The Sudoku Map

** TODAY'S SUDOKU **
A beautiful and approachable puzzle today from rdndnt called Trail Map. This one is a joy from start to finish so do try to give it a go at the link below:
app.crackingthecryptic.com/su...
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Cells separated by a knight's move (in chess) cannot contain the same digit. In cages, digits must sum to the small clue in the top left corner of the cage. Digits cannot repeat within a cage. The grey line is a palindrome ie digits on the line read the same from both directions.
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[@tylergarrett455]

This was my first solve without needing help from Simon or Mark, and it took me 62:43. That would be embarrassingly long for a lot of people here but I'm just happy to finish!

[@sarahcohen9143]

That’s what she said

[@samanthaarmes4305]

Good job!!

[@OrphicMonkey]

If it makes you feel better, it took me 67:48. My solves pretty consistently take 3 to 4 times longer than Mark or Simon's, but I am steadily improving. I used to be closer to 8 times slower than them.

Same here. First non-GAS solve without help.

[@davidh.4944]

Good work. I've been here for two years now, and I only beat you by 17 seconds. It seems that some of us just aren't cut out for speed solving. You do get better over time, though. I may not be much faster overall, but at least I am now able to tackle much more complex puzzles than when I first started out.

[@Sam-ch9xu]

My first digit was the 4 in r1c6. Not often that I go such a different order to Simon.

[@leppyr64]

Interesting! How did you come to that deduction?

[@MH-dn3jz]

Don't get me wrong I love seeing Simon tackle some of the epic, mind melting hard puzzles. But it's also nice to just see some of these easier puzzles get knocked out.

[@warulez]

18:33 a happy little accident without any consequences

[@Priscellie]

Genuinely approachable! I usually tackle Simon's puzzles expecting to need tips along the way, but not today. Nice little ego boost for the afternoon.

[@waneasle2066]

I love how Simon gives so much praise to the puzzle creators! ❤️

[@LeonardLew]

44:18, very nice when Simon does Puzzles I can manage as well.

[@JDraks]

21:24, enjoyed that one

[@AndreAy1975]

53:55 Solved it without any help from the video. Thias was a fun one!

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

15:58 for me. nice one.

[@dmdeemer]

At 11:30, "Why does my brain work this way!?" I don't know, Simon, but never change it, it's wonderful.

[@alexanderallison7131]

Really enjoyed this one. 36:39 for me

[@inspiringsand123]

Rules: 01:59 Let's Get Cracking: 03:56 Simon's time: 22m43s Puzzle Solved: 26:39 And how about this video's Simarkisms?! By Sudoku: 7x (05:42, 17:45, 17:48, 21:21, 21:24, 22:27, 25:00) Ah: 7x (05:29, 08:38, 08:42, 14:40, 14:41, 18:02, 23:52) Lovely: 4x (07:20, 08:03, 08:06, 15:05) Good Grief: 3x (12:05, 15:36, 21:44) The Answer is: 2x (01:00, 14:47) Clever: 2x (01:53, 26:53) Beautiful: 2x (05:29, 12:05) What on Earth: 1x (18:11) Sorry: 1x (16:59) I Have no Clue: 1x (10:16) Ridiculous: 1x (16:13) Hang On: 1x (07:20) Shenanigans: 1x (00:18) Doesn't get a Song: 1x (04:50) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (21:07) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Fourteen (11 mentions) Two (76 mentions) Red (4 mentions) 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!

[@rbalt]

The force is strong with this bot 👍🏻

[@legendgames128]

Very quick, eh? Good bot!

[@kaw57_]

this is some real inspiring sand

[@-syntaxerrorguy7-10]

are you *actually* a bot?

[@inspiringsand123]

@@-syntaxerrorguy7-10 I am

[@Coyotek4]

21:20 ... I suspect that this would have taken me a LOT longer a few years ago; how far I've come with my solving! Nice puzzle!

