It's such an honor to have my puzzle featured on the channel, and I'm so glad that Simon enjoyed it! I have to give a huge shout-out to Raumplaner who has been doing daily setting challenges with the Sudoku Skunkworks! This puzzle originated from one of those challenges (construct a Fog of War puzzle), first as a 6x6 then expanded into a full 9x9 puzzle.
And at the same time, he's missing an easy 8/9 resolution and an easy 4/8 resolution - either of which would also resolve the 2/8. And he just keeps clicking on things that are part of or next to each of them. I've been poking my screen with my finger in frustration, clearly hoping the poke will go back in time and show him what he isn't noticing. Simon is so much better at these puzzles than me, and I'm mystified how he manages to not see such obvious things. (Simon, you're just adorable, my friend.)
This all shows how much he really hates sudoku, he’ll find the most complex reasoning to fill out the grid when he is looking at 5 sudoku boxes that resolve everything. He could fill out the 2/3 pair in box 3, 8 in box 5, the 4/8 pair in box 8 which resolves the 2/8 in box 7. Basically at this point he can resolve all the 8s and their counterparts. Just need to use some sudoku which Simon really hates. But he knows this is his weakness.
I don't think I'm overreaching my self here, when I say on behalf of the other 2k+ people (at this time) who have watched the video, that you'll pass on to "the little person" our hopes that she has a fantastic birthday with lots of cake. 😀
love it that Simon's looking at clues and spends a lot of time overanalyzing them to get overly complex deductions and then when he notices that column 7 requires 2, 3 and 7 to finish (at a point where there have been eight 3s in the grid for ages) he places the 7 and leaves 2 and 3 unresolved despite one of the eight 3s being right next to one of the unresolved 2 or 3 cells
And he refuses to use the 4 in box 7 to resolve the 48 in box 8 which would resolve the 28 in column 1. But saying that I'd concentrate on sudoku and miss the beautiful deductions Simon makes.
There was a solid 10 minutes where the Bottom middle has 7 numbers solved (needed a 4 and an 8) and he had a 4 in the Square to the left that solved where the 4 and 8 went in that square
That is one of the coolest and most satisfying break-ins I've ever seen - and I would never have spotted it in a million years. I stared at this puzzle for about 20 minutes and just became convinced there was some clue or rule missing. Amazing.
I can't remember where I learned this tip. On a German Whispers line with no diagonals the digits are a checkerboard of high and low. no diagonals = only orthogonally connected cells
I tried the puzzle myself before watching, made the deduction Simon discovered at 29:00 after some time and I immediately had to watch the video up until this point because I wanted to see Simon's reaction and his "oh, this is mighty clever" face.
What a lovely puzzle! I was scratching my head for so long until I remembered the checkerboard/bishop move element that gave me the polarity of the 16 cage! Such an enjoyable puzzle to complete. Thanks yttrio
I took a small vacation, a month and a half, and came back to watch Simon solve this brilliant puzzle. I can't, but i love, love, love the logic. I love this channel even more.
Fantastic puzzle 👍🏻👍🏻 It took me 35 minutes, I was delighted to realise the bishop's move resolved the 16-cage very quickly, not often that I spot something like that quicker than Simon!
Thanks to previous CTC videos, I immediately recognized the "bishop's move" constraint, and that helped me jump right in and cruise quite comfortably to a 16:13 finish. Felt briefly stuck a few times, but never for long. What a lovely puzzle!
Beautiful logic, I would not have got the trick with diagonal polarity until Simon did say we can work out the polarity on the bottom right with the one on the top left, but gorgeous, AND two 3s in the corner with two songs, absolutely loved everything :D
The love and joy Simon you show in solving Fog of war puzzles, all puzzles on daily basis in fact, is just a wonderful testament to how much passion you have for everything this channel has to offer.
44:46 for me, including staring blankly at my screen for about 20 minutes before figuring out how to finish the break-in. I have no regrets - that is a fantastic break-in, and a great puzzle. Well done, yttrio!
I needed the initial German whispers intro/advice as it's my first time encountering them but when he started thinking about the 16 cage I realised that it was a hot cold from the top left. Managed to solve it from there, super happy!
I finished in 67 minutes. It seems like fog of war and german whispers go so well together. I really enjoyed this one. It was really fun calculating all the line possibilities in my head. Great Puzzle!
I had to watch for the break in. Lovely puzzle. And The award for hilarity in Simon's solve today goes to 53:32 where he pencil marks a 3 next to a 3 and says "hmm it doesn't seem to have resolved anything" I think the high solve count might be due to people being dishonest with themselves, but then that takes all the fun out of it.
