Who Didn't Give This Puzzle 10/10? So far, NOBODY!

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** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
It would be hard to overstate Simon's love for this sudoku, Nurikiller by Abed Hawila. If you have any experience of the Japanese pencil puzzle Nurikabe then we think you'll find this one heaven!
Play the puzzle at the link below:
app.crackingth...
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Shade some cells using the following rules: cells containing clues in their top left corner must be unshaded (white); the digit in the cell with a “clue” in its top left corner gives the number of white cells orthogonally connected to that clue cell; the clue in the top left corner gives the sum of all the digits in that white area; digits cannot repeat within a white area; each area of white cells is separated by black cells; the black cells are linked to form a continuous orthogonally-connected wall; black cells cannot form a 2x2 square; and all possible clues have been given. Note: the given clues are NOT necessarily located in the leftmost cell of the highest row of that white area.
There is an example puzzle with the same ruleset as this one here:
logic-masters....
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[@hannaverlie6747]

It is both a blessing and a curse that you release videos just when I intend to go to sleep ❤

[@Jonas.Nilsson]

Every night!

[@gloria3355]

That's why I usually watch them 2x. Firstly when they upload it and secondly during the day because most of the time I fall asleep before I finish watching it in the evening so I want to see it being solved.

[@Jonas.Nilsson]

​@@gloria3355 Well, yes, that is exacly why im here again! Time to watch the end of the video!

[@debrawilden1971]

Save them for the next day?

[@HunterJE]

So fitting that you're doing a pencil-puzzle hybrid on the first anniversary of GAPP!

[@gordonbos5447]

Oh, I did that completely different. First thing I looked at was how I could prevent a 2x2 in the top left corner and that instantly gave me my first 5 in r5c3 because that was the only clue cell that could ever reach into that area. Got my second 5 the same way from the bottom left corner. Had a long stare at the order of 46 in box five, sort of gambling that the 24 clue would extend all the way to the left and couldn't really why either that or the alternative would be correct until I finally shifted focus to the right lower part of the grid and realized that I needed a path for the black cells to get into box nine. That completed my shading except for r2c9 which could still be either shaded or unshaded. A bit slow on the numbers but still a pretty decent finish in less that 37 minutes.

[@sumyrda2772]

"All we've got to do is to make sure our Brachiosaurus grows another head." he says as if he were genetically engineering dinosaurs all day 🤣 Thank you Simon for being the most entertaining Sudoku solver out there and sharing your gift with us. I needed this laugh today. And I also really enjoyed your solve of this puzzle from an enjoying-well-explained-logic standpoint.

[@ChronoQuote]

"The 7 does _remarkably_ little" Proceeds to solve the rest of the puzzle smoothly after placing the 7

[@terracottapie]

He did retract that and say it did "do stuff" (49:07)

[@abedhawila1809]

Hello Simon, Thanks for the solve and for the incredible feedback, glad you had fun time solving it. Concerning your question about the connectivity in the right part of the grid, you were absolutely right to think about it, but would be less tricky if you spotted the 2x2 trick on the left side before, so it would have been more clear to think about how to connect the parts together. My opening trick is to think about the top and bottom left 2x2s and how to prevent the full shading of them, which you also perfectly spotted at a later point of the solve. To sum up, you spotted the logical path but in an inverse way 😉 Thanks again for the solve ❤

[@alexishunt525]

Was the logic around 26:28 correct when he says that r9c2 can't be green because it couldn't be reached from anywhere? I interpreted "all clues have been given" not to mean "all green regions have a clue in them" but "all green regions that contain their own size have a clue in them". Because a region that doesn't contain its own size couldn't have a clue placed in it.

[@joethornton5321]

Excellent puzzle! I shaded most of the puzzle before I got completely stuck. Finally decided to have another glance at the restrictions/rules and was reminded that the digit in the clue cell gave the number of unshaded cells. I hate it when I make the puzzle harder than it is, and I'm glad I don't have an audience. Thank you for sharing this beauty.