[@TheSonicPerson]

About time Simon did a Rdndnt puzzle. Rdndnt makes a lot of great experimental puzzles, a lot like Jeet does. They are very active on the discord server and I've been solving a lot of their puzzles frequently, including this one, and they're always lots of fun to solve.

[@rubens_cube]

What exactly do you mean when you say 'experimental puzzle'? I think I saw you comment something like this on another video, maybe it was a Jeet one, I don't remember and I was wondering what exactly you mean by that.

[@TheSonicPerson]

@@rubens_cube what I mean by that is puzzles that feel like sudoku experiments, playing around with the various constraints to see what happens.

[@chipsounder4633]

been a while since i seen simon solve a palindrome. everyday at 8:30 pm, you bring joy and teach so much. i even feel like you saved my life

[@pouletbelette]

First time ever Simon does not pick the digit 1 as an example to explain the knight's constraint. 😮

[@NFSHeld]

And thereby immediately breaks the puzzle. 😂 Just his luck of making examples on the fly. He often picks an example that breaks the puzzle. 😁

[@longwaytotipperary]

Very much enjoyed watching this one! Always enjoy watching anything you stream! 🙂

[@MisterM2402]

24:35 for me, so very close to Simon's time! I did colour in the whole palindrome though, that may have made it easier for me

[@mse326]

My news years resolution was not to forget about knight's moves restraints in puzzles. In fairness to me, I kept this one much longer than I usually keep NY resolutions.

[@thefallenarm589]

Just began this, already love how the palindrom teleports knight moves

[@AdventCloudStrife]

35:15 for me. Got hung up with figuring out which digits to color. I originally started with the ends of the palindrome, but they were too far apart to interact. Once I realized that it was better to start with the middle, things flowed fairly well. Lots of "Blue isn't black" and the like. I absolutely LOVE this concept for puzzles, where you basically fill in the grid with colors so that you know where every red, every blue, every green, etc. go, and then at the end fill in all the numbers in rapid succession. So satisfying. Edit: Wow, now that I've watched Simon's solve, I went a very different way. I missed a lot of the early work with 2s and 3s (I got the 5 cage sorted, but not much more). I wound up having to color the digits near the center of the palindrome, work out where they were, and basically colored the whole grid. Then at the very end, I used the cages to sort out what was what. The 2s and 3s were the last things I filled in XD

[@uselessengineer]

Nice. I started coloring all 7 digits of the palindrome on the right that had to be unique; then their matching space on the other end of the palindrome. Then I filled in the palindrome with what the color Could be. In the end, solved the box 2 like Simon and all the numbers fell in place in about 60 seconds

[@sampathkumar-ej7xl]

A superbly crafted puzzle that gave a lot of pleasure while solving.

[@sanctionbuster]

22:08. Have some of that!

[@Rach881101]

18:59 for me. Nice change from yesterday's difficult puzzle.

[@acantilado]

For me, this hits the difficulty perfectly. Thanks as always Simon!

[@ariel6574]

34:36 for me, such a colourful puzzle! now I'm going to watch Simon's solve and see how much i missed

[@robynrox]

Excellent puzzle, took me half an hour! Many thanks rdndnt!

[@KB-ee8xf]

This is the first time I'm click on a video in some time. Enjoyable as always. And I'm glad Simon has gotten a proper microphone and seemingly comfortable chair. As long a Mark can get proper camera angles lol

[@danigabe16]

Very enjoyable puzzle, Rdndnt! I am looking forward to the video. Simon, I appreciate when the video description has a little synopsis about the approachability of the puzzle like this one- thanks!

[@danielrhymer1762]

17:13 for me! Proud of that one because Knights and Palindrome are probably two of my weakest variants 😃

[@timotab]

After placing the 3 at each end of the palindrome, I noticed that 3 could not be anywhere else on the palindrome. That made placing the rest of the 3s (except the x-wing, resolved by 4s) pretty easy.

