Ahhh I feel absolutely spoilt by all the lovely messages from everyone, and for this really fun feature. This is a puzzle that I'm fully aware is ridiculous. I got a bit excited when setting it by how much I was liking the core ruleset, and I kept wanting to see how the 'can it also be a zipper?' question would work for different line types, and the answers kept on being interesting and varied. This is how there ended up being 8 different coloured lines in the puzzle. Ever since making this about half a year ago, I have had a big soft spot for this puzzle, but I never submitted it to CTC myself because I thought it would almost definitely be unsuitable for a video... the rules are too long, and also during the solve there's always rather a lot going on at once. Definitely would be a bit too much for people who are new to variant sudoku. So I am very grateful to the people who recommended it for my birthday, and to CTC for making an allowance about the long ruleset on this occasion. Nowadays I promise I am making much more of an effort to use far fewer line types / colours in my newer puzzles! Simon was absolutely spot on about me coming up with the title first, and then designing a ruleset that would make the title make sense. This was at a time when zipper lines were still very new (thanks again Jaze for inventing this wonderful and versatile constraint!) LMD was becoming full of puzzles with zipper puns in the titles. I loved the title 'Zippery When Wet' when I thought of it, and I kind of felt like someone else was bound to think of it soon too, which motivated me to hurry up and make this puzzle before someone else used the title for their puzzle. Because there's so many clues to investigate, this is definitely not the tightest or most linear solve path I've ever made... there are a lot of ways through it based on which order you decide to do things. But actually, I've watched about 5 people solve this now and although everyone has had a different journey with it, everyone including Simon has reached certain 'milestones' in the solve path... big pivotal deductions that are needed, such as my favourite bit where you determine that the blue and green lines at the top must both be zippers because if they were both 'normal' then two 9s would see each other. And the deduction that the longer red line must be both wet and dry, to avoid dividing the grid. I almost see it as a story with a series of chapters, and within each chapter people's paths can diverge quite a lot, but always converge to the next milestone deduction at the end of each chapter. In some ways this is even more interesting for me to watch, as I don't know exactly what journey people will go on, and sometimes they find things in my own puzzle that I didn't know existed, and it makes it even more satisfying when they do find the next milestone deduction. Thanks again to everyone who left a nice message, you all made my 40th birthday truly special, and to Simon for taking a chance on this bonkers ruleset - I'm glad you felt it was justified in the end 😀 I'm now off to eat chocolate cake x
Wow, what a stunning puzzle (and great fun to read your explanation) There were some wonderful fun moments as I identified different points (I especially found the logic around the entropic line in box 3 delightful and a shame Simon missed this) Thank you once again, and hope you had a wonderful day! edit: having just finished watching Simons solve, he was spot on - Spectacularly Brilliant - I like that! And this puzzle absolutely justifies the long ruleset!
@martysears That was one of my all time favourites. I don’t know whether I was meant to use it but I realised the entropic line in box 3 couldn’t be all green as you wouldn’t be able to disambiguate the colours of R1C89. Thank you for a fabulous puzzle.
@@titusadduxasthank you Titus, really pleased you enjoyed it! This kind of uniqueness argument argument isn’t needed for the solve, but if you were happy to use it then that’s fine 😊
@23:10, after explaining that *blue* cannot be used for water because there are too many blue and turquoise lines, Simon changes his mind and uses *green* for water and *blue* for land. 🤣👍
Volcanic stone in the wine dark sea (This is how I resigned myself to today's colours, until Simon somehow convinced himself that LAND is blue in a sea of green... Literally Buster Bluth up in here)
And uses a magenta that is almost exactly the same as one of the line colors instead of a blue that's kind of close to but entirely distinguishable from two line colors...
As soon as I read the rules, I was dreading whatever crackpot colour combination he was going to concoct, my guess was water would be tartan and land would be sky-blue pink, which was barely more ridiculous... 🎨
Saw the video length, knew the puzzle would be tough. Clicked the link, finished under 10 minutes, the whole time wondering what was wrong. Realized I opened the Blobz teaser puzzle not the puzzle in the video. Guess I’m not so amazing after all 😂
Delighted to see this featured - I just have no idea how Marty keeps producing such imaginative and intricate puzzles, and this is definitely one of my favourites! Happy birthday my friend! :)
Happy birthday to Marty, thank you for all the puzzles you made for us to solve and being incredible. And especially thank you also for inventing the rule counting circles which is one of my favorites constraints!
Simon: Avoids using blue since it will make some blue lines harder to see. Also Simon: Uses black, despite it being the hardest background colour to read digits and pencilmarks on.
