The Shortest Ruleset Ever

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** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
One of our favourite puzzles of recent times is featured today from none other than Phistomefel. It's called 10-Line and features one of the shortest rulesets ever. And yet... it's an absolutely gorgeous puzzle.
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Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Adjacent digits along a line must sum to 10 or more.
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[@starbies552]

“If you were Phistomefel, sitting in your tower..” had me dying lol

[@TheGerkuman]

With a glass of Casillero Del Diablo wine.

[@GuatemalanJedi]

Do you think Simon realized he was essentially claiming to be Gandalf?

[@ahouyearno]

He’s wearing a blue shirt so more like one of the lost blue wizards

[@Radagast1953]

But he was talking about me, Radagast the Brown, which is my favorite forum handle [I didn't figure out how to set my handle when I started using KZbin, & then I had too many comments under my name to bother changing it 😒], which is why I own the web domain of Rhosgobel & have named my 20-acre property Rhosgobel Ranch! 😜 It is a long time since I've heard anyone outside of the Peter Jackson movies even mention the name Radagast. 😕 😎 😍

[@ahouyearno]

@@Radagast1953 Radagast is one of those strange characters that just make cameos. I loved him when I read the Lord of the Rings. nice handle.

[@Doofmonster]

Phistomefel's sudokus always fascinate me. I look at them and think:" How the heck are you suppose to solve this??"...Then I make my first deduction, one step beautifully leads to the other and...whoops I eventually solve it somehow! And if it doesn't happen...oh well...I can still watch Simon give it a go^^

[@hobbyist518]

2 hours, 53 minutes, 42 seconds, with frequent music breaks to help my mind relax. But I can finally say that I've solved a phistomefel puzzle on my own, no help or hints along the way.

[@YoshiBro79e]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

[@andrewgrant6516]

5 in the middle, 3 in the corner, Phistomephel sure knows how to play all the crowd pleasers.

[@sarahnash7174]

What a brilliant intro! Do not apologise for yesterday, you are allowed to take fun time, tbh the fact that you even got a video up is incredible!

[@dmitrymalkov6732]

I wouldn't be surprised to know that Phestomefel put that 3 in the corner on purpose!

[@swappingparts]

Simon (5 seconds into a solve): Oh, good grief! Right. Sorry, I have missed something very obvious about this puzzle. Apologies to those shouting at their computers. There is a swordfish on 7s in rows and columns 2, 5, and 8.

[@SilverKiMak]

🤣

[@matthewkaseman7457]

Viewers at their computers (shouting): I really wish this puzzle included numbers

[@concofps]

Im convinced Simon thinks all his viewers are genuises. Maybe some of them are, but im certainly not one of them lol.

[@user-it5wu5iv1w]

Let's be real though, those moments are the funniest when he apologises for missing something "obvious" and does something super complicated meanwhile I'm just sitting here trying to point out that he has a naked single somewhere that he's managed to miss xD

[@matthewkaseman7457]

@@user-it5wu5iv1w Agreed, it makes me feel not quite completely out of my depth! Simon's basically the best.

[@vjtocco]

I really like when Simon gives us some background biographical details about the setters, such as FullDeck and MissingaFewCards being math professors. Part of me is dying to know more about Phistomefel's background. I am really curious to see what he looks like. But the other part of me enjoys imagining that he isn't even human, and instead a mythical sudoku hellbeast.

[@emilywilliams3237]

But maybe not a hellbeast, just a mythical powerful being, like a wizard. I like to think of him as benevolent.

[@hugogamboas.5550]

Well… phistomephel is indeed an incomplete anagram of Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is an old name for Satan. There’s just an e and an s lost somewhere to make phistomephel an anagram of satan

[@sirzorg5728]

Phistomefel lives in a tower. I imagine he has a long whispy beard and a staff of obsidian. Phistomefel spends his days crafting sudokus to torment his subjects.

[@user-xu4xw6jm7d]

Theres a video of a conversation with him in the memeristor channel

[@tsgsjeremy]

What I like about PMF's puzzles is how there is usually some key insight that unravels the whole puzzle. And the hunt for that insight is fun, not a tedious slog.

