Don't CHEAT To Solve This Puzzle!

[@Scojo486]

Thank you so much for the feature, and I'm very happy that this puzzle in particular ended up being my debut! I literally dropped my phone in surprise when this came up in my subscriptions! You nailed almost all the logic exactly as I intended, but you actually found a way to break into box 1 that I hadn't thought about. First of all, I proved that the two outlying cells on that first line couldn't be the same digit because there would be nowhere to place that digit in box 1. That forces r3c3 to be 8 or 9 because one of it's neighbors had to be 3. Now there are three cells left in box 1 that could be 6 or 7, and since both 6 and 7 can only neighbor 1 with 2 unavailable, the 67 pair must go in c1, forcing the 1 in r2c1. But I really liked the way you saw it! Unfortunately, you did make one logical misstep towards the end of the puzzle. After commenting on the fact that we didn't know if the line in box 6 continues past r4c9, you determined the line was a renban and proceeded to solve it as if we did know the line ended there, which ended up being correct, but not logically proven. If you had solved the box 9 line first, you would have placed a 4 in r8c7, and then 4 would have been placed in box 6 by sudoku, clearing the fog and revealing that r4c9 was in fact the end of that line. But that's a really minor error, and you did all the logic correctly to prove the line ended there, it just happened to be after you assumed the line ended there. Edit: To explain the title, I made this for the Discord's February monthly prompt of "Professor Hale-White's Ancient Dig Site." So clearing the fog is like an archaeologist brushing away dirt to reveal ancient pottery or whatever that's deteriorated over the years, and having to determine what its purpose was back then. Thanks again!

[@genevieve4679]

Loved every minute of solving this puzzle, thanks for setting it :)

[@scobeymeister1]

Really enjoyed this solve. And yeah, it really lived up to your title - felt myself being very cautious to chip away at exactly the right piece. Great work!

[@edouardyoussef4768]

So are the lines supposed to mean something ? Because I can't figure the rest, but the first three boxes seem to spell out the word DIG, and then a W in box 4 ? Or perhaps these glyphs are part of an ancient alphabet discovered amongst the artifacts…

[@leehurst172]

As a casual viewer and in no way an avid sudoku solver, I'm very proud of myself for also catching that logical misstep of identifying that particular renban. Came to the comments to see if anyone else had spotted it; lo and behold it's the creator themself! Congratulations on the feature, and well done on the construction. Twas a very entertaining watch😇👏

[@zdravkodimitrov]

Amazing setting, well done!

[@ritchards]

48:57 after saying the line could continue into the fog, Simon assumes that 345 has to go on the visible segment...

[@boivie]

Simon CHEATED To Solve This Puzzle!

[@SandroSmith]

Yeah, I can’t see why that purple line couldn’t wrap down entire box so that three would be in r6c8 (it can’t be in col9 because of 3-4 pair in box 3)

[@hummakavula3750]

Exactly what I came to point out

[@barcruiser101]

He didnt articulate it but If he had continued down into the next cell both 3 and 8 would have had to go in r6c7 or r5c1 would be broken

[@BryanLu0]

​@@barcruiser101What if it continues for 2 cells, then you can put 9 in r5c9 and 8 in r6c9

[@kevinmartin7760]

At 48:54, although we know the purple line must have a 3, 4, and 5, we still don't know if the line extends into the fog and some of these digits are on some of the foggy cells. I think that if you analyze the choices available for the six open cells in box 6 based on the known row contents, it becomes clear but Simon seems to have skipped that.

[@grubbzor]

Also the 3 on the purple line could have very easily gone in box 3 if the line turned upward.

[@neil2796]

I wish Simon had used the established colors for the lines. A blue whispers, purple equal sum and green renban was confusing.

[@matt5075]

First he doesn’t use green for hedges and now this! 😵‍💫

[@neil2796]

@@matt5075 😀😀

[@Unchained_Alice]

This is final proof he does it on purpose. Simon is such a troll!

[@srwapo]

I totally looked up which color was which because I couldn't remember, and I was doing it just for myself!

[@neil2796]

@@Unchained_Alice My thought was he's the classic addlepated genius.

[@xiaowenhu9697]

The definition of the Renbans line isn't really clear. Nowhere in the definition does it state that the set of numbers forming a Renbans line must be capable of forming a consecutive sequence.

[@Ardalambdion]

What amazes me is that Simon is able to squeeze so much information out of next to nothing.

[@daveturner5305]

So true, yet he consistently misses the 'bleeding' obvious. I find his mind fascinating.

[@bellairenative19]

That’s why I prefer watching Simon because he gives the perfect hints on accident with what I am missing from a solve that keeps it fun. When I watch Mark every time I’m stuck there are no subtle hints it usually just breaks the puzzle wide open for me lol

[@Hakucho64]

And tries to imagine a spider out of a line that could never branch and therefore could have at most two legs.

