Trying to Work out if we are Coming or Going?

You can work it out for yourself by trying Va-Et-Vient by Joseph Nehme here: app.crackingthecryptic.com/2l...
Normal sudoku rules apply. Digits along a purple line form a sequence of consecutive numbers in any order. Adjacent numbers on a green line must have a difference of at least 5. Digits cannot repat in a cage and sum to the number given.
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Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the twelve-time winner of The Times crossword championship and twice Senior World Champion in Sudoku, and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
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▶ Contents ◀
0:00 Theme Music & News around the channel
2:36 Rules of today’s puzzle
3:55 Start Of Solve - Let's Get Cracking!

[@mrrobotman5299]

This is the first time I've ever gotten a faster time than Mark. What helped me do it was I started by adding up all the cages in columns 6 and 7. These total 86 so by the secret the remaining 2 cells and up to 4 and resolve the parity of the whisper. Now to watch and see how Mark does it. Edit: he did the same. I wonder how I was faster.

[@vezonn8010]

Mark not seeing that 9 in r8c5 going with the 4 the whole time made me go crazy 😂

[@emilywilliams3237]

I was watching that - I don't think it would have accelerated the solve if he had noticed it right away. It would have shaved a couple of seconds off if he had noticed it when he started coloring 8s and 9s against each other. I don't think it made a huge difference.

[@shadowofaman69]

Especially after spending a reasonable amount of time earlier going over what happens specifically with it with the 4.

[@smokeyassassin]

@@emilywilliams3237 getting that 9 would have made most of the right hand cage allocations clear, and colapsed the puzzle

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@smokeyassassin You may be right. I have not solved the puzzle, myself. But after he did not immediately make that cell a 9 I paused and traced what would have happened if he had, and I truly don't think it would have made much difference until many steps later. It would not have collapsed the puzzle immediately, for sure. But you may be right.

[@uigrad]

After a minute of him not seeing it, I thought "I'll bet it's another 5 minutes before he notices it!" I was under by about 20 minutes. Honestly, solving this in hard mode is even more impressive, though!

[@Nora-Can]

I found it more elegant to notice that neither a 1 nor a 6 could go into the 17 sum cage. That meant that both 2 and 3 had to go in that cage. That quickly resolved row 9 col 6, and the solution advanced from there fairly easily.

[@DOSSTONED]

Yeah, me too, with the help of killer calculator, quickly find without 1 and 6, only possible combinations is 2348, 2357

[@istvanmagi473]

Wait what? All the real difficulties come later. Nothing is "fairly easy" after that conclusion.

[@yehwellwhatever]

I kept screaming at the screen that he should resolve the German Whisper after he put the 4 in at the bottom and he never even mentioned it at all. Would’ve saved quite a few minutes, I’m pretty sure.

[@arthurhoffman-bq7pg]

It seems like he doesn’t even hear the screams.

[@cjktoo]

I think if he had gone and answered the doorbell, he would have come back with a fresh set of eyes and seen the 9😂

[@garrettjones6793]

It was agony

[@psymar]

I kept missing that until after doing a bunch more than resulted in that 9 causing a contradiction when I finally saw it. This somehow happened 2 or 3 times before I finally just backed up to where I put the 4 in, then immediately put the 9 in, and the puzzle fell apart after that.

[@j.d.rouanensignsteve6308]

infuriating!

[@angec9908]

I’m yelling at Mark from the future to put that 9 on the whispers line ;)

[@RichSmith77]

I think one of us used a time machine, rang his doorbell twice, but he refused to come to the door.

[@csnut343]

A very nice puzzle, and I'd like to voice my appreciation for the formatting of the rules in the puzzle link. I find bullet points much easier to parse than just a wall of text. Also, having an indicator like "Normal Renban rules" makes me that much more confident that I didn't miss some wrinkle in the rules and were that standard would make it obvious by its absence when rules are close to a standard rule type but different in some way. Good stuff. More of that in the future please.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

I agree.

[@stevieinselby]

⬆ ALL OF THIS ⬆ It is *so much easier* to parse the rules for the puzzle if it says "Normal killer rules apply" then details what those rules are, then has a break before the next rule. Please please pretty please can we have this format on more/all puzzles, especially those that use common variants!

[@darthrainbows]

Exactly. This is how rules should be written. I dislike having to parse things like "numbers cannot repeat in cages and must sum to the small number in the corner", or "numbers in cages must sum to the small number in the corner and cannot repeat", or "cages containg unique sets of numbers which sum to the total in the corner", or any of the seemingly endless ways I've seen people write that rule out. Just say "killer sudoku" and then explain it for everyone who doesn't know what that means.

[@anaayoung9142]

I am so happy that I was able to do this one alone and without hints! Very proud of myself for this little accomplishment! ☺

[@davidstorrs]

Great job! This was a hard one; you earned that pride.

