and fours, ignoring the zipper line in *box 9.* 🔹Convert everything into letters (or colours, or both), except for *4s, 8s* and *9s,* of course. I used: *a=1, A=7,* *b=2, B=6,* *c=3, C=5* 🔹Enjoy the final disambiguation. The final transformation requires about *45 seconds* if you use double-click for selection. By the way, to keep track of corresponding pairs of positions along the zipper line, I marked *position 10* (r4c6 and r8c7) with a *red circle* . That was enough for me to identify very easily all other pairs (position 18, in the upper right and lower left corners of the grid, was also very easy to identify).

[@QuarkTwain]

I used placeholder letters and it worked very smoothly. Whether you prefer letters or digits, placeholders are definitely the way to go in this puzzle

[@merkaba48]

Oh, that does make a lot of sense. I went with using the three-shades RGB palette after getting confused trying to use flashes to denote pairings; so 'light' and 'dark' versions of R G and B, worked nicely with the three possible pairs of digits. Not efficient but it did look pretty!

[@ryanrinaldo9147]

Instead of using letters as placeholders, I used A through V on both sides of the line so I could tell which ones paired up and then used colors as my placeholders

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

@@ryanrinaldo9147 My point is that *placehloder digits* are typically easier to scan than *letters* and *colours,* because we are all much better trained to scan them. Moreover, *colours* do not even allow you to symulate all nuances of Snyder's notation. More exactly, they do not allow you to symulate combinations of *center-* and *corner-pencilmarked* digits in the same cell. In most cases you can use white flashes to partially symulate corner pencilmarks, but they cannot coexist, in the same cell, with something equivalent to specific center-pencilmarks. But colours are nicer of course and many people prefer using them instead of other kinds of placeholders, notwithstanding their drawback. That perfectly makes sense to me. We seek fun, not perfection. Or we may have fun by seeking some kind of subjective perfection. Using the easiest or most powerful 💪 *notation technique* is not necessarily a "perfect" strategy. Some solvers even enjoy using their memory instead of Snyder's notation to keep track of restricted candidate positions. For them, a perfect solve is a solve without pencilmarks❗

[@jaega4247]

Very enjoyable puzzle, and great solve by Simon as always! Love the coloring necessary for this type of puzzles.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 136 minutes. Even though it took me a long time, this was one of my favorite solves. I started off strong with the 9s and 8s, before moving onto the 4s. Then I hit a roadblock on the last couple of 4s. It took me a long time to spot, but to notice that r2c5 had to be the same as r3c2 because of r3c4 and r4c456 being from same set as is in box 1 minus r2c3 and r3c2, was an incredible feeling. Then, the rest became a coloring puzzle. Marty Sears has constructed an incredible puzzle as he always does. Great Puzzle! Edit: My method for determining that 9 couldn't be the zipper's head was slightly different to Simon's. I saw that the edges of the zipper had 5 cells, so if we put in 12345, the counterparts 45678 make up all the digits from 1-8, and they both point to r1c1 where 9 is ruled out in the box. This means that r1c1 had no number. If we allow one copy of cells, this is 10 total cells minus 2 giving 8 unique numbers, so same problem. If we use two copies of cells, this would work, except it breaks box 1, where we have to put four numbers into only three cells, those being r2c3 and r3c2&3. I felt very proud of that.

[@adagraves]

I was having a rather painful gallbladder attack, and solving this helped take my mind off it, so thank you, sincerely.

[@martysears]

Glad it could help in a small way and hope you are feeling better very soon

[@angec9908]

I found the flashed colors too busy visually so I labeled each pair of colors A and B and it worked great. I also found it easier to map out the colors by sudoku and then figure out the 7 in box 9 rather than mixing colors and digits. Once I got the colors in place the digits were easy starting with that 7

[@crowbar_the_rogue]

Just solved this puzzle and it took me 5 hours and 20 minutes. About half that time was figuring why the top left central cell was an 8, the rest was forgetting to subtract the number from 8 when copying it over.

