I Have NEVER Seen This Sudoku Trick Before

[@TheSonicPerson]

Hello Cracking The Cryptic, PotatoHead21 here. Thanks for featuring mine and SudokuExplorer's puzzle. I came up with the break-in idea for this one (the part involving the arrows in boxes 1,2,4, and 5 after seeing something similar being used in another puzzle from SudokuExplorer. I showed him this idea and we tweaked it a bit, and then SudokuExplorer built the rest of the puzzle, which involved lots of coloring and the arrows at the bottom to disambiguate all the digits. It was nice to have another puzzle featured on here and hopefully I'll get to see you guys do more puzzles from me.

[@shawnward6607]

Thanks for the puzzle. It was way over my head but it made a great video... Ill have to wait till after work to watch the last 40 minutes.

[@longwaytotipperary]

Great puzzle!!

[@troy.s]

Absolutely amazing puzzle. Much wow!

[@th.nd.r]

PotatoHead21, the work you did on this one with the break-in was TO DIE FOR, and the previous puzzle you did that was featured on the channel wherein the PotatoHead Theorem was born is quite likely my favorite CTC video of all time. You deserve to get a PLETHORA more channel features, and I can’t wait for your next one.

[@Kart1k3ya]

This must be one of my favourite puzzels ever! Thank you very much!

[@chitraagarwal8259]

That whole period from 1:04:00 to 1:14:00 when the blues were wrongly marked was one of the most traumatic 10 mins of my life knowing every deduction made in that period would need to be unwound... Was such a relief when you finally found it!

[@Tomwithnonumbers]

Thank you for the timestamp!

[@zoes17]

When he put the blue into R8C5 I immediately said, "Fruit of a poisoned tree. This is all fruit of a poisoned tree Simon."

[@ry-guy_]

Although 0 -> 4 was still a good deduction and that was the one I couldn't wait for him to make after placing 0 on the arrow. It seems too good not to be true that the arrow would eventually disambiguate the 0 digit.

[@lorenb6066]

Ah, glad you mentioned it! I tried the puzzle and obviously got stuck many times, but had a good run using Simon's colouring approach but got stuck just at the point Simon marked the blue incorrectly in box 8. And then I thought, oh no, I'll be stuck forever now! So checked the comments. Thanks!

[@jimmythefish45]

I know he miss clicked blue and started to run

[@raydorepp]

50:00 A sudoku can only look like this if you have no idea what you're doing, or if you know exactly what you're doing.

[@judithcabanero]

And the middle?

[@davidjowett8195]

@@judithcabanero You have no chance then 😆

[@judithcabanero]

@@davidjowett8195 Oh wow okay um k ye is very difficul so

[@HunterJE]

One of my favorite things watching these videos is when Simon notices something beautiful and while he is still catching his breath from how cool it is before explaining it you see it too, it's like in a mystery story when you see the solution just as the detective is about to say it, happened today with the exquisite logic around the circles on the "whirlpool"

[@longwaytotipperary]

Great comment!!

[@djmitt3807]

Shows what a great teacher Simon is and how well you learn!!

[@patrickgass787]

Simon is so good at explaining himself; it's easy to see where his logic is going to take him well before he says the words, yet if he wasn't there guiding the way, I for one would find many of these puzzles impossible to solve.

[@thomashurrell3820]

@@longwaytotipperary ll

[@thomashurrell3820]

@@longwaytotipperary l

[@jensschmidt]

"If that's not blue, purple is 7." I love the sentences I get to hear on this channel 😀

[@ruthphelps1440]

This puzzle was absolute bonkers, lol. I yelled, "You have two blues in row 8, Simon!" for a long while. Hahahaha

[@jpogoy966]

YEAHHHH ME TOO OMGGG HAHHAHAHA

[@robhans5]

Yeah, it drived me mad, same with Gray in C1 being resolved looong time before :P

[@jennygoodwin8740]

Me too 😂

[@emilymiller4349]

Me too! I couldn't even watch. I skipped ahead until he found his mistake.

[@davidjowett8195]

@@emilymiller4349 I couldn't skip forward if I wanted to, I need the eureka moment

[@MarushiaDark316]

This puzzle is definitely proof that Sven needs to add more colors - or more specifically a dark, middle, and light version of each of the existing colors the same as we have for the greys. This will also have the benefit of better legibility for lines.

