The Return Of One Of The Greats

* TODAY'S PUZZLE **
A brand new treat from zetamath today in the form of his new puzzle Crosswalk. (Check out the new colours and let us know if you like them, especially if you have any issues with colour-blindness). As usual from this great setter, the logic is stunning and intricate. Can you find it?!
Have a go at the puzzle here:
sudokupad.app/sk0v8nqndi
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Digits along a pink “renban” form a set of non-repeating, consecutive digits in any order. Digits do not repeat along gold “nabner” lines. Additionally, no two digits appearing anywhere on a nabner line can be consecutive. Eg If a line contains a 2, there cannot be a 1 or 3 anywhere along the line. Adjacent digits along a green line must differ in value by at least 5. Box borders divide the blue line into segments with the same sum.
** ISLANDS OF INSIGHT STREAM INCOMING **
We're going to risk streaming this game, which sounds so perfect for the channel. Tuesday night at 10pm UK time - we'd love to have your company! You can watch it here:
kzbin.infonGgZYUt1zpg
** PATREON REWARD DAY **
Yesterday we published a new sudoku hunt, Evening Attractions, themed around Negative Constraints as our March competition.
They'll also be a bonus crossword video from Simon and his solve of Region Geometry by Emre Kolotoğlu (3hr 36min long...!) released over the weekend. And Simon's discussion video about Dean Mayer's Sunday Times crossword from last weekend will appear at 1minute past midnight on Sunday morning (which is the moment that competition has ended.)
/ crackingthecryptic
** KICKSTARTER - DELIVERED 24 December 2023 **
Our Kickstarter has finished and we've created the finished novella/puzzle collection for you. It was delivered on Christmas Eve so check your inboxes!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
** ORDER OUR NEW BOOK AT THIS LINK **
If you would like to get hold of a physical copy of our new book, Cracking The Cryptic's Greatest Hits - Volume 2, there is still a chance. Visit the link below:
bean-games.pledgemanager.com/...
▶ SUDOKU PAD - Use Our Software For Your Puzzles ◀
You can input classic sudoku puzzles into our software and help support Sven, the programmer responsible for the wonderful user interface we all use to play these puzzles everyday. The app also comes with 12 handmade puzzles from us:
iOS:
apps.apple.com/us/app/svens-s...
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/17...
Android:
play.google.com/store/apps/de...
ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”
▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:13 New Colour Palette?
1:43 Islands Of Insight Stream TOMORROW
2:03 Patreon bonuses
3:04 Happy Birthdays
4:45 Rules
6:50 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking
▶ Contact Us ◀
Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic
email: [e-mail]
Our PO Box address:
Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB
(Please note to use our real names rather than 'Cracking The Cryptic'.)
**************************************************************
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We also post the Wordle In A Minute videos on TikTok.

[@Babinzo]

Haven’t even started the video but the thumbnail is immediately hall-of-fame for me 😅

[@francoisduez601]

Same reaction 😅😅😅

[@st3phgr1ce]

Same x3!❤

[@JeKKie811]

Simon and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat!

[@aawillma]

Came here to comment this. Holy fabulous dream coat, Joseph!

[@xarmanhsh2981]

Hahaha so true 😂

[@Aussie2019]

Me screaming about the 23 pair in column 9 knowing full well I couldn't have placed a single other digit in the whole box!

[@Vorash00]

THANK YOU!!!! I’ve been shouting for so long …after I had already given up cos I couldn’t spot the break in so I’d have never gotten that far either. At least I think Simon understands this is a sport, we can shot at athletes for making a mistake in doing a job we could never do, by the same logic I can shout at these videos.

[@kairotox]

It's times like this where I wonder what a two person solve could do, one person, like Simon who can do the complex break in, and a helper to spot all the silly stuff he misses sometimes. Just like saying, "hey, take a look at this 23 up here"

[@brucecarter8960]

I am color blind and normally I have trouble distinguishing Nabner lines from German whisper lines. I always have to ask my wife. With this palette they are perfectly distinct. Thank you I love this channel and you guys are so considerate. I came across your channel just as I retired, and now I spend three or four hours a day solving. Keeps my mind active and I can still see my times improving.