I could follow Simons’s logic & even anticipate in some places but could not have made all the necessary leaps on my own. Clever setting & solving. Enjoy the cake. 😊
I initially got stuck in clearing any fog, then started watching Simon's video and had the "a ha!" moment a couple of seconds before Simon, thus determining the 16-cage had four cells. From there I found it surprisingly straightforward. Bravo!
Wow wow wow. Loved doing this one! Nearly gave up after staring at the opening for ages, but the bishops move was a lightbulb moment that was so thrilling!
It's interesting to see the end of Simon's solve differ so much from mine. After filling the 19 cage, almost all the rest of the puzzle can be done via sudoku, leaving only a 6-7 pair to be resolved by completing the line. Quite nice to see that you can do the line immediately instead.
Very nice puzzle. Around 36:00 a simpler way to deduct this, is just to ask how the loop is going out of box 9. Then a 789 triple appear in row 7 so there mus be 7 on the loop in r7c4 or r6c4 making r7c5 not a 2
36:00 An easier way to see this, since I don't understand how Simon gets the 456 triple: the line can't go through a white dot because it violates the whispers rule, so it can't turn right into r7c9 or r8c9. Since it must go up, r7c8 must be high and it can't be 6 or 7, so it's 89, forming a 789 triple in the row where 7 must be in box 8. This removes 3 as an option from r7c5, making it 2.
I did it the same way as you, and feel it's the more elegant path. (Just to wind Simon up, it's definitely less "bifurcatary" - "what if r7c5 was a 3, oh, then I can reach a contradiction several steps down the path"). But to explain the 456 triple, IF r7c5 was a 3, it would have to be between an 89 pair, then r7c7-9 see 127 in the box and 389 in the row, leaving 456 as a naked triple in those three cells.
The 456 was based on a hypothetical but impossible 3 in r7c4, which can't go next to a 7 so would force an 89 pair. The explanation starts at 35:42. That doesn't work since it breaks the loop in box 9, which as you (and I) deduced at this point goes straight up.
This was my intended solve path, and I was a bit surprised Simon didn't look earlier at how the dot restricts the loop's path. It was definitely interesting seeing that it was possible to get the same digit via a different method, though.
Such a good puzzle this one. I've now attempted maybe two handfuls of the puzzles shown on this channel so I don't have a lot of experience with them yet, and this was the first I managed to solve all by myself without any clues from the video. Took me a little over an hour and it was definitely worth my time.
I feel like with the way Simon talks about the different digits personalities in this and other videos, we need a whole storybook with them interacting, based around sudoku
Finished in 65:11. Not too much longer than the video length! It helped that I've constructed a whisper snake puzzle so I'm pretty familiar with the things you need to think about for them.
I did spot the trick almost immediately, but I was helped quite a bit by the fact that I solved a bunch of parity step chessboard problems in highschool. (Essentially, the idea being if you take an even number of orthogonal steps from any square on a chessboard, you'll end up on a square that's the same color as the square you started on, and the implications of that when trying to create tiling patterns, or move sequences etc.) Incredible to see that concept incorporated in a puzzle using the genius medium of a BYO german whispers loop!
The only thing I actually realized way before Simon was that the loop can’t traverse white dots. But I wouldn’t even have gotten there in the first place. Although the solution was logical in the end 🤩👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
33:56 with help with the break in. I completely didn't think about how the loop had to be high/low/high/low and didn't see how the two give cages related to each other. It was a breeze after that.
Saw the bishop's move really early on, then got stuck not resolving my own pencil marks in box 2 (and Simon pointing out the X-wing on 3's helped too). Lovely puzzle, more like these please!
The bishop's move polarity trick was so cool! What an awesome puzzle! I've been constructing a similar loop sudoku and that really helped me with this one because the logic is quite similar
Awesome stuff. I solved the entire puzzle except for four cells which had a 67 pair, and realized I had to close the green line to get resolution, since a 6 could not be placed at that spot - so that's what forced the 7. Really clever puzzle!
Decided to try solving it myself while i got stuck at the beginning and needed help on how the bottom cell is 4 the rest flowed really well while the ending making the loop matter once again after doing a bunch of sudoka to answer a 67 pair box was a wonderful way to finish it.
I had helped test this puzzle originally, but decided to try it again as it's been a while! It was amazing how I nearly forgot all of it. 😄 22:42 this time around, as I do recall I forgot to do a lot of basic sudoku to solve it the first time, hence a slightly faster solve on this pass. 🙂 Really wonderful puzzle from yttrio!
The absolute brilliance of this puzzle is that the two initial clues interact with each other. Since the loop is orthogonal, high and low digits alternating can tell you which digits in the bottom-right corner are high or low based on which digits in the top-left corner are high and low. Think of it as black and white squares on a chessboard.