[@geoff544]

And why use random colours for lines (which are already marked in grey) - I used standard pink, blue or green once I'd deciphered each one.

[@lerowmer7093]

Simon, Your many secrets of Whispers are true And the given digit rules out a two They don't contain five Every other is high But, Simon, tell me! Why is it blue?

[@Hakucho64]

I know, right. I coloured my lines green/blue/pink for whisper/sum/renban, as per the sacred orthodoxy. In cases where I'd narrowed it down to one of two types, I coloured each half in a different colour to remember the options.

[@leefisher6366]

46:16 - Surely the 5 could live on the 'S' in box 8 at this point. Had you realised a 1 was missing from the central box earlier, and that this would disambiguate the 'S', your move is fine, however you hadn't yet done that.

[@KSilverlode]

"Oh, looks like we've got an S there, or it could be......a bigger S." I do love Simon's stream-of-consciousness sentences.

[@b0kkeee]

I would love a tear-off calendar with random quotes of simon without context. Like ''its more extreme on the green side of five', 'Now I don't know whether it goes this way or that way, it depends whether or not blue and orange are the same colour.' or in this video 'nine, eight, nine, nine, eight, BINGO!'. (that's not how bingo works)

[@cathybryant5119]

😂

[@CrankyOtter]

I do enjoy Simon’s color references that make no sense without the game context, but are perfectly logical.

[@Daymickey]

I would pay for that - not kidding!

[@KestrelQ]

The sheer joy on Simon's face whenever he clears some fog is a joy in life that I will always enjoy :)

[@馬善萄]

What I love about this puzzle is that the start and end of this puzzle are both in box 1. We have break-in on the Whisper line, and also resolve the deadly pattern by the Whisper line, which is like a complete story line.

[@TThorpe90]

My first attempt at a non GAS puzzle and managed to succeed (without fog cheating, of course!) after 79 minutes. A long time I know but I'm so chuffed. Thank you to Mark and Simon for the content and of course the brilliant construction!

[@andrzejzurawski4895]

If that's your first non-GAS puzzle, 79 mins is more than decent, congrats! :)

[@TThorpe90]

@@andrzejzurawski4895 Thank you!

[@stephenbeck7222]

That is brilliant on a puzzle of this difficulty, congrats.

[@TThorpe90]

@@stephenbeck7222 wow, thanks!

[@kjhg323]

48:49 You don't know that the renban line doesn't continue into the rest of box 6. You need to look at box 9 first to solve this logically, or use uniqueness in box 1.

[@maksimavtushenko9767]

it also can continue in box 3 - providing 3 or 4.

[@Tsunami14]

Which is funny because at 48:19, he said to be careful about where the line ends. And then moments later, he contradicted himself.

[@MikeVazowski]

Why couldn't the Renban line continue down in the box 6 in the fog at 48:52?

[@sarahmuller6799]

I think he just missed it, but a possible path to solve it that I found is this: if you would first look at the "spider" line in boxes 8 and 9 at that moment, you could see that it isn't a region sum line because the segments in box 8 are different (8 and 9), and it cannot be a renben because it cannot contain a 7 but has an 89 pair. That means it's a German Whisper, and if you look at the high-low alternating digits, R8C7 has to be low but cannot be 1, 2, or 3, placing a 4 there (and thereby solves a lot more 7s, 8s, and 9s in the bottom three rows by placing the two 9s consecutive to the 4 on the line) but it also places the 4 in box 6 as it cannot be in column 9 because of the 34 pair in box 3 and now it has to go in the middle of it, revealing the rest of the box and that the renben line ends there :)

[@hummakavula3750]

Simon accidentally guessed right

[@fefo9445]

Or even go up? I was stuck at this point, because the renban easily could take a 3 from box 3.

[@Scojo486]

If he had solved the box 9 line first, he would have placed a 4 in r8c7, and then 4 would have been placed in box 6 by sudoku, clearing the fog and revealing that r4c9 was in fact the end of that line.

[@mdmblockhead15]

Agreed. This is where I got stuck. but if you solve box 9, it opens up box 6.

[@S_Black]

You didn't give the line types their usual colors :(

[@heliopolix]

That three in box 6 was a logical leap. The line could have extended further into the fog.

[@Scojo486]

If he had solved the box 9 line first, he would have placed a 4 in r8c7, and then 4 would have been placed in box 6 by sudoku, clearing the fog and revealing that r4c9 was in fact the end of that line.

[@amirsperling7242]

Exactly. Row 3 column 9 could have been the 3, making row 6 column 7 a 1 or an 8. More work needed to be done to conclude it was a 3.

[@stevieinselby]

I had in mind that box 6 could be entirely filled by a spiralling Renban apart from the one cell that was taken by the line from box 3...

[@mnnvikes101]

@48:50 placing the 3 is not a logical deduction since the line could theoretically fill out the rest of box 6 and a 3 could be placed in r6c8. I am stuck at this point in the puzzle. Does anybody know how to logically proceed?