[@glum_hippo]

3 or 4 hours! Good for you, and I hope to hear more from you of your impressions of the puzzling world. Congratulations on your retirement.

[@humanbirdsong]

Have you tried setting yet? This significantly improved my solve times!

[@BladesDMaeve]

I am EXTREMELY colourblind, and those colours today were amazing. I could distinguish 3 unique colours, maybe a 4th if it exists, but 3 is still very impressive for my terrible ability to see colour. Also, great video, and keep up the amazing work

[@MLWJ1993]

There were indeed 4 different colours. Good to know this works reasonably well with severe cases of colourblindness. They're actually pleasing to see for non colourblind people too!

[@BladesDMaeve]

@@MLWJ1993 Yeah I'm glad to know it works as well. I've noticed that most puzzles, I will see at most 2 colours of lines when there are up to even 5 or 6 different line colours, and so this was a pleasant treat for me to watch

[@grimanium]

If I may guess, the big line at the center/top is not a unique color for you?

[@BladesDMaeve]

@@grimanium It is. I see blue (center top), yellow (the u shapes, 2nd short line in center from the right, and the lowest one partially in the center box), and green (all else)

[@ChoMeric]

Simon pulling out his Sunday best for the thumbnail.

[@stronggreenflame]

Monday best lol

[@359Aides]

I kind of like nabner line definition as "any digit on a nabner line must differ in value by at least 2 from any other digit on that line". Neatly covers both the non-duplication as well as the offset and the whole line being relevant.

[@Araharu]

As someone who's not colorblind at all, I think this palette looks neat. Very pleasant colors.

[@matt5075]

I’m actually the opposite. They are harder to “read” for me.

[@Marc_Henkel]

The same here. For me the "best" palette ist the sudokupad default. The palette Simon used the last few months was horrible. Unfortunately his beloved dark green was the worst for me.

[@matt5075]

@@Marc_Henkel that darn dark green! It makes it so hard to read the blue numbers.

[@uigrad]

@@matt5075Really? You find the pastel colors makes it harder to read the numbers? I was just going to reply with the opposite comment! I find it much easier with these pastel colors for the lines. The biggest difficulty with the pastel lines is that when Simon begins colors the backgrounds, then the lines begin to look very muddy.

[@Marc_Henkel]

@@matt5075👍

[@farlemon]

I can't say for anyone that is color blind, but as someone that isn't, this color scheme looks great. A lot easier on my eyes personally.

[@BigAsciiHappyStar]

The break-in is tough but fair. If you’re a half-decent solver it’s gettable, but it’s not stupidly obvious where to look. The logic is fresh and the puzzle doesn’t trivially collapse after the initial break-in. Setters can also learn a thing or two from this. A true masterpiece from Zetamath.

[@harrysarai3947]

i came for the puzzle, i stayed for the thumbnail.

[@juamibenito2558]

Hi! Deutan clor blind here, I have a hard time distinguishing the pink and green if that’s what those are, though idk how to change them such that other clorblind types can still see because i’m seeing a lot of colorblind commentors confirming they can see the different colors clearly, but thought i’d put in my POV for the Deutans, thanks for the puzzle solve!

[@keyaanmatin4804]

Simon looking fabulous in the thumbnail 🤭

[@longwaytotipperary]

Yes!!

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

Great solve, Simon. While watching, I saw a 234 triple in column 9 that forced R7C9 to be 5, that would've helped break into the green line in box 9.

[@sebastiankaiser4239]

That's what kept be shouting for a long time.

[@grignaak9292]

I return from a multi-month youtube hiatus to be greeted by this happy thumbnail! What joy; the Internet at its best today!

[@David_K_Booth]

Thoughtful of you to add an example of each line to the rules - "dark pink, such as the line in row 1", etc. I hope people will comment here about whether they found it helpful.

[@sakkikoyumikishi]

I am not colourblind, but it always makes me very happy to see when you try to make things accessible for those with visual impairments. I really hope these colours work well!

[@KeiFlox]

I'm not colorblind myself, but my father was and I always appreciate that you guys keep colors in mind when making videos! My own opinion, these colors look lovely.

[@jimi02468]

I'm not a color expert but those colors look like pastel colors and I like them.

