I am glad this puzzle was finally published, because it fully deserves to be. Magnificently magnificent. You are one of the best and I am honoured to have the opportunity to enjoy your art 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
This is a simply beautiful puzzle - one very clear concept, two hard-working dots which are surprisingly effective, and a smooth finish. Very pleased to see it featured.
A hidden gem of CTC. I've no idea why this wasn't uploaded, but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, Simon and Mark, for all you've done for me and everyone who enjoys the channel. Cheers! (this may now be the only video where ALL the comments are kind.)
@@chris5619 This is a prerecorded video, first uploaded a month ago, but somehow xy00 managed to sneak in and comment before Simon could mark the video unlisted/private
When Simon greets with "Welcome to today's edition of cracking the cryptic," it means that this is prerecorded buffer episode. For some reason he has not been able to make his regular puzzle today.
This was just in a CTC playlist I was watching, so they must have accidentally added the unlisted video to a playlist. Didn't realize it was a buffer episode, my mistake.
I finished in 98 minutes. That was indeed an absolutely stunning fourth digit. I did feel like Simon for a moment when I spotted. I even explained it to the imaginary audience. While that part was awesome, I think my favorite part was the geometry around the other dot and how no digit from the 1-6 set could go on the bottom cell of the dot. It always created a 123 triple in the wrong place that ruled out the other region sum in box 1. That was so cool to see. Another minor deduction that was cool was seeing that 1 couldn't go in r5c4 due to r4c4 being an 8 and forcing a 1 into r4c9. This forces the region sums in box 4 and 6 to share a 2, which now must go in r4c6, partnering with 7. This now breaks as 7 and 8 both see r4c8, which could only be a 7 or 8. It didn't do much, but it was cool that it happened. I very much enjoyed the way this one worked. Also, pretty picture. Great Puzzle!
Simon said he was fighting the beginning of a cold., Maybe he has a sore throat atm. Although we are now mid December and that means catch up with friends for drinks and meals before Christmas but even a slightly hungover Simon has done videos in the past unless there would have been a timing issue to film and edit a new video to get it up on time.
Delightful setting, and a strong solve! Very elegant rules. The 67 pair made sure the puzzle resisted after the break-in, which was magnificent. Hats off!
Wow, what a break-in for this puzzle. 1 - Due to box 5 we can conclude that the region sum (and r4c7) = 9. 2 - There are only three ways to sum 3 digits to 9: 1+3+5, 1+2+6, and 2+3+4. 3 - It can be proven that every pair of rows/columns with 3 such regions cannot repeat any specific combination of digits. Thus, each cage must contain _two_ of (1,2,3) -- crucially forcing digits outside those cages to be 4 or higher. Which immediately restricts all four corner squares to a range of (1,2,3) and gives us our first digit other than 9.
am I the only one who thinks the two white dots look like the dove's eye and .. ehum.. dove droppings? it would make sense, because even peace doves need to go to the toilet too :D
I actually deduced the three-cell region sum segments were all different via sudoku- if, for instance, the line segments in boxes 1 and 4 had the same three digits, those three digits would go in column 1 in box 7, and that plus box 7's own region sum line would leave three cells that must sum to 27, and that's the case for any two three-cell segments in the same rows or columns. The thing about four cells in a column having three separate digits among them is a lot simpler, of course, and I completely missed that, but I'm kinda proud of the way I was able to figure it out. Of course, I had no idea where to go from there and had to follow along with the video solution to finish in 17:13.
What a wonderful debut, the grid looks quite empty but great! I really enjoyed the break-in and I seemed to have discovered the same logic as Simon did for a long time, but eventually I completely broke the puzzle. :-( A nice solving experience again nonetheless. An watching the solve and see Simon enjoy his discoveries is a good consolation.
You smashed it in a fraction of the time i did! After id got those initial three 9s in, I had to come back to the video and get a tad bit of help because i got stuck for an hour.