This is one of the coolest, most fair puzzles ever. Basically every step was a solid bit of logic, but also not so absurdly hard that you have to be either a genius or lucky to spot. Nice work!
I don't think I'm off the mark to say this is Marty's proudest achievement, this puzzle, and given the level of puzzles he sets, that's truly saying something. Happy Birthday Marty, I'm sure the best is yet to come, both personally and ... sudokually...
Wow! that's magical how that "zippery when wet" rule works with all those well-known "variety lines". I am truly impressed by the ruleset, and even more by the sheer ingeniousnees of @martysears to come up with it.
52:58 finish. A very fun puzzle, and had a nice flow. Of course, I wound up having a bit of an issue remembering what all of the colors meant, so I had to keep going back to the rules. Oh well, another excellent one!
Thank you so much for your message, Simon -- of _course_ I understand that Marty's Birthday should take precedence! (Happy Birthday, Marty) But, now I am super excited for tomorrow, for so many Hobbity/LOTR-y reasons!
Someone needs to make a petition to stop Simon from making water/land colors that look like a chemical waste spill. Edit: He fixes it but reverses the colors! 😂
simon never finding the entropic deduction in row 2 using all the low digits is utter insanity, the fact that this puzzle can be solved without it is quite baffling
Yes, or the fact that the entropic line must have an 8 in the middle, because 9 doesn't work (9 only has one low/medium pair that sums to it - 3 and 6, whereas 8 has the required two pairs - 26 and 35)... This was really the only 'big' deduction that was missing from this solve, and that is entirely my fault. I am surprised there was a way around it too, although because the solve path is relatively loose, I am just happy that he used everything else that I intended, and that there weren't more things that were bypassed
I finished in 184 minutes. This was a gauntlet. I didn't ever feel lost, but the sheer amount of thinking was brutal. I thought I had broken it, initially, however I realized that the longer region sum does not follow the same principle as the shorter one. This puzzle makes you pay attention and punishes you for not considering every possibility. If it weren't for the Yin Yang tricks that I learned from Simon in previous videos, then I don't know if I could have done this puzzle. I'm so glad to have made it through this. Great Puzzle!
Finished in 60:10. Very interesting ruleset with the water changing things to include a zipper availability. Fascinating interplay between whether a line could be both limits what the lines could be. Very fun puzzle!
theres LOADS of other line types too, but I think I included some of the most well known and commonly used ones. I already used too many different types in this haha, I think if I'd have used any more it would have been beyond ridiculous!
Congrats to Marty Sears. You managed to find Simon's limit to how many colors he can stand to put in a puzzle and the answer was, All of Them. Round of applause for Marty everyone!
47:17 German whispers can never be 9 because the central digits defers by at least 5 from its neighbors but none its neighbors can be at least 5 as well to make the sum work.
1:52:13 - That was absolutely brilliant! I don’t care that it took me nearly 2 hours; I’m delighted to have finished it and in awe at Marty Sears’ amazing construction. Brilliant logic throughout. My favourite bit was realising that the entropic line in box 3 couldn’t be all green as there wouldn’t be a way to disambiguate R1C89 colour wise.
62:32 for me. Not going to criticize, because there are a lot of things in this puzzle and it's easy to miss stuff, as well as be looking in the wrong area for awhile. Plus I messed up and had to backtrack, so I'm not one to talk. But I think the main thing I noticed that Simon didn't, is that the orange line in box 2 needs a low digit (123) on it in row 2, creating a virtual 123 triple for the row with the digits in R2C1&R2C2. This determines the digit in R2C6 (on the palindrome) and does work from there that would've helped Simon quite a bit. Fantastic puzzle though, well done Marty.
I had to miss this when it was first posted, but I knew I would definitely come back to watch this video whenever I got time - thanks so much, Simon, for solving it (with so much appreciation for what the logic was doing) and thanks especially to Marty for being the kind of person and setter that everyone wants to recognize on his birthday! Great video - thanks, Simon.
Thanks so much Simon, for doing this puzzle and passing on our messages to Marty! Hope you enjoyed it (I'm right at the beginning writing this!) I personally think it's stunning 😁
Thank you again Sarah, you honestly make this community a much better place with your positivity, cheeky humour, kindness and also your own awesome puzzles
When he chose purple as one of the colors, I was facepalming since there was a purple line in the puzzle which wouldn't be visible with that background, but he got lucky that the entire purple line ended up being black anyway!