[@249215able]

I tried this puzzle a while ago and it was TOUGH. You walking me through the beginning helped a ton so I can happily say I’ve now completed it! And then got to watch you finish it after to celebrate

[@StephenMarkTurner]

The colours look similar in "value" (ie how they look in black and white). Value is very useful to distinguish different "colours".

[@HunterJE]

Yeah value variation is also important when trying to make something work for multiple kinds of colorblindness. Wouldn't be surprised if this more pastel palette might be a step in the right direction for some colorblind folks and in the wrong direction for others...

[@aawillma]

With any luck, Sven will be able to program "colorblind mode" that can swap the values back and forth based on ability or preference. (He has a dark mode that doesn't play well with the high saturation lines that may be more useful using these pastels!)

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

@@HunterJEgiven that everyone is different, I doubt there is gonna be a perfect palette where everyone can see. What they should do is put shapes on it instead.

[@TheTruth-xp2of]

I am colorblind and I can absolutely tell the line colors apart (less with the coloring used in parts of the solve). I couldn't necessarily tell you a given line was green and the other pink (looks purplish to me), but I can tell you they are definitely distinct and different. It's a good palette. None of the colors look the same to me.

[@adamallen2719]

I'm color blind. These colors are great! The yellow and green are clearly different to me. Now if you can through in a purple line in that pallet that doesn't confuse me with either the blue or pink then we're all good to go.

[@SkyelessMomo]

The german whisper and the region sum lines look identical to me. You might want to play around with the colour values a bit more to create more differences. The renban looks a lot better than before, so that’s a win!

[@davidrattner9]

Another beauty from the one and only Zetamath!! Loved the solving from Simon and seeing how much joy and pleasure he gets!

[@frankjiang1857]

Finished in 41:49. What wonderful logic that leads to the solving of the puzzle! I particularly loved how the way the renban lines worked limited the german whisper lines in box 7 and 9, which in turn lead to a partial limiting of the renban lines themselves which then in turn, limited the options for where 5 could be in box 1 which then limited the non-nabner cells in box 1 which then influenced the renban lines that limited them! Extremely fun puzzle!

[@cipherhex]

7:50, Maverick has a propeller?! That doesnt compute! Surely Maverick is flying a F-14 daily outsode Simon's window 😂

[@NZStarlight]

Mark would be impressed by the level of pencil-marking! 🤣

[@Draedaja]

That thumbnail is a work of ART xD

[@aawillma]

These colors work so great for dark mode! 😮 Now all we need for dark mode is an inverted digit color.

[@marktrescowthick9027]

Colours are certainly friendly for me.

[@enecz]

Just wanted to say that my wife and I absolutely love your videos (especially the longer ones)!! We started watching during covid as a less intense "show" during very stressful times, and they inspired us to get into sudoku more on our own with your wonderful apps and fell off of watching the videos as frequently. But recently, my wife's had some pretty bad wrist problems that means she can't play on her own, so we've taken back up with your videos in the evenings, and we just enjoy them so much. (The 3s in the corner joke crack us up every time!) We watched most of this one last night on our 7th wedding anniversary and finished it up just now. Love the thumbnail video (you should get that outfit in real life LOL), and hope you have a fantastic day. 💛

[@enecz]

Ope, my wife wanted me to add that we actually referenced you/your videos in our vows in 2022 (we had a public wedding 5 years after we actually tied the knot, don't worry about it)! It was something like "together we've learned the biggest secrets of the universe (it's that all the rows and columns add up to 45 -- no, just kidding)" 😂 And my brother afterwards was like "Hey, did I hear a Simon Cracking the Cryptic reference?!?" and I didn't even know he watched!!! Small, wonderful world 💛

[@Salman-os7pr]

Zetamath puzzles are always fun!! Looking forward to this solve!!

[@jaymuse127]

Zatamath! And these multicolored lines again. This may be the best puzzle this year and the thumbnail is beautiful

[@SVURulez]

As a relative novice at these, this was fairly approachable once I got a few "hints" from the video at the start. After that, I ended up colour blocking the board and was able to get a few digits based on the row or column "running out" of high or low digits.

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

Zeta is a top 10 setter featured on this channel. He always finds amazing break ins for us

[@AcanthaRayneOakMoon]

AMAZING art work for the thumbnail. I'm going to have 'Any Dream Will Do' stuck in my head for days now lol. Also, cool puzzle.

