Thanks so much for the feature!!! Beautiful solve, its definitely fun getting to watch someone work through the logic. Its a much different experience watching someone solve a puzzle I made rather than being in awe of someone else's creation. Hope everyone enjoys the video!
I’m not even done watching the video yet, but I just wanted to comment that I love the idea of a hidden-zero ruleset and want to see a more approachable version, perhaps with more given digits, which would be created as a sort of “introduction to hidden zero sudoku” puzzle
A puzzle with a ruleset like this is something I can’t even bring myself to start, it’s always mind blowing seeing Simon’s brain work at such a high level
@@Beamer1969 This is what I thought in the first of it, too many possible sums of squares with one digit just "randomly" ignored. But after a point, things get more restricted and, at least with Simon's brain on the details, the patterns are pretty satisfying. The hidden 0's and the coloring scheme start doing cool things.
The joke is lost on me since what Simon did is actually say phonemes those words start with. Green or good don't start with /dʒiː/, but with /g/. This is the first time in my life that I heard a native English speaker pronounce actual phonemes rather than naming a letter from the alphabet. As a native Slavic speaker, I quite appreciate it :)
Saw the video time was over an hour. Read the rules five times. Understood everything, but the hidden zeros rule made me nope out faster than the Flash after a bad guy...Now watching the video solve...let's see what they can figure out.
Rules: 03:30 Let's get cracking: 06:21 And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Beautiful: 14 (22:05, 22:05, 27:01, 29:24, 29:33, 29:37, 35:40, 43:23, 53:21, 56:31, 59:42, 59:45, 59:45, 1:05:54) Good Grief: 6 (29:17, 33:02, 33:05, 40:43, 43:28, 44:52) Brilliant: 5 (00:38, 00:40, 1:14:23, 1:14:23, 1:14:23) By sudoku: 5 (1:03:11, 1:04:03, 1:06:59, 1:09:34, 1:13:41) Clever: 4 (31:02, 47:11, 1:14:33, 1:14:35) Naughty: 4 (20:03, 26:48, 42:35, 1:07:57) Bobbins: 3 (28:47, 34:35, 1:13:50) Bother: 3 (51:30, 1:06:34, 1:10:38) Incredible: 3 (01:18, 02:35, 1:12:11) Sorry: 2 (41:41, 1:15:28) Secret: 2 (07:41, 07:44) The Answer is: 2 (20:56, 1:09:26) Maverick: 2 (00:57, 14:46) Nonsense: 2 (08:32, 45:52) Fascinating: 2 (25:22, 1:15:14) Eyes are Drawn: 1 (06:26) Useless: 1 (10:03) Goodness: 1 (1:14:26) Three In the Corner: 1 (1:04:52) Lovely: 1 (1:12:08) Ridiculous: 1 (1:14:58) Gorgeous: 1 (57:19) Take a Bow: 1 (1:14:26) FAQ: Q1: What is a Simarkism? A1: A Simarkism is something that Simon and Mark typically or frequently say. Q2: How do you do this so fast? A2: I'm not made of flesh and blood, but of sand ... Q3: Why don't you include 'XX' and 'YY'? A3: Probably it's already on the list ('Scooby-Doo' for example), but not mentioned in this video. But if you think it's not, tell me what you'd like me to include and there's a good chance I'll add it! Q4: You missed 'XX' at 'YY:ZZ'! A4: That could very well be the case! Human speech is hard to understand for computers like me, especially British sometimes! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q5: Could you turn these statistics into videos? A5: I've been playing around with the idea and I'm open to input as to what people would like to see. Let me know if you are interested in this and/or have suggestions.
I generally don't try these puzzles featured on the channel because I'm not that experienced for a sudoku solver, but I decided to give this one a try. 3 and a half hours later, I finished it, and I have to ay it was one of the coolest and most fulfilling experiences I've ever had, wow!
Rarely do I take such pride in solving a puzzle in over fifty minutes ... but I solved this in a time of 53:15 and have rarely been prouder. Absolutely STUNNING puzzle!
14:45 Once upon a midday dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many quaint and curious boxes with multiple squares- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my window pane. “’Tis some Maverick,” I muttered, “tapping at my window pane- Only this and nothing else.”
I don't usually fall asleep during these videos but I was REALLY tired today and woke up at 40 minutes. I probably missed a good 20 minutes......still almost nothing penciled in. lol
That’s right about where my 6yo who was watching with me passed out for the night, too! And then I had to have help getting kiddo off me to get carried to bed, because unlike an infant 60lb is too much to stand up out of the recliner with 🤣🤣🤣
you can tell it's a hard puzzle that requires his full concentration when he doesn't make his 'losing it's religion' joke when he announces a three in the corner
Been watching Cracking the cryptic seems like forever. I only heard the "three in the corner" earlier this year! I have to start watching all videos and see what else I've missed.
love how simon completely forgot that the hidden 0 also apply to cropki dots and still solved it. could have known way earlier that there is a bad digit in the 6 cell cage in row 2 once you have the 36 on one side of the kropki in box1, cause if the other side would be a bad digit it needs a 1 on the kropki, so it can't be a bad digit and the bad digit needs to be in the rest of row 2 aka the 6 cell cage. on the other kropki dots you can apply similar logic.