Same. Just one of those moments I chuckle at Simon's quirks. He was aware and deliberating that the colors he chose might be a problem with the lines in the puzzle, and yet somehow still picked a color that was the same as some of the lines.
once you knew the top right orange line was indeed an entropic line, you could've used that it must contain a {1,2,3} digit in row 2 to complete a 123 triple in the 2nd row. that would force the grey palindrome to become 4-8-4 and solve the upper half of the grid. I was waiting for the longest time for you to get there, only for you to solve most of the grid and never need that trick. Always neat to see how there are multiple paths to the finish
yes that was my intended way of doing it, using the entropic line. It is actually impossible for a 5 cell entropic zipper to have a 9 in the centre, as the only low and medium combo that can add to it is 36, but you need two different combos. 8 works, because 3 and 5 are low and medium, and so are 2 and 6. You're right though, there's so much going on in this puzzle that there are lots of different orders in which to do things, but Simon still used all my main intended deductions. Probably that entropic deduction is the only big intended step that he managed to bypass by doing other things first, but his way was still very cool
Simon, you were correct. The birthday party was for both Bilbo and Frodo. Bilbo turning eleventy-one (111) and Frodo turning 33. Their combined age of 144, or one gross, being the number of people invited. Sorry, just a big LotR fan. I might be just about as exciting at parties as you...
I actually started in the top-left corner, with that renban line - it can't possibly be all one color due to its positioning. It would either isolate a single cell of the opposite color in the corner or form a 2x2.
54:10 Can't put 789 because it forces the zpalidrome to be 242 and forces the zregionsum line to have the 6 in the middle, which needs the 12 in box 5, which is one too many 2s in box 5 (or in column 5, for that matter)
I will write my comment before even solving and watching the video, based on the ruleset and the name of the constructor: _"Yet another cosmic-class masterpiece on CTC"_ (I bet‼). Human imagination and genius seems to have no limit. I cannot be wrong. Even the puzzle title is awesome‼
One thing to notice fairly early is that the longer red line must be both. If it was all one or the other, it would create a mountain range across the grid which would break yin-yang.
42:47 I'm pretty sure Marty Sears' middle initial is F! 😂 This is a genius puzzle that just seems impossible to exist. Awesome even by his exalted standards.
I feel like Simon got a little bit lucky making R23C5 a 45 or 57. I don't see what's preventing it being any other combination that adds up to 9 or 12 around 39:00.
the way I thought about it was that for the middle digit X, you need to add two pairs of sums that have a collective difference of X. so you can make 6 X because of the (5,1) and (2,4) pair, 5-1 = 4 and 4-2 = 2, and 2+4=6. thus you can make the sum pairs 6 greater in box 4, which would equal box 5's region sum as it is 6 less than box 4 plus 6. so then I considered all sum pair differences for higher numbers, and I realized that the difference between two added digits for an odd number will always be odd. (EX 9: 8-1=7, 7-2=5, 6-3=3, etc). two odd numbers will always be even, thus the difference between the cages can never equal an odd number, leaving only 6 and 8 as possible combinations with regions (54) and (612) or regions (57) and (813)
: I think you inversed rows and columns, and we are discussing row 5 column 2 and 3,, left side of the regional sum line fom box 4 to box 5, right? Thn here is the explication: As Simon deduced, the total of all digits on the line is a multiple of 6 and the center oft he zipper is the total divided by 3, and has to be even. The sum in box 4 is half the total. So the only possible combinations are: zippercenter 2 /4 /6 /8 total 6 /12 /18 /24 Regional sum 3 /6 /9 /12 The two other digits in box 5 are the difference of the zippercenter and the regional sum: A+B=3-2=1 impossible /A+B=6-4=2 impossible without rep. /A+B=9-6 =3=1+2 /A+B=12-8=4=1+3 So the only possible pais of zipperdigits in box 5 are (1,2) for zippercenter 6, and (1,3) for zippercenter 8 Their zipperpartners in box 4 are either (6-2 =4 and 6 -1 =5 ) or (8-1 =7 and 8-3 =5) Hope tha made it clear.
Anyone that is cross with Simon for choosing purple water, please remember that the title of the puzzle is Zippery When Wet and Zipper Lines are always purple. I think it’s fitting.
Really nice puzzle. i did find that there was a lot to look at at a time. this lead my solve to be pretty different from simons. Spoilers below: after having determined the colors at the top, like simon did, i noticed that the orange line in box 2 had to have a land cell, otherwise it would isolate a land above it in the corner. we know that the orange line is at least entropic, and so contains a low digit in row 2. combine that with the 2 low digits in box 1 and you've got your quota of low digits in that row. with this fact, i was able to fill in a lot of the top before even thinking of anything in the bottom half i was temped to use the new yin yang secret on this puzzle. that string of 4 blacks on the border (not counting corner) was sitting there the whole puzzle just waiting to be odd. sadly it didnt look like it would have helped much
I just commented separately, having not seen this but basically same thing. The low digits in Row 2 fix the palindrome digit in that row which does a fair amount of work.