[@chubby5077]

I'm extreamly colour blind, (Both deuteranomaly and protanomaly, people usually only have 1 of the two) and that colour scheme is completely readable. somone who is tritanomaly (yellow/blue colour blind) might have trouble, but its the rarest form other than true monochrome blindness.

[@jaaptaal]

I am fortunate not to have colour blindness, I admire the thoughtfulness Simon and Mark display almost every video they make. It's wonderful that they make their solves as accessible as they can!

[@jonniboye6399]

struggled through the break in a bit, but I got it! Puzzle opened up nicely afterwards.

[@CauchyIntegralFormula]

66m41s. That opening bit of logic was pure brilliance!

[@user-qk5to6yo9z]

My brain is having difficulties mapping the pastel tones to the previous ones. Try as I might, this green is just not a German whispers.... Rewiring the brain....

[@jonkess2768]

A suggestion for a shorter nabner ruleset: Digits on a yellow line must differ by at least 2.

[@danielszanto2955]

The colors work well for me in the puzzle but the pink and green lines look very similar in the video. Either youtube is doing something wrong or obs studio is messing up the colorspace during compression.

[@mrsawiggins]

I can't wait to watch this. But I polled my color-blind family. My kids were all fine, though, "The green and yellow are close together." My husband totally didn't see the difference between green and yellow. To me, they look like just the lower value versions of the colors we were using before.

[@arnoudh6203]

Happy to watch an hour of slightly strange simon😊

[@zeam-h3133]

For possibly the first time ever on one of these videos I figured out a big move before Simon!

[@deniz5566]

Love the colour palette, it looks like sprinkles on a birthday cake!! 🎂😊

[@SamuelSandeen]

Neat puzzle, one little deduction which I found interesting you didn't find is that if the whisper in box 7 had 4 on it it would have 8 in the same column and thus break the renban above it.

[@zetamathdoespuzzles]

This is a very clever observation that I never made!

[@bait6652]

Nice simple one that reverted back to letter/color solve after dealing w the regionsum line(which resolved the H/L) with dualsolution if u ignore that 6-2 cant go on D5 line. The logic on the special digit between continuity /D5 is quite amazing but the break was learning about what goes on/off nabner when paired w H/L design. Esp B8 play was incredibly designed

[@benjaminrealy5661]

68:39. Loved how it kept me engaged. Got slowed when I spent like 20 minutes with no progress because since the vertical line in box 7 must have a 5 I didn't eliminate the 1s as candidates from that line. Fun puzzle and even missing that didn't turn me off from it. Love the new Colouring scheme mainly. The green definitely doesn't blend with the yellow. However, would still recommend the green be a little more darker with my blue-green colourblindness. But it is sufficient

[@maubeequinnfountain-eitel945]

Simon and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

[@HunterJE]

A thought, and no clue if I'm judging this right so if this is not the case for you please comment, but I wonder if it might make sense for "will need to be explained at the top every time this ruleset is in play" rules of thumb (e.g. German whisper high/low alternation, or yin yang border and checkerboard restrictions) to go in with the "rules" chapter before the "let's get cracking" marker? As a sometime rules-skipper (especially for longer weekday videos, since I like to fit the whole viewing in my lunch break and not have to come back and watch the end after work if at all possible) I suspect most folks skipping that chapter because they are familiar enough with the ruleset in question as to not need to watch the explanation are also already familiar with the common recurring tricks associated with that variant. Maybe name the chapter something like "rules and tips" in cases where that's applicable?

[@timch5227]

Oh yeah that would be very neat. If i have time i like to listen all the rules, but as a fellow lunch-break-ctc-watcher time is limited

[@wokkawicca]

While I might be inclined to skip every standard invocation from German whisper logic to SET-based derivations of the Phistomefel Ring, I can't agree, as there is a fundamental distinction between rules and their implications. Strictly speaking, even elementary deductions like The Secret are spoilers for anyone who wants to work from the minimum amount of given information. The Rules section should be devoid of such.