[@KeithGrant]

“It’s taken me 25 minutes of nonsense”. Simon, I may have seen the importance of 5s quicker than you in this puzzle, but it still took me 156 minutes to solve the whole thing. I’m astounded at your solve time here

[@NowaboMusic]

What I really appreciate about this solve is that it wasn't merely a "figure out the trick and the rest falls into place." It first forces you to figure out the trick to get any progress at all, and then you keep constantly having to go back and re-evaluate your understanding of the simple ruleset to move forward.

[@Kurgosh1]

Watching this after my very lengthy solve makes me feel both brilliant and stupid. I got the break in almost immediately, but after that every cell was a struggle. Simon took a while to find the break in, but cleaned up the rest of the puzzle really smoothly.

[@maurobraunstein9497]

I haven't watched the video yet, but my final digit was a 5 with a time of 55:55. Coincidence aside, I'm actually really happy that I'm able to come close to your time, Simon. A few months ago I would be happy if I could get within triple your time, and that's assuming I could solve it at all. Now, I feel like I'm actually coming close to doing it in a reasonable time!

[@robinbrown6530]

The funniest thing about this puzzle for me is, Simon started wondering about the low digits because he thought they would be hard to place while I immediately suspected 5s. Then we both floundered around for a while until we put those two concepts together. lol

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 05:30 Let's Get Cracking: 06:01 Simon's time: 48m48s Puzzle Solved: 54:49 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Phistomefel: 10x (00:53, 00:55, 02:19, 03:18, 18:54, 18:57, 19:45, 19:45, 45:55, 55:59) Three In the Corner: 1x (50:53) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 13x (06:28, 06:38, 07:57, 08:37, 10:30, 11:30, 12:50, 14:18, 21:12, 23:17, 36:18, 50:36, 53:02) Beautiful: 6x (23:28, 31:54, 32:05, 34:41, 53:02, 55:20) Symmetry: 6x (08:16, 08:26, 19:26, 19:36, 19:48, 22:34) Clever: 5x (26:18, 32:05, 46:32, 54:46, 54:49) Hang On: 5x (06:38, 10:49, 13:06, 41:04, 45:16) Sorry: 4x (17:59, 21:22, 26:25, 27:50) By Sudoku: 4x (36:13, 44:13, 44:25, 46:02) In Fact: 4x (24:18, 39:10, 40:07, 50:53) Nonsense: 3x (15:37, 15:37, 26:25) Stuck: 3x (03:40, 50:38, 52:35) Lovely: 3x (28:48, 28:50, 36:27) Brilliant: 3x (02:07, 54:56, 55:59) Obviously: 3x (01:34, 10:15, 44:31) Goodness: 2x (10:36, 32:00) Hypothecate: 2x (11:37, 14:37) I've Got It!: 2x (23:17, 23:17) Pencil Mark/mark: 2x (35:58, 53:34) Good Grief: 1x (38:42) What on Earth: 1x (49:15) In the Spotlight: 1x (50:56) Inarticulate: 1x (21:25) Discombobulating: 1x (30:55) Approachable: 1x (02:21) Spider-Sense: 1x (11:02) Of All Things: 1x (48:05) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (52:21) Wow: 1x (54:44) The Power of Maths: 1x (51:06) Cake!: 1x (02:51) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Ten (38 mentions) One (134 mentions) Red (3 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (19) - High (8) Row (58) - Column (7) 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!

[@mawillix2018]

Thanks for the hard work.

[@ianstewart5791]

Woah that’s incredible!

[@_aullik]

Did something happen to your bot, i didnt see it on the latest videos.

[@TheBalefire]

Quite a collection of statistics! It would be neat to show the moment the first digit was solved on the board, this one was at 29:19

[@kathyjohnson2043]

One of my favorite guitar introductions ever. Thank you. BTW, this video should be titled, "Hungover Simon tries to solve a Phistomefel puzzle."