At my work they play “lose my religion” as part of their playlist and I swear everyone must think I’m a looney bin when I start belting out “THATS THREE IN THE CORNER”
The bishops move is a great way to visualize the breakthrough, but it can also be thought of algebraically. Once you know the r1c1 is low polarity, then r9c7 must also be. You must traverse 8 rows down, and 6 columns across for a minimum of 14 moves, an even number. If there is any inefficiency to the path like a move up or left (from the context of following the loop counter clockwise) then it must be made up for with exactly one extra move in the other direction forcing an even number of moves on the path there. Forcing the polarity of the squares to match
At the start I figured that once you knew the polarity of one cell, by the fact the loop is orthogonal and cannot cross itself you can work out the polarity of the other corner by just counting hi/low from R1C1 to R8C8
This was such a great puzzle. I solved trying to keep just ahead of you, Simon, as usual (it requires a lot of pausing, and then unpausing when I get stuck!). I spotted the polarity of the grid early and used quite a lot of colour, colouring every cell with blue/yellow/pink and blue/orange/red tricolours representing low and high no-loop/poly-loop/monogamous-loop states respectively, and it proved to be rather a spectacle as I was solving it! The colouration also helped quite a bit with spotting where things could be monogamous or not and high/low triples!
Stunning puzzle. It's amazing what can be done with such small clues to start with. I got the polarity relationship between Box 1 and Box 9 immediately (nice to get Congratulations from Simon) and made some progress. Then I got stuck after about 13 digits (43:50) and had to look at Simon's solve and this got me restarted.
I saw the polarity trick pretty quickly, then proceeded to get bogged down by missing so many easy deductions like '7 cannot go next to 3 on the whisper line' and simple sudoku stuff that it took me just over 75 minutes to solve it, oops. Great sudoku, very beautiful!
Wow... I've been watching for years, and this break in is the first time where I've thought I wouldn't have ever seen that given enough time. Never noticed that polarity cheese board on whispers because they are normally much shorter lines
I usually have big problem with breakins, but this one just came relatively easy. I mean its a fog puzzle, and there are only 2 visible parts of the puzzle you have to think about which also raises the question why there are 2 visible parts. From there on i thought about connecting them and then i deduced the bishop rule.
I agree. I would never get that break-in myself . Its just too hard for me to visualize how the loops will evolve and affect the puzzle in those type of puzzles . In fact I am so awfully bad at any loop puzzles that I am seeing cracking the cryptic for about almost an year and I dont even remember finnish any puzzles when I have to draw a loop line
I got the possibilities for the two initial cages alright, but just could not figure out how to disambiguate them. Had to watch the start of the video to get a hint unfortunately, but the rest of it flowed from there. Very nice puzzle!
I am very happy to have found the key deduction, even though I first believed the 16 cage HAS to be 3 squares (missed the fact that r9c6 COULD be 6) and was confused why my "1" in r9c8 was refused. I was wondering how I could logically know why the 16 cages HAD to be 4 cells, and eventually made the "polarity" deduction all the way from box 1..
alternate logic for 37:00 (inverted sequence, with simpler steps) a) if loop turns right from middle of box 9, and goes up along edge of grid, it must be 3 cells straight up (or more). This puts a white dot between 2 GW cells, which is impossible. b) therefore r7c8 is the next loop cell, which must be 8 or 9. c) this puts a triple in r7. d) this forces a 7 to be next to r7c5
(around 34/35 minutes in...) Once you place the 2 in box 9, there's only one way the line can leave box 9, because a german whisper line can never go through a white dot. That places an 89 pair in box 9 and is (for me at least) a more straightforward way of resolving the 23 pair that was placed in box 8. I'm kicking myself because I've solved other types of puzzles using global parity, but didn't get the aha moment until Simon said "I have to look at the whole grid."
Had to watch the break-in (the chess-board polarity thing) before solving, but after that it went really smoothly! Great puzzle, always enjoy these fog-of-war ones :D
I figured out the bishop's move to infer the polarity of the line in box 9! It's my first time figuring out whatever Simon just realized when he says, "Pause the video to figure it out" 😁
Great puzzle, I very much enjoyed it. It took a while to fully figure the 16 cage in box nine until I remember a trick and it's relation to the 13 cage in box one.
i bet so many people solve it by guessing numbers to reveal fog and then they know the polarity of the line without having to understand the geometry of the grid trick. nice work simon!
50:04 ... it took me 20 minutes to get off the ground and place a digit, and partway through I knew I erred when I entered a digit and didn't reveal from the fog (I forgot a possibility when pencilmarking a cell) so I had a bit of help by being tipped off to having to backtrack and find my error; still, I'm happy to have solved this one. I still love me some fog-of-war sudoku!