[@HunterJE]

@@wokkawicca But it's not like you aren't allowed to press "pause" if there's not a chapter marker there, those things would tend to naturally come at the end of a that section after the rules explanation proper (after all, "immediately after the end of the rules explanation" is basically already where they are in the current structure, the only difference being where the chapter marker and the "let's get cracking" fall), seems like for folks watching the whole video in linear order who want the rules but not the tip would have plenty of chance to pause when they need to if Simon just said something like "OK that's it for the rules, here are a few rules of thumb that come up with this ruleset" or something like that if they need help understanding the rules but want to go in otherwise unassisted...

[@MartinFindon]

Does anyone else try and guess the colour Simon will choose before he says it?

[@Anne_Mahoney]

Always! Isn't that part of the fun?

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 04:55 Let's Get Cracking: 06:55 Simon's time: 1h4m54s Puzzle Solved: 1:11:49 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 3x (07:45, 11:17, 11:20) Maverick: 2x (07:51, 07:58) Bobbins: 1x (45:20) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (33:58) Three In the Corner: 1x (1:11:16) ​Scooby-Doo: 1x (37:20) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Clever: 11x (01:03, 18:02, 18:02, 28:50, 28:53, 28:57, 40:19, 40:19, 40:21, 52:42, 1:12:34) Ah: 11x (14:44, 14:44, 17:52, 29:45, 31:28, 36:11, 42:45, 46:50, 1:05:08, 1:05:57, 1:11:20) Hang On: 8x (09:02, 25:19, 40:14, 42:32, 42:32, 46:27, 46:54, 59:50) Cake!: 6x (03:39, 04:19, 04:23, 04:24, 04:38, 04:41) Obviously: 5x (04:19, 08:50, 10:00, 18:48, 26:36) By Sudoku: 4x (41:26, 55:08, 1:04:19, 1:09:15) In Fact: 4x (28:34, 33:40, 41:53, 41:53) Pencil Mark/mark: 4x (35:38, 36:58, 55:58, 56:12) Sorry: 3x (19:04, 26:58, 36:50) Stuck: 3x (02:18, 1:01:51, 1:09:07) Brilliant: 3x (00:52, 49:29, 49:31) What Does This Mean?: 3x (17:11, 53:39, 56:05) Nature: 3x (18:28, 40:47, 1:04:26) Good Grief: 2x (18:07, 1:11:35) Naked Single: 2x (1:06:19) Beautiful: 2x (52:39, 1:12:29) Whoopsie: 2x (43:40, 43:55) Plonk: 2x (25:52, 25:54) Weird: 2x (22:06, 22:10) Goodness: 1x (27:11) Bother: 1x (58:21) The Answer is: 1x (26:34) Nonsense: 1x (38:45) Bingo: 1x (48:03) In the Spotlight: 1x (1:11:19) Lovely: 1x (04:15) Fascinating: 1x (1:11:42) Ridiculous: 1x (1:05:05) Discombobulating: 1x (56:02) Come on Simon: 1x (53:39) Shouting: 1x (04:34) Shenanigans: 1x (1:07:40) Bizarre: 1x (37:08) Surely: 1x (16:26) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (53:29) Phone is Buzzing: 1x (46:27) Wow: 1x (42:59) Let's Take Stock: 1x (36:55) Next Trick: 1x (30:59) Almost Interesting: 1x (22:33) That's Huge: 1x (1:09:19) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Fifteen, Seventy Eight, Eighty Nine (7 mentions) Five (120 mentions) Blue (5 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (40) - High (38) Even (7) - Odd (0) Higher (2) - Lower (2) Row (17) - Column (6) FAQ: Q1: You missed something! A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q2: Can you do this for another channel? A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!

[@theredstoneengineer6934]

76:08 for me. What an absolutely lovely solve path. First time I've felt like Simon with the level of deductions required.

[@ronjohnson6916]

Loved the break in.

[@yagamilight08]

The thumbnail is absolute gold🤣😆

[@marcrindermann9482]

1:09:37 "9 is in one of these. That gives us 7 and a 29 pair" .. Simon, you can't do that to me! I nearly threw my phone into the screen 😆

[@TriforceOfCourage97]

i really love these, i watch every night, but when you will NOT see sudoku literally right in front of you it really gets me going. i start yelling constantly.