No Idea but having solved it with blue green (because I can't stand any other way) then watched Simon, his Purple/Black did make the lines stand out better
I know I'm colour blind, but at least I'm not colour insane. You rejected blue for water, but chose purple, even though there are purple lines too. Then you changed your colouring and made the land blue and the sea green! That's certifiable. Blue for water, dark green for land, and if your blue's the wrong shade, use the pen tool on the blue lines so they still stand out if shaded blue. I really wish these multi-colour puzzles would use different line styles and thickness, because it seems you are incapable of choosing colour blind friendly colours. Although this was a remarkable puzzle, I didn't like it or enjoy it. No puzzle should take almost as long to read (including re-reading) the rules as it does to solve.
Sigh got to half way but somehow after finishing made 12-14cell error(and 4 missing L/W cells).due to mistake in B6(4 correct boxes and 4 correct rows..) 4 of the erred Boxes were cuz of B6 mistakes. Puzzle went relatively fast for this type. Worst part is after getting B9nabner it hilited the HML error But had 573 or 483
Ahhh I feel absolutely spoilt by all the lovely messages from everyone, and for this really fun feature. This is a puzzle that I'm fully aware is ridiculous. I got a bit excited when setting it by how much I was liking the core ruleset, and I kept wanting to see how the 'can it also be a zipper?' question would work for different line types, and the answers kept on being interesting and varied. This is how there ended up being 8 different coloured lines in the puzzle. Ever since making this about half a year ago, I have had a big soft spot for this puzzle, but I never submitted it to CTC myself because I thought it would almost definitely be unsuitable for a video... the rules are too long, and also during the solve there's always rather a lot going on at once. Definitely would be a bit too much for people who are new to variant sudoku. So I am very grateful to the people who recommended it for my birthday, and to CTC for making an allowance about the long ruleset on this occasion. Nowadays I promise I am making much more of an effort to use far fewer line types / colours in my newer puzzles!
Simon was absolutely spot on about me coming up with the title first, and then designing a ruleset that would make the title make sense. This was at a time when zipper lines were still very new (thanks again Jaze for inventing this wonderful and versatile constraint!) LMD was becoming full of puzzles with zipper puns in the titles. I loved the title 'Zippery When Wet' when I thought of it, and I kind of felt like someone else was bound to think of it soon too, which motivated me to hurry up and make this puzzle before someone else used the title for their puzzle.
Because there's so many clues to investigate, this is definitely not the tightest or most linear solve path I've ever made... there are a lot of ways through it based on which order you decide to do things. But actually, I've watched about 5 people solve this now and although everyone has had a different journey with it, everyone including Simon has reached certain 'milestones' in the solve path... big pivotal deductions that are needed, such as my favourite bit where you determine that the blue and green lines at the top must both be zippers because if they were both 'normal' then two 9s would see each other. And the deduction that the longer red line must be both wet and dry, to avoid dividing the grid.
I almost see it as a story with a series of chapters, and within each chapter people's paths can diverge quite a lot, but always converge to the next milestone deduction at the end of each chapter. In some ways this is even more interesting for me to watch, as I don't know exactly what journey people will go on, and sometimes they find things in my own puzzle that I didn't know existed, and it makes it even more satisfying when they do find the next milestone deduction.
Thanks again to everyone who left a nice message, you all made my 40th birthday truly special, and to Simon for taking a chance on this bonkers ruleset - I'm glad you felt it was justified in the end 😀
I'm now off to eat chocolate cake x
Happy Birthday Marty!!
Wow, what a stunning puzzle (and great fun to read your explanation) There were some wonderful fun moments as I identified different points (I especially found the logic around the entropic line in box 3 delightful and a shame Simon missed this) Thank you once again, and hope you had a wonderful day! edit: having just finished watching Simons solve, he was spot on - Spectacularly Brilliant - I like that! And this puzzle absolutely justifies the long ruleset!
@martysears That was one of my all time favourites. I don’t know whether I was meant to use it but I realised the entropic line in box 3 couldn’t be all green as you wouldn’t be able to disambiguate the colours of R1C89. Thank you for a fabulous puzzle.
@@titusadduxasthank you Titus, really pleased you enjoyed it! This kind of uniqueness argument argument isn’t needed for the solve, but if you were happy to use it then that’s fine 😊
Wow! It felt like my birthday when i completed the solve! Cheers Marty!