It's such an honor to have my puzzle featured on the channel, and I'm so glad that Simon enjoyed it! I have to give a huge shout-out to Raumplaner who has been doing daily setting challenges with the Sudoku Skunkworks! This puzzle originated from one of those challenges (construct a Fog of War puzzle), first as a 6x6 then expanded into a full 9x9 puzzle.
You need to change the ruleset, whenever the loop corners, it is technically touching itself diagonally.
@@iceberg54321it’s a pretty standard rule phrasing for loop/snake puzzles.
Had to smile when I realised you'd put, not one but two, threes into corners.
@@stephenbeck7222 Yah, well the standard rule phrasing is wrong.
@@iceberg54321 This is discussed elsewhere in the comments.
Best CTC of all time: "We will be touching ourselves far too often for what's good for us." @ 40:15
29:13 "There will be those of you out there who have realized this more quickly that I have." Only because you taught me well, Simon.
I love moments like 54:00 where there's literally a 3 right next to a 23 pair and he's like "this hasn't been resolved"
In that same moment, the bottom left 4 resolves like 6 cells
And at the same time, he's missing an easy 8/9 resolution and an easy 4/8 resolution - either of which would also resolve the 2/8. And he just keeps clicking on things that are part of or next to each of them. I've been poking my screen with my finger in frustration, clearly hoping the poke will go back in time and show him what he isn't noticing.
Simon is so much better at these puzzles than me, and I'm mystified how he manages to not see such obvious things.
(Simon, you're just adorable, my friend.)
This all shows how much he really hates sudoku, he’ll find the most complex reasoning to fill out the grid when he is looking at 5 sudoku boxes that resolve everything. He could fill out the 2/3 pair in box 3, 8 in box 5, the 4/8 pair in box 8 which resolves the 2/8 in box 7. Basically at this point he can resolve all the 8s and their counterparts. Just need to use some sudoku which Simon really hates. But he knows this is his weakness.
I don't think I'm overreaching my self here, when I say on behalf of the other 2k+ people (at this time) who have watched the video, that you'll pass on to "the little person" our hopes that she has a fantastic birthday with lots of cake. 😀
Hear hear! Hope her birthday was wonderful!
Make sure it is chocolate cake
"The reason i've stopped talking is because i've run out of things to tell you." 😂
At one point Simon said "this is wonderful!" while placing a 1 in the grid, making it particularly one-derful.
In a few years there will be a documentary about how it came that almost every Sudoku puzzle created has a 3 in at least one of its corners.
just the fact that Simon got a whole 2x 3's in the corner in this puzzle when so many gives NONE
Should be integrated in the rules to be a valid sudoku 😅
could you explain the origin of the joke? i’ve noticed it’s a recurring theme in the community, but don’t know how it started :)
@@masonm9823 i'm not sure when it originated, but i think simon just likes the song 'losing my religion by R.E.M
@@masonm9823 I can't. It's just one of the things that put a smile on Simon's face.
love it that Simon's looking at clues and spends a lot of time overanalyzing them to get overly complex deductions and then when he notices that column 7 requires 2, 3 and 7 to finish (at a point where there have been eight 3s in the grid for ages) he places the 7 and leaves 2 and 3 unresolved despite one of the eight 3s being right next to one of the unresolved 2 or 3 cells
And he refuses to use the 4 in box 7 to resolve the 48 in box 8 which would resolve the 28 in column 1. But saying that I'd concentrate on sudoku and miss the beautiful deductions Simon makes.
