Well, it seems like I managed to set an annoying tough puzzle, solvable only by bifurcation, which is not what I was thinking about when I got excited to start setting puzzles. After Gamma, there's "Federation Marines are lost!", my take on a Colorado-like puzzle, which will probably take the sour taste off your mouth, Sleuth. I found it a nice little piece, really proud of the result. Get it tested by someone else before recording, if needed.
I didn't need bifurcation, and once I found the right places to look it flowed pretty nicely. It's funny that there is a slow thermo restraint, but none of the thermos actually end up being slow.
That was an amazing puzzle... Adter the initial break in in Box 4 and 5 with 789s, i think noticing 8s in R2 and R3 ... esp 8s in R3Box3 was very helpful since it restricted R4C9 and just resolved the thermos in Box 6. And from there the solve was a bunch of x-swings in bottom three rows.... My favorite cell was R7C2 and why it couldn't be a 4, resolving 3s all around the puzzle... @Sudoku_Sleuth mis pencil marked R8C3 and that made life easier for him with the 9s as well as the 5s in Box 9. Lucky but deserved it after the slog... All in all an enjoyable, "tough but not too tough " challenge. Take a bow!
@@YouLoseSirThat's the whole point of constructing a puzzle. The rule set should be the "least constraining" yet solveable And the fact that a slow thermo constraint (lesser constraint than normal thermo) is enough to solve the puzzle - it is completely fair to have that rule. Said differently, more constraining the rule, easier the solve. Imagine stating (or giving lots of digits) ... Quality of construction on this one is infact phenomenol for the exact reason you found it frustrating. Imagine i
SPOILER ALERT!! My break in: 8 is on white or black dot and hence in the cage in Box 5. So 8 in Box 4 is placed @Sudoku_Sleuth - not following up with your conclusion on 8s in R2 and R3 was the biggest miss. The 8 in Box 3 immediately restricts Box 6 R4C9 to 67. That immediately solves the thermo in Box 6. And makes everything much easier.
Solved it almost without any help in 1:13:09. I had already noticed that r6c3 has to appear in either r4 c 5 or 6 so it can't be 8. You could see by pencil marking thermos and noticing the 8 in r1c1 that the only two possible positions for the 8 in box 4 are r4c2 and r5c3. In hindsight I think I might have been able to spot it on my own, but I did come to the video and looked until around 13:30 where Sleuth notices if you put the 8 in the cage in box 4, the 9 in the box 5 must go in r6c6 and a bit later he realizes that would also force the 8 in the same cell, but doesn't put it together immediately and neither did I, but I felt I could connect it. And from then on I managed to solve without further help. Then I came back to watch the video.
Takes one look at the puzzle and rule set, takes one look at The Sleuth's solve time, takes a second longer look at the puzzle and rule set, finally decides "Nope, hard pass. Way above my skill level"
@@ThomasJH268 That was my initial thinking too, but I decided to take crack at it anyway and see how far I got. As it happened I got sucked in, but was able to complete it although it did take a while.
it's not that hard once you realise the break in. It IS a fairly complex one. I didn't spot it on my first attempt. Give it a go. I did it in a fairly relaxed 46:51, but as I said it wasn't my first attempt.
Dear Sleuth, this one was... annoying haha, so right after I solved it I was curious to see if we struggled at the same parts: surprise, we did not. Our approaches were quite different, but one thing you might have felt too, was that each time you discover anything you keep waiting for it to break the puzzle and it just never does, so for me it went like that to almost the very end. But because it was so frustrating, the solve felt like a huge relief. Excellent choice!
Given all the thermos, I knew it would be a pencil-mark-heavy puzzle today. One breakthrough I found that way was the location of the 8 in row 3. (It should have been visible before that, but the marks pointed it out.) I didn't spot the 89 thing that you did in box 4 until later along my solve path. Definitely lots of paths through this one, although so many of the steps forward are very hard to spot. My time today was 34:38, solver number 21.
One thing that could have helped was noticing that in row 5, you had five digits from 123456 that were interdependent. For example, if the white kropki dot in r5c78 had 3-4 on it, that would force the black kropki dot to have 12, and that would the 1234 cell in r5c2. So that could eliminate one of the three options for the white kropki chain in box 6.
It turns out I misread the ruleset, didn't realise the thermos were slow. So I have solved it by treating the thermos as standard, but have no idea whether or not my solve is correct as the puzzle doesn't contain the solution.