[@timdruyts5025]

I want pink! I think that a dark brown (that is not to close with orange) and a babyblue are also good options.

[@KlemmyConQueso]

Also an * would be nice. I was using the 0 when I was trying to solve it and wished I had another option.

[@MarushiaDark316]

@n99 Well, if you had dark, medium, light versions of each color, you could use those in place of flash to represent variants of the same color.

[@TheGabtraf]

Adding white as a colour might be good, then the flashes can be just white instead of light grey.

[@zekotetsumaru]

i think stripes/patterns would be more functional

[@jonathandegner8940]

I agree that the colour palette needs a bit of tweaking. I think having a white option to replace the function of the light grey in partially-colouring cells would go a long way.

[@HunterJE]

Alternately you can avoid the need for flashes entirely by switching from colors to letters when that kind of optionality needs to be marked, with letters you can just use the same center/corner mark convention we use with numerical pencil marks...

[@jonathandegner8940]

@@HunterJE That's true, though I do find the colours quite helpful in visualising things. Also, the colours work much better than letters on the mobile platform (which presently has no letters).

[@christiand3560]

Me 2, a White Option would be fine than you can use the Other 9 colors as placeholder, I am happy that Simon stopped use Green with a purple Flash and Green with a grey Flash as digit pair, this was horrible to watch and now He awards complete colors 👍👍

[@sandramangano6391]

+1 for the white color, wanted to have that for a long time

[@minamagdy4126]

Nowadays, there is an option of using letters, although I'm not sure if it works on mobile. It also disables letter-based keyboard shortcuts, if that is of interest. On the colour white, It was indeed part of the palette of the old software, when blue used to be almost cyan. I do agree that a revisit of the current coloue palette might be a good idea, and a return of white would be welcome

[@Lurvification]

"We've got lemons & limes, oranges & strawberries, and some very unpleasant looking fruit here." has me wheezing 😂

[@michaelpdawson]

Blackberries and...greyberries. Eww.

[@robertcousins2274]

maybe instead of numbers, letters, and colors, we need a palette of fruits

[@tomsommerville]

@@robertcousins2274 the full palette of emoticons ;)

[@MeriaDuck]

Pair and pear also sound very similar if not the same, it gets really fruity indeed.

[@michaelpdawson]

@@MeriaDuck I was certainly thinking that when Simon had a green and orange pear!

[@bobblebardsley]

The last time I saw that many 0's on my screen, a little blue hedgehog was running around collecting them. I wonder what 2019 Simon would have thought if he had been able to tune into this video around the 45-minute mark to witness a grid filled in with 8 different colours and no digits except for about 20 zeroes.

[@jimmyh2137]

last time i saw that many 0 was on the Shroedinger-cells puzzle (every digit from 1 to 9, plus 0, but one cell has two digits at the same time)

[@ellaenchanted2399]

Haha and let's not forget his reaction to a video with the little 1:26:43 at the bottom! I remember when this length warranted a movie reference title :P

[@kindlin]

He doesn't even get a digit until 1:14:00. And it's the 0! Which is extra hilarious, "The zero is four", yeah, OK simon.

[@bobblebardsley]

@@kindlin "There... are... zero... lights... nyaaaAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!"

[@Rose-ou2xj]

KZbin recommendations did me a solid with this channel! I’ve been watching it for days.

[@Trizzak]

45:39 "Hey honey, how's your sudoku going?" "Great! I'm down to 19 zeroes in my grid!"

[@AFastidiousCuber]

It took me almost 3 hours to solve this after finding the initial break-in fairly quickly. I used the letters instead of colors for the cells and kept track of the possible values for each letter on a separate sheet of paper. Absolutely brutally difficult puzzle, but very satisfying to solve.

[@Calintares]

One thing I love about these hand-crafted sudokus is they genuinely make you do proofs in order to solve them. This one was a proof by contradiction, which tend to be the most beautiful and elegant proofs

[@six_5000]

That mistake with the blue squares was the most exciting thing I’ve seen this year Which may give insight into the dreary nature of my existence

[@ms.cellaneous4380]

I'm still thinking about what Simon called himself in yesterday's video. The most interesting mystery in my life rn 🤣

[@SolarAnomaly]

I love how long this puzzle stayed ambiguous. Absolutely marvelous work Simon!