There was a solid 10 minutes where the Bottom middle has 7 numbers solved (needed a 4 and an 8) and he had a 4 in the Square to the left that solved where the 4 and 8 went in that square
he's clueing for looks
Rules: 07:42
Let's Get Cracking: 10:28
Simon's time: 47m44s
Puzzle Solved: 58:12
What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
Three In the Corner: 8x (20:44, 22:20, 22:21, 22:25, 48:00, 50:19, 50:54, 51:01)
Bobbins: 4x (29:08, 29:08, 54:33, 54:33)
The Secret: 3x (14:18, 14:26, 18:20)
Maverick: 2x (28:12, 28:20)
You Rotten Thing: 2x (50:07, 50:07)
Knowledge Bomb: 1x (38:40)
Scooby-Doo: 1x (48:32)
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Touch Itself: 17x (08:39, 08:56, 11:16, 11:51, 12:34, 13:18, 13:25, 13:47, 28:42, 33:39, 34:03, 39:18, 40:05, 44:31, 47:05, 53:01, 55:33)
In Fact: 16x (03:20, 05:49, 05:49, 06:54, 13:55, 14:34, 18:58, 19:36, 29:55, 29:57, 32:46, 39:32, 41:50, 44:49, 45:43)
Ah: 13x (14:21, 17:45, 28:05, 28:52, 29:02, 29:08, 41:39, 49:40, 50:07, 50:14, 50:51, 53:03, 57:00)
Sorry: 9x (06:51, 17:45, 18:07, 21:41, 22:43, 27:05, 29:08, 37:05, 41:50)
Clever: 8x (29:22, 29:27, 29:31, 29:39, 43:56, 43:56, 43:58, 49:58)
By Sudoku: 5x (43:09, 50:37, 52:09, 54:25, 54:30)
Stuck: 4x (38:55, 38:55, 41:39, 58:37)
Hang On: 4x (13:29, 47:22, 50:11, 50:51)
Stunning: 4x (58:08, 58:11, 59:02, 59:04)
Obviously: 4x (07:59, 13:13, 16:29, 45:47)
Beautiful: 3x (09:29, 35:28, 38:31)
Brilliant: 3x (06:25, 06:46, 58:50)
Phone is Buzzing: 3x (10:35, 28:08, 41:27)
Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (15:34, 15:36, 48:12)
What on Earth: 2x (00:50, 49:07)
Goodness: 2x (29:04, 53:37)
Bother: 2x (50:33, 52:05)
Naughty: 2x (21:12, 39:47)
In the Spotlight: 2x (50:19, 51:03)
Lovely: 2x (51:54, 58:58)
That's Huge: 2x (42:47, 42:47)
Have a Think: 2x (30:12, 49:56)
Cake!: 2x (06:34, 59:24)
Out of Nowhere: 1x (50:51)
Nonsense: 1x (18:16)
I Have no Clue: 1x (49:29)
Gorgeous: 1x (45:02)
Shouting: 1x (05:22)
Flummoxed: 1x (49:53)
Surely: 1x (24:52)
Intriguing: 1x (00:36)
Wow: 1x (58:18)
What Does This Mean?: 1x (09:44)
Middly Digit: 1x (34:54)
Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Sixteen (8 mentions)
Three (80 mentions)
White (20 mentions)
Antithesis Battles:
High (20) - Low (19)
Even (5) - Odd (1)
Higher (2) - Lower (0)
Lowest (2) - Highest (0)
White (20) - Black (0)
Column (10) - Row (4)
FAQ:
Q1: You missed something!
A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q2: Can you do this for another channel?
A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!
21:35 "Sorry, I realized I stopped talking because I ran out of things to say". I wish more people were like you in that regard 😅
That is one of the coolest and most satisfying break-ins I've ever seen - and I would never have spotted it in a million years. I stared at this puzzle for about 20 minutes and just became convinced there was some clue or rule missing. Amazing.
I can't remember where I learned this tip. On a German Whispers line with no diagonals the digits are a checkerboard of high and low. no diagonals = only orthogonally connected cells
he solved that in 58 minutes while i´m stuck on how on earth he put the 2 at the start haha. My Brain cant keep up anymore.
I feel proud that I saw the bishops move before Simon, although I only learnt it because of CTC videos. I hope Simon's daughter has a lovely birthday.
I also saw it several minutes before Simon which made me very excited. I'm never ahead of him in the beginning of puzzles
@@BaconJake14 I can't believe he hasn't seen it do far, and I'm 28 mins in!
I tried the puzzle myself before watching, made the deduction Simon discovered at 29:00 after some time and I immediately had to watch the video up until this point because I wanted to see Simon's reaction and his "oh, this is mighty clever" face.
40:07 Simon's little pause and sound of realisation of what he said is hilarious😂
What a lovely puzzle! I was scratching my head for so long until I remembered the checkerboard/bishop move element that gave me the polarity of the 16 cage! Such an enjoyable puzzle to complete. Thanks yttrio
I took a small vacation, a month and a half, and came back to watch Simon solve this brilliant puzzle. I can't, but i love, love, love the logic. I love this channel even more.
That is extreme dedication to CTC to curtail a holiday just to watch this video.
47:30 You know Simon’s stumped when he just goes “Okay, yes, I’m going to do sudoku.”
Fantastic puzzle 👍🏻👍🏻
It took me 35 minutes, I was delighted to realise the bishop's move resolved the 16-cage very quickly, not often that I spot something like that quicker than Simon!
Thanks to previous CTC videos, I immediately recognized the "bishop's move" constraint, and that helped me jump right in and cruise quite comfortably to a 16:13 finish. Felt briefly stuck a few times, but never for long. What a lovely puzzle!