[@peterjongsma2779]

Why does Simon never reply to Comments?

[@AleksandrYgA]

That's exactly how I started the puzzle - R2C2 and R8C2 couldn't be shaded and they are the most possible far cells from 19 and 17 clues and then you get the only possible shading in boxes 1, 4 and 7 plus the 5s in the clue cells give the filling of both regions

[@AlphaAxle]

"All clues are given" is poorly written. I interpreted this an unshaded could exist without a clue, if the region did not include it's size. Wasted a lot of time because of that confusion

[@JVBowcock]

I'm occasionally managing to do these faster than video Simon now (thanks to all the tricks I've learned from watching the channel!). However, I have no delusions that a Simon not on camera and not explaining everything to the audience wouldn't roll me up into a newspaper and then construct a new sudoku puzzle (with colouring in of course) on my back.

[@isaacpianos5208]

Congratulations dude! I've been trying to learn all of these tricks but I still get amazed at his skill and I'm not able to solve the ones that take him more than 40 minutes

[@nothayley]

I very quickly finished the Nurikabe section (looking at the top left square early on makes everything really fast), but Simon is much faster than me at Killer.

[@CryingShayme]

Yeah, I solved this in 56 minutes, came back to see that was a comparable length, felt really good, and then watched through the video and realized that yeah, he spends a LOT of his time explaining it for us casuals

[@mse326]

Not the fault of Simon because I know they just copy the rules but I found these rules to be less than clear. 1. The all clues are given doesn't necesarilly mean no other regions, just no other regions that contain the "cage size" as a digit. 2. The indexing being for the number of cells orthogonal to the clue cell to me would not include itself, as that is not orthogonal to itself. That is why normally for something like this the rules say including itself. I know the example Simon shows answers these but I tend to just go to the puzzle and read the rules.

[@mikaeo23]

I was really REALLY confused about the orthogonal clue cell including itself. Actually, I went to the comments to see if someone could clear that up for me, so thank you!

[@viperhd70]

Was searching for this comment. The rules are not just not clear, but the meaning of the clue cell's digit is actually downright wrong. Like you said, if it was the number of connected cells, it would exclude the clue cell. Also, when I first read it, I was assuming that it was the number of cells immediately connected, so started with 1234 in all clue cells, but soon realized this was impossible in box 5 as I needed multiple 1's to avoid those clue cells being part of the same white region. I eventually had to start watching the video to listen to Simon's explanation.

[@andreaswestermoen4592]

technically agree. The wording "number of orthogonally connected white cells in the region containing the clue" is clunky but more correct. I assumed that single-cell regions must be possible, so interpreted the wording on that background. (i tend to go for "what i guess they meant" over "what it technically says" when there is a mismatch, which makes my life simpler).

[@57thorns]

I solved that by watching the example in the video before starting my solve.

[@mse326]

@@andreaswestermoen4592 That would only make your life simpler if you guessed right though

[@5t757]

I'm curious if anyone else was confused about the meaning of 'all possible clue cells are given'? I.e. couldn't it mean that it IS possible to have a white area without a given clue total in it, as long as that area doesn't contain the digit equal to its size? Because the rules said that a clue cell contains the digit equal to its size. Or am I overthinking this, or is there a logical reason why I'm mistaken?

[@markbennet9058]

I thought that was a logical possibility given the phrasing too. Every white area contains a clue would have been clearer (you can't have two clues in the same white area because they would have to be equal to give the size).

[@willemm9356]

Agreed. I started the puzzle and got stuck quite early so I came to check the video, only then learning that it actually meant each white area had a clue. Which is not at all how I read it, and still isn't, to be frank. This will make the puzzle so much easier.

[@5t757]

Phew, glad I'm not the only one then. I got pretty far without making the distinction but also went to check Simon's interpretation in the video after that. Have now managed to finish in 40 min :)

[@berndscb1]

I was going to mention this here as well, I think the rules are not phrased correctly.

