One Of The Very Best Fog Sudokus

** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
We love Fog Of War sudokus and today's puzzle - by Astral Sky called Caged Snakey - is one of the best we've ever seen. Truly original from start to finish and full of fascinating logic. And quite mad!
Play the puzzle at the link below:
sudokupad.app/LbhRLHDjJH
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Digits may repeat within a cage and sum to the total in the cage’s top left corner, if given. All cages must be of different sizes. Two cages that neighbour one another (ie share an edge) must not share a common digit. All the cages in the puzzle combined form a 1-cell-wide snake. The snake doesn’t branch and doesn’t touch itself orthogonally, but may touch itself diagonally. The start and end of the snake must be found by the solver. The grid is partly covered with fog. Placing correct digits will clear the fog from the surrounding cells. Guessing is not required.
** NEW JAMES BOND SUDOKU HUNT OUT ON 1 APRIL **
Do you know your Drax from your Goldfinger? Make sure you've got your licence to kill renewed to enter our latest competition: a brand new James Bond-themed sudoku hunt!
Apart from the new James Bond sudoku hunt, there's:
- Simon's latest forays into the world of Islands Of Insight
- his solve of Region Geometry by Emre Kolotoğlu (3hr 36min long...!)
- Mark's solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword
/ crackingthecryptic
** GET OUR FOG KICKSTARTER DELUXE & OUR BOOKS **
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▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:41 New Stream TONIGHT
2:09 James Bond sudoku hunt & Islands Of Insight
3:17 Sudoku Nail Art
4:27 Happy Birthdays & Other mentions
6:42 Rules
9:35 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking
▶ Contact Us ◀
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[@puritan7473]

Simon: "I'm almost tempted to colour it..." Me "What a relief, thankyou!!"

[@RichSmith77]

And then, shortly after, he quit doing either (for non-snake cells). I was waiting for r89c5 to be coloured blue for almost 40 minutes 🙄.

[@puritan7473]

@@RichSmith77 IKR

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Unfortunately, color and fog don't mix very well -- I always find it hard to tell which cells are still befogged. 😼

[@ewanthorpe5637]

41:20 "if forced to i can do sudoku" he says, ignoring the placable 9 in box 7

[@studgerbil9081]

and the 3 in box 9 a few minutes later. classic Simon.

[@aithne99]

The resolved 2-9 pair in box 3 and the 678 triple in row 7 waiting patiently.

[@thunderking2456]

Loved that the fog being revealed barely helped the solver and it was almost entirely logic of the rest of the rules.

[@57thorns]

A few cage sums was all, but they were rather important.

[@JDHutchison]

I have to admit that it was only until a few videos ago that I realized Maverick was an airplane, not a bird or house cat.

[@bobh6728]

I’m trying to figure out how Maverick is so close to Simon’s house.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@bobh6728, Living next to an airport while living under the flight path for planes taking off/landing. *Lived on an Airbase in his youth*

[@Patterner]

you missed the opportunity to say "it's not a cat, it's not a bird, it's a plane!"

[@vezonn8010]

Well it's actually a helicopter

[@MattYDdraig]

39:58 Very clever throughout, especially the subtle directional steer at the start.

[@chris5619]

I can't imagine not enjoying a FoW puzzle, or down rating it as Simon said. Absolutely one of my favorite types of sudoku. If anything, the fog helps follow the logic.

[@NinjarioPicmin]

haven't watched the video yet, or solved/looked at this particular puzzle, so not saying it about this one at all, but in general, you can absolutely make a bad puzzle even with fow, a bad puzzle with fow or a fow puzzle that uses fow badly are both more than possible to exist

[@chris5619]

@NinjarioPicmin oh absolutely. But Simon said at the start that overall they seem to be down-rated. And I guess I'm also biased towards the puzzles that appear on this channel, which in general are not bad puzzles. I have however played many FoW puzzles not featured here, but generally from setters who have proven themselves to be setters of good puzzles, and good FoW puzzles.