@23:10, after explaining that *blue* cannot be used for water because there are too many blue and turquoise lines, Simon changes his mind and uses *green* for water and *blue* for land. 🤣👍
classic :D that made me chuckle
He's doing this intentionally to generate interaction/comments, right?
truly sociopathic behavior
He's channelling his inner Buster Bluth..
@@CharlesGregoryI have that exact same blouse
A ying-yang puzzle with 8 differently colored lines feels like a concerted effort to make Simon short-circuit from lack of suitable colors.
yin-yang*
@@Tagswell it worked!!!!!!
Volcanic stone in the wine dark sea
(This is how I resigned myself to today's colours, until Simon somehow convinced himself that LAND is blue in a sea of green... Literally Buster Bluth up in here)
23:22 Simon insists on making green water and blue land
And uses a magenta that is almost exactly the same as one of the line colors instead of a blue that's kind of close to but entirely distinguishable from two line colors...
I would really like the back color to be taken out of rotation except for cells that aren’t supposed to be read.
As soon as I read the rules, I was dreading whatever crackpot colour combination he was going to concoct, my guess was water would be tartan and land would be sky-blue pink, which was barely more ridiculous... 🎨
Came to the comments for this! 😂😂😂
We knew this was going to happen before it did.
23:30 Classic Simon - let's use green for water and blue for land... 🤣
Saw the video length, knew the puzzle would be tough. Clicked the link, finished under 10 minutes, the whole time wondering what was wrong. Realized I opened the Blobz teaser puzzle not the puzzle in the video. Guess I’m not so amazing after all 😂
LOL! I'm sure it was still a lot of fun though, Blobz is great
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Thank you, that made me laugh!!
Did the same 😂👍
Delighted to see this featured - I just have no idea how Marty keeps producing such imaginative and intricate puzzles, and this is definitely one of my favourites! Happy birthday my friend! :)
I appreciate you synchronizing your release times with the time my kids finally fall asleep
Happy birthday to Marty, thank you for all the puzzles you made for us to solve and being incredible. And especially thank you also for inventing the rule counting circles which is one of my favorites constraints!
❤ thank you my friend, for all your encouragement and awesome creations too. Your work has inspired me a lot!
Simon: Avoids using blue since it will make some blue lines harder to see.
Also Simon: Uses black, despite it being the hardest background colour to read digits and pencilmarks on.
But the Lines showed up beautifully!
This is one of the coolest, most fair puzzles ever. Basically every step was a solid bit of logic, but also not so absurdly hard that you have to be either a genius or lucky to spot. Nice work!
I don't think I'm off the mark to say this is Marty's proudest achievement, this puzzle, and given the level of puzzles he sets, that's truly saying something. Happy Birthday Marty, I'm sure the best is yet to come, both personally and ... sudokually...
❤ thank you very much mate :)
Wow! that's magical how that "zippery when wet" rule works with all those well-known "variety lines". I am truly impressed by the ruleset, and even more by the sheer ingeniousnees of @martysears to come up with it.
52:58 finish. A very fun puzzle, and had a nice flow. Of course, I wound up having a bit of an issue remembering what all of the colors meant, so I had to keep going back to the rules. Oh well, another excellent one!
Thank you so much for your message, Simon -- of _course_ I understand that Marty's Birthday should take precedence! (Happy Birthday, Marty) But, now I am super excited for tomorrow, for so many Hobbity/LOTR-y reasons!
Someone needs to make a petition to stop Simon from making water/land colors that look like a chemical waste spill.
Edit: He fixes it but reverses the colors! 😂
It has to be done deliberately to generate comments. It appears to work. I assume any increase in comments is good for the algorithm.
simon never finding the entropic deduction in row 2 using all the low digits is utter insanity, the fact that this puzzle can be solved without it is quite baffling
Yes, or the fact that the entropic line must have an 8 in the middle, because 9 doesn't work (9 only has one low/medium pair that sums to it - 3 and 6, whereas 8 has the required two pairs - 26 and 35)... This was really the only 'big' deduction that was missing from this solve, and that is entirely my fault. I am surprised there was a way around it too, although because the solve path is relatively loose, I am just happy that he used everything else that I intended, and that there weren't more things that were bypassed
I was yelling at him to solve for A for 30 minutes. But Simon being Simon, he always finds another way. He’s quite remarkable in that regard.
I finished in 184 minutes. This was a gauntlet. I didn't ever feel lost, but the sheer amount of thinking was brutal. I thought I had broken it, initially, however I realized that the longer region sum does not follow the same principle as the shorter one. This puzzle makes you pay attention and punishes you for not considering every possibility. If it weren't for the Yin Yang tricks that I learned from Simon in previous videos, then I don't know if I could have done this puzzle. I'm so glad to have made it through this. Great Puzzle!