[@brianmcadam443]

I also spent entirely too much time debating the existence of green cells with no possible clue. There is nothing in the rules-as-written to prevent a single green cell with a 9 in it somewhere in a corner, because no "possible clue" exists to trigger the negative condition. It makes a lot more sense the way Simon interpreted it, and it solves a whole lot nicer that way, but there is an unfortunate ambiguity in the rules as is.

[@PauxloE]

Interpreting the rules as written, "All possible clues are given" doesn't require that all islands have a clue cell, just that those islands which have a cell with the digit of their size in it have a clue in this cell. An 8-9 island can't have a possible clue. Actually writing this rule "every white group has a clue in it" would be better here. (In this puzzle it seems to be equivalent, but both Simon's solve and mine used this stronger rule.) (By the way, for Nurikabe Sudokus I'll usually prefer yellow for the islands, and blue for the sea around them.)

[@joubess]

Thank you, Simon. You explain the logic of all these puzzles so well. I'm beginning to start spouting logical conclusions on puzzles before anyone gets started! You expose us to so many puzzle types, many I had never heard of or tried before. Your solves are so immersive. I look up afterwards and wonder why it got dark and I didn't notice, or I've completely lost track of time some other way. It's a great joy and needed form of therapy to get my brain absorbed into something so engrossing and entertaining!

[@mute1085]

I found the rules wording ambiguous. We are only told that all possible clues are given, but on an island that contains no digit equalling its size, there is no clue possible, and such clue-less islands aren't explicitly forbidden by the rules. I got stuck for quite some time interpreting the rules this way. The way they are worded in the example puzzle at LMD is a bit better.

[@johncrotty169]

10/10 for me! Def a great, approachable puzzle. Might rephrase the "all possible clues have been given" to read "all unshaded cells are attached to a clue" or something for clarity

[@mstmar]

i tried to solve it with a different interpretation of that rule and got stuck. i was worried it meant something like a 13 island could be a valid island without a clue since it not possible to assign it a clue since it doesn't contain a 2.

[@BaalsMistress]

@@mstmar 3,2,8?

[@RichSmith77]

@@BaalsMistress Might have meant a 1+3 island, a two cell island not containing a 2? Confused me at first too. I wondered about the interpretation of "all possible clues are given" too. Could mean an island (like a 1+3 two cell island) exists but it's not possible to give a clue for it.

[@mstmar]

@@BaalsMistress as richard said, i meant 1+3, it's a 2 cell island with no 2, none of the cells on the island can contain a clue

[@PeterZaitcev]

This ruleset lacks an important statement: All white areas have clues. Otherwise, it is not solvable.

[@spinnwebe_]

Doesn’t “all possible clues have been given” cover that? To me that says there are no white areas that don’t have clues.

[@Zer0ji]

@@spinnwebe_ imagine a single cell white area containing just a 5 : it would still satisfy "all possible clues are given", because no possible clue matches that area. However I interpreted it as "all white areas have given clues" and it solved fine.

[@spinnwebe_]

@@Zer0ji there couldn’t be a single white cell with a 5, because it would be missing its clue. And impossible anyway because it’d have to be a single square with a 1, and also a clue of 1 in its upper left corner, if all possible clues were given

[@ash0143]

@@spinnwebe_ he is saying that there could be a 5 in a single white area, and with these rules it would not have a clue. And the rules would not be broken

[@SenorFromage]

Ruleset seemed a bit ambiguous, wasnt clear if the cell clue included itself or not. I restarted cause I assumed the latter and put 4s in the 19 and 17 cage clues. Otherwise fun

[@Ardalambdion]

When these kind of puzzles show up on this channel, it is always Simon who deals with them.