[@andrewstewart5789]

Simon: Love the channel. Recently detected a regular low vibration in the background. Stops and starts. Guess your phone is ringing and vibrating need the mic. Can you take a look. Thanks

[@HalfBakedLunatic]

Very nicely constructed! I've recently published my first "zipper" puzzle on LMG and it was far more difficult than I had expected!

[@petergerlagh9858]

This goes much much smoother with dark- green/blue/red and light- green/blue/red than with the flashes. You can't notate darkGreen/lightBlue with your notation, and it's holding you back

[@karthick_michigooner7431]

Simon, Using AB CD EF and 4 is so much easier in this case... Instead of colors You can actually pencil mark and corner mark and then finally for me Box 9 resolved the whole alphabumeric code because the 7 zipper interacting with 8 zipper is SO SO AMAZING!

[@martysears]

Ah thanks, I’m glad you liked that end bit. I definitely intended people to save that translation from letters to digits til right at the end 😊 so thankyou, this comment made me happy

[@rampantunease6517]

I solved the puzzle with letter pairs. Eventually solving the whole grid using the corner zipper line to figure out which letter was the seven then boom boom boom all the letters magically changed to numbers and correct solve. Lovely puzzle.

[@ericpraline1302]

Fun one thanks, and not too tricky after I slipped up, confused by my own colouring scheme I think. One of the challenges of some puzzle these days is deciding the best notation.

[@LavenderGooms]

I used unique colors for each pair so if I double clicked them they'd highlight. Then assigned letters until everything was in its place, so just had to fill in the numbers that fit. This was fun.

[@DuncanBooth]

I found a rather different break-in to resolve whether the big zipper total was 8 or 9: R1C4:9 + C1R4:9 = 7*R3C3, so either 56 or 63. Sum all of R1+C1=90 (counting R1C1 twice) so in box 1 the five cells on R1 and C1 (with R1C1 counted twice) sum to 34 or 27. But R2C3+R3C2+R3C3 sum to 16 or 18 so the other cells in box 1 sum to 29 or 27. All of which long-winded computation means that if R3C3 is 9 then you get 27 whether you add up the top row and first colum of box 1 and double count R1C1 or do the top row and first column plus R2C2 so R1C1 and R2C2 are the same digit. Therefore R3C3 is not 9. I think Simon's method was simpler.

[@hillrp1]

I like that a) the 'false' pairs that Simon kept getting in box 1 ended up being true pairs in the final solution and that b) when he introduced the grey and black flashes, by pure chance, the black flashes all ended up being the lower of the pair with the grey flashes all being the higher

[@iabervon]

It's entirely unreasonable that, when Simon kept accidentally pairing cells up in box 1 incorrectly, what he was saying turned out at the end to be true.

[@TurtleMoonTube]

OMG. All those colors with flashes makes rmy head spin! I found another way using light blue/ blue, light green / green, light red / red. So, pairs of similar colors instead of flashing. I do realize it would have to be modified to work for red/green color deficiency. But, Is so much easier with my cognitive impairment. In the past I've also done this with letters A/B, C/D, E/F, G/H. I also did this differently. After finding 9, 8, and 4, I colored the whole grid, which made it easy to find the number on small zipper in box 9. Then could highlight squares and paste all the numbers. the grid was not at all cluttered. So, very easy to look at and see what I was doing.

[@carolinefreeman4546]

A fun puzzle, though I couldn't have done it without watching some of the video. As usual I used a slightly different method to work it out, but enjoyed seeing your way of doing it.

[@HunterJE]

Suggestion if a zipper line (or for that matter a palindrome) this long ever comes up again-pencil marking a unique letter on each matched pair doesn't take long at the start and instead of having to re-count from an end or landmark every time you need to find a counterpart cell you can just say "OK this one says M, where's the other M..."

[@bezowee]

Please don't, pencil marking with letters make the grid unreadable for me

[@martysears]

This is what I did when I was solving / setting it myself :)

[@iambicpentakill]

@@bezowee More unreadable than that cacophony of colors? Our brains work in different ways.

[@bezowee]

@@iambicpentakillI just have very bad eyesight and letters are much more similar to each other than the numbers or colours

[@michaelsinger2608]

Thank you for the help with the 4. Then I did all the figuring using letters and I got it! Thanks for help with the break in.