[@jasonsampson3379]

At 1:04:19 Simon STOP, that's wrong!

[@acballer4232]

It took him like 10 minutes to realize too 😂

[@TheAnaCarolinaVideos]

Sometimes I don’t get at all the tricks, but I love watching the videos and trying to play sudoku with Simon! Thanks for being such a good part of KZbin!!

[@anaisakaclotolphe519]

Oh my god, that was one of my favorite CTC videos ever! I usually love the coloring puzzles, where you just put color everywhere and then, right at the very end, you get to fill almost everything at once. I actually found a nice piece of logic in the arrow on the bottom (box 7 and 8) while there was a mistake in the puzzle. It's based on the state of the grid at 1:08:52 and it is as follows: since r9c4 and r6c5 are both on an arrow, and they're both paired with a different 1-2 on that arrow, the sum in each circle has to be 1 apart, and whichever arrow has the 2 makes its circle the higher of the two. However, the circle in box 8 can never be higher than the one in box 5, so that gives us the 1 and the 2 and tells us that grey is actually 2. I didn't go any further than this, since I knew it was based on a mistake, and obviously it's irrelevant when the mistake is fixed, but I really liked this piece of logic so I thought I'd share it with y'all!

[@th.nd.r]

PotatoHead21’s break-in is beautiful in their own way, and SudokuExplorer’s logic that followed is also beautiful in their own way. The personalities of both setters were on display here and it created a wonderful puzzle. Great setting and solving!! I concur with everyone’s points about the colors. Also Simon, I just wanted to kindly point out that you forgot to give the 3 in the corner its song, and you forgot to say “red 5 is standing by!” I can hardly blame you though after such a difficult and extraordinary puzzle. Well done again.

[@馬善萄]

Someday we may find a puzzle that requires Simon to use all the tools to solve a puzzle(0-9, colors, A-Z, pen tools) and I think this would be amazing to watch Simon to solve it like this.

[@Fogmeister]

I did it! Wow! That was the hardest puzzle I've done so far. And by far the longest video for a puzzle that I've even attempted. My usual threshold is about a 30 minute video = a puzzle I could possibly solve. I did it in 153:59 I had most of the board coloured with possible colours but no numbers. I did have one set of cells that I was calling the "weird cell" which was down to a 489. I decided to label them properly with 489 centre marks. That gave me the 489 possibility in box 2 (r3 c4&6). This meant that the only place for the "weird cell" in box 5 was in row 6. THIS! Is what broke the puzzle. This told me the circle in box 6 was black (89) and eventually meant the "weird cell" (489) went on the arrow in box 9. And so HAD to be a 4. This meant the whirlwind circles were forced to be 8s. Loved this puzzle! Glad I stuck at it! Thanks @TheSonicPerson !

[@Ulija100]

Nice. Very similar to me it sounds like. took me 150:00 here and I know exactly what you mean by "weird cell". Mine was mid- grey X. Notation totally broke - would love something like a "Hi", "Lo" text option for the corner.

[@rontyson6118]

Took me around 150 minutes also. Glad we made it through, though. :)

[@claesgreen3354]

Started watching the channel a year ago and it was the first time seeing something other than normal sudoku. Today was the first time I managed to solve one from an hour+ video. Thank you Simon and Mark for an excellent work.

[@ngkasp]

In terms of being able to "pencil mark" colors, I think a separate tab with a palette of stripe patterns would work best. Unlike a white flash, this would allow you to add one solid color (e.g. "I know this is a high digit") and one stripe color ("The blue digit is in one of these two positions")

[@ElysaraCh]

this is genuinely something i've wanted to see for a while now - a puzzle that you damn near solve entirely using colours to find all the logic behind sudoku positioning before finding even a single firm digit

[@arrgghh1555]

He did one over a year ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3WTk6yGaNWmpLM

[@teliots]

There's been a couple like that on the channel.