[@RoderickEtheria]

You are supposed to approach the whisper in b9, which you know has a 123 in r7c789 and a 4 in r8c789. At this point, you can rule out a region-sum line because 8 does not equal 9 and a renban because you can tell the line going into r8c8 must be 5 long and 9 and 3 would need size 7 to make a renban work. This allows you to place a 4 in r8c7, which locks down the 4 in b6. And this reveals the size of the b6 line.

[@Scojo486]

If he had solved the box 9 line first, he would have placed a 4 in r8c7, and then 4 would have been placed in box 6 by sudoku, clearing the fog and revealing that r4c9 was in fact the end of that line.

[@RoderickEtheria]

Simon did the b6 line a bit too soon. He should have had to tackle the b9 line before he knew enough about the b6 line to know the positions of the 345, given the b6 line still could have grown when he placed the 345.

[@olamarklund1755]

Simon’s soft voice takes on an even more hushed tone when he tells us about the ”secret”. Love it!

[@kyleflanagan963]

I think it's called Ancient Artifacts because you're meant to think of the fog as earth that you're digging through in order to uncover all these strange objects. You don't know what they are at first until you learn more about the context of the location in which they are found, just as is frequently the case with archeology. A wonderful puzzle. One of my favorites that Simon has done in recent memory.

[@the_wildbird_4342]

that or it is because you go back to the start ant the end

[@TheKai190]

@ 48:51 that logic seems faulty if the line extends into box 3. I think he said just a second earlier to be careful about this lol

[@StefanPettersson]

A bit of luck with the 5 in box 2 at 46:11? It didn't have to go on the top, right?

[@orosma868]

I came on here to see if anyone else thought that. It could have still gone in box 7 at that point from the 15 pair in R8C5? Unless I missed something.

[@boivie]

It was a 59 pair, and he got to know that the 9 had to be in the 89 pair below. So the R1C5 had become a naked single.

[@StefanPettersson]

@@boivie Ah! Yes, of course! Thanks!

[@corozal987]

​@@boiviebut it wasn't a 59 pair, 8 was still a candidate on that dot, on both sides of the dot.

[@3Fatboy33]

@@corozal987 It was an 89 pair so 9 cant be in R1C5 leaving only 5. He did not say it like that thou.

[@hubertnnn]

48:55 That was incorrect since 3 could also go in r3 c9 if that remban continued up..

[@laurentdebuyst3941]

48:45 Correct me if I'm wrong but that renban could still go all the way to the top-right corner and thus go from 1-9, no?

[@Scojo486]

If he had solved the box 9 line first, he would have placed a 4 in r8c7, and then 4 would have been placed in box 6 by sudoku, clearing the fog and revealing that r4c9 was in fact the end of that line.

[@Minihood31770]

I notice you haven't streamed any puzzle games in a while, but if you do ever take it up again, may I suggest Patrick's Parabox. It's a well paced block pushing puzzle game, and gets to play around with recursion in some very interesting ways.

[@Orenotter]

This puzzle was such a great mystery. It'll go down in CTC history. I applied all my brain, Did the work with great strain, And now both my lobes are all blistery.

[@thorbjrnhellehaven5766]

Watching the video, I remember having a different path for box 5 and 8. Something about the position of 3 in box 5, and the region sum. if R6C5 was a 3, that would force 7 on the line in box 8, and the sum there would be 15, and you'd need R6C4 to be 12 and that's not a sudoku digit. Forcing R5C6 to be a 3. Getting box5's 2 from the 3, (not 3 from 2)

[@wallacexixctc7115]

48:44 Simon you assume the purple line do not extend, it might extend to r3c9 , it is true to say the line must include 3,4,5 but I is not necessarily be the cells you put it. Just a minor point a really good solve anyway❤️

[@adynofpasavil]

My goodness!! I've been watching these nonstop! But today, I'm watching it before bed. I love the fog of war puzzles. I'm finally starting to catch onto things a little quicker. It's been bringing me a lot of joy in an otherwise rough patch of life. Thank you :)

[@stubbsz]

Here's a low bar. 2 hours, I did make a cup of tea and was running a meeting for half the solve but even so, I got badly confused on the box-5 renban... Oh, and I didn't read the rules so thought I broke everything, when r3c8 didn't have valid digit. Rather than read the rules I back-tracked and wasted so much time looking for my mistake that I hadn't made. Still so enjoyable; these fog of war puzzles are a blast.

[@eerewdenceforge6085]

Solved in 3 minutes because I cheated

[@michelleangel6948]

I'm so happy I didn't let the length of the video discourage me from trying this one because I really love those fog sudoku puzzles. Finished in 23:37 minutes .It went so smoothly and was so enjoyable 😊

[@tonyawright6020]

I don't get putting the 3 in box 6 at 48:58 The fog still hid the end of the line and if the line went up into box 3 it could have potentially pulled a 3 from there. I was able to complete row 8 first (easy once you realize it's a whispers line), which led me to figure out that 4 had to go in the middle of box 6, and then I could see the end of the line and place that 3.