Yes, once you realise that r2c1 can't be a two, because it would have to be paired on the white dot with a 1 (and can't be), it reduces the possibilities for r2c1c2 to either 4/3 or 5/6, leaving a much more manageable six combinations for r2c1c2c3 and forcing the hidden zero into the six cage. Four of those six combinations can be ruled out fairly quickly, one because the hidden zero means that the six cell cage can no longer sum to 36 and the others because the digit that would have to be the hidden zero either already exists in the row or has already been determined to be a hidden zero elsewhere. The result is that the six cell cage must be a 25 made up of 23479 with the additional hidden zero digit being either 1 or 8. This also fixes the digits in r2c1c2 as being 5 and 6 and removes 9 as a possibility from r2c3.
I did dare to attempt this puzzle before watching Simon. It was brutal, it took me about 150 minutes, two and a halve hours! I managed to find the same path Simon found, but my brain took a different approach to deduce some steps. (a more difficult approach, and I had to use notepad) I'm in awe of your skill, Simon! And I am a bit envious of that massive working memory you have. You juggle these numbers with such ease, even when the puzzle is difficult. Hats off to you!
Took me over 2,5 hrs and I had to use excel to calculate all the possibilities of 2 or 3 squares added and then subtracted from 45 to find the ghost digit... But I never felt stuck, really nice flow (how slow can a flow be to still be called a flow?). Loved it! Wouldn't recommend it to anybody :p
30 minutes into watching and this is the most impressive setting I think we have seen. So far their set has just been creating a pencil mark sudoku that was created with this insane rule set. That is amazing.
I paused at 6:31, to me the obvious path seems to be boxes 1, 4, and 7. Each consists of a full box (45) containing full cages. So, after eliminating a single digit from the total, there must be a limited number of ways of adding 3 perfect squares and getting a number between 36 and 44 (inclusive). I'm still working through the combinations, but my guess is that there will be two different ways of doing it with 2 cages, and probably only 1 way with 3. 36+1 (0=8), 36+4 (0=5), 25+16(0=4) are the only 3 options I see for boxes 4 and 7. And 36+1 isn't an option since there are no 2 cell cages to put a 18 pair or one cells to put a lone 1. So, box 4 needs to put 1,3,5 in the 3 cell cage and the 5 is the 0. That leaves box 7 to be 25+16(0=4). Box 1 might have more options, but the only one I've found so far is 9+9+25(0=2), but I have a lot more to check. If Simon doesn't jot these combos down on scratch paper, I will be really jealous of his memory.
Brilliant new puzzle. Congratulations to the author! Just marvelous. 71:39. I did think at one point that I'd broken the puzzle - it's hard to stop trying to sum to 45! - and had to flip over to Simon's solve to verify that, no, he'd gotten to the same point and everything was alright.
Wow, wow, wow. The best puzzle I've done since I started watching this channel more than a year ago. Got it in 97:23 and there were just *so* many moments when I muttered under my breath about something being clever or unbelievable. Genius.
I didn't even think of maybe possibly having a go at this once the rules were posted. I'll let Simon do it and watch the master at work. EDIT: Agghhh, my brain hurts just watching someone do this puzzle. Such an awesome job Burning Curtains.
Phenomenal puzzle and a unique ruleset. First time constructor on the channel. Simon considers it good enough to be in the next book if there is one. Thank goodness it was recommended by AFrayedKnot or we may never have seen it.
Someone down below wrote "This is one of the most amazing solves ever!"... and I'll go along with that. Kudos to Simon! This is the CtC channel at its best.
Hello and thank you very much for this brainshaking moment! I'm affraid you did lost me during the rules reading :) but I pushed myself to stay. And on top of that, thank you soo much to speak a perfect english with a proper accent that even a frenchman can understand! thank you :)
Fascinating puzzle that I wasn't able to figure out where to get started, beyond working out the box 5 9 0 being in the ring of the cage. Cheers for this.
I just recently found your channel and I've been binge watching, I like sudoku but I'm strictly amateur, you must be one of those math wizards, your logic often gets ahead of me, but I'm learning.
That was a very a nice puzzle. Took me just on 103 minutes. Watching Simon afterwards, I was again reminded that even though I feel like I'm pondering something for only a few minutes, in reality it's probably over ten each time... Having deduced box 8 had a 3 as its zero digit and a 1 with a 2 or 5 in the two cells outside the 36 cage before doing much in box 3, it gave me a much quicker run home than Simon yet his ability to always find a breakthrough in relatively fast time means I can never get close to his overall times. And I'm not doing it being recorded and explaining as I go! Amazing.
Well I almost solved it! Left out an option (the correct one) in row two and lacked too much confidence to restart fully after it broke. Instead looked at end of video to spot the misplaced number and was able to backtrack and figure out where I'd skipped analyzing one of the permutations. Happily turned out that leaving the options open at that point didn't affect the ensuing logic I'd already done at all, and was able to finish from there. Once again pleasantly surprised. Some of these puzzles feel like brick walls to me, but a lot of the longer ones recently have been surprisingly yielding once you poke enough at the right spots. Thanks for the puzzle.
Wow! This is one of the all-time best puzzles I've ever seen. Beautiful logic step after step. Simon couldn't have solved it more perfectly -- he followed the puzzle's logical path to a T. Wonderful video!
WOW! Such a beautiful puzzle! I always feel a sense of pride when I manage to complete a puzzle that takes Simon over an hour to solve, a sure sign that you are in for a serious battle. Thank you so much to both Simon and Burning Curtains. :)
On the first day i got a digit, on the second i found the rest of the logic in boxes 1,2,3,5,7... three days it took to complete. The software logged my total time at 130min, but that doesn't include all the time not being able to stop thinking about this puzzle. Incredible stuff! Don't know what's more impressive - the puzzle or Simon completing the naughty list without getting actually stuck even once. One of the best CtC videos ever.
Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, this one really messes with your head. Every time I thought I had it nailed I became utterly discombobulated again. Highly delighted to get to the end. Burning Curtains, you are on fire.
This is so strange!! I was thinking about how fun a variant would be where 0s show up in a Sudoku to mess with all the rules for the last two months. Fancied the name to be Uninvited Guest. Oh how clever I thought I was ☠️☠️☠️
I actually did set a much simpler puzzle with zeros to mess with the rules today in their discord. But obviously my version has a slightly different rule set and is way worse and way easier than the featured version. Maybe the zero idea is just floating around in multiple heads right now because they allow for new an fresh cage totals, and so on.
Best use of square number cages yet, particularly the break-in. Most impressive though is that throughout the entire solve, you need all three of square numbers, hidden zero sudoko, and regular sudoko. Very cool puzzle!
Your spoiler was correct - I was stunned! There was some nice logic to start with (spotting the joker 9 in the middle, then the joker 5 and 4 in boxes 4 and 7), then I got some digits but got stuck. I gambled on the joker 2 in box 1 to be in the corner and succeeded. My final time was 78:12 which is a little longer than this video, so not such a big disappointment for me since I usually don't even try the 1 hour video puzzles! Edit: Simon explained it at 44:40 very well why my 'gambling' was correct. Pretty easy to understand.
The 2 from box 1 was where I started. It's easy to work out that the 3 2-cell boxes have to be 9s then the missing digit has to be a 2 or a 9. Then you look at box 5 and you learn it can't be the 9.
@@Swisswavey You can't start from there. One of the 2-cell boxes could have contained a legit 9 paired with a hidden zero digit. That hidden zero digit could have been almost anything, except 7 or 9.
Staggeringly good puzzle! I wouldn't have had a clue where to start, absolutely loved the video - Burning Curtains for the puzzle, Simon for the solve = the A team. I am in awe. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This is the most beautiful sudoku I've ever solved. I had to break out the notepad to figure out the various combinations of square numbers and which digits that forced the hidden zero into being, but I finally cracked it and was able to solve it in about 3 hours. I actually can't believe I managed to solve it.
I worked on this for almost an hour without even a pencil mark. I am really glad I didn't give up, I finally found the place to start and slowly worked through the whole thing. The title was not wrong!
34 minutes in, first digit. What a monstrous construction. How do you even come up with this. Kudos to both Burning Curtains and Simon for an interesting puzzle and solve!
Hidden zero puzzles must become a standard variant. It leads to some fascinating logic. Please create more like this guys! (But please make them more approachable. I would love to be able to solve puzzles with this ruleset.)
Practicing all these puzzles has made me a lot better at this. This one took me about three hours, one of the fastest I've done one of the hardest ones, and I agree with the assessment that this is just magnificent. What I really ought to practice is my sudoku because I spent about a third of my time on that, the other two thirds being split between the first three columns, then the stuff in boxes 2,3 and 6.
How on Earth did someone manage to compose this puzzle. Absolutely loved the square number + hidden zero logic, I hope to see more puzzles like this. Given there's a 0 in the example of squares, one could think that somewhere there could have been a lone hidden zero cage,.
What I find most extraordinary is the size of his working, and the speed and accuracy of his mental math. I know what he is doing, but I would have had to write down the different square permutations with zeros a head of time as a reference. If I had to do it in my head it would have taken me days.
I'm so glad I decided to attempt this one. It did take me almost twice as long as Simon, but I got there in the end. I just wish I could have seen all of the more elegant approaches Simon found, rather than writing out all of the possibilities like I did :p
Great puzzle. I got to making the 1-4 pairs in the center area and then decided my night would be more productive sitting back and watching Simon's solve.
What an incredible ruleset that demands quite elaborate mental juggling! Simon, however, is quite adept at the cognitive act and carries all the numbers to a full performance. Take a bow, both you and the Burning Curtains that close upon this beautiful scene!
I loved watching you solve this! It’s too bad that none of the white dots were a 0/1 adjacency, as the rules allowed for that. Although, if it wasn’t towards the end, that coils have broken the puzzle by having too many options.
A brain-burner. I started off making steady progress, got bogged down in the middle, then raced through the final third so quickly I worried I'd missed something. There was definitely a hard hill to climb in the top three boxes, by the end of which the hidden zero logic was so ingrained the rest came smoothly. I was also able to solve all five GAS puzzles while watching Simon's solve on the second screen. I might have missed some of his more elegant logic as a result, but I gotta multi-task, or I'll never have time for anything but sudoku!
I definitely think this variant should be called “noughty sudoku”. Though, I’ve been toying with the idea if using actual zeros in a sudoku with arrows and/or cages. Also, I wonder if you could pair zeros with actual schrodinger cells, though possibly that is just too crazy.
Really a very interesting ruleset and used to set a very intricate and enjoyable puzzle - I would have titled it maybe "9 out of 10 squares" or something similar because that captures my view of these rules. The concept reminded me a little bit of a pair of soduku variants that were on the channel not so long ago (in one of the GAS runs?) where you had regions in which one digit was missing or regions where a digit could repeat respectively. Solving for myself, I admit, I found the entry rather fast, but then failed to see the impossibility of the 3 as the 0 in box 1, so got stuck somewhat and turned to watching the video again. Then when I realized my oversight, I continued solving for myself and to my joy succeeded without further hints (in way more than the 1h+ but that's normal, since I don't solve for speed, and with occasional breaks). Congratulations for a great puzzle indeed!