[@ThePolymathlete]

I actually did this backwards from Simon's approach. Focused on the left corner 2x2 regions first and then did connectivity stuff. Fun puzzle :)

[@wade_23]

29:30 that has to go down in history of cracking the cryptic as a memorable moment where Simon has to whisper the word "Brachiosaurus"

[@DitDede]

alexa awoke because of "with h *is legs u* p here..." 😀

[@daniele_93]

I love the fact that the >10 clue seems to be telling close to nothing about that region, but as soon as you realize it's a 2 cells region it instantly becomes a 2-9 pair.

[@leickrobinson5186]

26:35 I’m sorry, but we are *not* told that all of our green cellage has a clue connected. We are only told that all possible clues are given, namely any cell whose digit gives the size of its region. But there’s nothing to prevent, say, a 1-cell region containing an 8, in which case there would be no cell in that region that matches its size and thus no clue. Can the puzzle be solved without this (unwarranted, I think) assumption?

[@lucasnicholson9443]

I was doing well solving this puzzle on my own but I got utterly stuck, and I realized it’s because I misunderstood the rules when I read them 😭. See when I read “All possible clues have been given”, I didn’t believe that meant you couldn’t have any additional areas. I rationalized that you could have, for example, a 3 cell white area that did not contain the digit 3 exist on its own without connecting to given clues, because for you to be able to place a valid clue in that area it’s digit would have to be 3. Sadly this left me unable to solve right at the part where you were supposed to deduce that the 17 cage was 5 cells long…

[@-42-47]

Fun puzzle but I have some issues with wording of the rules. 1 - The digit in the cell with a clue gives the total number of white cells connected to that clue cell. The wording suggests that it's only counting the number of cells connected to it excluding itself rather than counting the number of digits in its 'white area'/region/cage. 2 - The rules say that "all possible clues have been given" but where does it say that all white regions needs to have a clue? - It does not, thus if you're just going by the rules you could have several white regions outside of the "clued" ones. You could conclude that it means that none of those white areas could contain a digit that counts the number of cells in the area as that cell could be a possible clue cell. Eg If you had an unmarked region of size one it could not contain the digit 1 as it would be a possible clue cell. But if you have any other digit in that cell it's no longer a possible clue cell as it does not count the number cells in its white area. Once again, it is a fun puzzle and I have no issues with the puzzle itself (thanks Abed Hawila for making it), I only have issues with how the rules are written.

[@pocoapoco2]

The 2x2 rule is definitely the most powerful and could have been used to great affect early on. It allowed me to actually finnish the puzzle in 32 minutes where it normally takes at least double your time to finnish.

[@10prozenthimmel]

I'm just thinking this at about 30 minutes into Simon's solve. Green has to extend far into c2, right?

[@daredmond7]

The fact that the rules say 'connected TO the clue cell' (this seems to exclude the clue cell itself) broke this puzzle for me. Very confusing.

[@AugustDwight]

Same. I tried to solve it 3 times because I thought I was just missing something, then came back to the video to see if the rules were just poorly explained. Other than that, though, super fun puzzle.

[@fade2dblack]

9:19 Let's get cracking.

[@thedimoulases3176]

I also love puzzles where you don't actually do sudoku to 40m in. 🤣 I think that's why I like Simon's videos so much.... Crazy rule sets are my jam. And I also appreciated the huge amount of nuricabi (sp?) As opposed to it just being a foot note.😍😍

[@AngryViking234]

Nurikabe

[@TheAntibozo]

Another with poor wording. "… the number of white cells orthogonally connected to that clue cell" has a maximum of 4; apparently what is actually meant here is "the number of white cells in the orthogonally connected region that includes the white cell."

[@kida3918]

I got stuck because I interpreted the rules so that there can be white areas without clues. It's only stated that all clues are given. Not that all areas have clues. Therefore a clueless single cell unshaded area with any other digit than 1 would be legit.