[@icepyrox]

Wow. I didn't see the 3 thing and just went to check. That's brilliant!

[@Daniel-mo2vp]

Great puzzle, hit the difficulty sweet spot for me for max enjoyment.

[@thedraak4912]

Was struggling with knight move's constraint as I'm not familiar with it, but managed to solve the puzzle by colouring the entire puzzle before putting any digits in which was nice (time was 48:58, but still glad I tried this one)

[@westonmarkham1294]

I did a similar thing, although I went one step further, by arbitrarily giving cells pencil-marked numbers without respecting the cages. That way I could, e.g., use "colors" in corner marks. Once the whole grid was filled with single-candidate pencil marks, I colored them & used the cages to figure out what their digits actually were. It still took me 70 minutes, though! I think my approach was good & made the puzzle easier for me. I was just slow at it.

[@wanderlustwarrior]

It took me 25:19 before I remembered the knight's move restriction, and then I solved it at 37:46. Probably would've done a lot better if I'd remembered the rules.

[@GrantMcLean]

Took me just under an hour, but I solved it with no hints from Simon. Thank you rdndnt and thank you Simon.

[@piarittersporn]

A really beautiful puzzle, which I enjoyed very much.

[@physicsnerd02]

21:49 A very nice solve. Amazing to see how quickly I'm picking up on my scanning with multiple constraints.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 31:05 minutes. This one was surprisingly tricky. Finding where the 3s and 2s went were not easy and left me scrambling for a spot. I did find some cool logic that put it all together. Then, my entire grid was left with just 567s, not realizing that my 14 cage was the distinguisher. However, I was having too much fun coloring them. Great Puzzle!

[@aidarosullivan5269]

Wow, the smoothest solve in a while!

[@th.nd.r]

Nice setting and solving! I love how intentionally the palindrome line was drawn. Well done on the solve time!

[@Lypsy68]

beautiful puzzle, solving was smooth as sailing

[@bigjoemaggie5267]

Solved in 90 seconds! Beautiful!

[@francoisduez601]

23:52 without hurrying, nice approachable puzzle (but not a GAS 😉)

[@kathyjohnson2043]

So a NAP?

[@francoisduez601]

Indeed a good NAP, although a bit late 😁

[@PeterDB90]

I noticed that once I placed a 3 on the end of the palindrome in box 9, it ruled out a 3 on the next 8 points of the palindrome, which helped me narrow down 3 in box 4 to 3 cells. Multiple ways to solve this, which I (a person who doesn't have Simon's brilliant brain) certainly appreciate :P

[@b.k.7573]

28:05, loved this puzzle. Loved how the anit knights move and the palindrome worked together. Pretty approachable if you have played these kind of rules before, was fun to solve

[@rungus24]

Just under 40 minutes, and it was incredibly satisfying a solve. And to think I almost gave up in the first few minutes.

[@5t757]

17:16, stoked with that, this was relatively straightforward as far as anti knight's move puzzles go, compared to the ones Simon's put up lately

[@jonbrowne8334]

Great puzzle! Excellent to watch compared to the long inexplicable ones! Thanks

[@tmmlis002]

I just LOVED this one!

[@Exkajer]

Idea for some special episode or april fools: Choose a very easy sudoku. Make one hour video of it. Purposely avoid simple solutions. Use as overcomplicated logic as possible to get the simplest "by sudoku" stuff solved.

[@OrphicMonkey]

Genius.

[@julieannmyers8714]

Tuesday?

[@brianagnes]

isn't that what he does every day? ;-)

[@markharrisontrumpet]

This was my first confident solve without any assistance from watching the video, was really happy to use loads of things I've learned from doing other puzzles on the channel, it was really really fun! Great puzzle, Simon - Thank you!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

11:35 for me. Definitely easier than yesterday’s, but quite enjoyable as well. Nice puzzle!

[@zarouliaall5390]

I love this puzzle! As someone who really enjoys sudoku but also really struggles with difficult puzzles, this one is perfect. The rules aren't confusing and it actually seems like something could accomplish on my own !