[@windybeach2184]

19:00 Just a small difference but I deduced that box 4 couldn’t be a whisper line because there’s nowhere to place a 6 next to a 1 :)

[@Arxareon]

It's only fitting that the last digit in the fog of its own is the 3 in the corner. Very nice puzzle. It's probably called Ancient Artifacts because you uncover the lines and dots but then you also have to study them to find out what they are - like archeology, finding, cleaning and identifying ancient artifacts.

[@elektrikblu7331]

Some sneaky lines. I needed a hint from Simon and discord but I managed in around 128min

[@geoff544]

At 42:37, you can deduce that the RSL in box 5 has to sum to 11 or 15. It can't be 8,3 or that would break the dot, so there must be a 7 on it - which solves the dot. And note that there can't be a 1 on the same RSL, so 1 can be placed in box 5.

[@clintonevans2003]

Someone, who has never heard of you Simon, told me the secret yesterday. So that means someone else has blabbed 🙁

[@six_5000]

Really clever how, even if you make a huge error in logic and complete mis-color the lines, you can still place correct digits and clear fog and think you’re doing rather well Then you have to do a lot of backtracking and end up with a time of 63:06

[@constanza1648]

I had the same problem: I cleared the fog, then break the puzzle and had to go back until my last "correct" number (that cleared the fog) to see what my error was.

[@MarkBennet10001]

I was hung up a bit by box 6 (c49 minutes) where I noticed the line could extend to eight cells in the box and.a 9-cell Renban tells me nothing, so I had to analyse the line in box 9. I also spent too long on the box 58 S line before it was properly resolved.

[@stevieinselby]

Finished in 35 minutes of sheer delight 😍 with only a couple of accidental cheats and one lucky escape ... because the grey kropki on the edge of fog look just like white kropki that are partially fogged over, I kept forgetting that they could be black kropki in disguise. 18:20 ... Here we have a line that can't possibly be a Renban, so *of course* Simon draws it in with the colour that we use for Renban lines, because why wouldn't you? Never change, Simon 🤣 Also impressed with Simon's determination to leave 7s pencilled onto a 1-2-3-4-5-6 Renban!

[@Mausemotte]

love these puzzles that make you figure out the nature of the lines!!

[@navster100]

They should just state in the rules now that one 3 must be in the corner

[@pedrosaraiva1411]

I would really not mind if ctc posted a fog puzzle everyday , they are super fun to solve and this one was very fun to find what which line represented .

[@3Fatboy33]

At 35:58 he concludes that the 4 must be in the cell but why cant the four be on the black line (other 5 cells in the box)? Additionally the "Renban" explanation does not contain the word "consecutive" so this becomes magic to the uninitiated.

[@khoozu7802]

The general renban rule did mentioned consecutive digits are required. So the rule here is not clear enough.

[@Aciek25]

It took me 3 hours. I am both proud and not proud of myself.

[@navster100]

I'm not sure if something is wrong with my app but there is no fog. There is only fog when I open it from the browser

[@EmonEconomist]

That was a fun puzzle! I usually don't like "figure out the rules"-style puzzles (I don't know if there's a more formal term for these) but this one felt reasonably approachable (while still being challenging enough to be enjoyable). I'm proud to say I didn't make the same logical error on Box 6 that Simon did! Finished in 39:28, thanks for the puzzle!

[@Sam_weiqi]

47:18 for me. Got stuck a couple of times, but was fun to fight through :)

[@michaelhoffman2011]

As always the fog puzzles are always fun. took me 58 minutes. Great puzzle.

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 02:22 Let's Get Cracking: 07:35 Simon's time: 45m18s Puzzle Solved: 52:53 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 7x (09:03, 09:22, 09:25, 20:04, 20:06, 20:18, 20:21) Three In the Corner: 4x (32:14, 51:23, 51:31, 52:35) Maverick: 2x (14:33, 14:33) Schrödinger Cell: 1x (29:49) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 21x (00:32, 05:00, 14:04, 14:09, 24:13, 28:42, 29:03, 32:05, 32:51, 34:20, 34:43, 37:54, 39:30, 41:21, 41:27, 41:41, 47:20, 47:23, 48:56, 51:14, 52:03) Hang On: 11x (05:00, 07:08, 13:19, 18:38, 22:20, 26:08, 29:55, 38:30, 41:09, 43:48, 47:08) By Sudoku: 10x (17:01, 22:36, 25:09, 25:51, 27:43, 41:14, 41:32, 45:38, 48:01, 49:30) Sorry: 7x (12:14, 24:16, 33:05, 33:08, 38:33, 46:28, 47:29) Lovely: 6x (15:55, 31:37, 34:43, 37:54, 48:56, 53:19) Beautiful: 6x (08:34, 23:15, 32:58, 34:43, 36:30, 53:08) In Fact: 5x (03:19, 22:23, 27:43, 48:50, 49:48) Clever: 4x (24:08, 24:11, 24:42, 52:55) Nature: 4x (26:01, 33:39, 48:50, 50:10) That's Huge: 3x (30:00, 32:10, 51:00) Obviously: 2x (10:48, 44:55) Wow: 2x (37:05, 43:28) Pencil Mark/mark: 2x (22:48, 28:27) Naked Single: 1x (21:47) Recalcitrant: 1x (47:53) Naughty: 1x (01:40) Bingo: 1x (52:48) In the Spotlight: 1x (52:38) I Have no Clue: 1x (00:43) Surely: 1x (18:20) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (30:30) Wrogn: 1x (12:43) Let's Take Stock: 1x (25:31) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Ten (10 mentions) Two (106 mentions) Red (7 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (11) - Low (6) Even (8) - Odd (0) Black (3) - White (1) Row (12) - Column (6) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!