It was a moderately difficult 52 minutes and 33 seconds for my solve and the only bifurcat-y part for me was the opening on the two long thermos feeding into the four white kropki dots in box 6. That let me rule down to four digits each. Maybe a tiny bit for the upper thermos heading into box 1 as well, but everything else had a nice smooth easily deduced logical step. I know you dislike pencil marking much, but in this puzzle it helps to see the logic much more easily. idk if that was a problem for you or not, I guess I'll see how you got on here...
Not sure if you spot it later or not, but you were so close at 36 minutes. Slight spoiler: To eliminate the 6...the only spot for the 8 in row 3 would be...uh, huh. Yep, where it would need a...yep, already taken because of the 6 you assumed...broken. Much of you logic was soundly applied, just slightly different ordering for my solve as I focused more on box 6. So much can be quickly ruled out from just asking, what about this digit here? Nope, that reduces the digits here and here, too. What about a digit here, nope. And so on. Those kropki dots and their interactions with box 5 (and box 4) helped my solve a lot.
Additional spoiler: To rule the 6 out of R4C6, you force the 9 into the tip of the thermo which forces the 9 in row 3 onto the kropki in box 3, which forces the 8 which forces R4C9 to be 7. That removes that option set from the four kropki cells in box 6 which forces a 4 into row 5 there, so now because of the assumed 6 and the 4 there, the black kropki is forced to be from 12 which makes the long thermo lower three cells all 3 where you get clashing 3s in row 6 (or a broken decreasing thermo).
Btw, there were quite a few times during your solve where you eliminated a possibility such as at one hour and 26 minutes you missed that R8C3 could be a 9 (but it isn't). or when white kropkis cross box borders and turn ignoring that they could continue or change direction. These didn't affect your solve, but definitely left some logical loop holes open. The only real thing you missed that made it easy without real bifurcation (longer chain logic, yes, but not really bifurcation) was the row 3 logic. Definitely a 2 star difficulty, but could be considered a 3 if you missed three pieces of core logic (the kropkis in box 6, row 3, and the cage's/dots/thermos affect on 8s and 9s).
60:19 for me. First step i got 89 in box 4. Next step i started looking what these two thermo pairs are doing with bulbs in box 5 and i seen atleast two bulbs are forced to be from 1234. Can black dot take last low numbers? No that break sudoku so black dot must be 36 or 48 and white dot must be 89 or 56. This mean 6 in box 5 is forced to be in cage. Then i managed to limit r6c3 digit and bulbs are all from 1234. This mean in box 5 now all lows are gone two lows are in top row, black dot takes one and bottom bulbs can take only one and must take it. So bulb must take 5 as 7 and 9 cant be there. So white dot is 89 pair and black dot is 36 pair. So that 7 must go into last cell in box 5. This was way how i started that sudoku. I think key factor was looking these thermos as pairs what they are going to do together. As that leaded me with high pressure on low digits.
Imagine my surprise when I thought this was a 14 minute solve and opened the puzzle and had absolutely no clue where to start, came back here, and realized my misread...
Spent 30 minutes and tossed it in the too hard pile. Might be some interesting things in there, but I don't have the time to spend on the video to see you find them.
@@SudokuSleuth Thanks for understanding. I could spend all day solving puzzles, but I have to tend to actual life from time to time. ;) So I budget about 30 minutes for puzzles. I had to quit even looking at another large channel because most of their puzzles took too long, even if they were interesting. So I really appreciate you keeping the difficulty down most of the time.
@@oldguydoesstuff120 I use sometimes such trick that i change video playback speed to watch videos quicker. Most videos if i just want to watch them then i use chrome addon and play video with 3x speed. Two methods what i use in my daily time budget is multitasking and speeding up videos and things what i can just listen. Like for example i can listen daily news and same time solve sudoku and other similar puzzles. With normal speed and separatedly that all probably would take 2 hours and now it is guaranteed to be somewhere close to 30-45 mins.
Well, it seems like I managed to set an annoying tough puzzle, solvable only by bifurcation, which is not what I was thinking about when I got excited to start setting puzzles.
After Gamma, there's "Federation Marines are lost!", my take on a Colorado-like puzzle, which will probably take the sour taste off your mouth, Sleuth. I found it a nice little piece, really proud of the result. Get it tested by someone else before recording, if needed.
Coming tomorrow morning 😉
I didn't need bifurcation, and once I found the right places to look it flowed pretty nicely. It's funny that there is a slow thermo restraint, but none of the thermos actually end up being slow.
That was an amazing puzzle... Adter the initial break in in Box 4 and 5 with 789s, i think noticing 8s in R2 and R3 ... esp 8s in R3Box3 was very helpful since it restricted R4C9 and just resolved the thermos in Box 6. And from there the solve was a bunch of x-swings in bottom three rows....