[@BigAsciiHappyStar]

I'm wondering if it is possible for a zipper to have even length? Two cells equidistant from the middle can be constant, even if the middle is between two adjacent cells. For instance, 67836123 would be legal even though the zipper would not contain a 9.

[@QuarkTwain]

Yes, I have solved a puzzle which had zippers of even length. They worked just as you supposed

[@martysears]

Yes gdc, the zipper master, has been experimenting with this; making even length zippers which do not feature the sun in the middle, just a small diamond on an edge to mark the middle

[@michaelmatter1222]

These zip-lines are so neat! Awesome puzzle Marty!

[@matthewjohnson6360]

When you said, "They're coming to take me away, The song Napoleon XIV - They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Haaa! popped into to my head.

[@stangerrits6712]

The 4’s are done at 31:15, why colour them all green? I would definitely uncolour them all, as to not obstruct colouring and scanning in the other cells that still need to be solved. Same for the 8’s.

[@srwapo]

43:56, spent like 50% my time trying to figure out if r3c3 was an 8 or 9 (figured out that r2c2 had to appear on both of the purple lines that extended into Row 1 and Column 1 and couldn't add up with two other digits but itself, therefore r3c3 had to be 2x r2c2), 47% of my time coloring to figure out where the other pairs/sums had to be, and 3% of my time filling in the grid.

[@easternblot]

I ended up solving this by using a combination of letters and colours. Every pair a colour, and individual letters for each number. I filled the whole grid with letters, 4s, 8s and 9s and then used box 9 to decode which letter was which number.

[@aere481]

Nice intricately designed puzzle. I prefer using letters instead of colours for indexing. The double colours get too confusing.

[@SenselessUsername]

The whole sequence 6:20 to 8:20 could be simplified? At 6:20 you remark that at best 8 and 9 are not on the line in box1, but the same holds for box2. So at least a 7 must be on the line, that will be added to at least a 1; therefore the central digit is at least an 8. In fact, it seems stupendously unlikely the line can avoid ALL 8s and 9s, so the center should be a 9 --- but there you go, these crafty puzzles practically guarantee us three impossible things before breakfast.

[@RhiannonAgutter]

This one has me screaming to just do sudoku, especially with figuring out blue grey in box 5 and disambiguating yellow and orange

[@CrankyOtter]

Yes, just continue to fill in the colors, don’t get derailed! or get derailed then go back to coloring, pleeeeease

[@jimi02468]

I always take all the juice out of sudoku just because I'm bad at thinking about the other rules and I think sudoku will save me. That's the strategy to do all these puzzles

[@JRTJunk]

"Let's make all the 4s green." How about make all the green go away since it's not useful anymore? Please?

[@smileyface2411]

Simon does that alot

[@nonagrey3422]

what a beautiful puzzle, Marty!

[@PathOfShrines]

Well, my solve was *terrible*, but I did solve it. Really cool puzzle. 2:00:10.

[@anaayoung9142]

What a beautiful thumbnail! Lovely puzzle with a big zipper line!! Love it! 😊

[@mk_57]

Clearing up the colors after a digit is fully done in the grid is very helpful, at least to me. Otherwise it's just monstrously cluttered for anyone of us to keep track of

[@Landis963]

85:43! Had a bit of a scare with r7c8 of all places - I forgot to switch the parity, if you will, of one arm of the zipper vs the other and ended up with (to use Simon's coloring) two blue-greys in the same box.

[@Leslie_AF]

70:06 for me. I spent 45 minutes with 9 as the center zipper digit until I finally realized what was wrong.

[@shawnmichajluk2044]

Wow - Fantastic puzzle. Took me twice as long as the video. Curious to see if it was solved the same way. I used colours and letters.

[@hallra1970]

I worked out all the 4s and then coloured all cells on the zipper lines, giving the pairs A & B markers… then once I worked out r9c9 was a 7 and r8c7 was a 4, the grid was easily completed with sudoku rules.