[@glum_hippo]

In fact the fog helps you not have to worry so much about where to look… meaning that the importance of the author’s skill of ‘telegraphing’ the intended solve path is diminished. That’s not a criticism per se, just a feature

[@iceberg54321]

Yah, the fog in this puzzle just detracted from drawing in the cages. @@glum_hippo

[@dolf370]

@@glum_hippo That's what I kind of like with them, you get focused on the right thing by default and don't have to chase around the full grid to figure out what logic to pursue (which is thankful for me that normally take 3-10 times longer to solve puzzles than the average puzzle solver in this community).

[@mattmayoh9680]

@53:30, you haven't ruled out the possibility that the snake goes around r5c9 by using 5 cells in box 6, and then also takes r2c9 & r3c9. It turned out to be a lucky error, and it meant you skipped one extra bit of elegant setting. It took me a little while staring at that before realising that the important bit was that every possible configuration meant 5 digits in box 6, and therefore the 16 cage must be 1249. Now the 1249 quad in r1 means that r1c9 has one of the 5 digits in the largest cage, so the rest of c9 can only have 4 of those digits. And that is what prevents the snake taking r3c9, and forces it to take r4c7. An amazingly good FoW puzzle.

[@gemma4952]

Could you explain how you got from "there are 5 digits in box 6" to the 1249 configuration for the 16 cage? I've been staring at it for quite some time now

[@mattmayoh9680]

@@gemma4952 Because of the rule about neighbouring cages not sharing a digit. The big cage which has at least 5 digits in box 6 can't have a 9. It neighbours the 16 cage in box 2, which we know has 4 different digits. So those two cages have 9 different digits between them, and as the big cage has no 9, the 16 cage must have the 9. The other 3 digits must add to 7, the only way to get 7 in 3 digits is 124, so the 16 cage is 1249, and the big cage only has 35678s.

[@christopherbowers7236]

if you go back a space and round that loop, there arent enough digits to reach the 4-cell cage, even if the 2nd last is a 9-cell cage

[@mattmayoh9680]

@@christopherbowers7236 But it could be an 11-cell cage with only 5 different digits, and then it can reach. It only breaks in that configuration when you show that r1c789 would be made up from those 5 digits as well, meaning those 5 digits appear too often in box 3/row 9.

[@christopherbowers7236]

@@mattmayoh9680 i didnt even consider a cage bigger than 9. Because its usually against the rules hah

[@Daymickey]

I actually paused and figured it out when he said to and I felt so proud!

[@toby2714]

This has to be one of the most wholesome KZbin channels ever. Love it.

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

Simon at 41:22: "if forced to, I can do sudoku", removing a 9 pencilmark in r9c2... Also Simon: forgets to place the 9 straightaway in r8c2 for the next 26 minutes 😀

[@spargles]

Thank you so much for the shoutout Simon! I'm so glad you enjoyed my nail art!

[@goldshield10]

I never thought these two worlds of mine would collide, but I am so excited for it! Roller Derby is a full contact sport played on quad roller skates. It is played on either a flat track or curved track with a complex set of rules, but the best analogy I have found that works is to describe it as a Rugby Scrum on wheels. I highly recommend looking a few matches up on KZbin to gain a full appreciation for the sport. Greetings from another CTC Roller Derby player.

[@twistedhope13]

Hi! Where do you skate?! I'm whacks

[@goldshield10]

@@twistedhope13 I am part of a league here in South Africa, we do Flat Track Roller Derby.

[@twistedhope13]

@@goldshield10 cool! I skate with Minnesota

[@chocolateboy300]

I got 111 minutes. Realizing the break-in after being lost for 30 minutes was very satisfying and the rest of the puzzle felt very nice. Fog of Wars are always my favorite and this one was fantastic!

