Phistomefel's April Fool Puzzle!!

[@Zendath666]

To solve the puzzle you must first solve the meta puzzle that is the rules.

[@Jellow2202]

I think the biggest clue that it is an april fools puzzle are the given digits. 2022 plus a lot of 1s and 4s

[@hillrp1]

Oh, cool. I noticed that most of the numbers were 4s and 1s, but just thought of the other numbers as necessary disambiguators. Which they were, but I didn't notice that it was also 2022.

[@KyleLanmon]

"A rule set just shy of War and Peace" Hilarious!

[@TomGalonska]

Imagine being such a genius, that you're able to create an April Fool's puzzle that also has beautiful logic, is fun to solve and super complicated. Phistomefel truly is the GOAT of puzzle-making!

[@LukeSumIpsePatremTe]

I don't disagree, but the acronym is just not the greatest of all time.

[@prunabluepepper]

@@LukeSumIpsePatremTe have you ever played "goat simulator"?

[@z-beeblebrox]

@@LukeSumIpsePatremTe GOAT is truly one of those things that've always made me shake my head in disappointment. That's really the best we could do huh? GOAT.

[@davidmiller9485]

@@z-beeblebrox I don't know, you did ok with two heads!

[@jasperb7890]

A bit late, but for people who did not understand the normal touching slitherlink rules either, "touched" means the following "A closed loop that does not touch or cross itself must be drawn along the dashed lines. The numbers indicate how many times the loop makes contact with the numbered cell. A contact occurs when the loop reaches one of the corners of the numbered cell, and it ends only when the loop leads away from such a corner. Within a contact, the loop may travel on one or even several of the edges of the numbered cell! " ~wikipedia

[@ecMathGeek]

Him: "Now," *embarrassed laugh* "do have a go" Me: "Oh. No. No, no no. I don't think I'll be doing that."

[@arabellabisshop3347]

Who else here could just listen to Simon sing and play the guitar for hours?? I love it

[@anthonutty]

Never has there been a more relatable CTC moment for me than when Simon said "oh I can hear my daughter again... it has got quiet" with an all too concerned and distracted tone. 😂

[@barneytrubble]

Thanks for giving me an easy country road example... but it turns out that I needed to play an easy touching slitherlink puzzle too because I didn't understand what was going on.

[@clffliese26]

I was hoping I wasn't the only one who was completely confused.

[@JK7H]

Phistomefel, the only setter that can almost make simon swear on video out of pure joy for understanding a piece of logic

[@NIMPAK1]

I was going to give up on the puzzle because I couldn't even understand the rules, so I started watching the video. After watching for a few minutes, I started to understand the rules a bit better. Once Simon joked about the slitherlink region wrapping around the entire grid, I paused at 21:16 and decided to try solving it again. Surprisingly, I actually managed to solve it. The logic about there only being two regions reeeeeally helped me.

[@christinemenard1412]

I love that Simon laughs when he makes a deduction that would force "odd" things. The puzzle is brilliant 👏, and so is the solve!

[@tehjoch]

this one is going way above my head. Watched 20mins now and I still haven't got a clue to fully understanding the rules

[@bobblebardsley]

Stick with it, 20 minutes is about where it starts to make any kind of sense :D

[@tehjoch]

@@bobblebardsley I stuck for 10 more minutes and left

[@clffliese26]

@@tehjoch I stuck with it for the full hour and, stiff, couldn't make heads or tails of it.

[@chironchangnoi]

I've watched it 3 times now and still can't make heads or tails of it.

[@longwaytotipperary]

Love your John Denver/American accent rendition of Country Roads! BTW the Blue Ridge Mountains are magnificent! I could relate to " my brain is saying 'that's a good question' but my brain is not saying the answer is this..." welcome to my world. 😄 I'm always amazed at how you figure out the un-figure outable. Clearly you are on very good terms with your brain's deduction capabilities. And your videos are always entertaining!

[@warren_r]

"Do have a go" Hahahahahahahaha no

[@bibliopolist]

"ruleset just shorter than War and Peace" LOL

[@Ulija100]

Ah, this is just brilliant, both the puzzle and the solve. I was so worried from the title this would an invalid puzzle or something awful. This is one of those puzzles where the information that this *is* doable is very very useful!

[@emilywilliams3237]

OK I came back to finish watching this, and was not disappointed. I am truly amazed at how you made your way through this, Simon. Brilliant. This will not be a puzzle I attempt, but I sure did enjoy watching the video!