Wow, that was incredible! I am so proud to have solved it (in a couple of hours including breaks) without any help or guessing! Now 'undo' all my steps and watch Simon do it, whilst 'redoing' my steps in the app. (Anyone else do that?)
I used to do that using the 'undo' button, but then Svenn added the replay function (turned on in options). Makes it even easier. Do you use that/are you aware it's available?
Yes, I am stunned by this puzzle. Stunned as in absolutely not having any clue how to start this one. The Hidden Zero rule each time ruins any break-in attempt.
48:41 the simpler way of telling that that cage is not a 36 cage is because you know that you’re not counting one of those six cells in the sum. Since you’re only summing five cells, and five maxed out cells can only ever reach to 35, it can’t be the 36 cage. EDIT: also, the other way you can tell that that isn’t a 16 cage is that 16 in 5 counted cells can only ever be 1-2-3-4-6, which would make the cell in column 2, row 2 have no fill.
90:53 for me. What an experience! I needed a notepad to keep track of all the maths. Puzzles like this look more like some sort of hitherto unknown particle discovered in the Large Hadron Collider than constructions of the human brain. Over to Simon to find out what I missed and how I made my life harder than necessary.
This is an amazing sudoku, which is way over my skill level. I only keep laughing at Simon repeatedly musing "What if there's a hidden 9?" when he's already FOUND that his hidden 9 is in the middle box, the first one he did.
I loved it and was able to do it completely on my own (which is not always the case as I sometimes require a few hints from the video if I get stuck.) One comment, about the SudokuPad rather than the puzzle, is a fix that I would like to recommend. My computer has to be rebooted quite often and when that happens the timer gives the time since the puzzle was first started rather than how long you've been working on it, as it originally did. I often work on a puzzle a few minutes here and a few minutes there as I have time stopping and starting the timer as I go, so this can be quite a dramatic change, leaping from say 30 minutes to several thousand. I end up with no idea how long it actually took for me to solve it. It would likely be a simple change to fix this and it would improve my experience a lot, possibly that of others as well.
66:02 for me. What an amazing puzzle this is! It just feels incredible that the whole thing has a unique solution and a logical path to get there. Truly awesome, one of the best puzzles I’ve solved recently.
I managed it with not *too* much from Simon, but with a lot of note-taking and Python-writing. :) I used colors to indicate what sums the various boxes could total to, used 0s as pencilmarks, and red circles to indicate the fake numbers once I'd filled them in. Phew!
Thanks so much for the feature!!! Beautiful solve, its definitely fun getting to watch someone work through the logic. Its a much different experience watching someone solve a puzzle I made rather than being in awe of someone else's creation.
Hope everyone enjoys the video!
Great puzzle. Mind-bending. Cheers.
Really great puzzle! This was a really fun episode to watch!
Thank you for one of the most amazing logical journeys I have had with this beautiful piece of art.
I hope you did indeed take a bow! I agree with Simon, one of the great puzzles. I hope you do more "hidden zero" puzzles.
Bravo
you've got actual Schrodinger cells, which can simultaneously have value and no value
I’m not even done watching the video yet, but I just wanted to comment that I love the idea of a hidden-zero ruleset and want to see a more approachable version, perhaps with more given digits, which would be created as a sort of “introduction to hidden zero sudoku” puzzle
They have a video titled "A puzzle for a ninja" with the same hidden zero ruleset but way easier
@@Crybabeee thank you, I’ll check it out!
A puzzle with a ruleset like this is something I can’t even bring myself to start, it’s always mind blowing seeing Simon’s brain work at such a high level
The rule set is so weird I’m not sure if this is worth watching
@@Beamer1969 definitely, 100% worth the watch.
Worth watching, definitely. But I agree with Leo here, not one that I try myself.
@@Beamer1969 I’ve never run into a CTC vídeo not worth watching!
@@Beamer1969 This is what I thought in the first of it, too many possible sums of squares with one digit just "randomly" ignored. But after a point, things get more restricted and, at least with Simon's brain on the details, the patterns are pretty satisfying. The hidden 0's and the coloring scheme start doing cool things.
The things you learn on Cracking the Cryptic. "Good begins with gah and bad begins with bah!"
trademarked Knowledge Bomb there
Ohmygosh, I burst out laughing when Simon said this. Too funny
The joke is lost on me since what Simon did is actually say phonemes those words start with. Green or good don't start with /dʒiː/, but with /g/. This is the first time in my life that I heard a native English speaker pronounce actual phonemes rather than naming a letter from the alphabet. As a native Slavic speaker, I quite appreciate it :)
@@Ennar When children are learning to speak they typically learn the entire alphabet like this (at least in the UK!)
bad sheep
Me watching Simon figure this out? I’m in.
Me attempting it? Fat chance. 😂
Same! I may not be able to follow all the logic the first time I watch - but I feel smarter for just watching. 😀
Saw the video time was over an hour. Read the rules five times. Understood everything, but the hidden zeros rule made me nope out faster than the Flash after a bad guy...Now watching the video solve...let's see what they can figure out.