[@PauxloE]

30:46 "So I think those two [r1c78] are definitely green [...] so that really didn't do very much, did it?" - if you now look at the border between box 3 and box 6, we see that the top 24-island can't reach down there to prevent the 2×2, so the 9-island needs to do it. (At 35:53, Simon gets back to it.) I got stuck at the top right corner island - I just couldn't make the sum work. I was too tired to add it up in the head, so I used the killer calculator. When I marked the 5 island cells with 24, 1247, 147, 5, 14678, it said "sum = 18 to 25". Removing the 8 from the one cell it could be gave me "sum = 18 to 19", which is wrong, but gave me the impression that the 8 is needed here to even reach the 24, but then I couldn't make it work with the 8 either (it got either too high or too low). (When removing the 1, i.e. for 14, 247, 47, 5, 1467, it correctly outputs "sum = 19 to 24".) So now I concluded I made some mistake somewhere else, and decided to watch Simon's solve (comparing with my partial results) instead of trying to rewind and find the mistake ... which was a good decision, as there was no mistake.

[@johk2293]

Simon on thumbnail is actually looks very funny

[@SunDry_Marchy]

I love new thumbnails (:

[@CpnRad]

it makes me wonder if a Cracking the Cryptic anime is on the way

[@johk2293]

@@CpnRad so true so true

[@Mn0ty]

That's 3 nearly in the corner, nearly in spotlight, nearly loosing its religion.

[@TimHodson]

I give it less than a 10. Rule sets not written properly... "connect to" does not include itself

[@TimHodson]

What's worse is Simon states, "We are told all green cellage has a clue attached..." Where in the rule set does it say all cells have a clue attached? It says all possible clues have been given. Those statements don't have the same meaning.

[@michaels4340]

@@TimHodson "All possible clues have been given." = "There are no clue-less islands [orthogonal regions]." = "All unshaded cells either have a clue or are orthogonally connected to cells that have clues." (Technically "all possible clues have been given" could be more strictly interpreted as "there are no clueless *cells*" ((or even something like "every island total has been clued with every possible equality or inequality"; but it's pretty clear this wouldn't work, so you can assume it's using the island cages as the implicit unit of "clue regions". Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be "all islands contain at least one clue".)

[@michaels4340]

Ah, actually, I suppose this only makes sense if you don't consider the constraints for clued cells (in particular, that its digit has to be the cage size). So maybe it should say "All islands can, and do, contain clued cells"... Hmm, could you consider it a "possible" clue if there's no cell to put it in? Perhaps there's some sense of "possibility" for which that works, although I suppose it's not worth getting in the weeds of that sort of philosophical argument.

[@TimHodson]

@@michaels4340 Not at all. All possible clues given means if an unshaded cell has a number that is a size of an island, than a clue is given. It says nothing about whether an island can exist without a number that is its size. If the author wanted to be clear, the clue should have been written, "All islands have clues." That would mean iff clue, then island. As of now, it is if clue than island. Totally different meaning.

[@michaels4340]

@@TimHodson Yeah, I'd forgotten about the size constraint for clues at the time. Fair point!

[@quack420]

19m11s think the biggest part in this one was realizing the 2x2 black square requirement and top left and bottom left corners had to be entered by the 19 and 17 regions resepectively, then finding there was only one option for the 19 region sinice it could contain neither a 1 and a 6 or a 2 and a 4 from restrictions on the 17 region, requiring it to be 12457. Think it fell apart after that, or at least I don't remember any big logic past that point.. edit: remembered the 24 region needing to be 5 since it couldn't contain a 3 or a 9 as well as couldn't have both a 6 and a 8 and left it to be 24567

[@livedandletdie]

I was solving it, and listening to Simon in the background, And I must say, it was eerily close, I finished after 50:20 and Simon did it in 51 minutes... I had already done 99% of the Nurikabe after 17-18 minutes, and struggled with seeing the limitations on the cage totals, and how each one restricted the others, but in the end I found the solution, and had time to switch tabs to find Simon completing it as well, and I agree it was a marvelous puzzle, perfect for when you want to go to sleep, a decent amount of noggin scratching before the bed is the best medicine against insomnia.