[@CycleMantis]

With the deductions made "one of 1 or 2 in the corner is a country road clue" and "the puzzle has only 2 regions", it became quite solvable! (at least once you learn how touching slitherlink works)

[@chessburns]

Simon is an absolute sublime genius. He attempts the hardest of the hardest puzzles. It is an absolute joy to see him solve these puzzles. I wont attempt them. I stick to the regular rule set of the sudoku apps from CTC. But i love seeing the long videos of 1hr 30 min or more of Simon's solves.

[@grunions9648]

I love how you start with 1s, 4s, and 2022. Obviously that's only apparent because I know it's an April Fool though!

[@badradish2116]

[@ArtemensiaK]

If I wouldn't give every video watch of ctc a thumbs up, I would defintely just because of simons singing. Love seeing his interests and he is good, too

[@th.nd.r]

Before I watch the rest of the video, I just wanted to say that your cover was heavenly! As an Oklahoman myself, I’ll say that your American country accent is lovely. Subtle enough to not be cheesy, a difficult balance indeed, well done, please continue posting your music!

[@andrewgrant6516]

For a minute there I thought I'd done brilliantly and solved my first Phistomephel puzzle. Then I realised it was just the easy puzzle by Eric. Thanks Mr Fox, I enjoyed that.

[@cinimontoast903]

25:30 Me trying to do any sudoku: "So..... We've got a grid..."

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 02:37 Let's Get Cracking: 12:50 Simon's time: 46m22s Puzzle Solved: 59:12 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Phistomefel: 4x (00:47, 03:09, 10:10, 21:06) Bobbins: 1x (13:08) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 13x (07:28, 23:44, 25:36, 25:38, 34:04, 34:04, 34:27, 34:51, 45:11, 49:00, 49:04, 52:40, 55:59) Clever: 5x (06:48, 25:11, 43:21, 45:17, 46:37) Good Grief: 4x (57:14, 58:08, 58:42, 59:27) Sorry: 4x (09:10, 13:37, 44:15, 45:49) Brilliant: 4x (46:29, 46:31, 1:00:12, 1:00:12) Obviously: 4x (01:31, 10:23, 13:19, 18:54) What on Earth: 3x (01:53, 43:23, 53:58) Nonsense: 3x (31:20, 32:40, 32:42) In Fact: 3x (48:09, 48:37, 54:40) Goodness: 2x (47:36, 59:45) Beautiful: 2x (38:12, 43:18) Inarticulate: 2x (13:38, 39:48) Hang On: 2x (49:04, 52:02) Wow: 2x (33:10, 34:27) That's Huge: 2x (34:27, 34:27) The Answer is: 1x (25:17) Ridiculous: 1x (47:40) Approachable: 1x (04:25) Magnificent: 1x (59:30) Surely: 1x (03:19) Stunning: 1x (43:21) Whoopsie: 1x (05:13) Have a Think: 1x (17:12) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Fifty (3 mentions) Two (35 mentions) Blue (45 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (2) - High (0) Even (11) - Odd (1) Outside (12) - Inside (9) 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!

[@ascensionblade]

Wait... I just read through this entire comment for the first time. It's generated by a program?! That's cool 😊

[@chibinecco1981]

You missed a Phistomefel at (43:26) This program is AMAZING 8D super cool 8D

[@chibinecco1981]

@@paulmdt1 good point, I'm guessing that the program looks for "solved the puzzle" or something like that, but to avoid saying he solves it when he's in the middle talking about how difficult it is to solve, the program only listens to the last time it's mentioned or the first time it's mentioned within the last 10% of the video or something like that. Does mean it misses a two-puzzle solve, though.

[@th.nd.r]

Incredible puzzle and incredible solving. Not much else to say when you get Simon doing Phistomefel.

[@andrewcook8093]

At first I thought how would you even start this. Then as soon as Simon said that there are only two regions then I immediately jumped to “is the April fool that there are no CR clues?” But then he showed that there must be one CR clue and it was obvious to me that there could only be one because the other would have to be way bigger than 4. All that stuff in the rules about it being possible that a clue is both CR and TS is just misdirection.

[@arekfu1980]

7:10 "Remember to do your exes", gotcha

[@jackburton3149]

Calling it, instead of the classic guitar intro, the next video will feature Simon dressed as MC Hammer and he'll rap the entirety of Can't Touch This 👊😎💰

[@insectbah]

I've been so excited for this and I wasn't disappointed!