I attempt it
after i finish watching and pause on the solution
Rules: 03:30
Let's get cracking: 06:21
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Beautiful: 14 (22:05, 22:05, 27:01, 29:24, 29:33, 29:37, 35:40, 43:23, 53:21, 56:31, 59:42, 59:45, 59:45, 1:05:54)
Good Grief: 6 (29:17, 33:02, 33:05, 40:43, 43:28, 44:52)
Brilliant: 5 (00:38, 00:40, 1:14:23, 1:14:23, 1:14:23)
By sudoku: 5 (1:03:11, 1:04:03, 1:06:59, 1:09:34, 1:13:41)
Clever: 4 (31:02, 47:11, 1:14:33, 1:14:35)
Naughty: 4 (20:03, 26:48, 42:35, 1:07:57)
Bobbins: 3 (28:47, 34:35, 1:13:50)
Bother: 3 (51:30, 1:06:34, 1:10:38)
Incredible: 3 (01:18, 02:35, 1:12:11)
Sorry: 2 (41:41, 1:15:28)
Secret: 2 (07:41, 07:44)
The Answer is: 2 (20:56, 1:09:26)
Maverick: 2 (00:57, 14:46)
Nonsense: 2 (08:32, 45:52)
Fascinating: 2 (25:22, 1:15:14)
Eyes are Drawn: 1 (06:26)
Useless: 1 (10:03)
Goodness: 1 (1:14:26)
Three In the Corner: 1 (1:04:52)
Lovely: 1 (1:12:08)
Ridiculous: 1 (1:14:58)
Gorgeous: 1 (57:19)
Take a Bow: 1 (1:14:26)
FAQ:
Q1: What is a Simarkism?
A1: A Simarkism is something that Simon and Mark typically or frequently say.
Q2: How do you do this so fast?
A2: I'm not made of flesh and blood, but of sand ...
Q3: Why don't you include 'XX' and 'YY'?
A3: Probably it's already on the list ('Scooby-Doo' for example), but not mentioned in this video. But if you think it's not, tell me what you'd like me to include and there's a good chance I'll add it!
Q4: You missed 'XX' at 'YY:ZZ'!
A4: That could very well be the case! Human speech is hard to understand for computers like me, especially British sometimes! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q5: Could you turn these statistics into videos?
A5: I've been playing around with the idea and I'm open to input as to what people would like to see. Let me know if you are interested in this and/or have suggestions.
A bit late today?! 😂
many simarkisms today
simon seems to use more than mark
Subscribed in the hopes you (or your humans) do make that video :)
The time he said "three in the corner" it actually wasnt in the normal corner. And so he forgot the REM reference
I generally don't try these puzzles featured on the channel because I'm not that experienced for a sudoku solver, but I decided to give this one a try. 3 and a half hours later, I finished it, and I have to ay it was one of the coolest and most fulfilling experiences I've ever had, wow!
Rarely do I take such pride in solving a puzzle in over fifty minutes ... but I solved this in a time of 53:15 and have rarely been prouder.
Absolutely STUNNING puzzle!
14:45
Once upon a midday dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many quaint and curious boxes with multiple squares-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my window pane.
“’Tis some Maverick,” I muttered, “tapping at my window pane-
Only this and nothing else.”
As Simon would say: take a bow!
I don't usually fall asleep during these videos but I was REALLY tired today and woke up at 40 minutes. I probably missed a good 20 minutes......still almost nothing penciled in. lol
That’s right about where my 6yo who was watching with me passed out for the night, too! And then I had to have help getting kiddo off me to get carried to bed, because unlike an infant 60lb is too much to stand up out of the recliner with 🤣🤣🤣
you can tell it's a hard puzzle that requires his full concentration when he doesn't make his 'losing it's religion' joke when he announces a three in the corner
Been watching Cracking the cryptic seems like forever. I only heard the "three in the corner" earlier this year! I have to start watching all videos and see what else I've missed.
It only counts if it is in a corner of the grid
Good that line needs to go away
Two years later he never misses a three in the corner song. And we all want to cry because we’re so sick of the same joke on repeat forever
4 years later and 3 in the corner is slowly getting boring even for its creator , I think
love how simon completely forgot that the hidden 0 also apply to cropki dots and still solved it. could have known way earlier that there is a bad digit in the 6 cell cage in row 2 once you have the 36 on one side of the kropki in box1, cause if the other side would be a bad digit it needs a 1 on the kropki, so it can't be a bad digit and the bad digit needs to be in the rest of row 2 aka the 6 cell cage. on the other kropki dots you can apply similar logic.
I'm amazed that the forgotten cropki naughty rule didn't break it!
Yes, once you realise that r2c1 can't be a two, because it would have to be paired on the white dot with a 1 (and can't be), it reduces the possibilities for r2c1c2 to either 4/3 or 5/6, leaving a much more manageable six combinations for r2c1c2c3 and forcing the hidden zero into the six cage. Four of those six combinations can be ruled out fairly quickly, one because the hidden zero means that the six cell cage can no longer sum to 36 and the others because the digit that would have to be the hidden zero either already exists in the row or has already been determined to be a hidden zero elsewhere. The result is that the six cell cage must be a 25 made up of 23479 with the additional hidden zero digit being either 1 or 8. This also fixes the digits in r2c1c2 as being 5 and 6 and removes 9 as a possibility from r2c3.
"Green is good."
So bad must be red, surely?
"Bad starts with ba, and blue starts with ba, so blue is bad."
Ok, carry on.
I can't wait to see you and Mark stream Baba is You.
Cooperatively? Oh, this is either going to be amazing, or a train wreck.
Heck yeah!!!!!
I did dare to attempt this puzzle before watching Simon. It was brutal, it took me about 150 minutes, two and a halve hours!
I managed to find the same path Simon found, but my brain took a different approach to deduce some steps. (a more difficult approach, and I had to use notepad)
I'm in awe of your skill, Simon! And I am a bit envious of that massive working memory you have. You juggle these numbers with such ease, even when the puzzle is difficult. Hats off to you!