[@anaayoung9142]

@@davidstorrs Thank you! =)

[@srwapo]

@14:40, you could have gotten that 1 by seeing that's the only cell on that purple line that isn't seeing a 1 elsewhere on the grid.

[@vulkandrache1928]

After counting the cages i went with a different approach: The lines need a set of 1-9 each, for example the 1 in row 7 gets placed right away with that.

[@geezerama]

I'm delighted with 31:42. Thanks Mark and Joseph.

[@piarittersporn]

"Where do we start?" Good question. It took me quite a long time to find the start but after a while I could go on fluently. Great puzzle.

[@grahamania]

00:53:32 for me. Great Puzzle. Loved the how such a simple set of rules worked together! Kind comment.

[@jinkela7295]

24:05 Actually, placing 2 in r9c6 will also place two 2's in r5c5 and r6c7 (because the 17 cage needs 1 or 2 in it, and now you can't place a 1 in that cage), which will make it impossible to place a 2 on the righthand renban

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 44 minutes. I felt really good on this puzzle. I really like the geometry of this puzzle with the cages restricting other cages, which led to disproving that 2 could be in r9c6. I also thought the rules could allow for repeats on the renbans, but the rules in the software cleared that up. I really liked this puzzle. The ending was also fun and surprising that two extra digits on the edges can disambiguate the whole thing. As always, it feels good to beat Mark's time. Great Puzzle!

[@emilywilliams3237]

I have to say, Mark, I enjoy the videos of all lengths, but I especially enjoy the occasional 1-hour video from you. This always means there is something interesting in the puzzle, and of course this fit that bill. Thanks so much for all that you do to bring the sudoku to us every single day - much appreciated.

[@LaatiMafia]

I was very happy when I figured out the first digit. I nervously pressed the check button. Only to find the puzzle had no solution added.

[@andilee3537]

This was just so nicely made. Well done. Beautiful logic and interplay between the rulesets

[@darthrainbows]

Wow! I crushed Mark's solve time on this one. 19:15! Wooooooooo!

[@Kirbyfan87827]

Finished in 13:59. A very satisfying puzzle, almost too easy, though that's probably due to the length of the renban lines, so I didn't have to think too hard on the one constraint of the puzzle I'm weakest at.

[@efa666]

And I thought my 15:54 was pretty good lol

[@Kirbyfan87827]

@@efa666 I'd say that's a great time, compared to the length of the video.

[@roccov3614]

What I tried, and made some progress with, was to look at the 3 columns that enclose 1 renban. In those 3 columns, every digit appears once on that renban and twice off the renban. With that little constraint I was able to do a bit of work.

[@joaovicente8777]

57:49 Mark is a man of culture 👍🏻

[@AdmiralMinell]

It's definitely deliberate, it's not the first time.

[@titusadduxas]

37:30 - OMG - I beat Mark!! Happy days.

[@Rach881101]

61:20 for me. Nice puzzle!

[@jessecox6003]

46.36 - but on my third try. Brilliant puzzle, I loved it!

[@Gonzalo_Garcia_]

12:11 for me. Nice puzzle!

[@jdyerjdyer]

Took longer than I expected considering the tight pack of clues in the middle columns of the grid. Maybe it was the math that slowed me down? I do struggle with cage sums, sometimes. This puzzle just took some time and patience to whittle away at where to place the digits. Once you have the middle columns, simple sudoku. A nice evening diversion. Thanks!

[@ericpraline1302]

Good one, thanks. The only chances I get to beat Mark's times are on the longer solves. I also appreciated that cols 1,2,8,9 were relatively painless.

[@Swigga666]

32:42 Putting a 2 in r9c6, forces a 2 into r5c7 (otherwise would break the 17 cage), leaving nowhere for 2 in c5

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

Nice approachable puzzle.

[@psiphiorg]

A very nice puzzle. My time today was 27:51, solver number 3701.

[@steveunderwood3683]

I tinkered unsuccessfully with sets for a while, as it seemed sooo close to something meaningful being there.

[@HalfBakedLunatic]

Early on, it was obvious that 1 could only go in the 'right hand' Renban in R9C7, which would force R1C3 to be 3 ... but Mark went around the more difficult way and first proved that R1C3 was 3, and then placed the 1 😁

[@glum_hippo]

The return of Zooz! And I am here for it

[@balthazarbeutelwolf9097]

I got this a bit quicker, 46 min. Admittedly I bifurcated on that pesky 2/4 alternative in the 26 cage, rejecting the 2-alternative more quickly. And there was the glaringly obvious 9 on the whisper line in box 8 which Mark refused to fill in.

[@hannahgoldberg1064]

It’s always fun to solve and then go back and see how different they solved it. Got it in ~40 minutes, definitely took me a while to catch on the the 4 at the bottom and the subsequent 9 in column 4, but once I did it was smooth sailing.

[@AndreAy1975]

Solved it with help from the video.