Beautiful logic, I would not have got the trick with diagonal polarity until Simon did say we can work out the polarity on the bottom right with the one on the top left, but gorgeous, AND two 3s in the corner with two songs, absolutely loved everything :D
The love and joy Simon you show in solving Fog of war puzzles, all puzzles on daily basis in fact, is just a wonderful testament to how much passion you have for everything this channel has to offer.
That was absolutely gorgeous. The use of polarity is stunning. Took me over 2 hours to finally solve it, but that was exceptionally good.
Happy Birthday to the Little Person!
This puzzle was a real challenge for me, but I'm happy to say I conquered it in the end. 🙂
39:29 for me. Lucky I'd seen the bishop's move logic before or I never would have solved it 😁
44:46 for me, including staring blankly at my screen for about 20 minutes before figuring out how to finish the break-in.
I have no regrets - that is a fantastic break-in, and a great puzzle. Well done, yttrio!
I needed the initial German whispers intro/advice as it's my first time encountering them but when he started thinking about the 16 cage I realised that it was a hot cold from the top left. Managed to solve it from there, super happy!
Breakthrough a bit after 30:00, absolutely brilliant. Huge credit to the puzzle creator!!!
I finished in 67 minutes. It seems like fog of war and german whispers go so well together. I really enjoyed this one. It was really fun calculating all the line possibilities in my head. Great Puzzle!
I do enjoy me learning the birds and the bees through Simon talking about which numbers can hook up on a whisper line
Oh I’m still solving the planet suite and that was indeed one of the facts I was thinking about sending in!
Happy birthday to your daughter. Give her a big hug from all of us.
I had to watch for the break in. Lovely puzzle. And The award for hilarity in Simon's solve today goes to 53:32 where he pencil marks a 3 next to a 3 and says "hmm it doesn't seem to have resolved anything"
I think the high solve count might be due to people being dishonest with themselves, but then that takes all the fun out of it.
That was a beautiful break-in! So hard to spot while there was still so little happening in the grid. Very nice setting!
I'm a simple man, I see a 3 in the corner, I automatically smile! This one is especially great as there's not one but TWO!
I could follow Simons’s logic & even anticipate in some places but could not have made all the necessary leaps on my own. Clever setting & solving. Enjoy the cake. 😊
I initially got stuck in clearing any fog, then started watching Simon's video and had the "a ha!" moment a couple of seconds before Simon, thus determining the 16-cage had four cells. From there I found it surprisingly straightforward. Bravo!
Wow wow wow. Loved doing this one! Nearly gave up after staring at the opening for ages, but the bishops move was a lightbulb moment that was so thrilling!
It's interesting to see the end of Simon's solve differ so much from mine. After filling the 19 cage, almost all the rest of the puzzle can be done via sudoku, leaving only a 6-7 pair to be resolved by completing the line. Quite nice to see that you can do the line immediately instead.
One thing you can count on - if there's a way to not do sudoku, Simon will find it. 😀
Very nice puzzle.
Around 36:00 a simpler way to deduct this, is just to ask how the loop is going out of box 9.
Then a 789 triple appear in row 7 so there mus be 7 on the loop in r7c4 or r6c4 making r7c5 not a 2
36:00 An easier way to see this, since I don't understand how Simon gets the 456 triple: the line can't go through a white dot because it violates the whispers rule, so it can't turn right into r7c9 or r8c9. Since it must go up, r7c8 must be high and it can't be 6 or 7, so it's 89, forming a 789 triple in the row where 7 must be in box 8. This removes 3 as an option from r7c5, making it 2.
I did it the same way as you, and feel it's the more elegant path. (Just to wind Simon up, it's definitely less "bifurcatary" - "what if r7c5 was a 3, oh, then I can reach a contradiction several steps down the path"). But to explain the 456 triple, IF r7c5 was a 3, it would have to be between an 89 pair, then r7c7-9 see 127 in the box and 389 in the row, leaving 456 as a naked triple in those three cells.
The 456 was based on a hypothetical but impossible 3 in r7c4, which can't go next to a 7 so would force an 89 pair. The explanation starts at 35:42. That doesn't work since it breaks the loop in box 9, which as you (and I) deduced at this point goes straight up.
This was my intended solve path, and I was a bit surprised Simon didn't look earlier at how the dot restricts the loop's path. It was definitely interesting seeing that it was possible to get the same digit via a different method, though.
Great puzzle. In fact, from Simon's perspective, it is the PERFECT puzzle, because it is a double serenade!
Such a good puzzle this one. I've now attempted maybe two handfuls of the puzzles shown on this channel so I don't have a lot of experience with them yet, and this was the first I managed to solve all by myself without any clues from the video. Took me a little over an hour and it was definitely worth my time.
I feel like with the way Simon talks about the different digits personalities in this and other videos, we need a whole storybook with them interacting, based around sudoku
Did this a few days ago and it is amazing. Love it so much.