[@richardgullbrand5071]

Perfect timing with this upload! Thank you!

[@whatsleep17]

I liked how you could color the various pairs (2/3, 1/4, 8/9) leaving you with a fill of the 5,6,7s. Very nice puzzle!!!

[@CaptainSpock1701]

Dude, don't knock yourself for not seeing Sudoku (11:26) in a Sudoku puzzle. Personally I *love* that you dont see that because, that is the one thing that I actully can see sometimes. It does have the benefit of giving me that oh-so-rare moments where I can say: *"Yes! I saw it before Simon"* Keep up the great videos, both of you. Much respect from way down here in New Zealand!

[@Aliessil]

24:38 here :-) I got to the point where I just had 567 left everywhere and couldn't see how to disambiguate, so watched the video. As soon as Simon mentioned the 14-cage (which had somehow settled into my blindspot!) I was off again!

[@MBSPUHR842]

40:39. Not too bad, considering. enjoyed coloring the squares, first for the palindrome and then for the digits.

[@stuffedlegoguy461]

25:47! Fun puzzle. Used a bit of coloring for the cages but not much else. Went pretty well!

[@martinyyt]

I finished it!! 77:08. Just the second time I have finished a Simon puzzle. This one really shows why I have a love/hate relationship with this channel. I knew from Simon's time that there was a chance that I could do it. I started. Made some incorrect conclusions. Started again, etc. It was only on the 4th or maybe 5th attempt that I followed a correct logical path. So 77:08 really reflects about 4 hrs solving time. But, I finished it. And that makes me happy.

[@markp7262]

15:44 finish. I used a different logic path than Simon to establish the 1-4 pairs. I placed more of them, and instead of using the 14 cage, I placed green in the 21 cage to establish that it had to be 4. Very nice logic, I enjoyed it!

[@alexgrunde6682]

Or conversely, the 1 can’t be in the 21 cage and the knights move restriction forces it into row one, which looks at green.

[@samuelnoland5773]

37:11 for me! Loving this channel.

[@ToxicKnyfe]

Been trying some of the latest sudokus. Usually I get stuck and I'm unable to solve them, but I managed to solve this one. Which was also a very great puzzle!

[@kvom01]

Close to an hour for slowpoke me. Satisfying.

[@aknoob1944]

Thanks for this amazing video

[@siroberonyt]

Did it all via colours. Worked like a charm.

[@spelldaddy5386]

I tested this puzzle on discord a couple of weeks ago, and it was wonderful. I seem to recall it took me some time, but it has some nice logic to make up for it

[@DarkChasm]

Pretty cool, very approachable I would say, liked it alot! 💖💖💖💖

[@reubenmckay]

Yes! More live streaming! Would be great to see more of the Escape Room Simulator.

[@JalebJay]

21:12 the coloring confused me a bit more in a few places. Was expecting more to happen with the 19 and 21 cages.

[@gc2009able]

I have no idea how long this one took me because I opened the puzzle last night just before bed and apparently it kept counting all night... and I didn't notice till I was halfway through the solve! Gratifyingly, it didn't take me long, and it was great fun following the cascade of logic. A very satisfying puzzle!

[@mata2723]

that was great 57' with the help of the video ! The software doesnt check for knight move. If you swap 79 in box 4 and 6 at the end , it just say looks good to me....which would make it 2 different solutions possible unless you also do the knight move thing.....

[@alienrenders]

28:01 for me. Nice puzzle. That palindrome was hard to keep track of. lol

[@modestclick]

I was able to follow along with this one, mostly with colouring along the palindrome! 51:37 for me

[@crystalgehrt8861]

What a fun little puzzle!

[@Phoenixcaptain46]

I absolutely loved this one.