[@cathybryant5119]

I don't know if Simon's approach was "what you were meant to be doing", but I followed the exact same logic path as Simon to get the regions.

[@flobiish]

@32:20 "It's a very anti-royal puzzle, isn't it? There's a lack of highnesses."

[@longwaytotipperary]

Today’s thumbnail: “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”

[@WaLimLim]

What a fantastic puzzle. Simon's logic always makes these sorts of monstrous puzzles to become understandable. Thank you so much for the amazing video as always :)

[@jaeusa160]

@26:00 Humorously due to watching so many cave/island/etc sudokus on this channel, one of the first things I noticed at the onset was r2c2 and r8c2 needed to belong to forced five-cell cages for the 19 and 17 clues to avoid 2x2s in the corners. Even in an empty grid, no other cages could reach.

[@peterkelley6344]

At 32 Minutes in: Simon says: This puzzle is a Anti- Chess Sudoku Puzzle with a lack of Highness'. Me: Pulls out the Adam Savage Nerf Gun/Cannon to pellet him for the pun.

[@Orenotter]

May your brachiosaurus go viral With its pattern so wonderf'ly chiral. 'Twas great for a look. Now please send me a book That is bound by a wire which is spiral.

[@Coyotek4]

37:03 ... I burned 15 minutes of solve time on forgetting the cage at the bottom-right was *greater* than 10 (not 'equal'), but otherwise thought I did rather well. Nice puzzle! (I love Nurikabe!)

[@gdshoe5822]

I love this rule set! I solved it... eventually...

[@zacharyhall2012]

Great puzzle. The only source of confusion in the rule set was that I wasn't sure whether "all possible clues" meant "all white cages are identified" (which was the case) or "if there are other cages, the cage does not contain the number of cells as a digit". Once I realized the latter set gave me a dead end, things were simple to solve after.

[@57thorns]

That would have been an evil restriction.

[@chocolateboy300]

I finished in 154 minutes. I had a lot of fun coloring the beginning. I forgot that 1 is less than 9, so I thought I broke the puzzle. I had colored everything about 40 minutes in, proceeded to get a good amount of digits, then I hit a brick wall. I got stuck for over two hours not being able to make progress on anything. I couldn't figure it out, so in my panic I reread the rules, where I finally noticed my oversight. Cells with clues in them indicate how many total white cells that clue has in it's cage. My greater than 10 cage was sitting there with no numbers in it. That is one of the best and worst feelings I have ever experienced. I finished 5 minutes later. Great Puzzle!

[@matthewlund7807]

@51:28 "That stuff" was the very first thing I noticed about the puzzle. I ended up placing the 19 and 17 boxes almost immediately. But...soon after I got stuck and watched this video.

[@qazwiz]

10:52 BUT NOTHING ! IT CAN'T BE A 9 (would be a 45 if it was a one digit white with 9 in it) must be a 2 or 3 adding to 9.) now i wonder how long you take to figure out it can't be a 9 ? (i will edit to say how long (1m:8s) not bad !!!!!!!

[@RealCadde]

What a disaster... For me that is. I made incorrect deductions on at least 4 occasions. Essentially unwittingly bifurcating my way through the puzzle.

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

32:39 Simon: "this is an anti-royal puzzle"... but I am missing the anti-King's Move contraint? ;-)

[@indygon]

I love these nurikabe hybrid puzzles, does anyone know of others that have been covered on CtC (or from other sites)? Simon did another great one in "A Sudoku of Sublime Genius" that took me waaay longer to solve, but that was also my first exposure to this type of rule set. I would def recommend that one to those who haven't tried it, it uses arrows that tell you how many cells of that color are ahead of it (and nothing else...so the initial grid is just a bunch of arrows!)

[@DanJS]

I am a dunce and read the bottom right clue as “less than 10”. Turns out you can still complete the nurikabe and a good part of the sudoku but not all of it. I obviously ruled out 9 from R9C9 and couldn’t make progress along the bottom row.