[@thenatundi9009]

the 9 in box 7 was literally my second digit of the solve, but I loved seeing Simon solve the puzzle in a very different but entertaining way! Also I somehow misread the 46 cage as a 45 cage and panicked the same way

[@kuroraiko986]

I had an epiphany about triangular numbers watching this video. 15 is the triangular number for 5, 5x3, but for 9 it's 45, 9x5. Following the pattern, 7's is 7x4, which is correct. The thing that just clicked as I paused the video and mulled it over is that there are 3 lots of 5 you can make with 1,2,3,4, and 5, {1,4}, {2,3}, and {5}, summing to 15. There are 4 ways to make 7, and 5 ways to make 9. 🤯 I think this will greatly help me with a lot of variant sudokus

[@mattmayoh9680]

The pattern works for even numbers too. The triangular numbers go 1x1, 1x3, 2x3, 2x5, 3x5, 3x7, 4x7, 4x9, 5x9, etc. You always add 2 to the 2nd number, then 1 to the first, then 2 to the 2nd, etc. The first number is the number of ways to make it using only pairs/a single number. So 7 is 4x7, 4 ways to make 7, 8 is 4x9, 4 ways to make 8. And it's always a case of taking the number and the number + 1, and halving the even one, so if you needed to you can work out bigger numbers without needing to check the entire pattern. So to get the triangular number for 16, it's 16, 17, halve the even one, and get 8x17 with 8 ways to make 17 as a pair/single number.

[@RackalackDinner]

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes!

[@Zardoz37]

That was hard! But very rewarding. The way the cage size constraint and the adjacent cages can't share digits constraint interacted produced very original logic.

[@titusadduxas]

1:31:23 - What a beautiful construction. Well done @AstralSky - I loved it.

[@nhilario7638]

Hey Simon! I was just wondering if you'd find it interesting to have an eye tracker on during your solves. I thought that it could be annoying for you to see the actual grid, but maybe it can be toggled just on the video. I'm not sure if that's a great idea but it could be nice!

[@rogue5882]

Puzzle idea: A ship going through the grid with the fog revealing ‘uncharted territory’ by making the blue sea lighter colour , sea monsters appear, etc.

[@theoldone22]

Roller derby is to roller skating as motocross is to bicycling

[@veggiet2009]

I was gonna describe it to him as "roller skating with violence" 😄

[@user-gj5uc4yx3i]

Demolition derby but with skates instead of cars.

[@GuilhermeCarvalhoComposer]

@@veggiet2009 I didn't need to read her Derby name to know it's spelled Whacks Poetic 😆

[@pascalm1305]

At 50:58 Simon concludes that the orange cage can only have 5 different numbers and can thus not pass the non fogged cell (R3C8) because there would be to many orange cells in column 9. Which is true if you go straight but if you make a C shape in box 6 like he did at 50:24 and you go left in row 2 of box 3 it would work wouldn't it? You'll only have 5 orange cell in box 6 and 5 orange cells in column 9. The box would have a total of 10 or 12 cells but that was nog against the rules. I get why it couldn't be like that later on when the numers where clear but at that time in the solve I believe it would kept the option open. I'm I missing something?

[@arpwable]

Indeed you are correct, he overlooked that possibility there

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Yes, this was discussed also elsewhere in this section. See, for instance, christophdietrich4240 and mattmayoh9680's comments.

[@Speak22wastaken]

Wait, does this mean there was more than one solution?

[@Speak22wastaken]

Or the puzzle was unsolvable

[@jackpittman7232]

I like to follow along with Simon, and I’m proud to say that this is the first puzzle where I’ve solved it before the end of the video!

[@user-gj5uc4yx3i]

I like to keep the video paused after rules. I know Simon tends to be faster than me even with his explanations but it's great to finish a puzzle without having to hit play.