[@moby4177]

That’s actually a country road that would be good to traverse. lots of water, nice bridge.

[@adipy8912]

I'm really happy this finally appeared on the channel

[@whydoihavetohaveahandle1]

thanks for using that "easy" puzzle first it helped get grasp one the rules better

[@jameshowell7178]

The way Simon had coloured the puzzle ends up with a lovely drive along a coast, over a bay and back round

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

Oh gosh, I completely forgot about that 0 clue, that's what I was missing... I did find the solution, but it took me around 55 minutes and a lot of guessing as I kept trying to force the bottom left corner into the loop without realizing that was breaking the puzzle. Anyways, awesome puzzle and very impressive solve by Simon!!

[@leojs5673]

KZbin roads have taken us all to the channel we belong!

[@kpwxx]

I had no idea where to really start with this one! Very impressive.

[@BertBergaf]

I was almost about to give up watching after about 30 minutes, glad I stayed because the final solution is brilliant

[@emilywilliams3237]

I had to come over here to see this video, at least the start of it. I was not disappointed - Simon imitating John Denver (though with more articulation of his words ...). Excellent. And then I saw the grid, and I had already been alerted on the main channel that this is an April Fool - so clever to see the digits of 4-1-2022 in the grid! I will have to return at another point to watch the rest of the video, which I am very much looking forward to! (Edited ... but I think you are a complete genius ...)

[@bobh6728]

Or 1-4-2022

[@michaelcoetzee4344]

The solve is probably good. Already liked for the intro.

[@shalaz1981]

Brilliant puzzle.

[@johnsuter1009]

Solved this puzzle while driving on a country road in the blue ridge mountains of West Virginia

[@bentaylor4203]

I hope you weren't the one driving. Most countries have a law against driving and solving Phistomefel puzzles.

[@Censeo]

@@bentaylor4203 even easy sudoku puzzles while driving are unlawful in 41 of the states

[@arlenejenkins1127]

Howdy neighbor!

[@paulmaglio9254]

Wow! Simon sings "American". Great song and great rendition!

[@KayDubs77]

9 times out of 10 when Simon asks a question, my brain agrees and is also blank on the answer. Brilliant puzzle and solve (as always)!

[@sanctionbuster]

And singing too. I'm enjoying the diversification.

[@2Lazy2BAwesome]

The way I thought about with disambiguating the 1s situation (53:00) is: whatever the correct slitherlink is, it should go either below, or above 1s, which means it can never go anywhere from the both top corners, i. e. 4 edges connected to top corners of those 1s are not parts of slitherlink. This gives you a lot of Xs and helps a lot with coloring inside/outside regions.

[@ldamoff]

I think Simon knows that he gets immediate likes when we get his dulcet guitar (and vocal!) tones for an intro.

[@britlion]

I, for one, certainly tend to thumbs up the start of videos he's intro'd...

[@tantricsarcasm9133]

Nice singing, Simon. You'd be welcome in Tennessee any time :)

[@TalathRhunen]

Great Puzzle, really fun to solve and not too difficult once you have the break-in (though I started with a perhaps unjustified assumption/deduction that the top-left 2 had to be slitherlink)

[@toastbrotfan6585]

How do you draw the lines? Clicking doesnt do anything. How can i change the input mode? I cant see how on the "Cracking the Cryptic Website".

[@victormanjarinsala2253]

"Loopageability" is my new favorite word I think.

[@awilliams1701]

oh wow he's going to let us hear the whole song!!!..........ohh.......he cut it off. lol sigh.... maybe in the outro?

[@logiciananimal]

I don't regard this as April Fooly at all, but I do think it is a great puzzle!

[@KusaneHexaku]

Here is one of my occasional revisiting of this video, and while the video is great, a good portion of this comment section saddens me. It's the classic "I don't understand it, therefore I do not like it and I will not try to understand it" fallacy. No one deserves that treatment.

[@jbruuuu]

Great video!

[@riripebby]

Simon! No jumping the GAPP queue :) You aren't there yet :)

[@EkuuleusNorth]

Slithering touches the edge of a cell. Oh, you don't mean edges, touching a corner also counts.