[@amysteele2488]

My favourite way to spend an evening has to be watching Simon solve a Phistomel puzzle. This one was a cracker! And for once I didn't fall asleep to the sound of Simon's voice :)

[@amysteele2488]

*Phistomefel... the perils of posting at silly o'clock!

[@emilywilliams3237]

First, love the guitar intro. Always a hit no matter what you play, I would say. (I am basically ignorant of almost all popular culture stuff, maybe especially popular music, so I rarely know what the song actually is. I just like your playing. And singing, should you care to favor us.) Second, yes, I would love to see videos and/or streams of you and Mark solving the puzzles in the free 500 subs celebration pack. Even with the hints I will not be able to solve all of them, I feel sure, but even if I could solve them all in 10 minutes each I would enjoy watching you and Mark solve them. Third, this puzzle: this was fantastic. I did have a fleeting thought as you read the rules, "How will 5s work in this?" but I was entirely willing to watch you reason about 1s and 2s at the beginning. And the first 25 minutes were not nonsense, what you did during that early time was (for me, at least) foundational to understanding how the rest of the puzzle unfolded. As you know by now, I will never accept an apology from you on how you go about a solve, but especially for that kind of thing. I feel that any demonstration about your thinking as you approach a puzzle is instructive to me. And finally, I do love your use of the word "hypothecated." A very enjoyable evening, Simon. Thank you for all that you (and Mark) do to keep us knee deep in these wonderful puzzles twice each and every day. Very much appreciated.

[@instantnoob]

I also don't know what song he's playing, but I wish very much that I did!

[@michaelbassetti4987]

@@instantnoob a classic! kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmW0fGuIrah0rdE

[@efa666]

Bobbins - More than an X-wing

[@joelstevens5670]

This sudoku was effectively a case of trying to come up with an idea, scrapping it part way through, then having several lightbulb moments after starting again. Brilliantly put together by Phistomefel and an amazing puzzle solving experience overall. 🙂

[@emmbeesea]

Simon, you sure know to reach out to a wider audience. More Than a Feeling! (:

[@k0cc425]

I think a good way to look at the non-line spots in r1 and r9 would be to notice that the lines must sum to at least 40, due to the rules, thus getting the "these digits must be low" directly from that observation.

[@DiMono]

Some logic you missed in the early solve: 1s in rows 1 and 9 are basically a sort of skyscraper, which means either R1C4 or R9C3 is 1. The shapes of the triangles mean that 9 in columns 3 and 4 are always on those triangles, which a) kicks 1 out of R4C5, and b) kicks 2 off the big triangle on the left, restricting it in column 4 to R1C4, R3C4, or R7C4. With that knowledge, you can write in 2 in column 4 and 8 in column 3 as soon as you deduce the orientation of the double 5s. You got that anyway shortly thereafter, but I still think the extra logic is elegant.

[@GotG113]

"When I'm tired and thinking cold I hide in my music, forget the day And dream of a girl I used to know I closed my eyes and she slipped away She slipped away" 🎶🎶🎵🎵🎵❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@stuartharris2165]

attempting Phistomefel with a hangover! Another brill video

[@firefiasco4138]

Awesome guitar playing

[@jonathanmahoney1672]

Cracking!

[@crystalgehrt8861]

This puzzle was so much fun. There were so many little interesting tricks of logic built into it with Phistomefelian care. It is elegant, simple, and remarkably easy for a Phistomefel.

[@abdoroma6928]

41:14 "If that's 3 , not both!" I laughed hard😂

[@headoftss]

I’ve seen many fantastic puzzles on this channel over the past few years but this one is head and shoulders above the rest. It is just stupendous. What an achievement.

[@robingrimm3443]

I love every time we get a guitar intro!! I know that if we get one every day it would stop feeling like a special intro, but on the other hand it would be more guitar intros!

[@Swisswavey]

49 minutes, but what a great puzzle. Such a simple ruleset but fantastically clever. The man is a genius. Thanks for sharing it.

[@RichardDamon]

I first thought from the Title that the rules set was going to be just: "Normal Suduko Rules Apply".