[@PaTcHiZzEl]

Simon and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! 😄

[@B1GB1RDB4G3L]

PEAK THUMBNAIL

[@OhToTheYes]

I am Mildly Deuteran (red-green colorblind) and i usually do okay with the line-types. However, i cannot in this pallette tell the difference between the green and pink lines. I prefer the old kind, but honestly I'm just excited that you guys care so much and are so kind🙂

[@PoRRasturvaT]

Islands of Insight. Ohhh yeah yeah!! I hope you keep with it long enough to reach the interesting harder puzzles!! I had a blast with this game but for you, most of it would seem too easy.

[@sivsuikki9428]

😊 Could not have figured out even if my life depended on it. Love to hear your deductions, nodding an saying but yes of course! Thank you!

[@glum_hippo]

A true zetamath classic! With zetamathematical deductions to bööt; the finish is gorgeousest!!

[@henriknobinder7395]

Simon of Many Colours.

[@nightflash5951]

As someone who's done a bunch of these lately, I have to say the start of this one was very clever

[@afrayedknot81]

Around 49:30 you can place blue because if blue was in r8c8 it would break the 23 pair in b3. This leads to a much simpler solution later.

[@AngelWedge]

I decided to try to solve before watching. 12 minutes in, I've barely got 4 digits and a few pencil marks, but seem to have hit a wall. And I've just been remjnded that I have a midnight deadline on work again, so may have to leave watching your solution until tomorrow :S

[@chocolateboy300]

I got 140 minutes. I was quite lost on where to look in the beginning. Figuring out that there was a relationship between the two straight renban lines was very satisfying. From there, it flowed very well. Nice puzzle!

[@Rubrickety]

Intricate and fascinating puzzle, and a hard-earned (and quite long) solve for me. Nabner lines always hurt my brain; I somehow can't internalize their implications as "rules", and have to keep re-deriving them from first principles.

[@squircular54]

As another colourblind fan my wishlist would relate to: - issues differentiating the regular green and yellow highlight colours (grellow) - issues differentiating the regular blue and purple highlight colours (blurple - which sadly is a favourite combo of Simon's) (I have colourvision filters on my devices to help though) - many line rules are hard to use especially when these lines are darker or more saturated as they make reading centre pencilmarks very very difficult (renban purple is the biggest offender, and the very dark red lines in this March puzzle pack's "Dinner Theatre" puzzle was impossible - I recreated it in other software just to see the pencilmarks) - I don't know how to request features from Sven and maybe it would be worth sharing this on the channel? Top requests would be around allowing some sort of saturation slider, or a colour picker for pencil marks and digits maybe? Another request would be for CTC to consider removing colours once they no longer serve any logical purpose. This was relevant in a recent solve of Jeet Sampat's Genus 3 puzzle - why not just leave the boxes white once they were identified? Finally, and wishful thinking, but maybe hatching patterns could help somehow? By this I mean 'dashed blue line' or 'dotted purple line' etc. so even if the colours clash, they'll still be easy to differentiate for folks like me.

[@Raven-Creations]

As another colourblind viewer, with exactly the same problems you reported, I have a couple of tips. The first is to install the "Enhancer for KZbin" Chrome extension. Once installed, you can configure it to show an icon below the time slider which allows you to set a colour filter. I often have to do this when Simon's on one of his blurple patches. You click on the icon and a bunch of sliders for things like saturation, brightness etc. appear. The important one is the hue rotation. For blurple, it make the purple redder (as it does with Simon's face, making him look like Donald Trump). This obviously only applies to the video. The second tip is for your own solve. As long as you can tell which line is which (perhaps by reference to the video and using my first tip), you can use the line-drawing tool to go over the dark renban lines with a lighter colour. There have been some videos where the blurples were so close that the hue rotation wasn't able to separate them sufficiently without moving them right away from the blue/purple zone. That made Simon look freaky, but in my mind he deserved it I've also suggested using different line thicknesses and styles, so even those who see no colours can do them. They did do that for one puzzle, and it worked well (one colour used fatter lines than the other). Unfortunately, they didn't say which was which, but at least they tried.

[@kenbolsen8295]

Including time spent paused wondering why I even attempted this puzzle it took me a little over 3.5 hours. Which considering that it normally takes 5-7 times longer than Mark or Simon's solves, I will count this as a win.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

23:35 for me. Awesome puzzle, loved it!!