[@ElysaraCh]

@@teliots seen plenty that got like halfway colored in, but its rare to see it go so far that Simon or Mark runs out of colours like this and solves nearly 7 whole boxes before placing a single digit!

[@teliots]

@@ElysaraCh Try looking for one called "Going from no digits to a solved sudoku in 45 seconds"

[@IsYitzach]

Simon, you can use letters. They work like colors but have originality (the property of having an order), which you can ignore. But Sven really should add white to the pallet.

[@sardonicchemist]

I really enjoyed the nice piece of logic at (near) the beginning. It is reminiscent of an argument used in mathematics, particularly analysis, when you prove that a string of inequalities is, in fact, a string of equalities by having the same value at the beginning and end of the string. In this case you have purple *less than or equal to* green *less than or equal to* orange *less than or equal to* blue *less than or equal to* purple and so everything must be equal! Love the channel!

[@slvroni]

Me: Shouting NO for five minutes when Simon puts blue in the wrong position Simon : Just pretend the last five minutes didn't happen LMAO...THANK YOU SIMON I REALLY NEEDED THAT LAUGH!!!

[@davidmonnerat8598]

Finally a proof that 0 = 4 :) I solved it in about 90 minutes. The break-in fell fairly quickly, but that colouring sudoku was haaaard. Out of curiousity I solved a second time with using letters instead. This solved the problem of marking the mystery digit and made it a bit easier. The Whirlpool is a lovely idea, not monstrously hard and very beautiful. Thanks for the magnificent puzzle and entertainig solve!

[@w0rmblood323]

Regarding the software, Simon I've found 9 isn't enough. Would be cool to get an extra page of 9 but with a colour wheel so we can define an extra pallet of colours to go with the default 9.

[@methatis3013]

I think it would be interesting to have a completely costumisable color palette

[@mishavolkin]

White colour is strongly required

[@justinsmith2363]

Keep the same palette but allow variations on each colour as suggested (but not implemented) by the bottom left button on the existing palette - diagonal shading. Eg in this puzzle Simon would use yellow for one of the three PAIRS of numbers that add up to purple. Later, when he decided to shade the two yellow digits individually, he would use left diagonal shading for one and right diagonal shading for the other.

[@killroy42]

Working on It! And soooo many other things!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

@@killroy42 I think in this case it might be much easier to use letters instead of colours, at least for digits from *1* to *7.* Two colours might be enough: *blue = 8-9* and *purple = 7-8.* That's because you also need to use *corner* and *center* pencilmarks, which are impossible with colours.

[@FernFilledCreations]

The confused sheep sound at 1:13:08 made me laugh for about five minutes straight.

[@Fogmeister]

I love it when I'm able to solve a puzzle and then watch Simon take the same path through the puzzle. What Simon called the "Uncoloured cell" and the "Mystery digit" is what I called the "Weird cell". :D

[@jonniboye6399]

Knight's constraints in sudoku always fascinate me with how you're able to manipulate the puzzle like this. It was definitely difficult trying to figure out how to notate the puzzle, but in the end I was able to solve. Marvelous job to those that made it.

[@cyclopsboi]

watching him make that pencil mark error had me screaming at my screen

[@jasonfire3434]

Same 😂

[@stevieinselby]

You would have hated to watch me attempt this, I made so many mistakes with my pencil marking 😳

[@Nerdnumberone]

10-15 minute diversion, all the time knowing that none of this matters as every step is in the wrong direction.

[@zimmicks3170]

"We have oranges and lemons over there, limes over here, and some unpleasant looking black and grey fruit over there. The strawberries cannot be lemons." - Simon Pub bartender - "Sir, can I get you a drink?"

[@PeterZaitcev]

Finally, I solved it! It took me 3 days, 229 minutes on the timer, a number of restarts, a bunch of disproved Sudoku theorems, 6 opened windows, and a single hint from Simon! But I did it!

[@tedg1278]

The easiest way to recognize the "blueness" of R6C9 is remember that the colors were assigned as 6 arrow cell colors; with purple, blue, and 0 for non-arrow cells. An 89 is clearly a non-arrow cell and box 6 already has purple and 0 marked.

[@cotroneigiuseppe888]

If simon took so much time to solve it, it means it was really a difficult puzzle. I will never stop watching and listening to simon!!!