[@stevieinselby]

A simpler break-in comes at the top of the grid. Where a triangle is completely within one box, it must have 2 digits from {6,7,8,9} on it. The three triangles that are completely within boxes at the top use up 6 of the high digits for the top two rows. The domino uses another one. That means that there is only one high digit left for the triangle that spans two boxes, so the only way to make that work is 5-5-high. That then places the 1s in rows 1 and 9 from the earlier deduction.

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

25:08 for me. Another masterpiece by Phistomefel. What a fantastic puzzle from such a simple ruleset, I loved solving this one.

[@awilliams1701]

I would love to see some of those puzzles solved. Especially the late ones. Some of them I understood the hints but I had a hard time seeing it even the 2nd time. One of them I didn't even understand the hints. It might be the last one. One of the hint didn't make any sense until I did it a second time and figured out part of the hint without using the hint and then I saw the hint and was like......oh yeah I see that now.

[@danielcenteno8741]

Loved the More than a Feeling bit! Always love the guitar intros to the videos, whether they tie into the puzzle or not

[@gambit3391]

“The top triangles, although they are triangular…” Another knowledge bomb from CTC

[@pbush071987]

Only phistomefel can make Simon do sudoku x-wongs in a sudoku puzzle without complaining about it

[@killamoosdraree730]

Phistomefel! And the puzzle was released on my birthday even!! I absolutely adore every puzzle this wonderful sudoku magician creates for us mere mortals to enjoy! Thanks so much for the pure joy you have brought me on this day. What a wonderful gift.

[@Mowraq]

I love those moments where I see something you don't. From 42:30 onward you could have already done the thing with the 4 6 in the top row. Happiest and angriest five minutes of my day.

[@th.nd.r]

Wonderful setting and solving! Way to catch the 3 in the corner. Love a puzzle like this that feels like an entirely different set of logic than any other puzzle, and I hope the 10-line ruleset becomes a mainstay. Also beautiful music!!

[@nickbeutler]

I love when Simon gets so lost in the sauce of the variant rule logic that he forgets to play Sudoku

[@yandyyay]

A nice rendition to start. I like this video already, thanks simon.

[@Grandy_UiD]

I would LOVE to see you solving the app puzzles. As much as I love them, I found them to be considerably more difficult than puzzles (of the same star rating) from your other apps.

[@nkorppi]

Wow. A new favourite. What a puzzle. Most fun time solving this of any puzzle this year.

[@WereDictionary]

I got as far as "I have got a dreadful hangover and I've got to deal with Phistomefel today" and Im hooked already. Phistomefel seems to be this mystery person where nobody knows what they look like, what they are doing for a living and how they spend their private time, yet they manage to blindside people of Simon's caliber on the regular. Part of me wants them to be a Good Will Hunting-style janitor or something because how cool would that be. Based on their chosen name I can tell that they are likely fluent in german and familiar with german literature though, however thin of a thread that may be.

[@kkondrashov]

Even better question to ask is how many high digits do you need for triangles in rows 1-2 and rows 8-9. Unless you use double 5 on some of them the answer is at least two per triangle making short lines in rows 2 and 8 impossible. And then there's only one place at the top of the grid to place double 5 triangle.

[@geo-fry6372]

That’s exactly what I figured out when solving it; it made the whole puzzle waaaaaay easier once I noticed it

[@KeithGrant]

Yeah this is exactly where I started. Got about a dozen digits in relatively quickly, then got stuck for like an hour

[@shaneb1470]

The "more than a feeling" intro was very well done!

[@monkasaurus]

“It’s not the magic mushrooms, it’s the hangover…” haha

[@erichvereen1988]

Boston intro with a Nirvana send off right before the puzzle. Interesting choice of combinations, Simon. 😊

[@chadscarborough7517]

I think it was Boston the whole time. "More than a Feeling". Though I can see how it does sound like "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

[@richardwall2164]

Don’t think it was Nirvana … but very similar chords. Saw Nirvana at Reading festival in the early 90’s and they played the same opening… crowd went wild expecting Teen Spirit but they went straight into More Than a Feeling. Good times. Going to see if there’s footage of that on KZbin now!