My favorite cell was R7C2 and why it couldn't be a 4, resolving 3s all around the puzzle...
@Sudoku_Sleuth mis pencil marked R8C3 and that made life easier for him with the 9s as well as the 5s in Box 9. Lucky but deserved it after the slog...
All in all an enjoyable, "tough but not too tough " challenge. Take a bow!
@@turbomn11 none of the thermos being slow makes it very frustrating, not funny imo
@@YouLoseSirThat's the whole point of constructing a puzzle. The rule set should be the "least constraining" yet solveable And the fact that a slow thermo constraint (lesser constraint than normal thermo) is enough to solve the puzzle - it is completely fair to have that rule.
Said differently, more constraining the rule, easier the solve. Imagine stating (or giving lots of digits) ... Quality of construction on this one is infact phenomenol for the exact reason you found it frustrating.
Imagine i
27:44 Seems like you didnt see the 67 possibility on the white dot in box 5
At 1:26 eliminates a 9 from the end of the thermo in box 7, without justification. Lucky guess?!
Does seem like. It was also a lucky guess for me that you meant 1:26:00
SPOILER ALERT!!
My break in: 8 is on white or black dot and hence in the cage in Box 5. So 8 in Box 4 is placed
@Sudoku_Sleuth - not following up with your conclusion on 8s in R2 and R3 was the biggest miss. The 8 in Box 3 immediately restricts Box 6 R4C9 to 67. That immediately solves the thermo in Box 6. And makes everything much easier.
Solved it almost without any help in 1:13:09. I had already noticed that r6c3 has to appear in either r4 c 5 or 6 so it can't be 8. You could see by pencil marking thermos and noticing the 8 in r1c1 that the only two possible positions for the 8 in box 4 are r4c2 and r5c3. In hindsight I think I might have been able to spot it on my own, but I did come to the video and looked until around 13:30 where Sleuth notices if you put the 8 in the cage in box 4, the 9 in the box 5 must go in r6c6 and a bit later he realizes that would also force the 8 in the same cell, but doesn't put it together immediately and neither did I, but I felt I could connect it. And from then on I managed to solve without further help. Then I came back to watch the video.
I pretty sure I saw someone solve this one. I gave it a try and did it in 38:58. With 2 helps from your solve. Thanks for your perseverance !! 🤗
Takes one look at the puzzle and rule set, takes one look at The Sleuth's solve time, takes a second longer look at the puzzle and rule set, finally decides "Nope, hard pass. Way above my skill level"
I think it was beyond mine too!
@@ThomasJH268 That was my initial thinking too, but I decided to take crack at it anyway and see how far I got. As it happened I got sucked in, but was able to complete it although it did take a while.
it's not that hard once you realise the break in. It IS a fairly complex one. I didn't spot it on my first attempt. Give it a go. I did it in a fairly relaxed 46:51, but as I said it wasn't my first attempt.
Dear Sleuth, this one was... annoying haha, so right after I solved it I was curious to see if we struggled at the same parts: surprise, we did not. Our approaches were quite different, but one thing you might have felt too, was that each time you discover anything you keep waiting for it to break the puzzle and it just never does, so for me it went like that to almost the very end. But because it was so frustrating, the solve felt like a huge relief. Excellent choice!
You hit the nail on the head
As I bifurcated I was thinking just this to unravel it, but no relief came 🙈
Given all the thermos, I knew it would be a pencil-mark-heavy puzzle today. One breakthrough I found that way was the location of the 8 in row 3. (It should have been visible before that, but the marks pointed it out.) I didn't spot the 89 thing that you did in box 4 until later along my solve path. Definitely lots of paths through this one, although so many of the steps forward are very hard to spot. My time today was 34:38, solver number 21.
One thing that could have helped was noticing that in row 5, you had five digits from 123456 that were interdependent. For example, if the white kropki dot in r5c78 had 3-4 on it, that would force the black kropki dot to have 12, and that would the 1234 cell in r5c2. So that could eliminate one of the three options for the white kropki chain in box 6.
@@psiphiorg
Holy Molly guacamole ravioli!
You, my kind sir, just gained a subscriber!
Tough puzzle. 56:28 for me. Only needed a little bit of light bifurcation. 😄
Tough one, thanks for posting it though.
Took me forever 😔, but I got there without bifurcation😇
@@londonbobby
T'how?
this was indeed hard. Solver 46, needed 90 minutes. some of the logic was great (the cage!) some of it was grindy (slow thermos)
wowza!! I was working on that all day it seemed! I didn't need to do any jiggery pokery but it was a slog!