[@e7diablo]

Don't quite get how this is an April Fool's puzzle other than the rule-set being out there and complicated. It's perfectly solvable and has awesome Phistomofel-standard logic. Seems like a regular and genuine puzzle, just on the hard side of normal (which is probably the normal side of Phistomofel)

[@TacklingIgnorance]

I think because phistomofel essentially just made an hour long country road puzzle where there's only country road clue, and that clue is a 1

[@alymix6037]

I love this intro

[@HunterJE]

I feel like Simon made the central gimmick harder than it needed to be with all the experimentation with the 4 clue and whatnot. Once you know that there are only two regions, you also know that at most two of the given clues can be CR clues. This means the TS has to visit all but at most two of the nonzero clues, which categorically rules out a very small loop. When you add to that the fact that one of the three clues in the top left is forced to be one of the CR clues, it becomes patently clear that any TS loop that reaches all but at most one of the remaining nonzero clues will definitely have a long enough border to rule out a ≤4 CR clue, which tells you the other region's CR total is unclued and rest of the clues are TS.

[@LazerWulf]

That may be intuitively obvious, and I feel like that is exactly the point Simon reached eventually, but the point of these videos is to "show your work", so to speak, so what Simon was doing was proving that point logically to himself (and to us) in order to get a clear grasp of the rules. And sometimes it's not intuitively obvious, in which case it does take some trial and error to figure out how it's supposed to work.

[@avishevin1976]

Can you explain how we know there could only be two regions? Simon read that into the rules, but I don't see where the rules force that conclusion.

[@HunterJE]

@@avishevin1976 The country road can visit each region can exactly once without leaving and re-entering, and since the regions are defined by which side of the slitherlink they are on the "out" regions cannot possibly border each other and can only border the "in" region. As such, having more than one "out" region would require the country road to exit and re-enter the central region to travel to every region, which would break the one-visit rule.

[@avishevin1976]

@@HunterJE Thank you.

[@mwebazegilbert2008]

I would like to see phistomefel

[@tyfunk8614]

Man does Phistomefel make some cool puzzles, but he could work on the wording of the rules a bit haha they were so long! Anyway, awesome solve and I'd love to see more long pencil puzzles like this!

[@robert-skibelo]

The length is very funny of course, but he could work on his English grammar. "Themselves" should be "itself" and both occurrences of "none" should be "no". Though both of these are traps for a German native speaker, if that's what this mephisphofelean setter is.😉

[@KusaneHexaku]

That's the joke, the April Fools joke was that most of the written rules didn't matter at all.

[@CarnageO31]

That intro though.

[@Jukka70]

perfect video for my birthday, just wish I watched it the day that it came out which was the birthday date

[@longwaytotipperary]

Your birthday is April 1st? Belated happy birthday!

[@Jukka70]

@@longwaytotipperary the 14th, the day he put it up, and thanks

[@longwaytotipperary]

@@Jukka70 🎂

[@57thorns]

One thing that might have sped up was. eg at 56:49 the cell above the blue (r2cc5) can't be orange because it would create a cul-de-sac. Remember that every_ orange ceel bordering a blue has a road in it. This colouring could have been done at many points.

[@dominikskorjanc]

And whats the April Fools? Did I miss it or is it just that the line goes through 1 cell in orange box?

[@donaldsnyder1543]

I could be wrong but I think its the givens. 4's 2's & 1's for 4/1/2022

[@onijester56]

There are a handful of elements. First, the use of 4's and 1's and sufficient digits to have 2022, for "4/1/2022" (April First, April Fool's Day) to be formed from the given digits. Second, it's that there's only two regions in general. Having so many clues split up across the board suggests at least a few separate regions. And many people who might have attempted this without fully grasping the conceits of slitherlink and country road rules allowing there to be only two regions. Third, that the Rules specify that a clue could be (1) a Slitherlink clue, or (2) a Country Road clue, or (3) simultaneously a Slitherlink and Country Road clue. However, no clues meet the third criteria, this potentiality being a form of misdirection. I can see a lot of people getting stuck on figuring out if one of the clues is in fact both a Slitherlink clue and a Country Road clue. Fourth, that there's a Country Road "implicit blank" rule, allowing a region without a given Country Road clue to have any number of its cells containing the Country Road. Which connects with... Fifth, that there's only one actual Country Road clue at all. That is quite devious of Phistomefel, especially since 4 is a reasonable value to have for a Country Road clue and forces a tricky situation if taken as a Slitherlink clue. ---- Any one of these makes the puzzle feel like a prank at the solver's expense. All of them? Shakespeare's most acclaimed comedies might be said to lack such an interplay of jokes.