Finished in 60:10. Very interesting ruleset with the water changing things to include a zipper availability. Fascinating interplay between whether a line could be both limits what the lines could be.
Very fun puzzle!
This one was very hard for me. The edge and criss-cross tips at the beginning were nice.
the Color Purple joke was the funniest delivery on this channel
What's that please? I didn't get it.
@@sly1024 "the color purple" is the name of a movie. Simon said: "I can't pick the colour purple because this isn't a movie"
What a beautiful palette. Looking forward to seeing the continuation of Braid!
I was recently looking for a comprehensive list of all sudoku line variants. This answers that quite well.
Modular lines and thermometers were not present.
May as well add Dutch Whisper to the list.
(If thermos make it on the list, then Between Lines should probably get a look in too). 🙂
And lockout lines.
theres LOADS of other line types too, but I think I included some of the most well known and commonly used ones. I already used too many different types in this haha, I think if I'd have used any more it would have been beyond ridiculous!
Congrats to Marty Sears. You managed to find Simon's limit to how many colors he can stand to put in a puzzle and the answer was, All of Them. Round of applause for Marty everyone!
25:11 for me. What a fantastic puzzle!! Really loved this one!
@45:00, if Simon notices that one of r2c7 and r2c8 has to be from the 123 set, he can immediately know that A = 4
I went stuck two times, but the third time I managed to solve it. Wow, this is a fascinating puzzle.
Hello Marty, and Happy Birthday! May the coming year bring all the fun and generosity you share, back to you two-fold!
thank you Ilona, that's lovely :)
47:17 German whispers can never be 9 because the central digits defers by at least 5 from its neighbors but none its neighbors can be at least 5 as well to make the sum work.
1:52:13 - That was absolutely brilliant! I don’t care that it took me nearly 2 hours; I’m delighted to have finished it and in awe at Marty Sears’ amazing construction. Brilliant logic throughout. My favourite bit was realising that the entropic line in box 3 couldn’t be all green as there wouldn’t be a way to disambiguate R1C89 colour wise.
62:32 for me. Not going to criticize, because there are a lot of things in this puzzle and it's easy to miss stuff, as well as be looking in the wrong area for awhile. Plus I messed up and had to backtrack, so I'm not one to talk.
But I think the main thing I noticed that Simon didn't, is that the orange line in box 2 needs a low digit (123) on it in row 2, creating a virtual 123 triple for the row with the digits in R2C1&R2C2. This determines the digit in R2C6 (on the palindrome) and does work from there that would've helped Simon quite a bit.
Fantastic puzzle though, well done Marty.
I had to miss this when it was first posted, but I knew I would definitely come back to watch this video whenever I got time - thanks so much, Simon, for solving it (with so much appreciation for what the logic was doing) and thanks especially to Marty for being the kind of person and setter that everyone wants to recognize on his birthday! Great video - thanks, Simon.
Ahh nice thanks Emily for being the kind of commenter whose comments everyone looks forward to reading 🙂
@@martysears You are so kind, Marty.
My favourite cell was R2C6 and how it was not able to be a 2 since it would break the entropy line with a 1 and 3 in the row looking at it.
Thanks so much Simon, for doing this puzzle and passing on our messages to Marty!
Hope you enjoyed it (I'm right at the beginning writing this!) I personally think it's stunning 😁
Thank you again Sarah, you honestly make this community a much better place with your positivity, cheeky humour, kindness and also your own awesome puzzles
@@martysears I've just seen this! 😳😳 Thank YOU!
Happy Birthday Marty! So glad to get to do your puzzles!
Congratulations and a Very Happy Birthday Marty!! A Huge thank you for many wonderful puzzles!!!!
I am blown away by that Sudoku! Utterly astounding.
very nice puzzle, easy to make a mistake, but fun anyway, solvable in about one hour
When he chose purple as one of the colors, I was facepalming since there was a purple line in the puzzle which wouldn't be visible with that background, but he got lucky that the entire purple line ended up being black anyway!
Same. Just one of those moments I chuckle at Simon's quirks. He was aware and deliberating that the colors he chose might be a problem with the lines in the puzzle, and yet somehow still picked a color that was the same as some of the lines.
I love the colours that you choose!! 🎉
Great puzzle for today and great solve too! 😊
once you knew the top right orange line was indeed an entropic line, you could've used that it must contain a {1,2,3} digit in row 2 to complete a 123 triple in the 2nd row. that would force the grey palindrome to become 4-8-4 and solve the upper half of the grid. I was waiting for the longest time for you to get there, only for you to solve most of the grid and never need that trick.