[@GQSmoos]

This puzzle took me over two hours to solve by I enjoyed it a lot. I was making really great early progress but hit an absolute wall. I just scrubbed through your video because I wanted to timestamp where I was stuck so any future reader could see and it looks like I solved this *wildly* differently than you did. That’s pretty unusual for a fog puzzle!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

It would be very interesting to know how you solved for the *8-digit cage.* That was seriously hard. In short, the crucial step in Simon's solve was, in my opinion, understanding that the 8-digit cage contained at most 5 digits, which makes it impossible for it to use *r3c9...*

[@satriomuhammadalif824]

that 16 cage in box 2 is really magical

[@christophdietrich4240]

Dear Simon, at 52:15 you made the deduction that the snake couldn't go through R2C9 too quickly. The orange region could have gone up in C9 via R6C9, R6C8, R5C8, R4C8, R4C4, R3C9, R2C9, R2C8 with there being only 5 digits in column 9 and cage 6.

[@manuper11]

The snake can't touch orthogonally, also you mistipped R4C9

[@theta4951]

This wouldn't work because the number of remaining cells (in the final 2 cages) is 12. Taking this route would require too many cells.

[@actionic135]

@theta4951 Why is it 12? Couldn't the orange cage starting in C9 have been larger than 8?

[@mstmar]

I came in here to point this out. we can still use the logic that the 16 clue contains a 1249 and so the orange cage needs to contain 35678 plus extending the 16 cage like simon did without knowing the exact path of the orange cage. We can then prove at 56:20 that the snake doesn't go into box 3 through col 9 as stated because r1c9 is a 6th cells with "orange" digits. i.e. you can only put 2 of 124 in col 9 if you go that way.

[@robertfouquette1232]

This is correct, it doesn't have to touch orthogonally and there is nothing in the rules that says the last cage is eight. It could be 12 cells long using christoph's (corrected) path and continue to R2C7 R3C7 R3C6 and then joining the four cell cage which would start at R3C5. However, once you look at this, knowing R1C789 are of the values 5678 and the cage must contain at least four of 35678 (if you go a more direct route) eliminates this as a possible option and forces the lower path.

[@NinjarioPicmin]

I've been waiting for a new fow puzzle over the last week or so, nice!

[@ericpraline1302]

If you do crtl A and then go to the drawing tool you can press delete and it will delete all drawn items in one go.

[@jimdavis2683]

39:55 Thank you for eliminating those Xs! (I think this has come up in the past, my 2c seems like almost anything is better than the big X's.)

[@Tsunami14]

Agreed. Though I also have to say that the choice to reuse green for the 2 corner-adjacent cages didn't sit well with my OCD.

[@chris5619]

I was a little tripped up by the puzzle name at first. I thought the "22" was part of the name. And early on, once we determined the cages shown, it was possible to make a 22 cell snake to connect them all in the middle, and I thought maybe that's where it was going. That was quickly proven wrong by logic, and I didn't realize until after the solve that it is just the setter's 22nd FoW puzzle in this series!

I *really* loved the break-in on this puzzle!

[@xerodeus2337]

love love loved this puzzle. I love puzzles like this that are very hard but very very very fair. This was lovely!

[@ericpraline1302]

Very well engineered, thanks, and it worked out nicely once I'd remembered all the rules. Even while making progress kept wondering how it would resolve itself but of course it did.

[@dannstarrjp]

Love FoW puzzles and this one was definitely one of the best (and hardest ones) I’ve ever solved. Not the worst time either (for me), just over 1.5h for a puzzle that took Simon well over an hour too

[@dinane]

I just got to the first digit and LAUGHED. I already love this puzzle and I am only at the first digit.

[@dinane]

Oh my goodness, now as Simon catches up (I basically try to stay ahead of him and pause if I sense him catching up) he got a different first digit than I did! My first was r9c3!

[@Swisswavey]

Lovely puzzle. The way the path revealed itself was quite beautiful. The logic was not too difficult either, the tricky thing was remembering the sizes of the cages used!