[@chesshead]

We were fooled into thinking there was an April Fool's joke, only to find out that there wasn't one. But that means there was one, doesn't it? It's a bit meta.

[@puzzleddeveloper6108]

@@onijester56 What about the big A that is made up of 1121 and the 2 plusses created by the 4s?

[@DiMono]

Fun fact: almost everything listed in the song Take Me Home, Country Roads is actually in Virginia - not West Virginia, which is a different State entirely. But they just sort of ran with it.

[@asktheraccoon]

I must say s someone not born english speaker, understanding the rules alone took me more time than solving the puzzle…

[@shellmichael9665]

I’ve now watched this entire video and still have no idea how the rules work.

[@lylecampbell8288]

Once I finally understood what a touching slitherlink was I was (eventually) able to solve it and ended up with the same solution as you.

[@scottjacoby2594]

You ain’t a bad singer!

[@davegouldinonley]

Simon, could you be persuaded to record a posh British rendering of Country Roads? Your version today has many similarities to Johnny Cash, but now I'd like a proper British rendition, even tweaking the lyrics if needed.

[@allantidgwell5624]

Anybody else think Simon sounds a bit like Willie Nelson when he was singing at the start?

[@zergrush8709]

might've been nice to somehow label the clues as slitherlink, country road, or both.

[@iwersonsch5131]

He forgot to add "Digits may repeat any number of times in each row, column, or region. Regions must be determined by the solver and consist of a nonzero amount of cells each."

[@Tsevion.7]

As soon as I realized there could only be 2 regions (Inside and Outside), I just kinda made a guess and tweaked it... solved the whole thing in 30 minutes.

[@LittleBallOfPurr]

53:45 - Me: I still don't understand the rules

[@happy_srl]

it is not clear to me that the 0 slithering clue implies the slithering cannot toch a _corner_ of a cell, like Simon does at 18:55. Or does it?

[@happy_srl]

and don't the slithering rules imply that 4 cannot be a slithering clue? In the shape that Simon draws at 19:25 the slithering is not touching any of the edges. Or at least I think it's ambiguous if it does. Maybe that's how slitherings canonically work, but from how the rules are written, it's not clear, I think

[@happy_srl]

yeah, if touching a corner would count as touch the cell once, then the shape Simon draws shortly after with the 2 clue top left, would be 3 touches, not 2

[@AhsimNreiziev]

I think it helps to watch the other Touching Slitherlink puzzle by Phistomefel that Simon did, which can be found over on Patreon. In that video, the way Touching Slitherlink works (which is different from normal Slitherlink), is explained better. But essentially, a "touch" of a cell is the loop coming into any of the 4 corner points, staying along the edges for a while (could be no time at all, or as much as all 4 edges), and then leaving again. So ====== || | || 2 | || | ------------====== || || || with double lines being the loop segments and single lines being the edges of a cell, would be the loop touching the cell with the "2" twice (once in the bottom right corner, and once in the top left where it moves along 2 edges before leaving again), making the clue valid. Hope this helps.

[@bentittl309]

@@happy_srl I think the number of slitherlink touches is the number of different touches, not the number of sides/corners touched. The touch on the top left corner touches two sides, but is only one distinct touch. Then the bottom right corner of the cell is touch #2.

[@happy_srl]

@@AhsimNreiziev @Ahsim Nreiziev that does help for the 2 clue. It's not clear to me that that's what's meant by the rules, but it makes sense. The conclusion about the 0 clue is still wrong then though, because it's not "staying along the edges", if it just touches the top right corner of the cell

[@BlielPol]

I don't get what happened here. In which way was this puzzle an April Fool's? Didn't it have a valid solution in the end?

[@bobblebardsley]

I think in the sense that Country Road puzzles would normally have far more regions than just two, one of which is only visited in a single cell. So with the lengthy set of rules, unless you spot that the Touching Slitherlink can only define two regions in total, you're probably looking to split the grid into 6-7 or more different regions. It's logically correct and valid but I guess if you do a lot of these kinds of puzzles, the solution is still pretty funny. (Also the clues were all from 1/4/2022 or 4/1/2022 depending which date format you use, so the starting grid itself is a reference to April 1st 2022.)