Took me over 2,5 hrs and I had to use excel to calculate all the possibilities of 2 or 3 squares added and then subtracted from 45 to find the ghost digit... But I never felt stuck, really nice flow (how slow can a flow be to still be called a flow?). Loved it! Wouldn't recommend it to anybody :p
Thanks for putting all that time into it! Glad you enjoyed even if it took a while
Lava can be very slow, but incredibly powerful and unstoppable.
Geez Louise. What setting and what solving. I hope to see more Burning Curtains in the future. This video absolutely lived up to its title.
30 minutes into watching and this is the most impressive setting I think we have seen. So far their set has just been creating a pencil mark sudoku that was created with this insane rule set. That is amazing.
That was just incredible. Simon take a bow, seriously. Talk about using every expertise you have, and it was so enjoyable to watch
He solved it despite completely forgetting about the kropki dots which could've saved a solid 10 minutes from the video.
I’m amazed. The most original puzzle from the opening to the rule set and it keeps you to the very end. Bravo
I paused at 6:31, to me the obvious path seems to be boxes 1, 4, and 7. Each consists of a full box (45) containing full cages. So, after eliminating a single digit from the total, there must be a limited number of ways of adding 3 perfect squares and getting a number between 36 and 44 (inclusive). I'm still working through the combinations, but my guess is that there will be two different ways of doing it with 2 cages, and probably only 1 way with 3.
36+1 (0=8), 36+4 (0=5), 25+16(0=4) are the only 3 options I see for boxes 4 and 7. And 36+1 isn't an option since there are no 2 cell cages to put a 18 pair or one cells to put a lone 1. So, box 4 needs to put 1,3,5 in the 3 cell cage and the 5 is the 0. That leaves box 7 to be 25+16(0=4). Box 1 might have more options, but the only one I've found so far is 9+9+25(0=2), but I have a lot more to check. If Simon doesn't jot these combos down on scratch paper, I will be really jealous of his memory.
Well done Simon! That was some beautiful work!
Brilliant new puzzle. Congratulations to the author! Just marvelous.
71:39. I did think at one point that I'd broken the puzzle - it's hard to stop trying to sum to 45! - and had to flip over to Simon's solve to verify that, no, he'd gotten to the same point and everything was alright.
Sometimes I think I am getting better and then a puzzle like this comes along
Wow, wow, wow. The best puzzle I've done since I started watching this channel more than a year ago. Got it in 97:23 and there were just *so* many moments when I muttered under my breath about something being clever or unbelievable. Genius.
That's amazing to hear! Glad you enjoyed it so much.
I didn't even think of maybe possibly having a go at this once the rules were posted. I'll let Simon do it and watch the master at work.
EDIT: Agghhh, my brain hurts just watching someone do this puzzle. Such an awesome job Burning Curtains.
Wow. Huge respect to the creator because this was beautiful!!! Took me over 2 HOURS but it was THE BEST 2 hours ever spent! 😍
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed
Phenomenal puzzle and a unique ruleset. First time constructor on the channel. Simon considers it good enough to be in the next book if there is one. Thank goodness it was recommended by AFrayedKnot or we may never have seen it.
I'm already worried i've seen solve videos for puzzles in the first book. Now i've seen one for the second book too.
Love that you've been a lot of these long episodes lately Simon
Someone down below wrote "This is one of the most amazing solves ever!"... and I'll go along with that. Kudos to Simon! This is the CtC channel at its best.
Hello and thank you very much for this brainshaking moment! I'm affraid you did lost me during the rules reading :) but I pushed myself to stay.
And on top of that, thank you soo much to speak a perfect english with a proper accent that even a frenchman can understand! thank you :)
Fascinating puzzle that I wasn't able to figure out where to get started, beyond working out the box 5 9 0 being in the ring of the cage. Cheers for this.
I am falling in love with this channel😍😍. You guys are doing an amazing job.
Every 10 minutes, Simon's hair gets crazier. By the end he'll look like doc brown from back to the future. 😁
ahahahaha that's so true
It's stunning to me that anyone anywhere could solve this!
This is Simon at his very best. Amazing. And love the puzzle!
The Simon and Mark streams are so fun, love to see you guys doing new stuff, it’s almost as excited as great puzzles. Love your content, keep it up!
I just recently found your channel and I've been binge watching, I like sudoku but I'm strictly amateur, you must be one of those math wizards, your logic often gets ahead of me, but I'm learning.
That was a very a nice puzzle. Took me just on 103 minutes. Watching Simon afterwards, I was again reminded that even though I feel like I'm pondering something for only a few minutes, in reality it's probably over ten each time...
Having deduced box 8 had a 3 as its zero digit and a 1 with a 2 or 5 in the two cells outside the 36 cage before doing much in box 3, it gave me a much quicker run home than Simon yet his ability to always find a breakthrough in relatively fast time means I can never get close to his overall times. And I'm not doing it being recorded and explaining as I go! Amazing.
Well I almost solved it! Left out an option (the correct one) in row two and lacked too much confidence to restart fully after it broke. Instead looked at end of video to spot the misplaced number and was able to backtrack and figure out where I'd skipped analyzing one of the permutations. Happily turned out that leaving the options open at that point didn't affect the ensuing logic I'd already done at all, and was able to finish from there. Once again pleasantly surprised. Some of these puzzles feel like brick walls to me, but a lot of the longer ones recently have been surprisingly yielding once you poke enough at the right spots.
Thanks for the puzzle.
This is one of the most amazing solves ever!
Wow! This is one of the all-time best puzzles I've ever seen. Beautiful logic step after step. Simon couldn't have solved it more perfectly -- he followed the puzzle's logical path to a T. Wonderful video!