Happy birthday to the little person and that she enjoyed all her presents and special day!
Simon completely ignoring the 3 in box 2 during the last 5 minutes is so funny to me
Happy birthday to little person 🎉🍰🌰🍩🍿🎂🥤💥
Finished in 65:11. Not too much longer than the video length! It helped that I've constructed a whisper snake puzzle so I'm pretty familiar with the things you need to think about for them.
I did spot the trick almost immediately, but I was helped quite a bit by the fact that I solved a bunch of parity step chessboard problems in highschool. (Essentially, the idea being if you take an even number of orthogonal steps from any square on a chessboard, you'll end up on a square that's the same color as the square you started on, and the implications of that when trying to create tiling patterns, or move sequences etc.) Incredible to see that concept incorporated in a puzzle using the genius medium of a BYO german whispers loop!
The only thing I actually realized way before Simon was that the loop can’t traverse white dots. But I wouldn’t even have gotten there in the first place. Although the solution was logical in the end 🤩👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Clever puzzle. Loved the breakthrough of realising the polarity of the two given cages was linked.
Always love your solution Simon! Thank you for the amazing solve as always!
One of my favorite puzzles I’ve done. Fun from start to finish.
33:56 with help with the break in. I completely didn't think about how the loop had to be high/low/high/low and didn't see how the two give cages related to each other. It was a breeze after that.
Saw the bishop's move really early on, then got stuck not resolving my own pencil marks in box 2 (and Simon pointing out the X-wing on 3's helped too). Lovely puzzle, more like these please!
The bishop's move polarity trick was so cool! What an awesome puzzle! I've been constructing a similar loop sudoku and that really helped me with this one because the logic is quite similar
Awesome stuff. I solved the entire puzzle except for four cells which had a 67 pair, and realized I had to close the green line to get resolution, since a 6 could not be placed at that spot - so that's what forced the 7. Really clever puzzle!
Decided to try solving it myself while i got stuck at the beginning and needed help on how the bottom cell is 4 the rest flowed really well while the ending making the loop matter once again after doing a bunch of sudoka to answer a 67 pair box was a wonderful way to finish it.
"We will be touching ourselves far too often than whats good for us." This rings so true
I had helped test this puzzle originally, but decided to try it again as it's been a while! It was amazing how I nearly forgot all of it. 😄 22:42 this time around, as I do recall I forgot to do a lot of basic sudoku to solve it the first time, hence a slightly faster solve on this pass. 🙂 Really wonderful puzzle from yttrio!
The absolute brilliance of this puzzle is that the two initial clues interact with each other. Since the loop is orthogonal, high and low digits alternating can tell you which digits in the bottom-right corner are high or low based on which digits in the top-left corner are high and low. Think of it as black and white squares on a chessboard.
At my work they play “lose my religion” as part of their playlist and I swear everyone must think I’m a looney bin when I start belting out “THATS THREE IN THE CORNER”
The bishops move is a great way to visualize the breakthrough, but it can also be thought of algebraically.
Once you know the r1c1 is low polarity, then r9c7 must also be. You must traverse 8 rows down, and 6 columns across for a minimum of 14 moves, an even number.
If there is any inefficiency to the path like a move up or left (from the context of following the loop counter clockwise) then it must be made up for with exactly one extra move in the other direction forcing an even number of moves on the path there.
Forcing the polarity of the squares to match
At the start I figured that once you knew the polarity of one cell, by the fact the loop is orthogonal and cannot cross itself you can work out the polarity of the other corner by just counting hi/low from R1C1 to R8C8
This was such a great puzzle. I solved trying to keep just ahead of you, Simon, as usual (it requires a lot of pausing, and then unpausing when I get stuck!). I spotted the polarity of the grid early and used quite a lot of colour, colouring every cell with blue/yellow/pink and blue/orange/red tricolours representing low and high no-loop/poly-loop/monogamous-loop states respectively, and it proved to be rather a spectacle as I was solving it! The colouration also helped quite a bit with spotting where things could be monogamous or not and high/low triples!
Stunning puzzle. It's amazing what can be done with such small clues to start with. I got the polarity relationship between Box 1 and Box 9 immediately (nice to get Congratulations from Simon) and made some progress. Then I got stuck after about 13 digits (43:50) and had to look at Simon's solve and this got me restarted.
I saw the polarity trick pretty quickly, then proceeded to get bogged down by missing so many easy deductions like '7 cannot go next to 3 on the whisper line' and simple sudoku stuff that it took me just over 75 minutes to solve it, oops. Great sudoku, very beautiful!