Great job!
It turns out I misread the ruleset, didn't realise the thermos were slow. So I have solved it by treating the thermos as standard, but have no idea whether or not my solve is correct as the puzzle doesn't contain the solution.
Why is the slow thermo rule used when all of the thermos turned out to be normal?
Why cant R8C3 be a 9 when you put in 8 in Box 7?
It was a moderately difficult 52 minutes and 33 seconds for my solve and the only bifurcat-y part for me was the opening on the two long thermos feeding into the four white kropki dots in box 6. That let me rule down to four digits each. Maybe a tiny bit for the upper thermos heading into box 1 as well, but everything else had a nice smooth easily deduced logical step. I know you dislike pencil marking much, but in this puzzle it helps to see the logic much more easily. idk if that was a problem for you or not, I guess I'll see how you got on here...
Not sure if you spot it later or not, but you were so close at 36 minutes. Slight spoiler: To eliminate the 6...the only spot for the 8 in row 3 would be...uh, huh. Yep, where it would need a...yep, already taken because of the 6 you assumed...broken. Much of you logic was soundly applied, just slightly different ordering for my solve as I focused more on box 6. So much can be quickly ruled out from just asking, what about this digit here? Nope, that reduces the digits here and here, too. What about a digit here, nope. And so on. Those kropki dots and their interactions with box 5 (and box 4) helped my solve a lot.
Additional spoiler: To rule the 6 out of R4C6, you force the 9 into the tip of the thermo which forces the 9 in row 3 onto the kropki in box 3, which forces the 8 which forces R4C9 to be 7. That removes that option set from the four kropki cells in box 6 which forces a 4 into row 5 there, so now because of the assumed 6 and the 4 there, the black kropki is forced to be from 12 which makes the long thermo lower three cells all 3 where you get clashing 3s in row 6 (or a broken decreasing thermo).
Btw, there were quite a few times during your solve where you eliminated a possibility such as at one hour and 26 minutes you missed that R8C3 could be a 9 (but it isn't). or when white kropkis cross box borders and turn ignoring that they could continue or change direction. These didn't affect your solve, but definitely left some logical loop holes open. The only real thing you missed that made it easy without real bifurcation (longer chain logic, yes, but not really bifurcation) was the row 3 logic. Definitely a 2 star difficulty, but could be considered a 3 if you missed three pieces of core logic (the kropkis in box 6, row 3, and the cage's/dots/thermos affect on 8s and 9s).
I need to come back to this after a while and solve it a second time to see how much time I save treating the thermos as regular.
60:19 for me. First step i got 89 in box 4. Next step i started looking what these two thermo pairs are doing with bulbs in box 5 and i seen atleast two bulbs are forced to be from 1234. Can black dot take last low numbers? No that break sudoku so black dot must be 36 or 48 and white dot must be 89 or 56. This mean 6 in box 5 is forced to be in cage. Then i managed to limit r6c3 digit and bulbs are all from 1234. This mean in box 5 now all lows are gone two lows are in top row, black dot takes one and bottom bulbs can take only one and must take it. So bulb must take 5 as 7 and 9 cant be there. So white dot is 89 pair and black dot is 36 pair. So that 7 must go into last cell in box 5.
This was way how i started that sudoku. I think key factor was looking these thermos as pairs what they are going to do together. As that leaded me with high pressure on low digits.
60:45 for me. Great puzzle!
Imagine my surprise when I thought this was a 14 minute solve and opened the puzzle and had absolutely no clue where to start, came back here, and realized my misread...
62:30 ... what a slog!!!
what a frustratingly difficult puzzle, not worth the effort for me
Spent 30 minutes and tossed it in the too hard pile. Might be some interesting things in there, but I don't have the time to spend on the video to see you find them.
Fair enough!
@@SudokuSleuth Thanks for understanding. I could spend all day solving puzzles, but I have to tend to actual life from time to time. ;) So I budget about 30 minutes for puzzles. I had to quit even looking at another large channel because most of their puzzles took too long, even if they were interesting. So I really appreciate you keeping the difficulty down most of the time.
@@oldguydoesstuff120 I use sometimes such trick that i change video playback speed to watch videos quicker. Most videos if i just want to watch them then i use chrome addon and play video with 3x speed. Two methods what i use in my daily time budget is multitasking and speeding up videos and things what i can just listen.
Like for example i can listen daily news and same time solve sudoku and other similar puzzles. With normal speed and separatedly that all probably would take 2 hours and now it is guaranteed to be somewhere close to 30-45 mins.
47 minutes for me.
WHATTALONGDANGVIDEO! LOL