[@Confused_Rock]

Wow

[@fireboss05]

I wanted those informations

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

bloated comment. not everything is a “simarkism”. like how you gonna count “surely”

[@vincew3005]

ngl before i saw the FAQ i thought a person (not a programme) did this and i was immediately intimidated edit: how does the robot tell the difference between "two" and "to" and "too"?

[@puritan7473]

@@fulltimeslackerii8229 Absolutely, and what about Ah !?!

[@AFT3RDAY5]

That is an absolutely lovely puzzle 🤩👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Took me only a little bit longer than Simon 😉👍🏻 The way to figure out the lines is brilliant and we have a 3 in the corner 🎉

[@susanquig7245]

The rules didn't say consecutive which I believe they usually do. I got confused by this. Maybe just me....

[@Scojo486]

They should have said consecutive, that was my error sorry!

[@susanquig7245]

@@Scojo486 Oh wow. So nice of you to reply. Thank you and no worries. A little uncertainty every once in a while is good for the brain!

[@Poet13xRatedRKO]

I didn't cheat at all and got a tolerable 38:37. The most minutes I lost when I needed long to do the 4 in box 8 (34:41 in this video) after which the puzzle is pretty much done.

[@_aullik]

the deduction at 35:55 was really cool. I totally missed that and it took for forever working out what the numbers could be with the dot in the center box.

[@RichSmith77]

That was the one step that escaped me too. I reached that point and could get no further. I had to watch Simon. Then smacked my forehead, as it seems so obvious once it's pointed out.

[@shannononeill431]

Ditto!

[@mattheweadams]

The rules for Renban lines in the video and in the description don't include the word "consecutive" which will be confusing for new solvers. "Renbans are a sequence of *CONSECUTIVE* non-repeating digits in any order. "

[@Scojo486]

Oops that's totally my bad! Out of the hundreds of people to test/solve this puzzle you're the first person to point that out. Thanks for letting me know.

[@XEqualsPenguin]

yeah, I got completely lost there! I had to hop back to the video to figure out what I was doing wrong.

[@cirillkin]

Thank you!!! I struggled with the break-through because I couldn't understand why it cannot be a renban

[@SilvrSavior]

I wonder if there is a way to implement an anti-cheat function into these fog of war puzzles. Like it has a counter that trips if you input more than 3 (or whatever's reasonable) incorrect answers that pulls the fog back in to a number of squares that you have uncovered that will not go away until the counter get's cleared after correctly inputting 5 cells in a row. I also still think a fog of war + rush hour sudoku puzzle where the cars can dispel fog with their headlights would be interesting.

[@BlueCyann]

I make too many typos for something like that to work, because I'm probably not the only one. I think one of the very first of these puzzles that was offered did have a three wrong entry limit and I had to tiptoe through the puzzle to avoid hitting it (and I still used up two strikes). The thing is, most people do want to solve the puzzle as intended. So when I mess up and make an accidental entry, I just sort of put it out of my mind -- 90% of the time at a minimum it doesn't affect the rest of the solve at all. The rest of the time I'm aware of something that does or does not work, so might not pursue trying to disprove a known-correct entry as much as I might otherwise have (instead focusing on logically disproving the known-wrong answers). And vice versa for known-incorrect. But I always work out the critical logic, because that's why I'm here. That's what I enjoy doing. And I greatly prefer that to having to tiptoe through a puzzle to avoid putting in something important by accident. I think anyone who cheats on a puzzle like this is only robbing themselves. And if they can't stop themselves from doing it without an external threat of some kind that's unfortunate but it's still ultimately their issue and not ht setter's to deal with.

[@SilvrSavior]

@@BlueCyann That's why I think the "wrong" counter could reset after the right counter passes like maybe 2-3 correct inputs.

[@sonalita_]

Only the second time I've beaten Simon's; solve time - only by two minutes but feeling delighted with myself. Very fun puzzle.