Always neat to see how there are multiple paths to the finish
yes that was my intended way of doing it, using the entropic line. It is actually impossible for a 5 cell entropic zipper to have a 9 in the centre, as the only low and medium combo that can add to it is 36, but you need two different combos. 8 works, because 3 and 5 are low and medium, and so are 2 and 6.
You're right though, there's so much going on in this puzzle that there are lots of different orders in which to do things, but Simon still used all my main intended deductions. Probably that entropic deduction is the only big intended step that he managed to bypass by doing other things first, but his way was still very cool
Simon, you were correct. The birthday party was for both Bilbo and Frodo. Bilbo turning eleventy-one (111) and Frodo turning 33. Their combined age of 144, or one gross, being the number of people invited. Sorry, just a big LotR fan. I might be just about as exciting at parties as you...
I actually started in the top-left corner, with that renban line - it can't possibly be all one color due to its positioning. It would either isolate a single cell of the opposite color in the corner or form a 2x2.
That was actually my intended way 😀
Thank you Simon and thank you Marty and happy birthday
54:10 Can't put 789 because it forces the zpalidrome to be 242 and forces the zregionsum line to have the 6 in the middle, which needs the 12 in box 5, which is one too many 2s in box 5 (or in column 5, for that matter)
it was rather frustrating that when after he solved it in his roundabout way he instantly mentioned how 1 and 3 couldn't go with 6.
Brilliant and absolutely adventurous puzzle. It took me ages but I loved the challange.
There's a virtual 123 triple in row 2 using the renban and entropic lines. That helped me move along a little more quickly than Simon for once 😊
Been watching for a while, but have only just joined the patreon. Very excited. Love your videos, they always bring a smile to my face.
I will write my comment before even solving and watching the video, based on the ruleset and the name of the constructor:
_"Yet another cosmic-class masterpiece on CTC"_ (I bet‼).
Human imagination and genius seems to have no limit.
I cannot be wrong. Even the puzzle title is awesome‼
I was right, of course 💪😏
Fun one, thanks. I was slow to get going as I could not fix the rules in my head, but then I gathered momentum.
“I can’t pick the color purple…because this isn’t a movie.” #DadJokes (keep them coming🤣)
Happy Birthday, Marty Sears!
Great puzzle, really enjoyed solving it
One thing to notice fairly early is that the longer red line must be both. If it was all one or the other, it would create a mountain range across the grid which would break yin-yang.
Beautiful puzzle to solve!
Imagine this being your first introduction to variant sudokus
😂😂😂
If this was your first, it would probably also be your last lol
@@dustpan5356 hahaha true story
@42:23 "WHOAH, WE'RE HALF WAY THE-ERE! WHOA-OH! SIMON ON A PRAYER!"
(Or whatever 😉 Bon Jovi are awesome - I said it!)
42:47
I'm pretty sure Marty Sears' middle initial is F! 😂 This is a genius puzzle that just seems impossible to exist. Awesome even by his exalted standards.
Green swamp water and islands made of lapis lazuli
I feel like Simon got a little bit lucky making R23C5 a 45 or 57. I don't see what's preventing it being any other combination that adds up to 9 or 12 around 39:00.
the way I thought about it was that for the middle digit X, you need to add two pairs of sums that have a collective difference of X. so you can make 6 X because of the (5,1) and (2,4) pair, 5-1 = 4 and 4-2 = 2, and 2+4=6. thus you can make the sum pairs 6 greater in box 4, which would equal box 5's region sum as it is 6 less than box 4 plus 6. so then I considered all sum pair differences for higher numbers, and I realized that the difference between two added digits for an odd number will always be odd. (EX 9: 8-1=7, 7-2=5, 6-3=3, etc). two odd numbers will always be even, thus the difference between the cages can never equal an odd number, leaving only 6 and 8 as possible combinations with regions (54) and (612) or regions (57) and (813)
: I think you inversed rows and columns, and we are discussing row 5 column 2 and 3,, left side of the regional sum line fom box 4 to box 5, right?
Thn here is the explication: As Simon deduced, the total of all digits on the line is a multiple of 6 and the center oft he zipper is the total divided by 3, and has to be even. The sum in box 4 is half the total. So the only possible combinations are:
zippercenter 2 /4 /6 /8
total 6 /12 /18 /24
Regional sum 3 /6 /9 /12
The two other digits in box 5 are the difference of the zippercenter and the regional sum:
A+B=3-2=1 impossible /A+B=6-4=2 impossible without rep. /A+B=9-6 =3=1+2 /A+B=12-8=4=1+3
So the only possible pais of zipperdigits in box 5 are (1,2) for zippercenter 6, and (1,3) for zippercenter 8
Their zipperpartners in box 4 are either (6-2 =4 and 6 -1 =5 ) or (8-1 =7 and 8-3 =5)
Hope tha made it clear.