WOW! Such a beautiful puzzle! I always feel a sense of pride when I manage to complete a puzzle that takes Simon over an hour to solve, a sure sign that you are in for a serious battle. Thank you so much to both Simon and Burning Curtains. :)
On the first day i got a digit, on the second i found the rest of the logic in boxes 1,2,3,5,7... three days it took to complete. The software logged my total time at 130min, but that doesn't include all the time not being able to stop thinking about this puzzle. Incredible stuff! Don't know what's more impressive - the puzzle or Simon completing the naughty list without getting actually stuck even once. One of the best CtC videos ever.
Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, this one really messes with your head. Every time I thought I had it nailed I became utterly discombobulated again. Highly delighted to get to the end. Burning Curtains, you are on fire.
This is so strange!! I was thinking about how fun a variant would be where 0s show up in a Sudoku to mess with all the rules for the last two months. Fancied the name to be Uninvited Guest. Oh how clever I thought I was ☠️☠️☠️
A while ago they were rejoicing that the softwore would allow them to put 0 in a cell, but did they ever find a use case for it?
Beginning of 2020 saw some puzzles with sudokus with the digits 0..8 instead of 1..9. Can’t remember the title now but it should be easy to find.
I actually did set a much simpler puzzle with zeros to mess with the rules today in their discord. But obviously my version has a slightly different rule set and is way worse and way easier than the featured version.
Maybe the zero idea is just floating around in multiple heads right now because they allow for new an fresh cage totals, and so on.
WOW! Tremendous solve, Simon!
That was brilliant loved every bit of it. My favourite part I think is the hidden 7. That box is a square either way.
Best use of square number cages yet, particularly the break-in. Most impressive though is that throughout the entire solve, you need all three of square numbers, hidden zero sudoko, and regular sudoko. Very cool puzzle!
Your spoiler was correct - I was stunned! There was some nice logic to start with (spotting the joker 9 in the middle, then the joker 5 and 4 in boxes 4 and 7), then I got some digits but got stuck. I gambled on the joker 2 in box 1 to be in the corner and succeeded. My final time was 78:12 which is a little longer than this video, so not such a big disappointment for me since I usually don't even try the 1 hour video puzzles!
Edit: Simon explained it at 44:40 very well why my 'gambling' was correct. Pretty easy to understand.
The 2 from box 1 was where I started. It's easy to work out that the 3 2-cell boxes have to be 9s then the missing digit has to be a 2 or a 9. Then you look at box 5 and you learn it can't be the 9.
@@Swisswavey You can't start from there. One of the 2-cell boxes could have contained a legit 9 paired with a hidden zero digit. That hidden zero digit could have been almost anything, except 7 or 9.
Staggeringly good puzzle! I wouldn't have had a clue where to start, absolutely loved the video - Burning Curtains for the puzzle, Simon for the solve = the A team. I am in awe. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This is the most beautiful sudoku I've ever solved. I had to break out the notepad to figure out the various combinations of square numbers and which digits that forced the hidden zero into being, but I finally cracked it and was able to solve it in about 3 hours. I actually can't believe I managed to solve it.
I worked on this for almost an hour without even a pencil mark. I am really glad I didn't give up, I finally found the place to start and slowly worked through the whole thing. The title was not wrong!
34 minutes in, first digit. What a monstrous construction. How do you even come up with this. Kudos to both Burning Curtains and Simon for an interesting puzzle and solve!
Hidden zero puzzles must become a standard variant. It leads to some fascinating logic. Please create more like this guys! (But please make them more approachable. I would love to be able to solve puzzles with this ruleset.)
I was shouting out a few digits along the way, but your logic was flawless. Great solve!
This is the first time in around 30 videos i watched where i sincerely regret not trying to solve it myself. Pure beauty.
I didn't think it was possible, but I'm even more impressed by Simon's genius. Not to mention Burning Curtains' brain power.
Practicing all these puzzles has made me a lot better at this. This one took me about three hours, one of the fastest I've done one of the hardest ones, and I agree with the assessment that this is just magnificent.
What I really ought to practice is my sudoku because I spent about a third of my time on that, the other two thirds being split between the first three columns, then the stuff in boxes 2,3 and 6.
What a fantastic puzzle and a fantastic solve! Loved every minute of it.
I love your mad ramblings, especially tilting it mavericks' windmills 😄
how wonderful - that tiny pause just before the click tick. Of COURSE it's correct! You did brilliantly!!
How on Earth did someone manage to compose this puzzle. Absolutely loved the square number + hidden zero logic, I hope to see more puzzles like this. Given there's a 0 in the example of squares, one could think that somewhere there could have been a lone hidden zero cage,.
80:55 for me. What a puzzle. Kudos to the creator.
What I find most extraordinary is the size of his working, and the speed and accuracy of his mental math. I know what he is doing, but I would have had to write down the different square permutations with zeros a head of time as a reference. If I had to do it in my head it would have taken me days.
wow. absolutely brilliant puzzle way out of my league but just gorgeous to watch your solve Simon. well done.
I'm so glad I decided to attempt this one. It did take me almost twice as long as Simon, but I got there in the end. I just wish I could have seen all of the more elegant approaches Simon found, rather than writing out all of the possibilities like I did :p
25:30 "These are the things that get me up in the morning." Is that a euphemism? Cheeky!
Great puzzle. I got to making the 1-4 pairs in the center area and then decided my night would be more productive sitting back and watching Simon's solve.