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 06:50 Let's Get Cracking: 09:39 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Bobbins: 2x (35:47, 1:10:48) Maverick: 2x (28:10, 1:14:55) The Secret: 2x (07:08, 1:12:17) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (10:47) Three In the Corner: 1x (1:17:48) You Rotten Thing: 1x (1:05:40) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Snake: 114x (00:33, 08:36, 08:36, 08:47, 08:53, 09:01, 09:08, 09:20, 09:55, 10:30, 10:38, 10:42, 10:44, 10:46, 10:51, 12:44, 12:52, 12:52, 13:10, 13:10, 13:47, 13:49, 13:49, 13:56, 13:56, 14:01, 14:04, 14:06, 14:15, 14:21, 14:29, 14:29, 14:33, 14:36, 14:51, 15:39, 15:56, 16:01, 16:04, 16:09, 16:17, 16:17, 16:21, 16:49, 17:32, 17:44, 19:13, 19:15, 19:51, 19:53, 19:56, 20:15, 20:22, 20:42, 20:57, 21:01, 21:11, 23:34, 23:36, 23:40, 23:48, 24:52, 24:58, 25:12, 27:15, 27:59, 28:22, 31:07, 31:28, 31:28, 31:34, 31:34, 32:40, 34:55, 34:58, 35:07, 35:43, 37:06, 37:09, 37:12, 37:13, 37:13, 40:25, 40:42, 40:45, 42:09, 42:09, 42:13, 42:13, 42:25, 42:25, 42:47, 43:04, 43:06, 43:08, 43:15, 43:24, 45:11, 45:14, 45:31, 49:39, 50:34, 53:20, 53:25, 59:23, 59:29, 1:00:13, 1:00:16, 1:00:18, 1:03:26, 1:04:51, 1:06:03, 1:06:13, 1:18:03) By Sudoku: 13x (03:36, 34:15, 35:51, 36:34, 37:06, 44:36, 56:16, 57:05, 57:08, 1:00:04, 1:00:56, 1:05:35) Ah: 12x (11:25, 15:13, 15:13, 29:45, 36:32, 42:02, 44:13, 44:13, 51:07, 51:07, 1:01:42, 1:12:05) Touch Itself: 10x (08:39, 08:41, 08:56, 09:08, 31:46, 32:42, 42:15, 43:24, 43:37) Hang On: 9x (11:09, 18:23, 22:16, 22:16, 41:56, 41:56, 41:56, 45:19, 1:14:46) Sorry: 5x (16:47, 20:42, 35:07, 59:39, 1:01:58) Brilliant: 5x (1:09:59, 1:10:02, 1:18:16, 1:18:37, 1:18:37) Goodness: 4x (11:07, 29:48, 43:28, 1:12:10) Stuck: 4x (02:31, 02:48, 25:28, 1:12:05) Beautiful: 4x (38:38, 51:10, 1:16:03, 1:18:28) Gorgeous: 4x (29:45, 29:48, 50:36, 1:15:49) What Does This Mean?: 4x (21:31, 41:09, 1:06:20, 1:14:28) What on Earth: 3x (03:46, 36:06, 1:01:42) Clever: 3x (15:01, 15:13, 54:13) Shouting: 3x (03:19, 04:25, 06:27) Obviously: 3x (56:39, 1:05:55, 1:07:21) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (1:01:58, 1:11:02, 1:15:40) Cake!: 3x (05:04, 06:14, 06:40) The Answer is: 2x (23:02, 1:15:58) Naughty: 2x (09:15, 42:15) Lovely: 2x (1:07:55, 1:10:38) Of All Things: 2x (41:00, 58:09) In Fact: 2x (11:39, 59:15) Wow: 2x (21:57, 32:11) Good Grief: 1x (19:56) What a Puzzle: 1x (1:17:51) I Have no Clue: 1x (06:01) Ridiculous: 1x (54:07) First Digit: 1x (35:32) Unbelievable: 1x (30:50) Phone is Buzzing: 1x (40:49) Symmetry: 1x (23:14) Triangular Number: 1x (38:06) Weird: 1x (27:33) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Sixteen (26 mentions) Five (86 mentions) Orange (21 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (2) - High (1) Even (4) - Odd (1) Lowest (2) - Highest (0) Black (2) - White (0) Row (13) - 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!

[@Dragonslayer-vf3vv]

The video has existed for 12 seconds

[@francoisduez601]

So?