_"I think ... I just have to propagate this box [box 9] somehow"_ (Simon @21:50) Yes, before analyzing the white dot in *box 2* you should have deduced that either *r3c7 = 4,* or *r6c7 = 4,* with *2* and *3* in its blue segment in *column 8.* Hence, by sudoku *r3c7 = either 3 or 4* (and the same is true for r6c7, of course) This would have made the following deduction (@26:56) a little bit easier to grasp and to explain to viewers. 👉 In other words, it would have made the 4th digit *less astonishing* 🤣
@@Giveyouthesquid That's encouraging. And I've seen Wirtual have fun with chess, so sudoku isn't entirely wrong for him, even though it's a bit off-brand. But seeing Simon race around in an F1 car would be strange.
another way to realize that the totals are 9 is to note that for each of boxes 3,6, and 9 there are 3 cells adding up to a total that is less than 10. All these cells are in columns 7 and 8 so only 2 1's can be in these 3 cell totals so for the third 3 cells - it does not contain a 1. 2+3+4 = 9
For me, the simplest logic was that box 6 tells us that the segment is a single digit value, but in box 5, every cell but one is on a line, which means that every digit but one is smaller than the segment value. Naturally, the digit that isn’t smaller is 9. In other words, if the centre digit isn’t 9, you’d have to add another digit to it to get a single digit value, which isn’t possible.
Seeing simons scanning skills at work in those last few minutes was remarkable :) Mr. Simon "Speedy Gonzales" Cryptic at work (i'm sure thats his last name thats always in the beginning credits 😌)
Maybe it's because I've spent a fair bit of time on daily killer sudoku with its little calculator tool that allows you to exclude different ways of summing to the same number but the way I think about the beginning is: You've got a single digit region so your regions must all sum to 9 or less You've got 3 digit regions so the lowest number with a 3 digit sum is 6. Your options are now 6, 7, 8 or 9. There are 4 two digit regions in the middle box so your number has to be made 4 different ways using 2 digits. The only single digit with 4 different ways of making it from two digits is 9.
While I love watching Wirtual (great song btw), I'm confused as to his mention in the first chapter, because there seems to be no mention of him in the video.
Coloring 1/2 took at least 15 minutes off your solve, something I failed to do. You did miss a bit of fun logic, but I am always blown away by the simple, yet extremely difficult to spot, things you do to make solves so much faster and easier.
44:54*, needed help from the video, once to see I had to think about the digits not 1,2,3 around the grid and the second time for using the white dot in box 2 (which I doubt I would have ever gotten on my own without bifurcation).
I got the 3 quickly enough but just couldn’t spot the implications of the other Kropki. In the end I had to watch Simon show me what to do there after which it was fairly plain sailing. It did take me over 2hours though!
I normally stay away from uniqueness arguments, but that kropki dot in box 2 being the only difference between the possible locations of 7s and 8s was far too alluring.
Similar logic but it was the other dot that got my attention first and what it could and could not be paired with given the 3 combinations adding to 9.
Simons logic is always typically better and this is one of them, getting the right triplet in B2 was nice without stepping. But I like to play was domino/triminio logic For me the 8 9sum triplets , one can prove each 3set triple on (doublr-R or C) are distinct And then prove the D- triplet pairs are distinct. Now curious is without the white dots are their more solutions??? Given the heavy constrained on low digits.
I didn't see the December snow for the Xmas Three...that means this video is kinda old compared to when it was recorded. Therefore, I hope Simon is doing ok!
Too tough for me ... this was a total failure on my part. From the logic leading to the titular "4th digit" to the logic behind finding r3c4 to the logic disambiguating the 1s and 2s, I missed all of that. *sigh*
The rules aren't right in the puzzle. The first 2 sentences read: "Normal Sudoku rules apply. Place the digits 1 through 9 in each empty cell." Surely this implies that each cell in the grid should contain all the single digits (omitting 0) and is contradicted by the 3rd sentence: "Digits must not repeat within the same row, column, or box."
Any reason why the intro chapter had a shout out to @WirtualTV? One of my favorite TH-camrs, would be crazy if they collabed or knew each other or something
I'm glad to see this puzzle featured. Great solve by Simon. I hope he is well or gets well soon!
I am glad this puzzle was finally published, because it fully deserves to be.
Magnificently magnificent. You are one of the best and I am honoured to have the opportunity to enjoy your art
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
So is the dot in box 9 an egg or a poo?