[@PathOfShrines]

Count me down as someone else who was misled by the "all possible clues have been given" wording; as written, this definitely allows for additional white regions as long as they don't contain their cell count as a digit. 73:02, including 20-30 minutes trying to figure out how to make progress from where Simon was at 26:00. Still a very interesting puzzle, but would be much improved if the wording was "all white regions must contain a clue".

[@jfb-]

The rules are incorrect. "All possible clues are given" implies that an unshaded region that doesn't connect to a clue but also doesn't contain its size as a digit would be valid. Which makes the puzzle much harder, perhaps impossible, to solve; compared to how it was interpreted here.

[@nuri3707]

I immediately went to the puzzle in the description before watching the video, I have to admit, the title of the puzzle gave me a shock

[@ananas_anna]

I think Alexa activated when you said “legs and”, not “brachiosaurus”.

[@jdferreira]

At 26:40, do the rules really say that all green islands have a clue? I think there could be a 1-2-4 island, but because there's no 3 in that island, there would be no clue given.

[@sanctionbuster]

73:41. Phew. After Simon reminded me the symbol in the bottom right is a greater than!!!

[@JalebJay]

27:02 felt kinda dirty for some of the assumptions I made, but the boarders felt very given with where cages started.

[@lowlight1063]

I think because you said "with it big long legs", the "legs" part triggered the Alexa

[@FazalFariz]

It took me 20 minutes but I took a different approach altogether.

[@HunterJE]

10:52 "But that could be a 9..." except if it were it would be the index cell of a 1-cell region, and so would also have to be a 1! :edit: as Simon quickly catches on to...

[@Piatato]

Great puzzle!

[@MichaelMoore99]

"I did not say Alexa!" Yeah, but at 29:27 you said "its legs down here" and I think that was it. 😀

[@RogueCulture]

I did not understand from the rule set that all unshaded cells had to be clued. I thought that it would be ok to have a 3-cell unshaded area as long as it didn’t contain a 3

[@connorwells7774]

The anime-simon thumbnails are improving, may they never stop

[@przemekmajewski1]

Solved in 33 minutes, quite a bit less than 1 Simon. happy.

[@Edos512]

another 10 to the list ^^ once you understand the puzzle is cool to solve

[@poetcindylynn]

Why are you not using those delightful new colors?

[@christopherjones5361]

If you turn your phone to the side then you will see a secret in the puzzle

[@stevesebzda570]

Simon's going to say "This brachiosaurus with its 'legs' down here," and ''A 'lex' a'' is going to come alive. Lol. [@29:25] 😲😂😎☕️☕️ [[Maybe "this" did it -- you'll have to ask "Alexa." Lol. ]]

[@stevesebzda570]

[[[ 'SWEET' ''Alexa." Excuse me, Sweet Alexa. I luv you. Alexa: "That's better, Steve." "I luv you, too." A match made in heaven. Lol 😂😎👍☕️]]]

[@Pablo360able]

“That places three… not in the corner😢”

[@16m49x3]

33:25 that's the first cell I colored

[@th.nd.r]

This is incredible!!! Wonderful ruleset and beautiful use thereof. Especially loved the logic around 2X2 avoidance. Great setting and solving, what a puzzle!!!

[@stevesebzda570]

@27:29 [Two of those cells "Not being 2 or 3," making a 1-6 pair in that region, /cage] That's what's beautiful to me. Really cool ["merging the two kinds of puzzles," Simon was saying]. Well done, really cool. 😂😎👍☕️[hats off and a spot a' tea or coffee to Ya(s) lol]

[@leojs5673]

gonna do this puzzle in the middle of the mall and drinking a milkshake because there’s no bad place for ctc 🤓

[@praematura]

26:55 for me; loved Nurikabe on Nikoli, so this puzzle was really fun and flowed easily (well, for the Nurikabe part at least, as I struggled with the sudoku a few times! 😀). Bravo to Abed! p.s. Thank you for the shout-out, Simon! You got my name correct the second time. 😉(Second part is pronounced like 'row', it's French.)