[@MadsOcto7]

​@@Dragonslayer-vf3vv yes.

[@MeriaDuck]

​@@Dragonslayer-vf3vv gotta love silicon 😂 ( see faq )

[@eddieharwood7788]

I used Simon a couple of times to help me, but both I had already done as far as I watched to, which gave me the confidence to go back and carry on. A great puzzle, and for me doable.

[@chris5619]

After about 15 minutes, I went back to read the rules. Glad I did, because I totally forgot about the 4th sentence in them!

[@calvinwithun6512]

This is so far above my ability and my speed... but its fascinating to listen to and to watch :)

[@BozoTheBear]

Oh wow, what an amazing puzzle! Thoroughly enjoyed solving this - 77 mins well spent!!

[@JohnGottschalk]

I've started playing them before watching in the last 5-10 puzzles, and this time I managed to get through with only looking at the video once, and it was only 1 break-in conclusion I'd missed (there's only four numbers of 1,2,3,4 in a row 🤦 at 30:30). Still took me 2 hours to finish 😅. But just wanted to thank you Simon for getting me from a sudoku newb, to consistently attempting and mostly on my own completing these fairly high difficulty sudokus.

[@reidakted4416]

In the end, we learn that the biggest cage of all was Nicolas Cage.

[@francoisduez601]

46:19 for me. What an extraordinary fog of war! ❤ The beginning is not so hard but the last big breakthrough in box 2 is just breathtaking, I am glad not to have given up before finding it on my own!

[@TheMeanderingduck6]

I haven't watched Simon's solve yet but loved when I realized that the 16 cage HAD to be 4 unique digits, and I knew there had to be an 8 or 9 cell cage connecting it, but that cage could only use a maximum of 5 digits, I then knew it couldn't cross into box 3 (via the exposed cell not being part of a cage which was the perfect distance to force the snake to turn thus cutting off the entire northeast area from being snake) and THEN realizing a 9 had to be in the 4 cell 16 cage forcing 1249, and then 35678 for the 8 cell cage... it was glorious. Absolutely glorious.

[@nicolaboulangergagne2836]

wow! Thanks for the blue coverin at the end! You are perfect!

[@niped10]

I really enjoyed this one! Was a great solve.

[@og_myxiplx]

41:15 "9 is not there by Sudoku, if forced to I can do Sudoku". Immediately ignores the 9 in box 7 that's now forced by Sudoku. I could never, ever replicate Simon's ability to beak into and solve these puzzles, but his brain really does seem to spot absolutely everything except Sudoku. 😂

[@mingyue_chen]

I might be stupid but it took me forever to realize the snake also cannot touch itself parallelly. I guess in order for the snake to touch itself parallelly it has to touch orthogonally first.

[@emilywilliams3237]

This was very fun to watch, Simon. You love the snake puzzles, and it definitely shows! Thank you for the video!

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Simon likes snake puzzles partly because he gets to talk about how the snake mustn't be naughty! 😸

[@emilywilliams3237]

Yeah, I would rather think it’s because he loves the particular type of logic. Let’s think that, shall we?

[@Speak22wastaken]

My strategy for the start was to draw both in different colours for visualisation

[@pokertroll320]

It too me forever to notice that the “46” had appeared when the fog cleared. I’m glad Simon also took a while to notice

[@Rubrickety]

Finally wrestled this snake into submission in 134:45. Figuring out how to somehow leverage that 16 cage was quite a challenge. Wonderful puzzle!

[@battle00333]

at 47:00 if you count the tiles after the len2 cage, to the end of the 16-cage, you end up with 12 tiles. Thats how you can deduce it must be a Len8 cage connecting to the Len4 sixteen cage

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 43:36. The key to the whole puzzle was the snake and the limitations around the cage sizes. Very interesting way of setting the fog of war up. Fun puzzle!

[@Rubrickety]

Given how proper Simon is, I wonder if he knows what the "ham" in "going a bit too ham on the pencilmarks" is an acronym of. 🤔 (I didn't until recently.)