[@nyxicsulfur]

i genuinely wouldnt have gotten that breakin in a million years. incredible puzzle, incredible solve.

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 50:27. Man, I messed up because I messed up with how things work if the center of the large zipper is 8. But that forced me into a situation where nothing works for the big zipper, so I had to back track and I found the error which eliminated 8 as a possibility, but since I knew 9 couldn't work, it had to be 8 as the number in the center. Everything else flows from that as you can make good assumptions based on where certain numbers must be because of the zipper line geometry. Great puzzle! I just wish I hadn't wasted 28 minutes with the 9 as the center digit :(.....

[@EdithKFrost]

you can actually color the whole grid using three pairs of colors, then in the end use the 7 to figure out which color is which digit

[@notthatkindofdoctor5911]

I like how the gray/black shading also ended up indicating polarity in respect to the eight-sum.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

17:21 for me. Best zipper-lines puzzle I've solved so far, loved it!!

[@Mujaki]

When he started coloring the zipper I was just screaming. "There's TWENTY TWO boxes on each side, you should be using LETTERS to mark the pairs, not colors!"

[@iambicpentakill]

I was thinking, "This way lies madness."

[@Anne_Mahoney]

I was thinking the same. But then I love using letters! 😺

[@ayannababii]

I've been staring at this puzzle for 2 days and making no progress. Simon got further than me in minutes. But did I yell like a sports fan at him missing both blues seeing r5c4 for like 10 minutes? Yes 😂 I've learned that he gets stuck in meta mode and misses the small things.

[@MyriamTT]

This is a beautiful puzzle !!!

[@nmappraiser9926]

I really wish, after completing a series of colors and shades, you would blank the coloration out rather than completing them. The point of coloring is to complete the numbers, and not vice versa. A grid with every number colored becomes a confusion and an eyesore. Better to finish with an entirely white board at the end.

[@Lacie9]

I disagree

[@philipmetcalfe4736]

great puzzle...got me reaching for the wine bottle after 10 minutes...slurp

[@kathyjohnson2043]

5:22 first panic. When Simon slips up, my chest starts to hurt.

[@kathyjohnson2043]

13:30 Crisis averted. I can breathe again.

[@adammolski]

Zipper lines are magnificent. The special number on them more often is 8 rather than 9, simply because of 4 existing

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:03 Let's Get Cracking: 04:34 Simon's time: 42m08s Puzzle Solved: 46:42 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 1x (04:34) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Hang On: 15x (05:45, 06:40, 08:25, 09:50, 15:27, 17:21, 18:29, 18:56, 30:04, 30:31, 35:51, 35:51, 35:55, 35:55, 42:34) Beautiful: 13x (01:16, 02:07, 02:27, 18:22, 27:13, 28:02, 28:22, 28:36, 29:02, 30:24, 30:27, 47:20, 47:20) Lovely: 9x (09:03, 11:53, 18:25, 18:25, 18:25, 33:55, 33:59, 46:44, 46:44) Ah: 8x (07:37, 15:18, 19:38, 32:14, 36:31, 37:58, 39:20, 44:36) Sorry: 7x (09:56, 16:33, 21:28, 35:04, 37:28, 39:34, 44:56) By Sudoku: 6x (26:37, 27:47, 28:56, 30:27, 44:21, 45:47) The Answer is: 4x (15:50, 15:54, 16:33, 16:47) Nonsense: 4x (06:47, 14:52, 35:55, 36:02) Brilliant: 4x (03:20, 03:28, 03:46, 43:34) Goodness: 3x (14:52, 23:45, 38:03) Obviously: 3x (15:12, 22:05, 38:09) Clever: 2x (36:49, 43:37) Naughty: 2x (13:04, 13:04) Incredible: 2x (01:26, 01:42) Fabulous: 2x (46:50, 46:50) Cake!: 2x (03:16, 03:49) Weird: 2x (09:07, 27:16) Good Grief: 1x (30:18) What on Earth: 1x (45:45) Useless: 1x (05:50) Stuck: 1x (47:43) Elegant: 1x (47:00) Deadly Pattern: 1x (45:33) Take a Bow: 1x (48:09) Of All Things: 1x (26:39) If I Trust my Pencil Marks: 1x (38:55) In Fact: 1x (43:09) Unstuck: 1x (47:50) What Does This Mean?: 1x (16:01) Pencil Mark/mark: 1x (38:55) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Seventeen, Thirty Five (3 mentions) Four (75 mentions) Orange (43 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Even (3) - Odd (0) Higher (2) - Lower (0) Black (27) - White (0) Row (11) - Column (11) 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!

