Star Battle: Spotting The Trick

You can try this clever puzzle from Thomas Snyder here:
cracking-the-c...
This puzzle appeared in a Double Decathlon set by Thomas, available here:
logicmastersind...

[@alexpurdy948]

12:12 you said you could’ve put that in before, however the only reason it was the only purple square was due to a miss click, as there was no logical reason to rule out the other square when you colored it

[@Chaobish]

It would’ve still eliminated that spot that was accidentally colored green when the other star in that square was filled, but yeah the accidental coloring gave me anxiety 😂

[@KurtHugoSchneider]

LOVE star battle :) for some reason these puzzles seems much easier and faster to solve for my head than sudoku, did this in 7:44.. the design of this puzzle also immediately draws the eye to the symmetrical corner shapes

[@pear4576]

Wait a minute you watch this channel!! That's insane :D

[@gideonmaxmerling204]

Oi Kurt, have you tried castle wall puzzles, it's a really interesting concept that leads to very interesting logic. CTC has made two vids about it, you should check it out

[@anssi2393]

Solved in 7:22. Fastest solve out all the puzzles I have done from your channel and first star battle I have ever done. Really impressed my self in this one.

[@Pyromonkey83]

Super proud of myself on this one, finished in 14:10 which is excellent for me in a Star Battle. I often struggle heavily with these, but this one had some amazing logic in the top four rows and the corner pieces that for some reason just clicked with me. Loved every bit of it!

[@andyparkerson]

We should see more of these on this channel. Just over 18 minutes. Lots of fun!

[@felixenghofer4616]

I love star battles! Got that one in about 13 minutes and I got the exact same solving path :) keep them coming!

[@xaytana]

I think for puzzles that rely on sectioned borders, like this one, the app needs an option to add wider, colored borders. While yes, the bold lines do work, they're also somewhat straining. I think adding color, something like a 3x stroke with color, with the 1x stroke layered on top, would work nicely for cleanly laying out borders. Going with a colored border would also rule out any issue with grayscale colors, as I've seen that with the thermometer puzzles, and as a gray palette is the typical option for dark/night modes if you were to ever implement that into the app. A decent palette would be red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and magenta, all based on the various combinations of 255 and 0 values within the RGB color space. These colors would also work well with the current color pallet that you have for the box fill, as the border palette would contain fully saturated colors, whereas the box-fill palette looks to be about 75% saturation on the red and green? The difference is large enough to be noticeable if you did red on red or green on green, for examples.

[@benjaminhaymore3423]

The corners was the first thing I noticed as well. I missed the logic that limited the top 4 rows and needed help there but then cracked it

[@jeffking]

I solved it without seeing the top 4 rows of geometry, so that is not necessary (although it would have been helpful).

[@Kurgosh1]

Interesting. I did not spot the trick, but completed the puzzle after considering the top four rows, then also the right four columns, which have a similar, though not quite as strict, limitation. More than one entry into a problem is kinda cool.

[@TheQuicksilver115]

Love star battles! Keep these coming!!

[@wavyleafthistle1830]

Thank you for a wonderful video. I appreciate you explaining how you are making each conclusion and decision, and you explain it very clearly. This is so much more helpful than videos that get carried away trying to demonstrate how fast a puzzle can be solved. THANK YOU!

[@MinimumGnome]

6:38 for me. Really love these puzzles. More please.

[@his_prettiest_problem999]

Really shocked myself. Never done a puzzle like this and was able to complete it in 6:22. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.

[@Pyrois]

I was feeling confident about this one. I was making some good progress and then promptly hit a wall. After a number of minutes of staring at the grid, accomplishing nothing, I had to scurry back to the video to find out what "the trick" was. The logic around the corners really ended up blowing the puzzle wide open! It always surprises me how quickly you're able to spot things like that.