[@stangerrits6712]

He's probably using it in this definition: "(intransitive, slang, originally African-American Vernacular, often followed by on) To enter an enraged and uncontrollable state; to go berserk." Not too bad I think?

[@Rubrickety]

@@stangerrits6712 My comment was referring to it's origin as "hard as a m*******cker". However, further research suggests that may be a backronym, with its real etymology unclear.

[@stangerrits6712]

@@Rubrickety I thought you might refer to that less proper meaning yeah :)

[@michaellautermilch9185]

Given the "3 in the corner" song, I don't think the channel was G-rated to begin with.

[@user-gj5uc4yx3i]

I've never cared for the phrase. I prefer "going turbo." I hope there isn't a mature acronym for that one!

[@markp7262]

53:29 finish. I struggled a bit with the path in the bottom right of the grid, but worked at it from the other direction and was able to push through. A excellent puzzle!

[@Baritocity]

The restriction about cage sizes was too easy for me to forget, but still fun.

[@piarittersporn]

Very exciting puzzle.

[@littlston5319]

I started with different first numbers and got to finish it in 67 min. I feel really proud :)

[@bobb9518]

1:01:58 Did Simon say he is "going a bit too HAM on the pencil marking"? lol

[@nightwishlover8913]

Oh terrific! Another short one!!!??!!

[@Harry-sp3fz]

01:29 This one almost did me in. Got there in the end.

[@chrishawkins963]

57:56 for me - got up to 58:20 in the video in 20 minutes, got stuck for 20 minutes, and after a small hint from simon i saw why r6c8 had to be in the cage, finishing from there.

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

59:27 for me - FoW is one of my favorite Sudoku variants, glad I did this one.

[@siorac1147]

1:19:04 but I'm really happy with that because I solved it without any hints from the video. Fog puzzles are the best, and this was a particularly elegant one.

[@BulseyeHeart]

Thank you for wishing me happy birthday! I'll make sure to send a picture of my cake next year just to spite you! -Luna

[@battle00333]

At 47:50 For me I realized the cage cannot go 6 tiles upwards, cus that means it would occupy 6 digits, and the 16-cage needs 4 unique digits. This should help down the line as the 16 cage needs a 1 or a 2, so the snake cannot pass through boss in box6

[@Qazqi]

I tend to not be great at snake and loop puzzles, and an hour video suggests higher difficulty, but I like fog puzzles and this was a pretty good half hour for me. I forgot the size rule, but wasn't stuck on that for long. There was some logic that I'd say took some creative thinking, so maybe I got lucky that I thought of it early. Box 2 was a really nice surprise and I'm glad I didn't wait long to try it when I got stuck. I'd probably put it at a 3/5 rather than a 4/5. Give it a try if you're on the fence about the difficulty.

[@psiphiorg]

This puzzle presented an interesting new challenge. I really enjoyed it! My time was 52:06, solver number 5910.

[@Snidbert]

I was so proud of myself when I got even one digit in this puzzle, lol

[@359Aides]

Am I stupid to think that at 53:06 the snake could wiggle to the left in box 6 and still escape to box 3 through column 9? If that's true, assuming R4C7 is snake is not valid.

[@maciejoe]

Hey Simon, I’ve been watching for a long time but I’ve only just today started trying to actually solve the puzzles on my own. Even with how difficult they look when you solve them, I realize you make it look easy in comparison. Would you possibly be able to do a video on Just Arrows by Eric Rathbun? It is a 93% approval, three star difficulty on Logic Masters Germany, and it feels stunning, but I am completely stuck! I fully broke it and have no idea where I went wrong. Either way keep up the great content, thanks!

[@AndreAy1975]

Solved it with help from the video.

[@srwapo]

67:56 with a LOT of help that I really needed. I kept thinking the 52 cage had to be much bigger because I didn't try the math to see that I could get there with four digits. I totally forgot the rule that the cages had to be different sizes. And I wouldn't have figured out how the 16 cage needed a 9.