Actually row 2 the orange line in box 3 can deduce they need "123" which causes the 123 triple and resolve lots of things. more direct
Very tricky puzzle. Had to restart once after I broke it. Then still thought I broke it couple times, but there was always that one possibility…1+1=2!
Question: How did Simon determine the 5-7 pair in row 5 at 1:11:30? What did I miss?
The line is also a zipper line, so 3 needs to add to 5 to make 8, and 1 needs to add to 7 to make 8. This fixes the position of 5 and 7
@@martysears Of course. Stupid of me, and to think I knew it was a zipper line. 😳
Let's make wet purple, because blue isn't the proper color for water.
17:32 green land / blue water is too confusing, its too much
23:23 blue land / green water is perfect
@1:07:00.. i have a question, can row 9 column 5 be a black digit? I think the answer is no as it will isolate purple
That is correct. At this point, he could've colored Row 9 Columns 4,5&6 purple. Don't think it helps the solve much at this point though.
True, i cant see much from that point.. 🙂
Does anyone know when Simon and Mark's birthdays are? I want to go see what kind of birthday wishes were given those days.
Let's make water green and land blue, intuitive enough, isn't it?
Anyone that is cross with Simon for choosing purple water, please remember that the title of the puzzle is Zippery When Wet and Zipper Lines are always purple. I think it’s fitting.
That is a great point to be fair 😀
My what fun!
Pleased to see this one - it's a corker.
How to colour parity HL and Land/water all in the same .solve???
Really nice puzzle. i did find that there was a lot to look at at a time. this lead my solve to be pretty different from simons. Spoilers below:
after having determined the colors at the top, like simon did, i noticed that the orange line in box 2 had to have a land cell, otherwise it would isolate a land above it in the corner. we know that the orange line is at least entropic, and so contains a low digit in row 2. combine that with the 2 low digits in box 1 and you've got your quota of low digits in that row. with this fact, i was able to fill in a lot of the top before even thinking of anything in the bottom half
i was temped to use the new yin yang secret on this puzzle. that string of 4 blacks on the border (not counting corner) was sitting there the whole puzzle just waiting to be odd. sadly it didnt look like it would have helped much
I just commented separately, having not seen this but basically same thing. The low digits in Row 2 fix the palindrome digit in that row which does a fair amount of work.
@@dustpan5356 ya. so much that i didn't even notice the palindrome in box 9 until embarrassingly late into my solve
Why don't Simon use blue for water and green for non-water
No Idea but having solved it with blue green (because I can't stand any other way) then watched Simon, his Purple/Black did make the lines stand out better
Zugswanged is the new bobbins
Purple rain, purple rain lol
Done in 37:17 ... hideous color choice Simon ... I've always hated the pink color ...
Why don't Simon listen to what I say to the screen :) Told him white in box 8 is purple and white in box 4 is black :P
Very early on, the orange line box 3 needs a 12 so the palindrome box 2 is 484
1:11:55 you have had that 1 for about 20 seconds
34:07 for me. lvely sudoku.
55:54 for me
I know I'm colour blind, but at least I'm not colour insane. You rejected blue for water, but chose purple, even though there are purple lines too. Then you changed your colouring and made the land blue and the sea green! That's certifiable.
Blue for water, dark green for land, and if your blue's the wrong shade, use the pen tool on the blue lines so they still stand out if shaded blue.
I really wish these multi-colour puzzles would use different line styles and thickness, because it seems you are incapable of choosing colour blind friendly colours.
Although this was a remarkable puzzle, I didn't like it or enjoy it. No puzzle should take almost as long to read (including re-reading) the rules as it does to solve.
This must be the most convoluted rule set ever with the sole purpose of making an excruciatingly bad pun work
I know England has a lot of problems with (legal!) dumping of sewage in their waterways, but pink water.... Really?
Sigh got to half way but somehow after finishing made 12-14cell error(and 4 missing L/W cells).due to mistake in B6(4 correct boxes and 4 correct rows..) 4 of the erred Boxes were cuz of B6 mistakes.
Puzzle went relatively fast for this type. Worst part is after getting B9nabner it hilited the HML error
But had 573 or 483
hehe this isnt a movie...
simon's pronunciation of zugzwang made me cringe