[@gordonbos5447]

Already had a chance at this one through one of the other channels. Love how you struggled the same way to find the opening and at first failed to consider double 5 as an option to create 10. Also fairly interested to see you focussing on the bottom part of the puzzle , just like Bremster did, whereas the actual opening starts in the top half. It appears to me that Phistomefel aimed to trick you into following a fake lead based on some algorithm that you both know and because I don't I was able to see through a lot earlier. Finished the puzzle myself in 44:07.

[@dragonspight]

This puzzle makes me want to send Phistomefel chocolates and flowers for Valentines Day

[@tyrgannusgaming6657]

Video Title: The Shortest Ruleset Ever Classic Sudoku Features: Am I joke to you?

[@johnrupesh4535]

I come back to the channel after 3 weeks and the first thing I see here is a puzzle by Phistomefel. Absolute joy..

[@ericpraline1302]

Another magical mystery tour from Phistomefel. (He seems to have a penchant for adjacent-digit constraints.) Please do keep them coming.

[@Crystal-ef3dm]

70:35 but I used the hint with the fives. I was thinking of the low digits but didn't see how the fives could possibly be restricted. That was so clever and so well hidden. Phistomefel really is a wizard.

[@clockworkkirlia7475]

Elegant and fascinating!

[@william2496]

That acoustic version of More than A Feeling is beautiful!

[@Ashimo]

Love the intro, dont mind the inebriated, keep the phisto comming.

[@menturinai1387]

This has definitely been one of my favorite watches from your channel recently.

[@DevilWearsAdidas]

lol as soon as you put that 5 on the line near the end 52:10, I was like "SIMON! :|" haha

[@riffclown8909]

Love the intro!!

[@SuperFralin]

Watching a Phistomefel puzzle is like watching great art. No chance I could do it myself but it is besutiful

[@wedgwoodswepston9449]

Yes please to stream the puzzles I’m enjoying doing them in my rather inept way, even with some hints i have still got stuck as to the logic a few times

[@MiguelOliveira87]

The streams idea sounds great!

[@couchalmark675]

33:24 An easier way to make this deduction is that because 2 is in the middle of box 8, box 5 has 289 in either c4 or c6, which means 9 must be in c5 in box 2. This means the second triangle in row 1 can't have double 9, so the 1 is r1c7.

[@danielepicone1480]

Oh! Quite proud of finally having solved a Phistomefel puzzle by myself, with a non disastrous time of 65:46. I love how this puzzle always has a different logic at every step even if it looks deceptively symmetric when you open it up.

[@jessetingle9055]

Phistomefel puzzle AND Simon guitar (after what sounds like a very fun night)? Fantastic

[@remybeauchamp]

I LIVE Boston! Hadn't listen to them in a while and made a friend listen to this song no longer than last week! Oh, and great solve as always 😁

[@tanadienwhiteowl211]

When I saw this on LMG, I was like, I'll wait for Simon.

[@bensay8442]

Nice intro! Loved the tipsy video, but sorry to hear you’re hung over today. And thanks for another cool video!

[@ibdoomed]

I've been watching Simon for years and either he's teaching me sudoku or he's slowing down and missing things. Good to know I'm getting better at spotting things. Good teaching Simon.

[@dkamm65]

More than a Feeling!

[@darthrainbows]

Wow, what a break in! I had half a dozen false starts before I figured out the trick with the 5's.

[@tomsamper4345]

Phistomefel, you magnificent bastard you’ve done it again!

[@martingayle5376]

At 33:17 Simon placed the 5s r1r2 based on faulty logic. Luckily, it was the correct placement. The 2 red cells in r1 had to be associated with a virtual 1-5 pair due to double 5s and 9s. The reason that left side had to be the location of location of the 5s was not to provide a place to put double 5s but to prevent placing double 9s which would preclude placing a 2 in r1.

[@mermaid_hina2713]

That's funny, "More Than a Feeling" played on my ride to work Saturday I believe, I could be wrong.