[@bgs5374]

last color of column 5 could have been set at 30:30...

[@NoahWilson-dk5rl]

this one looks fun

[@bait6652]

Interesting got 80/81 cells correct in color/letter solve but made digital mapping err (for sum reason thought the sum digit was 10 )...still gotta prove the other path is wrong(sum9)

[@Rach881101]

43:49 for me. Brilliant puzzle!

[@sharp_shooter549]

Imagine doing this without coloring?! I think it would be impossible lol

[@wanderlustwarrior]

49:16 for me. Careful entry was harder than the puzzle itself.

[@deathpigeon2]

It's fascinating how all of the greys were high and all of the blacks were low.

[@martysears]

spooky!

[@Raven-Creations]

@ 5:21 "I thought we were going to get two places in box 9" - just seconds earlier you pencil-marked 9s in R9 in box 8. What's the point of you pencil-marking at all if you don't use them? @ 8:20 - I thought you were going to break into "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" by Napoleon XIV. I found this incredibly easy to make mistakes. The weird long-distance geometry just made keeping track of which cell paired with which accident prone. I used three pairs of letters AB CD and EF, and eventually managed to lay them out without error. It was then trivial to assign numbers to them. I wish you'd remove colours once they've served their purpose. They just make the display harder to see what's going on. What was the point of keeping 8s and 4s coloured? Colouring in at the end was just silly and made an unholy mess. Colour is a tool, when you've finished with a tool, you put it away.

[@six_5000]

68:12 for me, a festival of colorations

[@benjaminbennett9593]

Simon, it’s ok to be a bit “slipshod” (😂) every once in a while. It happens to me every time I do a puzzle.

[@martysears]

he almost said something else 😅

[@pranavsetpal]

just wow. the whole solution was so simple, but i know i couldn't get this on my own (i tried)

[@MelissaW09]

...i am pausing the video here to make a general service announcement... Simon. I never match your color schemes. My color logic must be wired differently. So imagine my surprise when you chose red for the first logic nugget. If the rest of our colors match, I may scream.😂

[@Poet13xRatedRKO]

Solved in 69:37. At the start hard to believe that this has a solution.

[@saucepirate8970]

Your grid coloring is giving Maryland flag vibes

[@LednacekZ]

39:06 today. a lot of coloring.

[@jackviga8714]

i was so bummed at finding out the whole kickstarter thing ended today, i was finally able to get it, been waiting for weeks to finally put away the money for it. hope there’ll be a way to get the puzzles later on. worst thing is, i’m just 50 minutes late… so sad 😢

[@theredstoneengineer6934]

44:8 for me

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

35:05 for me.

[@Yttria]

Haven't finished the puzzle yet but the break in was truly amazing. Might be my favorite ever because of the surprise twist. Thought I was trying to prove one of the two possibilities for the middle digit couldn't work only to realize it must be that digit because the other option broke the puzzle.

[@martysears]

Thanks that’s what I most like about this puzzle. Everyone, even myself, intuitively feels that 9 would have more flexibility than 8. It turns out, with this particular set up, 9 is much more restricted (well impossible) compared to 8. I still can’t fully grasp it, it’s so bizarre to me

[@jonbrowne]

How/who:what/where can anyone see the pairing on an iPhone? 😂😂😂

[@robertcousins2274]

38:14 for me

[@theresalouise1716]

GAS, where is GAS plz

[@bruceh8043]

49:45 for me and solver#1316.

[@LednacekZ]

you have at least 18 different colours at your disposal. why do you insist on using grey and black as secondary markers? it makes watching the solve very hard to follow.