[@moonmountain_]

One obvious clue you missed (but still managed without), is that the revealed white cells that aren't part of a cage aren't in the snake. But it ended up not being that significant anyway, soo... Good job!

[@adrianhead6272]

Completed in 26m58s.

[@przemekmajewski1]

wow, that was pretty hard, started ez, then ofc I forgot about the "all different sizes" rule... nevertheless, a bit over 1 hr and a lot of enjoyment

[@anaayoung9142]

AstralSky was smart and evil for doing this a fog puzzle! 😅

[@MrTimstark80]

FoW puzzles do not work for me anymore on the Sven Sudoku pad. Anyone else has this problem?

[@meeDamian]

The puzzle is so much easier when one notices the 9 in 7th box early on 😅

[@grahamania]

01:00:04 for me. Great puzzle! Enjoyed it much! Kind comment.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

24:42 for me. Fantastic puzzle!!

[@tessabrisac7423]

Crazy quick, as usual!

[@Rach881101]

68:19 for me. Interesting puzzle!

[@NeilGirdhar]

64:03 for me. Found it almost too hard, so really glad that I got it.

[@JohnPalmer-ci4my]

When Simon places his 1st digit in the puzzle at 35:34 the 9 in box 7 has only 1 square I wonder how long it takes to spot this. Still great solve of a really good puzzle

[@leefisher6366]

43:08 - "I don't know what the snape of the shake is..." ALMOST Simmon (*) 2024. (*) - If you know, you know.

[@Mephistahpheles]

Yowza. Got through it, but totally overlooked the super obvious 135 being ruled out by the 5 next to the nine cage. Duh!?

[@koeiswit]

@21:00 r1c3 could have been the end of the snake right? If it were a one-cell-cage?

[@liampouncy7808]

41:18 - 1:08:37

[@markmajkowski9545]

Got the 9 is box 7 - R8C2 as first digit after forcing the 1234’s into box 7 C7. Very odd first FOW cell ID.

[@michaellautermilch9185]

Sadly I messed up boxes 8 and 9 and had to give up due to fog giving away information

[@yapayzeka3183]

36:28 1:08:37 r8c2 has been there for ages

[@LednacekZ]

58:49 today. I made so many mistakes that it is not even funny. I had to fix at least 10 of them. My marking kept getting in the way, but i was too stubborn to redo it, that i hurt the solve time.

[@JustLookingHere]

Didnt. They have to be different cages why are there two 16 cages? Or do they mean different lengths?

[@tessabrisac7423]

Different lenght is what the rule means.

[@ReoRis72]

Lots of roping in the final solution to this one

[@Sujisan4]

Phenomenal puzzle, but Simon's pencil marks were atrocious and probably kept him from solving the puzzle faster.

[@iceberg54321]

I think you could have set this puzzle to draw in most of the cage cells instead of having fog? I think that would have been a better puzzle. The fog didn't seem that integral to the puzzle, and sort of made it easier by knowing if your deductions were correct. Fog reveal should reveal more clues then this one did.

[@RichSmith77]

But how would you reveal the cage sums, without fog being lifted? (The 5 cage, the 9 cage and the 46 cage)

[@RichSmith77]

Also, didn't lifting the fog, to reveal no cage boundaries, occasionally dictate where the cages actually went?

[@iceberg54321]

It would be set slightly different, sure, but not much different.@@RichSmith77

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

32:22 for me.

[@sampathkumar-ej7xl]

One of the best features of these fog puzzles is that when you get a digit right the fog clears revealing the white grid. With Simon's colouring of the cages and the snake path that magic was removed. A coloured arrow for a snake would have sufficed I thought

[@iceblade732]

At 1:16:05 why does that square have to be a 5 and not a 3?

[@KevinLowe-gk5gg]

I am puzzled by that inference as well.

[@hnizel]

At that point, you can use the 46 cage total to determine it is a 5.

[@santisis]

50:03 for me.