[@LiveS1s2]

I'm almost crying at the sight of the two blues in row 8

[@Exuno5912]

While I love seeing the flair of colors, I have to wonder if you'd get smoother solves using the Letter tool and having a bit more robust pencilmarking and more straightforward scanning, at least in these puzzles where you have to define every digit

[@crystalgehrt8861]

Can confirm. I colored the pairs and the same digit circles as I was wrapping my head around it, but I switched to letters when I decided I needed to identify individual numbers.

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:05 Let's Get Cracking: 05:10 Simon's time: 1h19m53s Puzzle Solved: 1:25:03 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Phistomefel: 4x (01:18, 01:20, 01:40, 01:51) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 35x (07:02, 08:00, 13:11, 15:59, 18:06, 21:49, 22:16, 25:50, 25:59, 26:18, 30:41, 31:01, 33:26, 34:03, 35:50, 35:53, 39:49, 43:06, 43:11, 46:56, 47:10, 47:46, 47:47, 54:03, 1:00:04, 1:00:04, 1:04:32, 1:04:36, 1:06:50, 1:08:23, 1:10:12, 1:16:12, 1:21:11, 1:21:43, 1:23:28) Hang On: 18x (06:30, 09:38, 10:37, 13:11, 13:11, 13:11, 14:23, 18:00, 34:03, 35:20, 35:20, 42:26, 48:16, 1:00:39, 1:08:29, 1:10:44, 1:13:12, 1:22:28) What Does This Mean?: 11x (04:48, 15:30, 19:29, 27:33, 46:42, 46:44, 55:29, 55:33, 58:34, 1:16:28, 1:17:13) Naked Single: 6x (47:25, 52:06, 52:50, 52:53, 1:14:07, 1:14:19) Progress: 6x (32:06, 33:29, 46:36, 51:44, 51:48, 1:01:13) Clever: 5x (1:05:07, 1:05:10, 1:25:38, 1:25:38, 1:26:11) Lovely: 5x (31:01, 1:04:23, 1:15:39, 1:17:53, 1:26:07) Astonishing: 5x (00:45, 03:15, 03:46, 09:44, 09:46) By Sudoku: 4x (30:22, 57:05, 1:00:23, 1:21:14) Chromatic: 4x (39:52, 1:26:00, 1:26:02, 1:26:05) Nature: 4x (1:15:09, 1:15:11, 1:22:39, 1:24:20) Sorry: 3x (33:03, 1:10:44, 1:17:33) The Answer is: 3x (39:25, 1:01:41, 1:11:08) Beautiful: 3x (03:49, 17:01, 44:27) Ridiculous: 3x (11:42, 31:15, 34:19) Obviously: 3x (05:28, 42:00, 59:17) We Can Do Better Than That: 3x (17:17, 50:36, 1:05:27) Whirlpool: 3x (00:19, 08:01, 11:11) Wow: 3x (25:45, 46:33, 49:36) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (17:45, 30:56, 51:13) Good Grief: 2x (09:36, 10:58) Bother: 2x (20:14, 27:17) Nonsense: 2x (30:32, 1:14:36) Incredible: 2x (00:37, 03:28) In Fact: 2x (16:35, 1:19:35) Symmetry: 2x (02:42, 06:23) Eyes are Drawn: 1x (05:45) Out of Nowhere: 1x (46:05) Stuck: 1x (59:52) Brilliant: 1x (14:27) Break the Puzzle: 1x (1:10:12) Fascinating: 1x (00:57) Extraordinary: 1x (53:01) Going Mad: 1x (1:06:22) Think Harder: 1x (38:15) Proof: 1x (02:04) Whoopsie: 1x (13:49) Almost Interesting: 1x (34:45) That's Huge: 1x (13:26) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Twenty One (3 mentions) Zero (93 mentions) Purple (94 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (4) - Low (4) Even (6) - Odd (0) Lower (2) - Higher (0) Black (61) - White (0) Column (18) - Row (16) 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!

[@LeDoctorBones]

Probably one of the only times where zero is the most popular digit.