[@penningmeestercgkdelft9159]

I did also join the kickstarter campaign, but will all new copies of the CtC book Volume 2 actually now have a spiral binding? Or will a normal book binding also remain available?

[@asadickens9353]

Simon you are 10x smarter than me and I know that doing these puzzles are hard to take everything in at once! But this might be the first video where I was yelling at the screen going "the 2x2 clue simon!!!! the 2x2 clue :c" by 19 minutes in you would have had at least 1 digit! If I am not mistaken myself!!!

[@hamishwatt2475]

Brilliant puzzle. Solved it faster than Simon for the first time! Although I did have someone explain the rules carefully to me. And I did use the killer calculator. And I also wasn't explaining to everyone, just to myself...

[@tinarion3598]

More knowledge bombs dropped all the time on this channel. Today we learned that Brachiosaurus and Alexa are NOT the same word. I actually think the next kick-starter should be not a puzzle book but a book of knowledge bombs and secrets. I'd certainly back that (as I have the real one too). Never change please Simon and Mark, I love our little corner of the internet just the way it is.

[@series161]

I think I have telekineric skills. When I thought, the black is too dark, simon immediately changed it to a lighter grey and when I thought, this shape looks like a dinosaur, simon immediately called it a dinosaur. I think we are orthogonally connected simon 😂

[@wanderlustwarrior]

I didn't expect I'd be able to solve this puzzle, but I got it in 1:05:26! I was a bit confused by the wording, but it helped me to coior everything black, then white the clue cells, then use math and what we could figure out about the two left corners of the puzzle.

[@jeremy8942]

Unfortunately Kickstarter won't accept PayPal, or I would order.

[@wade_23]

interesting that I took a completely different starting point. The 19 I knew had to reach the top left because of the 2x2 rule

[@ImaginaryMdA]

The connectivity trick was very impressive! I only figured out that type of logic far further along my solve when the grid was much colorful. I figured out the left side corners before that aspect of the puzzle.

[@AshrZ]

Missed opportunity to play this puzzle on october 10th (10/10) Awesome video as always!

[@ServantOfSatania]

53:27 Got stuck for a bit until thinking about how hard certain 4x4s were to avoid, disambiguating the last uncolored cell was also quite a treat

[@MorganZex]

This kind of videos are my absolute favourite. Not too heavy on math, not impossibly hard, but requiring a good amount of logic. Great job as usual, sir.

[@bringforthyeshadow]

I loved this puzzle, a lot of the stuff you guys solve is a bit too much but the logic in this one is just so cool. Understanding how to get rid of the top left and bottom left 2x2s is such a cool bit of logic

[@NichtcrawlerX]

I think my main different point of deduction was realizing quite early on that no cage could reach the left corners and with both black early, that helped me greatly with visualizing and deducing the route for black.

[@Kinada]

I always find these shading puzzles more challenging than other types. I feel like I was really slow in getting the shading completed. Completed it though.

[@shteevuk]

I mean.... it's ok?

[@gregind01]

What an absolutely delightful puzzle to solve, thankyou Abed Hawila! 👌😁

[@sheumack]

I got stuck on that bit.

[@nimbletim]

took me 40 minutes with one instance of a wrong deduction, basically bifurcation 🤣🤣

[@Artoooooor]

41:38 Not enough magic? You literally made the bronchosaurus grow another head. You run out of mana and need some potion.

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

24:11 for me. i loved it

[@RoderickEtheria]

Only took me 27:51, and I focused more on the left side before moving right, considering the limits of the islands on the top left and bottom left corners.

[@srwapo]

35:22, having done a bunch of Nurikabe on my phone, I found the drawing of the regions fun, the sudoku took me much longer.