[@megaminxpll]

12:27 for me, did alot of checking & calculating on the right bunch of cages, and when they were done the collapse came.

[@DJMcFlinty]

That 9 on the whisper hurt

[@JohnRandomness105]

I had to write out the possible combination for the right-hand 17 and 19 cages (ruling out 1s and 9s). Then 2 in R9C6 (the end of the green line) gave a 45 pair in block 2 -- I used the sum-to-8 cells but you placed 6 in block 2 -- the result is the same. I can't really remember the trouble it caused, but it broke one of the cages -- perhaps by forcing a 6 above the pointing pair of 6s. Once 4 was placed in R9C6, the solving went slow and steady to completion. 31:50 My method most certainly wasn't simpler, as I had to cornermark cells just to keep track of what was happening. Among other things, the 2 gave a 6789 quad in column 7.

[@lorenb6066]

At about the 30min mark, I think if you had started with r9c6 being a 2, you would have also found that 1 and 2 can't go in the 17 cage, and 3+4+5+6=18. (Actually, I suspect you found it if I just keep watching)

[@LednacekZ]

42:35 for me. nice logic, but a little bit convoluted.

[@nervio2701]

so proud of myself did it in 00:21:44

[@jinkela7295]

38:06 2 can't be placed in r5c7 because this will break column 5

[@gibbbon]

i never noticed before that the saying "come and go" in French is literally "go and come" another thing that work in reverse across the language barrier

[@Leslie_AF]

19:33 for me. Going to watch this video for morbid curiosity of how I finally beat mark’s time, and by a crazy amount.

[@jdyerjdyer]

I don't know if it is simpler, but I ruled the 7 out by looking at the placements of 6s and 7s together between the renban and column 6 which forced a problem in box 2 with either a duplicated 6 or a triple from only 45.

[@jdyerjdyer]

A 7 in R8C5 places a 2 into R9C6 making the other cells in the cage from 789 with the 7 in R7C6 putting an 89 pair in the other two cells. That gives you an 89 pair in column 6, but it also takes the place of the 6 on the renban forcing R2C6 to be a 6. Now the renban needs a 7, but it can't be on the cells in column 7 due to the 7 in R7C7. That leaves only one place for the 7, R6C6. That just leaves 4 and 5 to be placed in column 6 meaning R3C6 is from 45, but now we have three cells in box 2 from 45 (R1C4, R3C5, and R3C6).

[@jdyerjdyer]

Btw, I think you had a much lovelier way to reduce the R9C6. I had used the 8 forcing it to be a 2 to chain into a problem with one of the cage's sums. In a way, I think this is funny because for one reduction I had a simpler path, and for the other you did. Do you find it funny? At least we both get there in the end and that is what counts. Logic is logic. :)

[@mxpxorsist]

17:46 for me

[@aepilotjim]

The rule that threw me on this puzzle was that digits couldn't repat in the cage. Spent half an hour trying to figure that one out. :D😁

[@MarkBennet10001]

Four digits not including 1 or 2 add up to at least 18 (3456), so the 17 cage has a 2 is one way to look at it to progress the logic.

[@emilywilliams3237]

And he did that, with that exact logic, right? Maybe not at the point you noticed it, of course.

[@MarkBennet10001]

@@emilywilliams3237 Of course - I should have put a time indication on - I guess it was inevitable he'd realise as it was a hard thing to bypass - but then he got a 9 without the whisper. It is one of my classic moves to make a deduction hard by not using all the clues ...

[@emilywilliams3237]

@@MarkBennet10001 I find that I don't always know what to look at next, so whatever falls under my eye is what I focus on. It is not always the easiest or best next step, for sure!

[@theredstoneengineer6934]

33:31 for me

[@sonicwaveinfinitymiddwelle8555]

explorers if it was big

[@aspinninggreycube1270]

48:18. I beat Mark in a very rare occurrence. This usually happens because I made an unwarranted assumption at some point and it just happened to be correct by luck.

[@leickrobinson5186]

48:07 for me. :-D

[@TurquoizeGoldscraper]

42:41 for me.

[@tonybrooms]

01:04:59

[@spin-rg9ib]

i dont care that mark has to slow down to explain the logic in all the steps of the puzzle. i got a faster time than Mark 44:19. I beat him. So in conclusion i guess that makes me better at puzzles than Mark. LOL P.S. How about we let me just have this win and not use logic to dispute my conclusions please. it will probably be my only chance to get this win.

[@Paolo_De_Leva]

😁👍

[@Pritchie45]

43 minutes

[@Petrus74-yj4kv]

It's surprising how easily Mark got overwhelmed by few lines and cages... Maybe because he kept treating every one of them as if they acted independently, when in reality they were interplaying, restricting each other. All in all, a rather disappointing solve.

[@ghasttastic1912]

this comment is the first and also i claimed it

[@unpopularopinion2827]

This comment is the best, and I claim it