[@th.nd.r]

19:43 “Oranges and lemons”

[@maverickstclare3756]

When hypothesizing individual but unknown digits, it is much better to use the letters, and Sven has recently made it you can use all 26 from the keyboard rather than just A-J.

[@nickellis999]

Yet another brilliant puzzle

[@dmytro_shum]

01:11:00 "what is it that we've done wrong there?" I had to wait 7 minutes before Simon noticed that there is some error somewhere (which was at 01:04:17) =D and another 2 minutes before he noticed what mistake

[@gertebert]

I love the fact that Simons voice always needs a few sentences to start up :)

[@laurynasmerkelis2370]

such a lovely puzzle, but hey how i shouted at the screen when you put those two blues in a row...

[@oldguydoesstuff120]

While following along with Simon, I quickly abandoned most of the colors for letters (thanks, Sven!!!) I kept purple and blue as Simon showed me, then substituted AB,CD,EF for the three ways to get to purple. Realizing that there was one more digit, I assigned it Z. Kind of nice that Simon picked zero for my Z. Lots of slow corner marking and sudoko ensued. And some (ok, lots!) of leaning on Simon to figure bits and pieces out. But I definitely found the letters easier to work with than all of the colors.

[@derekrocco4344]

Loved the break-in so much here! This was such a joy to start!

[@ericpraline1302]

What a brilliant puzzle, the best on the channel for some time I'd say. The opening reminds me of Escher’s staircase. Just wish Sven would add more colours!

[@Kagoolie]

Alas this challenging puzzle vs my skills meant I needed a guided solve, once the colouring came I flew though it with ease (still working on how to think outside that proverbial box). Though my heart sunk around the hour mark when I saw 2 blues in R8…then though of opening sim bubbly once the oversight was anti-overnighted, however, I gotta say that I never considered using the colour 0 when I run out, genius…much like the creators. Thumbs up from me and my mildly melted brain.

[@cjbroz313]

Is there any chance you could get Sven to add letters to the software? When assigning colors to arrows, having letter designators would make it much easier to deal with. Instead of wondering which orange might go somewhere, you could label each box on the arrow with a letter. Then you could know with certainty that you're dealing specifically with orange-A or orange-B, and you could save yourself some grief when things get cluttered.

[@velinnakov]

I stil haven't watched the video, but just finished with my solution, time 129:59. Who cares about time, i'm thrilled that i actually solved this. Think it's first time i solved a puzzle which took Simon so long, incredible how much i improved through last couple of years. This channel is amazing in so many ways, big thx to Mark, Simon and all others behind the scenes who made this channel existing!

[@squeak2455]

This is a puzzle that I found it was beneficial to use letters instead of colors. Might be useful on a future puzzle.

[@myfyrmadocjones]

Movie time! 😃

[@joonalehtinen5462]

You have beaten me with 4 seconds...

[@mikepictor]

If the tool allowed a WHITE flash, that would be soooo useful.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

52:42 for me. Omg, what a beautiful break-in, that was absolutely fantastic.

[@StephenMarkTurner]

Simon - "forget the last 5 minutes", Me - "done!"

[@Roblilley999]

Kinky Arrows, the wonderful 90s classic by the Happy Mondays

[@josegilbert3189]

Waiting for Simon to notice the two blue on the same line…

[@afayafay26]

Teacher: The test isn't that hard The test: 45:28

[@myfyrmadocjones]

I know anything that takes Simon over an hour is not worth me attempting, though I was shouting at the two blues in row 8 for so long I almost lost my voice. 😀

[@lexihopes]

I was pleased just to be right that the 0 would end up on the arrow and disambiguate the rest. Saw that shortly after he marked the 0s in that box when the 4,8, or 9 possible values were fresh. Actually getting there though... I noticed some things but never could have done it all! Things like the blue, where something goes terribly wrong, I stop yelling and just kind of gasp and go no no no no no.

[@Orenotter]

@1:13:20 THANK YOU! I have been shouting at you for some time now about those blues.