What an incredible ruleset that demands quite elaborate mental juggling! Simon, however, is quite adept at the cognitive act and carries all the numbers to a full performance. Take a bow, both you and the Burning Curtains that close upon this beautiful scene!
I loved watching you solve this!
It’s too bad that none of the white dots were a 0/1 adjacency, as the rules allowed for that. Although, if it wasn’t towards the end, that coils have broken the puzzle by having too many options.
A brain-burner. I started off making steady progress, got bogged down in the middle, then raced through the final third so quickly I worried I'd missed something. There was definitely a hard hill to climb in the top three boxes, by the end of which the hidden zero logic was so ingrained the rest came smoothly.
I was also able to solve all five GAS puzzles while watching Simon's solve on the second screen. I might have missed some of his more elegant logic as a result, but I gotta multi-task, or I'll never have time for anything but sudoku!
Simon around the 41min mark, you are allowed to count the given digit as one you put in, you earned it going through so much logic
If you ever think, they did all variations and just repeat you are WROGN! Great idea for the puzzle, great presentation!
I definitely think this variant should be called “noughty sudoku”. Though, I’ve been toying with the idea if using actual zeros in a sudoku with arrows and/or cages. Also, I wonder if you could pair zeros with actual schrodinger cells, though possibly that is just too crazy.
Really a very interesting ruleset and used to set a very intricate and enjoyable puzzle - I would have titled it maybe "9 out of 10 squares" or something similar because that captures my view of these rules. The concept reminded me a little bit of a pair of soduku variants that were on the channel not so long ago (in one of the GAS runs?) where you had regions in which one digit was missing or regions where a digit could repeat respectively. Solving for myself, I admit, I found the entry rather fast, but then failed to see the impossibility of the 3 as the 0 in box 1, so got stuck somewhat and turned to watching the video again. Then when I realized my oversight, I continued solving for myself and to my joy succeeded without further hints (in way more than the 1h+ but that's normal, since I don't solve for speed, and with occasional breaks). Congratulations for a great puzzle indeed!
Wow, that was incredible! I am so proud to have solved it (in a couple of hours including breaks) without any help or guessing! Now 'undo' all my steps and watch Simon do it, whilst 'redoing' my steps in the app. (Anyone else do that?)
I used to do that using the 'undo' button, but then Svenn added the replay function (turned on in options). Makes it even easier. Do you use that/are you aware it's available?
"You Will Be Absolutely Stunned By This Puzzle." No hyperbole detected.
You completely forgot the rule about the bad digits on the white dots and it still worked out. Fascinating!
Yes, I am stunned by this puzzle. Stunned as in absolutely not having any clue how to start this one. The Hidden Zero rule each time ruins any break-in attempt.
48:41 the simpler way of telling that that cage is not a 36 cage is because you know that you’re not counting one of those six cells in the sum. Since you’re only summing five cells, and five maxed out cells can only ever reach to 35, it can’t be the 36 cage.
EDIT: also, the other way you can tell that that isn’t a 16 cage is that 16 in 5 counted cells can only ever be 1-2-3-4-6, which would make the cell in column 2, row 2 have no fill.
Excellent movie Simon!
We can't wait for a sequel 😁
this was one of the best puzzles to watch and still enjoyable to the very end, absolutely amazing
I learned today that good and green starts with a gah/goh, and bad and blue with a bah. Hahahahahahaha. I love Simon.
90:53 for me. What an experience! I needed a notepad to keep track of all the maths. Puzzles like this look more like some sort of hitherto unknown particle discovered in the Large Hadron Collider than constructions of the human brain.
Over to Simon to find out what I missed and how I made my life harder than necessary.
This is an amazing sudoku, which is way over my skill level. I only keep laughing at Simon repeatedly musing "What if there's a hidden 9?" when he's already FOUND that his hidden 9 is in the middle box, the first one he did.
Breathtakingly wonderful logic!
I loved it and was able to do it completely on my own (which is not always the case as I sometimes require a few hints from the video if I get stuck.)
One comment, about the SudokuPad rather than the puzzle, is a fix that I would like to recommend. My computer has to be rebooted quite often and when that happens the timer gives the time since the puzzle was first started rather than how long you've been working on it, as it originally did. I often work on a puzzle a few minutes here and a few minutes there as I have time stopping and starting the timer as I go, so this can be quite a dramatic change, leaping from say 30 minutes to several thousand. I end up with no idea how long it actually took for me to solve it. It would likely be a simple change to fix this and it would improve my experience a lot, possibly that of others as well.
00:42 "and also incredibly hard"
Me: you always say that, Simon..
*checking video length*
Me: oh, it's probably really hard. Yay!
you could almost see the smoke coming out of Simons ears when he tried to grasp the concept of hidden zeros :) great fun!
What a satisfying chipawayathon. Well played.
Brilliant solve. One smart man!
66:02 for me. What an amazing puzzle this is! It just feels incredible that the whole thing has a unique solution and a logical path to get there. Truly awesome, one of the best puzzles I’ve solved recently.
I opened the puzzle and after 3 minutes, I closed it. No way, Jose!
I managed it with not *too* much from Simon, but with a lot of note-taking and Python-writing. :) I used colors to indicate what sums the various boxes could total to, used 0s as pencilmarks, and red circles to indicate the fake numbers once I'd filled them in. Phew!
Absolutly stunned!
We get a given digit.....which could be a 0. Oh good.
Square number, hidden zero. Yes, this is definitely just a watch.
Agreed! And a good watch, too!
7:44 Simon's use of "elide" earns him an A for today's vocabulary test :)