[@fluffyunicorn7187]

I think when you have puzzles that require coloring low and high digits, I think 5 should get colored green since it's in the middle Everyone deserves a color

[@WilcoVerhoef]

I just solved this puzzle using yellow fives

[@jaeusa160]

I personally give 5s Grey when I can in High-Low coloring situations.

[@KyleBaran90]

I do this depending on the puzzle. Sometimes you just care about low/high parity (eg whispers), but sometimes you need low/mid/high digits (157s or entropy lines)

[@333name]

Alternatively: Mixing orange and blue gives you purple, which happens to correspond to the location purple is on the pad (fifth slot, green is four)

[@fluffyunicorn7187]

@@333name orange is sun, blue is water, grass is in the middle

[@vincet68]

For once, and I mean once, I was ahead of Simon several times in a puzzle! Mainly because I’ve been playing a ton of domino sudoku in the app so my scanning is for low/high right now - great puzzle!

[@fakjbf3129]

I would love to see a stream of you guys solving a few of the 500k celebration puzzles. I’ve been slowly working my way through them, and I’ve found myself more than once looking at the custom hints and not being able to follow the logic it’s trying to point out. For example it might say that two squares are limited to being two numbers but I’ll look around and not see how to justify it.

[@TheBranDingo]

I absolutely LOVE the larger aspect ratio. It makes the video look much better. I wouldn't mind if you got rid of the black bars all together.

[@kwantisimo]

a beautiful puzzle indeed, i was about to face a uniqueness problem at the end because I had a 46 problem with box 4,5, and 6 but i resolved it with a little coloring.

[@BozoTheBear]

Such a brilliant puzzle! I'm really enjoying the "easier" ones Phistomofel has been putting out recently. Elegant rules, superbly designed, so you can enjoy the brilliance without having to slog it out so much. Having said that, it still took me 84 minutes, though I did get the opening tricks a lot quicker than Simon (I wasn't hung over).

[@mibadada]

This was so much fun to solve!

[@Kinada]

Took me about an hour and a half. Quite a surprise for a puzzle like this.

[@Paul-cn3ij]

Such a great puzzle. Yet to watch Simon's video as I don't get a long enough lunch break. Makes it bearable though with a 26:38 solve time!

[@MrAranica]

5 hours this took me. Phistomefel is a sadistic genius.

[@tobistamm3123]

i did it I finally solved a phistomefel puzzle without mistake... it took a lot of time but jeah amazing feeling to see progress like this thanks a lot for this channel

[@bruresende]

Brilliant puzzle and amazing solving, as usual. About the streaming, the easier way you can solve the screens issue is through Discord itself. You can share your screen while in a call with Mark...

[@prunabluepepper]

🥳🤣😂🥳 loved the intro. must be a good video. 🍄

[@46lespaul]

Phistomefel makes it so hard to get one digit it hardly feels like progress he is a mad genius

[@markp7262]

46:10 finish. I made the mistake (on the left triangle in the center) of assuming that the 4 had to be in the middle of the line. Fortunately, as the center rows were the last to solve, there was not much backtracking necessary to fix it. It DID, however, take a while to see the mistake for what it was. Another brilliant puzzle, of course.

[@fulalbatross]

"I don't think you're gonna see that anytime soon".... So you're saying there's a chance at some later date? I can wait!! =D

[@FernandoSerboncini]

this was super fun :))

[@sebastienlecoq3956]

Simon having to resort to go meta and decrypting the intent of the setter before decrypting the puzzle.

[@MrGarmzon]

Yes! Streaming!

[@leickrobinson5186]

What a beautiful puzzle! (Took me 80 minutes, but I’m happy to have solved it at all!) :-D

[@lord_chozo7341]

Simon: I'm asking all the wrong questions. Eric Morecambe: You're asking all the RIGHT questions, but not necessarily in the right order.

[@pg5200]

What a masterpiece ! 32:55 for me, this puzzle was an absolute joy !

[@themorebeer3072]

The other day I witnessed a genius creation that was two identical puzzles with the same set but contrasting rules that not only solved but solved beautifully. I thought 'this is probably the cleverest creation I've ever seen, and Phistomefel set that bar really high'. So of course when I saw what was on offer today...