[@MontiJRivera]

I don't even play sudoku, but I enjoy watching these videos with morning coffee

[@noriteller-elsberg2816]

Hi Simon, I thought I’d introduce myself because I’ve been watching your videos for a couple years now. My name is Nori and I use they/them pronouns. I’m 15 and I live in Vermont. I absolutely ADORE your videos and Cracking the Cryptic alone has really changed my perspective on the internet. It is also because of you and Mark (but mostly you) that I do Sudoku, and it has become an activity which takes up a good portion of my time and I am rarely bored anymore. Anyway, thank you so much for doing this, it is bringing joy to people all around the world!

[@DipanGhosh]

Nori Nori!

[@poppyholly1759]

Welcome!

[@srwapo]

Well, I don't normally try puzzles this hard, but I watched the first 13 minutes making the four bulbs the same digit, and decided to give it a shot. Spent like 80 minutes, "peaked" to see how to do the logic @45:00, finally got a digit, and it was WRONG! I somehow ruled a 7 out of r1c6, which put a 7 in r1c4. I'm not going back and working from there, I'll just watch the solve. I did end up using pencils, letters, AND colors, which made me laugh, but all three were useful.

[@salionshatterstar]

I've been enjoying Simon's color puzzles so much recently that I've started to use colors myself. As I've gotten accustomed to them, though, I've found the palette of colors in the Sudoku apps on Steam to be limiting. Might we perhaps be able to get some additional colors and the ability to multi-color cells there as well? It's not absolutely necessary for any of the puzzles, true, but for some reason, it seems that my brain can often scan colors quicker than numbers and I'm less prone to silly mistakes.

[@MaierFlorian]

Sent this to a friend with timestamp 50 minutes and now he thinks I'm mad calling this a sudoku :'D

[@GregJonson]

You know a puzzle is challenging when the grid looks like a quilt after Simon's done with it.

[@watsonwrote]

It's still amazing to me that Simon can solve a puzzle like this in only an hour when I need to spend an hour on a regular, average difficulty Sudoku

[@elvagabundo4607]

Love love love the joyful "haha" at 1:18:35 :)

[@DavidWilde1]

Simon should have titled this video “You’ll scream till you’re BLUE in the face” :)

[@trudain]

Very happy that I managed to solve, and then watched the video. Many thanks. I used letters not numbers to start with, so had a grid filled with letters I used colors to remind me high/low. Would be good to see a solve with letters rather than colors next time.

[@saraiju]

Simon: [uses 8 colors] Simon: I think we're missing a digit! Simon: [attempts to prove it with math]

[@basp33]

Great video! Simon- have you considered using A and B corner marks for very colorful puzzles? Maybe for the orange pair, have an orange with A corner mark and an orange with B corner mark to differentiate?

[@michaelclark2272]

Hello CTC I have randomly came across this channel a couple months ago right after I graduated high school. I will be turning 18 soon on the 21st of this month. I would love to have a birthday shout-out and this would be my first time having a shout-out from a KZbin channel. I got very interested in Sudoku and all the different variants of it. I love the content. Please keep up the good work! 👍

[@emilywilliams3237]

I hope you get your birthday greeting, Michael! You could also email the email address in the description in case your comment is not seen (since, as I write, there are over 300 comments on this video ...) (And early Happy Birthday and congrats on graduating high school!)

[@michaelclark2272]

Thank you very much! 😁

[@mmallowwxp]

Maybe add a brown and teal then change the purple into a proper purple instead of the current magenta then add a pink. For they Grey issues maybe give them a different undertone like a cooler Grey for one then a warmer one for another. And as for black tell people to wear glasses. 💜

[@joonalehtinen5462]

Just the perfect timing as always!! Edit: (just finished other sudoku video from ctc)

[@blumoogle2901]

Ahhh! 2 Blues in row 8 🤨

[@justicegaming1412]

1:08:24 "Zero can't be a big digit" - Simon, 2022

[@emilywilliams3237]

This was fantastic. I watched it over two sessions because I did not have 86 minutes all in one go yesterday, and I backed up just a bit when starting my second stint in order to review where we were. I really enjoyed every moment of this. In a rare time for me, I did talk to you quietly, Simon, when you mistakenly colored the cell blue in box 8. Your logic was fine, it was simply the fact that to remove a color one has to click it in the color pallet feature of the software, which is a bit counterintuitive. And you did fantastic reasoning following that, a lot of which was just fine after you discovered your mistake. No worries, for me it did not detract from the beauty of the puzzle, the solve, or the video. As I have said before, it is actually quite instructive to see how you (or Mark) recover from an error, as I have many opportunities to apply what I learn from watching you. Thanks, as always, for doing all that you do to bring us two videos a day. It is not unnoticed, and is much appreciated.