[@joelv4495]

I don't actually solve much these days but I noticed at 50:18 that the 23 pair in R6C9 sees the 23 pair in box 3, forcing the blue digit to R8C7 regardless of value. Of course it's easy to armchair quarterback from the sidelines midway through the 3rd quarter... Excellent video!

[@RoderickEtheria]

The clue how to start is in the name of the puzzle. There's a single obvious crosswalk in the puzzle, between r1 and c3.

[@zetamathdoespuzzles]

I am glad that was not missed!

[@brianj959]

@@zetamathdoespuzzlesalso, having watched a number of (always excellent) Zetamath puzzles on this channel over the years, do I intuit correctly that many of them start in box 1? And by the time Simon had pencil marked most of boxes 1-3, I felt like I was definitely in a Zetamath puzzle. 👏👏

[@zetamathdoespuzzles]

@@brianj959 My puzzles tend to start in box 1 unless there is some symmetry in the grid that requires I do otherwise. In puzzles with bilateral symmetry, sometimes the breakin is in box 5 or 8.

[@RachelTension]

I managed to beat his time on an over hour long video, that's a new milestone

[@grimanium]

I find it interesting that I somehow managed to solve it completely different, I thought puzzles like these would only have one way of solving them.

[@harshitsingh3459]

One suggestion for Sven, please timestamp Simon's point in solution like every minute so we can pickup from his solve anywhere in between cuz honestly Simon sometimes your sudoku ignorance blows me away and makes me feel like a genius until I dare to solve myself and admire your genius over and over again!!!

[@markp7262]

38:29 finish. The way I saw the break-in was to consider the 5-cell renban and its effect on box 1. More specifically, the fact that you have five consecutive digits, and at least three of them have to go on a nabner line. Therefore, the outer two numbers and the center number go on the nabner, and the other two go into r2c3 and r3c3. For example, if the renban is 1-5, then 1-3-5 go on nabner, and 2-4 go in column 3. If you use these numbers in column 3 with the renban at the bottom of the column, it limits your choices for that renban to one or two options (5-8 or 6-9 for the example above). Realizing that the column 3 renban can't be extreme due to the whisper in box 7 (parity logic), you only have the two options that Simon found. Such a fun puzzle. Excellent!

[@trinetvedegaard2555]

slightly strange, and very charming❤

[@fulltimeslackerii8229]

What if instead of changing colors you put shapes on it or change the shape of the line? Like how we do arrow cells and their tips, kropki dots, and thermos. There isn’t gonna be a perfect palette but I think this would be much easier

[@Raven-Creations]