[@Gnarlf]

It does have a valid solution, yes. And it is beautifully constructed. So you could just see it as another brilliant puzzle. However there are some indicators, suggesting this to be meant as an April Fools puzzle. It was realeased on 01-04-2022. It containst a lot of ones and fours (and as someone more observant than me pointed out 2 0 2 2 as well). And it messes with your brain a lot. You wouldn't normaly expect a slitherlink forming that number of regions. You wouldn't normaly expect a country road to have such a tile ratio between the regions. And if you recall Simons AF-Puzzle for Mark was a 4x4 and Marks AF-Puzzle for Simon was "quite approachable". Still both had their valid solutions, but they were way harder than anyone expected them to be.

[@SjorsHoukes]

HOORAY! First time I solved a Phistomefel puzzle faster than Simon! Took me under half an hour. That is after watching Simon’s intro and explanation of the rules mind you, and I used this video to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Reminds me a lot of the puzzles in The Witness, and I now realize why I also got most of those faster than Simon did. These kinds of puzzles are more easily solved by just trying out possible paths, and I think Simon is a bit averse to that tactic. He wants to make sure that all logic has been deduced and there are no other options. Especially clear in the last few cells of this puzzle, which took him way more reasoning than was strictly necessary. However, the explanations and logic are what make these videos so valuable, so I wouldn’t have it any other way. 💛

[@Steelsky]

"Remember to do your exes"?

[@or3213]

It took me 9 minutes just to understand the rules...

[@facepalm_85]

"remember to do your exes"

[@sillvvasensei]

John Denver!

[@peterkelley6344]

Sends Phistomefel to his corner for presenting a puzzle that does not have a direct prank in it. Simon has indicated that Phistomefel male by gender references. BAD BOY, BAD BOY!

[@jez9999]

How exactly is this an April Fool? What's the joke?

[@chesshead]

I don't know either. I kept waiting for the fool to reveal itself. Maybe it has something to do with only one of the clues pertaining to the Country Road side of the puzzle? I don't see why that makes it an April Fool. Probably more likely, the April Fool is to do with there not being an April Fool, and we've been fooled into looking for it? I hate those sorts of things. Reminds me of Mornington Crescent.

[@abj136]

“Create a number of regions” turns out to create just 1 region with 1 road clue. Pretty funny.

[@donaldsnyder1543]

Check the given digits.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

@@abj136 Yes, *funny* final solution (btw, with *2* regions, not only 1) but it can also be perceived as a *challenging* and *beautifully unexpected* outcome. It would make the puzzle feel like a very *enjoiable* and *fascinatingly creative* masterpiece if the puzzle had not been released on April 1 and if it did not contain the following features: 🔹The magnificent *hidden clue* in the given digits (2022 plus a lot of 1s and 4s) 🔹The jokingly *misleading* second sentence in this section of the ruleset: _"Each number is either a Touching Slitherlink clue or a Country Road clue. Both at the same time is also possible."_

[@AFastidiousCuber]

I want to try this puzzle, but I really do not understand how the Touching Slitherlink clues work. I feel like it should be obvious, but I must be interpreting them wrong because it doesn't make any sense. If the 4 is a Touching Slitherlink clue, doesn't this mean that all four edges of the cell should be part of the loop creating a 1 cell region?

[@AhsimNreiziev]

No, the Touching Slitherlink clues refer to the *points* of the square, not the edges. And besides, a loop around a cell would only touch the cell once, whereas what Simon showed in this video is how it touches the cell 4 times. Perhaps it would help to watch the other Touching Slitherlink puzzle by Phistomefel that Simon did, which can be found over on Patreon.

[@msolec2000]

Ashim is correct. You are thinking of regular slitherlink (and that's also why you never see a 4 in regular slitherlink)

[@MarushiaDark316]

I'm not quite sure why there can't be more than two regions. Simon tried having the Slitherlink go on and off the border, but that looks plausible to me.

[@avishevin1976]

I didn't get that either. That is, I don't see how the rules preclude it.

[@CaptianKatsura]

The problem is that there is only a single Slitherlink that forms a closed loop. So no matter how it moves, it'll always end up creating an inside region and a number of disconnected outside regions. Since these outside regions don't touch each other and the country road must visit every region, the only way for the road to travel from one outside region to another is through the inside region. And that's where the issue arises. If there's more than one outside region, the country road will enter the inside region more than once (since even if there are only two outside regions, the loop has to close so once it leaves the first outside region it'll need to make it's way back eventually). So that's why there can only be two regions.

[@MarushiaDark316]

@@CaptianKatsura Ah, ok. It's because it can't reenter the middle region twice.