[@RealCadde]

28:45 Si(gh)mon... R4C5 and R6C2 are the same digit from the coloring you did earlier, remember? So R6C2 is also from the colors red, orange and black. Which is another way of saying that yellow, lime and gray all see that cell. BUT, it also sees RED in R1C2. Therefore, R4C5 cannot be red. And in a similar line to that, R5C4 cannot be orange. Not sure what that means, but it helps if you eliminate possibilities. EDIT: Oh by the way, R5C4 can never be black either.

[@pjbrady47]

I remember for a time that letters were available in Sven's toolbox. Those might have helped more than coloring in this case. Are they no longer available?

[@rosiefay7283]

1:17 To clarify, if there is an anti-knight constraint, and eight different numbers are put into Phistomefel's ring, that doesn't in itself prove that the remaining number is in R5C5. It proves that *either* it's in R5C5, *or* it is also somewhere in the ring.

[@jaundice27]

Maybe add a white flash option

[@krishogan3503]

Add white as a color so you can add a white flash instead of wasting gray

[@Praetarius]

I think 0 is now my new favorite color.

[@nikkisweezea2388]

I'm not sure if it would actually have been helpful, but I'm sitting here at 35ish minutes going "Remember the Phistomefel thing you explained at the beginning of the video. You can color every square in Box 1 right now and work from there!!!"

[@burhankocaslan4510]

51:26 is the proof that exessive usage of your brain makes you hungry and you should keep your snacks ready while solving a very hard Sudoku. Either that, or apart from Maverick, there is a frog sitting nearby xD

[@86larsonrd]

Suggest that your coding team adds an explicitly white color to allow for half flashing.

[@RichSmith77]

It could be what the letter tool toggle button on the input panel, the ["9/A"] button, changes to in colour mode. Probably change the light grey to another colour at the same time, to differentiate it from the new white.

[@carstenkruse8527]

nice solve ... you should look into adding some more colors to your software. Seems it is a recurring issue. Maybe just an ekstra dark green and dark blue.

[@MrWiggenhammer]

This is way out of my league in puzzles and I just find it relaxing to listen and admire but I am happy that as a backseat driver I did catch the double blues that made him go back!

[@AnnaVahtera]

It takes Simon 1.5 seconds to notice a wrinkled two-degree red jellyfish with broken pairs in three legs, but two minutes to notice that a 36 cell can't be 3 in a box with a 23 pair. It's wild how his brain works, and I kinda love it too much.

[@godricnecro]

You know you've entered madness when you use the Colour 0.

[@gnosis6656]

I did this puzzle last week. It really is a great “a-ha” moment at break-in. Simon latched onto it much, much more quickly than I did.

[@cerealboxantagonist]

Who knew that zero holds that much power in a sudoku-grid. Marvelous!

[@stevenconn2964]

At about an hour in did anyone else catch the double blue in row 8? I had to pause the video here (now) and hope that he catches it before I just follow all of his logic from here on out lol

[@RealCadde]

42:50 More importantly, zero is in row 1 of box 1 due to knight move. So zero goes in C2 in box 7. Zero also sits in row 6 of box 5 because R5C5 sees all available cells in box 2. So zero is in row 5 of box 6 and is not purple. Therefore, zero in box 3 is in column 7 because of knights move. But from there i don't know.

[@tomapedersen]

So, how is your sudoko going? Well... I've used all 8 colours and put a zero in a lot of cells... So, I think I'm making progress.

[@olivier2553]

At 57:00, showing that R6C9 is blue, there is an easier proof: where is green row 6? It is in R6C4 or R6C6 per colouring mark. So in box 6 green must be in top row. Top row of box 6 is now red/black.green and R6C9 is blue. When colouring pairs, instead of going red-orange, maybe it would be better to use something like redA-redB, that leaves more colours open.

[@boembab9056]

Wauw I think this is the hardest puzzel I was able to solve myself so far. Absolutly fantastic