[@mmanes100]

I HOPE YOU READ IT. IM FROM BRAZIL. SORRY ABOUT MY POOR ENGLISH. ID LIKE TO THANK YOU SO MUCH, SO MUCH. WATCHING YOUR VIDEOS I LEARNED THE X WING TECHINIC. ITS IMPROVES MY GAME 😀😀😀😀😀

[@57thorns]

10:30, immediately spotted the trick and the corners. The corners made the "trick" deduction easier in a sense.

[@G.Aaron.Fisher]

Yeah, I think is the easiest puzzle that the channel has ever had. 8:51 and most of time was spent shading in cells. Nice to have a gimme from time to time though.

[@TheThomasites]

Is there a way to lighten the grid lines and darken the border lines?

[@Pumbear]

You made a mistake @9:58 by accidentally colouring the right bottom pink square green. Luckily it worked out though :)

[@Thepian0man13]

6:30. I started with the 4 regions locked in the top 4 rows, then quickly spotted the 'trick'. I'm a big fan of starbattles, great puzzle!

[@freddiehand6551]

Spotted the trick instantly, namely because I put it in one of my puzzles: www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/2019/07/star-battle-by-freddie-hand/, which goes to show that constructing puzzles is very beneficial towards becoming faster. A very satisfying puzzle to solve, finished in 2:04. Star battle puzzles are always fun!

[@freddiehand6551]

By the way, I copied the puzzle down on paper to solve it. The software really isn't designed for speed-solving star battles!

[@themiddleones11]

6:42 I first heard of star battles watching the "inception" puzzle and have gotten obsessed I've played out multiple apps and need more

[@Riskomul]

Nice!

[@vwisse]

22:35 which I'm happy with considering this was the first time I attempted this type of puzzle

[@hugobouma]

Word of the day: "Antepenultimate"

[@Khaisz.]

Took 17 minutes to get stuck after you explained how this game works at the start, then after watching you explain the Ls in the 4 corner I could solve the rest in another 15 minutes for a total of 32:17. yay

[@MatthewCleveland]

9:59 Accidentally colored a purple square green. I haven't finished the video yet, but that may have given him a false head start.

[@Chaobish]

It would’ve still eliminated that spot that was accidentally colored green when the other star in that square was filled, but yeah the accidental coloring gave me anxiety 😂 even with the false head start he didn’t use the hint until the other square was for sure eliminated

[@williamnathanael412]

My first stars battle puzzle without help! 18:05 for me.

[@ChristopherGermain]

3:04 on this puzzle. I think after the catching the starting logic with the corners. knowing a few specific tricks on squares of two where there must be atleast one star and rows of 3 where there must be atleast one star make it very linear.

[@PerStarback]

6:05 Now there is a star in the blue 1×2 on row 5 and a star in the three whites to the right of it, so the rest of row 5 is empty.

[@jonasgleim7612]

Around 2 minutes for me, but I am familiar with the opening trick. Also, if you enjoy Star Battle puzzles and have access to the new york times print edition this sunday, I happen to know there will be some puzzles in there ;)

[@Daanbe]

4:44 nice one Got stuck a bunch and I'm not quite used to 12x12 but the time is kinda okay for the input method and for noting all cells that cant be stars Edit: play a bunch using the "Star Battle Infinity" App on Android, it's computer generated so there's not many of these cool tricks but they can be quite challenging, especially if you try to beat your highscores

[@NexEstVox]

Love star battles as well, 4:22 here.

[@Barteks2x]

That's the first time I saw myself doing exactly the same logic on it, in only a ~2 minutes longer time on anything shown here (and I did spot the trick almost immediately). The star battle puzzles I did so far seem to be way easier for me than sudoku (or maybe these are just very easy?)

[@neversyn2panda984]

I missed the logic with the corners, but after getting the tip about the top 4 rows it all fell into place nicely.

[@RangeWilson]

20 minutes staring at it thinking WTF, then realized the corner restrictions, 4 minutes to solve after that. I just used two colors, didn't need to split up areas or anything because the logic was all very easy.

