[The rules got muddled up in the first version of this video so we’ve uploaded a revised version. The algorithm tends to punish videos that we release outside of our normal schedule so we’d be grateful for all the “Likes” and kind comments you can give this one!]
*** TODAY’S PUZZLE ***
Michael Lefkowitz has done it again with a brilliant and witty new sudoku in which moths have chewed away bits of the grid. There’s lots of fresh logic here and a moderate difficulty rating – do have a go!!
Play the puzzle at the link below:
https://sudokupad.app/24t19yk4uf
Rules:
Place one or more digits from 1-9 in every cell so that each digit appears exactly once in every row, column, and 3×3 box. All the digits in the cell(s) touching each V sum to 5. White dots always separate a pair of adjacent digits (but there can also be additional digits in the separated cells).
*** NEW SANDRA & NALA FOG PACK ***
A bonus sudoku pack was released on Patreon this week of 5 fog of war sudokus to celebrate the arrival of spring (in the Northern hemisphere) from Sandra & Nala. It’s completely free – just click our Patreon link below.
Other treats on Patreon include:
– the new James Bond sudoku hunt competition;
– Simon’s latest forays into the world of Islands Of Insight;
– Mark’s video looking at the new OneUp puzzle from Rodolfo Kurchan;
– his solve of Region Geometry by Emre Kolotoğlu (3hr 36min long…!);
– and Mark’s latest solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword
https://www.patreon.com/crackingthecryptic
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Android:
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ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”
▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:17 New crossword video
1:30 Revisiting yesterday’s Jay Dyer sudoku
5:20 New Dungeons & Diagrams sudoku!!
7:36 Happy Birthdays
10:28 Rules
13:50 Start of Solve: Let’s Get Cracking
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Thank you for solving my puzzle, so glad you enjoyed the moth damange. And welcome back! :)
27:53
A really fun and exceptionally well executed idea. These innovation stretch, bend, and thoroughly break any "normal" concepts of pencil-markings too, giving extra workout to the brain.
I didn't expect to do this puzzle, but intrigued by the grid and the ruleset I decided to give it a go. Really enjoyable solve, and not too difficult. 40:53 for me.
Very nice puzzle (and I only noticed it because it was visible in next day's puzzle, which really confused me, because those rules didn't quite fit to this grid).
97:03 for me, solve counter 3110.
Thank you for the birthday wish! I indeed turned 40!
(the clue my wife gave was “maximum sum of a german whisper line with no repeating digits”)
Although other work in box 7 prevented this, the circle of white dots did not have to have a 5-digit sequence in and of itself. For example, the cells could have been two overlapping 3-digit sequences, such as 67-8-94-5, or a 4-cell and a 2-cell, such as 49-8-7-65. When the V in that box had not been determined to be a 23 pair, the white dot sequence could have been 26-7-8-93, which means that Simon's thought (at that time) that a 5 had to be on the loop was incorrect. Fortunately he wasn't certain, and so didn't act on it at that time.
Woah! You got a sudoku from the creator of "Can of Wormholes"? That's awesome! I think it's a game you two should stream at some point. You'd find it beautiful!
One slight logic error in the analysis of the ring of cells in box 7. Until you work out there is one one multiple cell, it would be possible to have, for example (2,6), 7, 8,. (3,9) round it so it didn't need a 5.
I like to imagine that all red cells, being places at the outer borders, are already damaged cloth that will be turned into empty cells next
Awesome yet weird thing happened! I paused the video before the solve to try it on my own and I used the EXACT SAME colors as Simon to indicate single digit cells and multiple digit cells. How?! Was I the only one?
it struck me while watching the solve that it would have worked well to use corner marks for the final values of the over-stuffed cells. a single corner mark already means that digit must go in the given cell, and it would have left center marks free to unambiguously encode remaining possibilities as usual.
but that is typical of me. obsessing over notation while simon is off making big and interesting deductive leaps!
29:28 for me. This was another really fun puzzle!
27:52, but I had to watch the first few minutes of the solve to figure out how to even get started. Had a moment mid-solve where I realized I'd broken uniqueness but then realized I'd made a simply transposition error that restored uniqueness.
This one messed with my head, but I finished it in 39 minutes and am quite pleased with that 😊😊
Yet another genius creation from Michael. The man is on fire!
Very neat puzzle, I hope it becomes a genre of its own. Also it worked out in this puzzle, but I don't think that a box of 4 white dots has to be a 5-long sequence in a moth-eaten sudoku. You could do something like [2] [37] [6] [51].
Definitely an interesting concept. Once I got my head wrapped around the basic logic of this new variant it seemed to flow fairly smoothly. 39:49 solve time for me.
I'd have to stare a bit longer, but at the time Simon said the 4 dots need to be a run of 5 digits I think the possibility of two runs of 3 digits was still on the table (though quickly dismissed with other logic). What I mean is he was presuming you'd have something like what he ended up with (48, 5, 6, 7) but he hadn't ruled out something like (4, 5, 67, 8, 9) [Note: this also contains of run of 5, but all of his audible examples had the double digit square connect the ends of the run, not the middle … so what he said it still technically true]
That was very neat thanks. Sometimes I think these "oddities" score more highly in terms of creativity than actual puzzling enjoyment, but this was a fun solve.
Great puzzle and a pleasure watching you find the joy and show it to us, as usual for you and Mark, Simon. One interesting possibility that you may not have noticed because it didn't appear in this puzzle is about the ring of white dots. Before you knew how many digits were in each cell, there was a possibility that it was not a five-digit sequence; it could've been a four-digit sequence with a two-digit sequence overlapping in one domino, or two three-digit sequences overlapping at the corners such as a four and a seven in one cell leading around the ring in opposite directions to a six and a nine in one cell opposite!
I really liked the use of letters as placeholders, but it would have been so much easier to just replace letters with digits as they became clear – so AB would become 2B and ABCD 5BCD or whatever
32:16 for me
Really enjoyed this puzzle, not too hard, just the right level for me.Haven't watched the video yet, but I colored everything that had to be normal green, and then went to yellow, orange, red for cells that had to have more digits and like that it was colored pretty quickly
24:54 for me – I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what this puzzle is and then watched your explanation. My time started after watching you.
We even both chose green 😊
As long as there is a solution, it just ignores the pencilmarks. So only the filled in digits are checked.