It's not often I can say I smiled the entire way through an hour-long video. :)
Wow... I've been watching for years, and this break in is the first time where I've thought I wouldn't have ever seen that given enough time. Never noticed that polarity cheese board on whispers because they are normally much shorter lines
That must be one of the most difficult break-ins in recent history of the channel.
Simon and Mark will need to add another phrase to their repertoire: "There are a few secrets I know about Whisper Loops..."
I usually have big problem with breakins, but this one just came relatively easy. I mean its a fog puzzle, and there are only 2 visible parts of the puzzle you have to think about which also raises the question why there are 2 visible parts. From there on i thought about connecting them and then i deduced the bishop rule.
I agree. I would never get that break-in myself . Its just too hard for me to visualize how the loops will evolve and affect the puzzle in those type of puzzles . In fact I am so awfully bad at any loop puzzles that I am seeing cracking the cryptic for about almost an year and I dont even remember finnish any puzzles when I have to draw a loop line
Thanks for another very nice solve. Hope the little person got a lot of cake (with a lot of frosting).
Thanks you Rebecca for sharing your mom's story, it was really sweet.
Absolutely amazing puzzle. The polarity trick had me in awe
That opening was incredible.
Because of the constraint of the loop, you can determine the polarity of the bottom cage by counting the cells between the two cages.
We all are hoping the little one had chocolate cake for her birthday.
I got the possibilities for the two initial cages alright, but just could not figure out how to disambiguate them. Had to watch the start of the video to get a hint unfortunately, but the rest of it flowed from there. Very nice puzzle!
Having done a similar "chequerboard" puzzle just days ago, I caught the logic quickly on this - completed in 17m12s.
I am very happy to have found the key deduction, even though I first believed the 16 cage HAS to be 3 squares (missed the fact that r9c6 COULD be 6) and was confused why my "1" in r9c8 was refused.
I was wondering how I could logically know why the 16 cages HAD to be 4 cells, and eventually made the "polarity" deduction all the way from box 1..
Just got around to watching this (after midnight); wish your daughter a happy belated birthday from the Tucson-Quack
29:11 I agree with that sentiment, I should have figured that one out myself as well...
alternate logic for 37:00
(inverted sequence, with simpler steps)
a) if loop turns right from middle of box 9, and goes up along edge of grid, it must be 3 cells straight up (or more). This puts a white dot between 2 GW cells, which is impossible.
b) therefore r7c8 is the next loop cell, which must be 8 or 9.
c) this puts a triple in r7.
d) this forces a 7 to be next to r7c5
I solved this one a few days ago and enjoyed it a lot!!
35:02 for me, took a while to spot the parity trick for the break in, once I got a few digits it was a relatively straightforward puzzle.
(around 34/35 minutes in...) Once you place the 2 in box 9, there's only one way the line can leave box 9, because a german whisper line can never go through a white dot. That places an 89 pair in box 9 and is (for me at least) a more straightforward way of resolving the 23 pair that was placed in box 8.
I'm kicking myself because I've solved other types of puzzles using global parity, but didn't get the aha moment until Simon said "I have to look at the whole grid."
A truly brilliant puzzle.
Finished in 34:05, really pleased with that! FoW and GW must be my favourite puzzle types 🙂
Had to watch the break-in (the chess-board polarity thing) before solving, but after that it went really smoothly! Great puzzle, always enjoy these fog-of-war ones :D
I figured out the bishop's move to infer the polarity of the line in box 9! It's my first time figuring out whatever Simon just realized when he says, "Pause the video to figure it out" 😁
Great puzzle, I very much enjoyed it. It took a while to fully figure the 16 cage in box nine until I remember a trick and it's relation to the 13 cage in box one.
"the reason i stopped talking is i ran out of things to tell you" felt that
i bet so many people solve it by guessing numbers to reveal fog and then they know the polarity of the line without having to understand the geometry of the grid trick. nice work simon!
"The loop is touching itself, and that's not allowed" was the tipping point for me as far as unintentional innuendos
57:37 that was really fun to play through! Even though it was really hard, took a while to spot the breakthroughs
54:33 is peak Simon: "Oh Bobbins McBobbinsface... I think in a moment we're going to be forced to do Sudoku in earnest." (Great puzzle!)
It’s so satisfying when Simon gets slowed down at the same spot I do
For puzzles of this nature, I do recommend colouring loop/not-loop cells. It makes it much easier to see the track
50:04 ... it took me 20 minutes to get off the ground and place a digit, and partway through I knew I erred when I entered a digit and didn't reveal from the fog (I forgot a possibility when pencilmarking a cell) so I had a bit of help by being tipped off to having to backtrack and find my error; still, I'm happy to have solved this one.
I still love me some fog-of-war sudoku!
This was classy! Really enjoyed it