[@DougCube]

you suspected a mis-click... it happened at 9:58 where you accidentally highlighted an extra square and shaded it green

[@youdont12know]

14:26. Spent emberrasingly long looking at the wrong side when I got to the final quarter

[@JordanBl]

12:37 I feel like I could have had it done a bit faster if I weren't distracted initially, but at the same time it probably would've taken longer if I you hadn't pointed out the matter with the very corner squares.

[@Riskomul]

Actually it took me 4 minutes and 42 seconds. I did spot the trick and some obvious helpful logics.

[@samprice7746]

11:12 for me, fun puzzle to start my day!

[@Numberplay]

10:27 nice initial trick but the rest was very simple.

[@RoderickEtheria]

I spent less than 12:00 on this one. It was easy. The areas around the corners were a bit obvious. And given that there are 4 areas that must consist of the first and last columns and rows, there must be 8 stars in those areas. If any star sat in a corner, it is entirely obvious that that star would count as being in both a restricted row and column, which would force there to be less than 8 stars available in those rows and columns. I immediately eliminated the extreme corners because of those corner shapes. I'm not sure why you held yourself back with the obvious logic that can be applied using those shapes.

[@septimustavi9352]

Took me 16 min 30 sec...was fun :D

[@tezcharold]

Bother. Spotted the initial trick right away (thanks for the title) ;) then managed to make mistakes twice by rushing too much and ended up restarting twice and finishing in 15 minutes.

[@snowfloofcathug]

Around 3:30 for me, if I solved it right

[@SHADE45]

I was absolutely losing my mind on this one until I realized it's a 12x12 and therefore each 2 rows/columns must have TWO sets of 2x2s with no stars in them.

[@danieltaber4924]

My first spot was eliminating the 4 squares in the center of each edge, due to the corners filling those rows/columns.

[@lewiswegner2339]

about 31m 28sec

[@StarshipVGer]

About 14 minutes, forgot to look at the timer exactly when I finished. Started with the corner areas.

[@BlueCyann]

Weird solve for me. Figured out the "hard" stuff with no problem whatsoever but made a mistake on something easy and never, EVER went back to look at the box that was the source of the problem over the course of the next three hours of off-and-on pointless struggle. Finally my son, who doesn't solve puzzles but likes to watch me solve them, decides to ask me what I'm working on. So I tell him (he's familiar with Star Battle), and in about 30 seconds he's pointing at a cell in the problem box and asking me a question about it that's rooted in the contradiction and I'm like ... ... ... Whoops. It took me probably a solid 5 or 10 minutes from there to re-confirm the opening logic after re-start, given the resulting lack of confidence, but the rest of the puzzle only took about three. My head hurts.

[@thatguynamedmorgoth8951]

I think I spotted the trick, the Ls in the corners mean that the 4 cubes between every 2 Ls is empty

[@joshuaperry4112]

excellent video to poop to. 5 stars.

[@tjcraft7233]

7:18

[@gizel4376]

it was easier than usual, i did it quite fast in a completly different way, only the corner trick was the same as i did

[@wavyleafthistle1830]

oops! 9:55

[@richardfarrer5616]

I noticed the corners immediately, and quickly deduced the restrictions. Then, thanks to one misclick later still took 15 minutes to solve it.

[@aamocryp]

took me 15:20, a bit long since I did a star battle, so at points really just didn't see simple logic

[@elipersky1591]

This was a very easy solve, I've come back to watch the video after doing it and it seems that you are severely overcomplicating it. I made the simple observation that stars can't go in corners (because one of the adjacent corner regions will have stars on an arm "pointing" at that corner. Then I observed that all stars on the outside edge must be in corner regions since these need 8 stars all together. Then everything pretty much immediately falls out by filling in obvious stars in restricted regions and nothing clever is required.

[@BlueCyann]

That was my solve path as well (minus the screwup that derailed me for silly amount of time). I enjoyed the opening logic, but you're right that the rest is (or should have been, in my case) straight-forward.

[@johnydl]

I was 18 minutes before watching yours, did the same logic in pretty much the same order even worked out the corners too although I did that after spotting the 2 stars in row 5 must be in cols 6-10 at your 5:42 not that it made any difference I was still slower than you