I approve of the new palette, with the exception of the green, which would be better either darker, or more saturated. It's too close in tone to the purple for me. Although I can tell them apart, I have to concentrate, which is not conducive to holding a flow of logic. At least I was able to draw over the green lines with the line tool. In the old palette I couldn't tell which of the two sets of blue lines was purple. Even better than a new palette would be different thickness lines, and/or dotted/dashed lines. They would work for everyone. 35:31 for me. I started in box 9, where the renban has to include 5, or the whisper line would break. Either the 5 is in box 9, or it's in R6C9 and there's a high with two lows, or vice versa. I then moved onto the lines in R1 and C3, which was very clever in resolving so much. @ 31:02 - "for my next trick..." - Use the nabner in box 1. It has a 5 on it, it can only contain one from 23, plus 7 and 9, making the vertical domino 68 and the equal-sums line 79 on both ends. This puts 583 on the 3-cell segment, 146 in R2 in box 2, resolving the 68. It puts 14 on the nabner in box 3, with a 23 pair immediately above it. In box 1, the nabner now has 5 and a 79 (in that order) in R2 and a 279 pair in R3. Now the L-shaped renban in box 4/7 must be either 4567 or 5678. The 67 must be in box 7. This has big implications for the renban in box 9. It cannot include 7, so it must include 345 and either 2 or 6. It means the part in box 9 must include 5 and two from 234, so the nabner line in the box is 6789. This puts 189 in R7 in box 8, and a 23 and a 45 on the nabner in the box. Because of the 79 in C7, R9C7 is 68, ruling out 7 from the other cell. @ 36:00 - "There's definitely a 5 in this domino" - If you hadn't removed your pencil-marks you'd know where, since there's 5s pencil-marked in C2 in box 4. I've lost count of the number of times you do this, and usually waste a load of time because of it. Delete the corner marks AFTER you've put in the candidates. @ 59:58 - "If that's 4 does that make things tricky?" - It breaks the puzzle. It pushes 4 onto the nabner in box 7 into C2, which puts 9 in C1, so 8 is in C2. Now you've got both 4 and 8 in C2, which breaks the renban in box 4. This would have given you a 23 pair in the row, making R6C5=4 and taking 4 out of R6C2. @ 1:02:35 - "Is that useful?" - Yes, it pushes 6 into C1 in box 4, which resolves the 67 pair in box 7. @ 1:05:19 - "That's not 7 anymore" - what about the other cells in the column that have 7 in them? You made the same mistake earlier when you removed 4 from R6C9 but left it in the cell below it. Whenever you place a digit, remove it from ALL pencil-marks seen by it, not just the first one you spot. That gives you a 689 triple, making R3C4=5, R3C5=8, R7C5=9, and R7C6=9. You're left with a 17 pair on the whisper in box 5, the 79 pair in box 2 is resolved. All that was missed because of sloppy maintenance of your pencil-marks. @ 1:09:36 - "And that gives us this digit" - You've done it again. You placed 9 in C2 in box 7, and removed it from R2C2 making it 7, but left it in the cell below it. You could have got R3C1=9, R3C2=2, Simon, I urge you to click on the timestamps and see what I mean. You're wasting so much easy progress just because you treat your pencil-marks with contempt, and don't properly check the impact of each deduction. If you click on the timestamps, you'll see what I mean.

[@elizabethswann05]

Personally, I like the old colours better; I kinda have a hard time looking at the new ones, but I can't really point my finger on what's bothering me exactly.

[@sampathkumar-ej7xl]

Constructors like Zetamath use standard rules to create such elegant puzzles. I was never sure till the end as it is easy to miss some number sequence possibilities on the renbans.

[@longwaytotipperary]

❤ the thumbnail!!!

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

*Purple* (or pink) seems too similar to red, but in general the colours you used for the lines are lighter than before and this makes dark blue pencilmarks better visible.

[@byakb1868]

I clicked for the thumbnail alone, and everything else was a bonus.

[@angec9908]

Me always yelling at Simon “CHECK YOUR SUDOKU”

[@AleksandrYgA]

27:59 for me, my break-in was different from Simon's. SPOILER! I started with the 5-cell renban in top row - it puts extreme pressure on the nabner line in box 1 cause all 5 consecutive digits from the renban must be placed in 6 cells in box 1 which means that at least 3 digits from renban go on nabner line and it's also the maximum. The other 2 digits from 1st row renban go into R2C3 and R3C3 - and that puts pressure on the vertical renban in column 3 as well as on the region sum line segment in that column.

[@srwapo]

Me watching Cracking the Cryptic: There's a weird thingy going on...

[@BryanLu0]

An easier way to consider the weird thing with the 46s in box 1 is to consider where the digits of the renban in row 1 go in box 1. At most you can put 3 of them on the nabner line, and then the other two go in column 3. Then the renban in column 3 can only have 2 of its digits on the nabner line in box 1, because it only has 1 digit in common with the line in row 1.

[@BryanLu0]

For the German whisper, you can rule 4 off the line before completely disambiguating the renban above it, because if there was a 4 on it, it would be with a 48 pair in column 2, which would leave only 5 for the 2 cells of the renban in box 4

[@dustpan5356]

Love the thumbnail. 45:56 for me on this one, very enjoyable.

[@spxza]

Slightly Strange Simon and his Technicolour Dreamcoat

[@9MRSG]

This color palette looks sick! Keep it, make it universal.

[@jasonveale8467]

Simon missing the 23 pair in column 9 really did frustrate me. 😂

[@MaxPower2719]

Give whoever made that thumbnail a raise 😂

[@arturocaissut1071]

Beautiful puzzle

[@nathanmays7926]

Simon and the Technicolor Dreamcoat is a welcomed thumbnail

[@anaayoung9142]

What a piece of art... the puzzle and the thumbnail 😅