[@IM_Skliarov_Chess]

Greetings to all! I bought this app Sven`s Sudoku Pad on steam, opened this puzzle and there was no fog in it. Also, there is no way to draw lines in the app itself, and the settings do not look like the channel authors. Who knows how it can be fixed? Best regards from Ukraine, Kyiv!

[@Felixkeeg]

Didn't know that the numbers on Renban lines had to be a *CONSECUTIVE* sequence, ended up staring at the start way too long trying to exclude either German Whispers or Renban lines

[@michaeldakin1474]

Just revisiting what is possibly one of my all-time favourite sudoku puzzles… I think that box 8 is a big key to this puzzle - the given 2 in box 1 is incredibly powerful for beginning the puzzle but, once begun, you can do lots in boxes 1,2,3,4,7… but then you hit a bump - once you start to break into box 8, everything else pretty much falls into place.

[@ukdavepianoman]

Very clever puzzle - took me 90mins but i wasn't focussed on it completely during the solve. Not one of Simon's best solves. Ridiculous explaining that 4 digits can't up to one - you don't say?! And completely bogus logic at 48:54 w.r.t. filling in 345s. Should have looked at Box 9 first.

[@wanderlustwarrior]

With at time of 36:45, my solve manages to satisfy Renban, Black Kropki, White Kropki, and Equal Sums rules! The only rule of the puzzle my solve time didn't satisfy was a German Whisper... though it does see a run of low, high, low in it!

[@Raven-Creations]

Advance warning, your solve included bad logic, which you'd warned yourself not to do just seconds earlier. See 48:27 onwards. @ 14:06 - "All of the 6s work" - really? What about R3C3? If that's 6, you get 1 in both R2C4 and R4C2 and now you can't put 1 anywhere in box 1. For the same reason, you can't put 7 in R3C3, because it can only go with 1 or 2, and neither neighbour can be 2. @ 26:30 - why on earth are you faffing around? You've got a line with a 1 in a single-cell segment - it's obviously not a region sum line. The line has a 5 on it, so it's obviously not a whisper line. It's therefore a 1-6 renban. No sudoku deduction ever came easier. You really don't have to explain to anybody why four different digits cannot sum to 1. It's so blatantly obvious that to explain it is just patronising, and quite insulting. If they really can't see that four cells can't sum to 1, do you really think going on about triangular numbers is going to help? I know you like to explain everything, but really, credit your viewers with a modicum of intelligence. Let's suppose your wife drops her keys. Do you explain to her that the distortion of spacetime by the mass of the earth caused the keys to fall towards the centre of the gravity well as soon as the friction from her fingers was insufficient to resist it? Somehow, I doubt it, or we'd have seen you sporting a shiner. @ 35:23 - "Do we know which direction it goes in?" - yes. The three digits at the bottom of C6 see all of the renban. This means that one of the three digits at the top of C6 must appear in R7C5. That can only be 4. We therefore know there's 56 and either 3 or 7 in R4-6C6. There's 8 and 9 at the bottom of C6. This means there aren't enough high digits for the black line to be a whisper line, and it has 1 and 2 on it, but can't have 6 on it, so it can't be a renban. The four cell part is either 1235 or 1257 @ 42:44 "these would be either 47 or 38" - it can't be 38, because the dot would be 27, which is neither consecutive nor 1:2. Therefore there's always a 7, making the renban 3-6, the region sum line summing to 11, and making the other section 47 in that order. @ 48:27 "we've got to be careful with any logic we do" - advice which you are about to ignore. @ 48:51 - what was it you were only just saying about not making logic based on the line stopping at R4C9? You know the line must have 345 on it, but you don't know they are all in box 6. There's a 34 in R3C9 which could be the 3 or 4, and there's a potential 8 it can pick up in R2C9. It could have 145 in box 6, making 124567, and it could pick up 3 and 8 from box 3. The line could also drop down instead, picking up a 1, 8, and 9, which could go anywhere in the box. It's incredible just how many possibilities you completely overlooked after warning yourself not to. In short, you don't have any right to place any digit in box 6 at this point. There are possibilities for every digit to appear in at least two places. This was one of the best FoW puzzles I've done. Not too hard, but it did require some interesting logic.

[@neokart2660]

You actually cheated at 48:43, because the Renban could continue behind the fog until it takes up all but 7 of box6, making a possible Renban of length 9, and the correct path would be to assume nothing about the Renban. The route I took is as follows (most of it happens later in the video): 1. The line in box9 that goes through par 89 in box8 cannot be a Region Sum Line because its sum would be both 8 and 9 (absurd). 2. Said line cannot be a Renban either because it contains 9, 8, but then it cannot contain a 7. 3. Therefore the line is a German Whisper Line, so: r8c7 is a low digit (1,2,3,4) but looking at row8 it can only be 4, which allowed me to deduce not only: r8c9=r9c6 =9, but instead r5c8=4 (interacting with r6c4 and the pair 34 of box3). This 4 clears the fog and only then can the length of the Renban in box6 be known. It was a fascinating puzzle and an excellent video as always. Greetings