[@boydegg]

ok ... 38:44 :)

[@S_Black]

It was also possible to do some nice Simon-like coloring on the 8s and 9s to determine where they are and thus exclude some of the other digits

[@DarrenNakamura]

Got it in 43:54. Pretty pleasant solve!

[@johnlorenz377]

fun puzzle. Was able to make a little early progress with 1's as knights move limits the positions in box 3. entertaining solve thanks!

[@justcantforgetyou]

25:25 for me today. This is the closest I have come to Simon's time this far. Really nice, approachable puzzle that was very satisfying to solve.

[@praematura]

17:42 for me, though I must admit a few times I thought I'd really goofed the puzzle, which made for a few long pauses as I checked things. :) Definitely a nice puzzle, not too hard and quite fun to do.

[@aboaljod59]

It took me 79:36 - > 1:19:36 I should try to solve the puzzle using desktop instead of mobile phone becuase I got a lot of errors by typing wrong number accidently (small place) which I thought I typed the correct one 😅😅 But as beginner it is satisfying to solve this kind of puzzles👌

[@tyraeide9158]

I was about to give up on thid after 40 minutes yesterday, but I pushed through and continued today. Suddenly, something just snapped in place and the digits started giving themselves! Spent 90 minutes on this, probably my proudest solve as of yet 😄

[@clara931]

As it said. Quite approachable. Knight move is hard to visualize for me. Definitely need a lot of help from colouring

[@elfdogre2181]

Simon got off to a great start by running the train: 2-2-2-2 2-2-2-2 2-2! 😜

[@dollarsing]

Enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

[@Modeo]

This is the first time seeing something soo far ahead of Simon that I got frustrated. That one in box one was painful. But the what that means is that CtC has trained me well. Thanks for the content.

[@thisphantonia]

I actually turned this puzzle into one huge colouring exercise and progressed entirely differently after the beginning. It's really interesting how solve paths can diverge so drastically and end up at exactly the same place

[@matmeg6198]

106:28 which is a lot but I'm proud since it's the first I've completed without watching for any hints

[@matmeg6198]

You definitely did that a lot more elegantly than I did.

[@MartinSierig]

37:58 & first ever non-GAS puzzle solved for me. Wasted some time with being indecisive whether to use colours for potential positions or not 🤣 Very satisfying though and a lot of fun.

[@BRBTheFireball]

Solved in 26 minutes. You had me at "coloring".

[@fynnsternis6432]

omg :D I saw the start of the level and thought "i can do that" and I actually did. This makes me really happy, took me just over 47 minutes ^-^ Sometimes I surprise myself

[@21nck93]

37:34 is my time. It's been a year since I last solved a CTC sudoku, so I'm quite happy to know that the blood of sudoku still flows inside me.

[@danielfrank1618]

I'm sure others have asked and apologies if it's been addressed already, but any chance of doing a video with the puzzle in dark mode? Regardless, love these. Thanks for the video!

[@steveoneill8822]

YES! I finally solved a CTC puzzle! Only took me 1:22. I count that as a huge win! Now to watch Simon do it much quicker and with more finesse.

[@steveoneill8822]

Ah, yes. Simon was quicker and with more expertise. But I think I had more fun. I didn't get any numbers after the run of 2s and 3s in the beginning and played psychedelic sudoku, coloring the entire grid till I got (Simon's green) 1,4 locked into the 21 cage.

[@mudscuffer]

Started this one when I was tired, and it kicked my butt! ~54min.

[@BrooksMoses]

23:34 for me, and that is pretty much as close as I've ever come to beating Simon. I really enjoyed the puzzle, too. My starting strategy was to get as far as I could get with the cages, color a few corresponding squares on the line so I wouldn't have to count, and then remember that I had the knight's constraint and work with that. I found it amusing that most of the early digits I found weren't on the line; I would have expected to start out on the trail and then wander afield!

[@squizza]

I test a lot of rdndt puzzles on the discord server and although they are usually on the easier side of things they are usually quite clever. Good to see that they made the channel. This one was a beaut as well