[@JennHernes]

@@CaptianKatsura I was so confused and yours is the first explanation I've seen in the comments. Thank you!!!

[@Coyotek4]

It took me 4:04 ... to solve the warm-up puzzle. The main puzzle ... not so good. I got the general gist, but took peeks along the way just to be sure I wasn't interpreting anything incorrectly. Insanity, thy name is ...

[@specialkalberta]

I'm afraid I couldn't appreciate this video because the rules were too complex for me to understand and even after skipping ahead to the end I couldn't understand what the clues were telling me. For example, how could 2 be in the top right and top left when those cells have two sides and one corner touched by the slitherlink line (2+1 does not equal 2)? Similarly, there's only 1 country road cell in the blue region but three 1s in the blue region and all of them have more than one slitherlink side (maybe multiple identical country road clues in a region are allowed? seems wrong). I guess I could try to watch the video all the way thru but not sure it will help.

[@nekizalb]

The touching slitherlink clue indicates how many times the loop comes to the cell, but doesn't specify how long each visit is. So the two sides are one "visit" and the corner is the second "visit"

[@viviencollomb-clerc5526]

April Fool by Phistomefel

[@happy_srl]

the zero in the bottom left is missing if you open the puzzle with sudokupad

[@RonaldFrazier1]

It's there for me on the web version. Are you using the app version of it?

[@happy_srl]

@@RonaldFrazier1 yeah, I can see it in the web version of android, but in the app it's gone

[@icepyrox]

The biggest problem with this puzzle is understanding the rules. The country road part was demonstrated and seemed approachable. The touching slithering part made less than zero sense. I thought I understood it but then Simon is trying to explain his logic around 1 and I'm like "what. You just drew a line on 3 sides, touching 4 corners while this other one touches one corner and no lines - that's it. So how are they both 1 clues?"

[@ToroHarfang]

I dunno if you've seen the other comments explaining it: Touching Slitherlink means that each clue is saying how many times that cell is "touched". The edges AND corners count as touching the cell, so around a 1 cell, the loop can only enter the edges and corners once and then exit once, because if it "touches" that cell again, the number is broken. If that's still not clicking, try imagining each clue cell as a box and the touching loop as an object tracing around the boxes. The object can come into contact with the box exactly once, but can stay in contact as long as it likes, be that bouncing off a corner or tracing around the box and then jumping off. This is why a 4 cell clue MUST have all four corners and only the corners be touched because touching any edge means also touching two corners, limiting the number of times the loop can further touch the cell.

[@battle00333]

I somehow managed to solve it in 24:34 I figured out very quickly that the top left had a country road clue. and then operated on an assumption that there was a second clue until I remembered the constraint on empty cells. Which made me realize that, If One region only has a length of 2, then all other cells in that region are empty, and MUST be bordering a country-road on the other side of the slitherlink. The puzzle then essentially becomes a clueless yaijin puzzle, with the exception of 1 cell remaining empty, or as a "wall"

[@Jaxom35x]

If the 2's in the corners are touching clues, then isn't the 2 sides AND the corner touching making it 3?

[@DuncanBooth]

No, took me a while to understand that as well. The clue is the number of disjoint touches. So the two sides are a single connected touch and the corner is the other one. The 1 clues can be a single corner or one to three connected edges, the 4 clues have to be four corners.

[@Jaxom35x]

@@DuncanBooth Ahhh, thanks

[@ascensionblade]

33:10 funny minute 🙂

[@illilillilifernhaven5277]

The rules don't say "each region", they say "each such region". "Such" must refer to the regions that contain a country road clue, meaning that the other region can be entered and exited multiple times.

[@Dragowiz]

With only two regions though, you automatically enter/exit both at the same time. This makes multiple entries/exits to the non country road clue region impossible

[@leporid257]

I will never understand Slitherlink and Country Road is very close lol

[@abj136]

I’m bothered by the Touching Slitherlink rules. You say a 4 means the sllither loop touches 4 edges of the 4, but the way you solve it, it touches 4 corners and 0 edges. This is not a good way to describe the rule.

[@onijester56]

That initially confused me, as well. I would describe it as the amount of times the Slitherlink loop touches the cell (just in general). A "Slitherlink 3" clue would touch 2 corners and 1 edge, of which 2+1=3. Meanwhile, the "Slitherlink 1" cul-de-sac of R4C6 has the loop touching 3 edges but doing so in one single continuous motion.