[@shannononeill431]

🎉152:53 best so far. Only had to check back to the video once for to be unstuck. Still not really sure how the 4 appeared in $E6 at minute 36-ish, but it unstuck me enough to move on. Aiming for under 2 1/2 hours next time. Who knew laid up on sick leave would be this much fun! 😂

[@tomatodamashi]

The 3 in r6c7 was unearned. He said moments prior to be careful because the renban could extend into the fog and then forgot about it to place the 3

[@jonnybolton4659]

Agreed. The way I progressed was to consider the line in Box 8&9, indeed Simon comes to that not long after; it's forced to be a German whisper and you can place 495 in box 9 in row 8; then there is a hidden single 4 in R5C8, which blows the fog away to reveal that the end of the line is in fact where Simon assumed it to be

[@fefo9445]

@@jonnybolton4659 Thanks for this solution. Got all resolved like that, but was blind to see the hidden 4 :D Classic^^

[@caseyglick5957]

At 48:50, how did Simon know the renban wasn't longer than 7 cells? Obviously 345 needed to be on it. But how did he figure out that R3C9 wasn't part of it? I couldn't see an obvious reason R6C7 couldn't have been an 8 or a 1, for example.

[@bethbromley9590]

This is the first time I saw Simon make a logic slip....my world is shook. What if nothing is real and everything is falling apart!!!

[@adrianhead6272]

You should watch more, he does it all the time

[@bethbromley9590]

@@adrianhead6272 I don't believe you! I've watched tonnes and tonnes and I've never seen it before!....though thinking about it, maybe I just make the same mistakes and so I don't realise it....ARGH

[@PauxloE]

Not cheating was really hard in this puzzle - several times I made some mistakes, which then were made obvious by a digit not revealing something it should have revealed. I mixed up the 6 and 7 in box 1 (putting a 6 at the end of the line due to "a 6 can't ever be on the middle of a whispers line"), which after ~ 1 hour went into a dead end. I then restarted the puzzle and was more careful not to assume things. Total time 129:42, solve counter 10296.

[@Throckmorpheus]

Got completely stuck on this one twice and had to come back here to see where I was going so wrong, and both times it was that I'd forgotten the consecutive thing with the renban lines since it isn't like explicitly stated in the rules. I suppose to be fair thats what I get for trying to do puzzles like this without being familiar with the basic variants themselves.

[@Alteram]

I somehow pulled what I thought was logical in box one and had the correct 3/4 real early, and then later was looking at it like "I know it was correct due to the fog, but now I can't figure out how I did it, but at the time it made complete sense to me.".. So unfortunately I think I cheated a little. Made solving some parts quicker than Simon, due to me having the 3/4 and 8/9 already but overall still a fun solve! I'll just pretend it was a handicap for me being pretty new to sudoku puzzles.

[@jacobcombs1106]

01:24:47 - 87% slower which is faster than my normal 100-200% range, I lost a lot of time because I was coloring high and low digits across the entire puzzle more or less out of OCD at some point. I enjoyed the puzzle.

[@Mephistahpheles]

@21:00 This was made far more complicated than necessary. Don't need to know "the secret". Just that the total for the box is the same. So the non-line cells add up to the same. Box 4 is max 10 Box 2 is min 10 So they're both 10.

[@closetta4928]

hey I was able to solve a puzzle this channel covered! quite proud of myself for this one (49 minutes 35 seconds)

[@mrf28]

I'd like to see video-games back, I had so much fun watching the series from the witness to taiji, specially baba is you. Perhaps I'm 4 months late, but I can't understand why it stopped. Please play more video games, and sorry for posting this on an unrelated video.

[@oak3001]

87:00 for me. Really great fun eliminating the different line types. Got a bit stuck in the top right and bottom middle, but slogged my way through.

[@debrawilden1971]

[I didn't read all the comments. I wonder why Simon didn't use the color of the line drawing tool to match the standard line rule colors. ie-green (whisper), purple (renban), blue (sums)]

[@imoartel4134]

I havent done a Puzzle like this in quite a while, so while I knew what all the rules meant, I didn't remember the exact details. When I read the explanation for Renban line, "A sequence of non-repeating digits in any order" I thought that only meant it wasn't allowed to have a repeated digit and therefor I couldn't figure out how to start the puzzle. Eventually I was ready to give up and started watching the video, only then, when I heard the rules explanation in the video, did I remember they were supposed to be consecutive. Since I am not a native English speaker, I was wondering whether the wording for the Renban in the ruletext is ambiguous, or if I just missunderstood it due to my poor English speaking skills. Maybe in the future I should just remember, that even if I think I know and understand the rules, watching the explanation is a good idea to avoid missunderstandings. I'm glad I then retured to the puzzle because this was a fun solve and now I'm going to watch the video, which I'm sure is also going to be a great time as always!

[@NaHBrO733]

Bruh. I was stuck at box 6 for so long, trying to prove how the line cannot extend down... There was a 4 by sudoku....

[@benjaminrealy5661]

26:56...but cannot count it. I inadvertently swapped the 6 and 7 in box 1, not realizing that the 6 didn't have to start that line. Because of that when I got the 4 in box 3 which happened to be correct and released the fog, but then led me to not be able to distinguish the 16 and 25 in box 3. Then I noticed that the 7 could be the 6. And it resolved my issue. It appears that the distinction between the 6 and 7 made no impact on the rest of the solves up to that point, because pencilnarking them 67 appears to not take away from my other marks/solves, however, I cannot be certain. Although now typing this, maybe I will take it since the 56789 in box 2 hadn't been resolved so that had no impact and since the 67 error was in column 1 it could not have impacted boxes 4 and 7 whatsoever. What do yall think?

[@renishisrael9520]

Solved it in 4 hours . Mind blowing puzzle !! @Simon , how did you place the 3 in box 6 at 48:48 ? Can't the Renban grow into other boxes ?

[@HikingEngineer]

@49 min or so, Simon seems to assume the line doesn't continue into the fog -- you don't know at that point the 3/4/5 are on the part of the line that we can see...

[@enigma-mixed5933]

When you flex the softwares multi-colour lines muscles. And get every colour WROGN

[@IsiahTomas]

No problem. If I may have your most cordial permisssion, you may begin fudging the rules first, good gentleman of the respected court. Cheers.

[@noone.2049]

Hi Simon, i recommend you to play a game "There is no game" on live stream with Mark.. It's and amazing game with multiple tasks and puzzles

[@LuProch]

I had a thought. If you consider boxes 1, 3, 7 and 9 to be "corner boxes" of sudoku, then you always get a three in the corner 🙂

[@hockeyhacker97]

48:53... Yet another one of those "Did you just assume that the line didn't go one more spot and thus figure out the 3/4/5 based purely on luck and not on logic? It sure seems like you assumed the line ended and so assumed the 3/4/5 when it could have just as easily been 2/3/5 and had the 4 on a section of the line in which you don't know if it extenses or not. You got lucky assuming it didn't extend more.

[@nilsons28]

Hey, after determening where 4 can not go, you just overcomplicated so much… you found that the 4 can go only one place… similar when you started from 1

[@Onionbaron]

For those of you that don´t understand Simons joy about Threes in the corner: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJ6WXpWvqauEoacsi=cxaLrpkq33-sd92x

[@volkerysilvia]

What was that sillyness ~12-13 min in about the region sum line? The green cells were all individual cells, there was no summing going on at all among them, and they had to be identical. The sum of the three blue cells had to be 8 or 9, and you then couldn't make the two pink ones sum to anything less than 10. Thus it couldn't be a region sum line.

[@esven9263]

Can you please use a different description for Renban lines for the written rules in the future. The puzzle describes a Renban line "as a sequence of nonrepeating digits in any order." The term sequence doesn't actually imply on its own that the digits included within it are consecutive though. The Fibbinoci sequence for example clearly doesn't contain only consecutive numbers but is still a sequence. I wasn't familiar with Renban lines before now and it was frustrating to realize that was the reason I couldn't break into the puzzle.

[@ookazi1000]

@48:40, you've got a bad leap in logic that happens to land you on your feet. Because the line is still in fog, even if you know that it's renban, you don't know where on the renban the 345 needed to connect the 2 and 7 have to go. They could hid in the fog, so before you can logically place them in the three visible cells, you need to deduce enough of the puzzle to reveal that there aren't any renban cells hidding in the fog that could smuggle away the 345. To do that, you need to focus on 'the spider' line. Realizing that the spider must be a whisper-line moves you through a series of deductions which eventually get you the two in column 9 you need to disambiguate the 26 pair on the renban, which at last reveals that the line terminates. From that new information it follows that you need a 345 on the line to connect the two and seven and they must be exactly in the three spaces available on the line. It's a good pzzle you just got to take a lucky short cut in your solve.

[@GQSmoos]

Absolutely loved this puzzle. Took me 85:34 to do it. Now to watch the video.

[@WarThunderHotBoy]

Just solved it after 4.5h, but i took an hour long nap (tired after work), so it's more like 3.5h's

[@denizkaragullu6239]

Amazing puzzle! But doesn't work on Sudoku Pad app :( Can you guys please fix it?

[@DarrenNakamura]

Got it in 73:07. There was only one very difficult deduction I had to make; I'm curious if there was an easier thing to spot at that point in the solve.

[@nicolasmartin224]

Only took me 60 minutes... usually i need twice simon's time to do these puzzles :) Still a long way to go. Nice Puzzle.

[@MuraliVajapeyam]

I think the instructions should clarify that a Renban line must contain a consecutive sequence of digits. Simon knew this because the concept is well-known, but these instructions don't specify that crucial detail.