@@hamishwatt2475 I leave it to the solvers to decide.
@@hamishwatt2475 🤣Now I can't unsee it. 🕊💩
I love it when Simon says "It's filling itself in," like he didn't just spend 30 minutes working through logic.
18:28
Simon: "And that gives us our first digit in the puzzle."
9: "Am I a joke to you?"
Simon: "Well you are a bit trivial"
This is a simply beautiful puzzle - one very clear concept, two hard-working dots which are surprisingly effective, and a smooth finish. Very pleased to see it featured.
A hidden gem of CTC. I've no idea why this wasn't uploaded, but I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, Simon and Mark, for all you've done for me and everyone who enjoys the channel. Cheers!
(this may now be the only video where ALL the comments are kind.)
What is this sorcery?!
@@chris5619 This is a prerecorded video, first uploaded a month ago, but somehow xy00 managed to sneak in and comment before Simon could mark the video unlisted/private
When Simon greets with "Welcome to today's edition of cracking the cryptic," it means that this is prerecorded buffer episode. For some reason he has not been able to make his regular puzzle today.
This was just in a CTC playlist I was watching, so they must have accidentally added the unlisted video to a playlist. Didn't realize it was a buffer episode, my mistake.
Get well soon, Simon! ❤
[ETA:] What a lovely puzzle. Thank you, Phurba!
I am glad this puzzle was finally published, because it fully deserves to be.
Magnificently magnificent.
Funny how this puzzle heavily uses the pigeonhole principle, brilliant naming
I finished in 98 minutes. That was indeed an absolutely stunning fourth digit. I did feel like Simon for a moment when I spotted. I even explained it to the imaginary audience. While that part was awesome, I think my favorite part was the geometry around the other dot and how no digit from the 1-6 set could go on the bottom cell of the dot. It always created a 123 triple in the wrong place that ruled out the other region sum in box 1. That was so cool to see. Another minor deduction that was cool was seeing that 1 couldn't go in r5c4 due to r4c4 being an 8 and forcing a 1 into r4c9. This forces the region sums in box 4 and 6 to share a 2, which now must go in r4c6, partnering with 7. This now breaks as 7 and 8 both see r4c8, which could only be a 7 or 8. It didn't do much, but it was cool that it happened. I very much enjoyed the way this one worked. Also, pretty picture. Great Puzzle!
Sending love Simon! ❤
Another from Simon's back up videos... I hope all is well.
Simon said he was fighting the beginning
of a cold., Maybe he has a sore throat atm. Although we are now mid December and that means catch up with friends for drinks and meals before Christmas but even a slightly hungover Simon has done videos in the past unless there would have been a timing issue to film and edit a new video to get it up on time.
He did say he was going to be in new York around this time
Delightful setting, and a strong solve! Very elegant rules. The 67 pair made sure the puzzle resisted after the break-in, which was magnificent. Hats off!
Watching these videos without an academic pressure just isn't the same 😪
Wow, what a break-in for this puzzle.
1 - Due to box 5 we can conclude that the region sum (and r4c7) = 9.
2 - There are only three ways to sum 3 digits to 9: 1+3+5, 1+2+6, and 2+3+4.
3 - It can be proven that every pair of rows/columns with 3 such regions cannot repeat any specific combination of digits. Thus, each cage must contain _two_ of (1,2,3) -- crucially forcing digits outside those cages to be 4 or higher. Which immediately restricts all four corner squares to a range of (1,2,3) and gives us our first digit other than 9.
24:44 for me. What a break-in and what a puzzle! Loved it!!
am I the only one who thinks the two white dots look like the dove's eye and .. ehum.. dove droppings? it would make sense, because even peace doves need to go to the toilet too :D
They don't need to GO to the toilet. For them, the toilet is always directly below.
Some very elegant logic, thanks. I feel I laboured over it somewhat after finding that fourth digit, which was rather splendid.
I actually deduced the three-cell region sum segments were all different via sudoku- if, for instance, the line segments in boxes 1 and 4 had the same three digits, those three digits would go in column 1 in box 7, and that plus box 7's own region sum line would leave three cells that must sum to 27, and that's the case for any two three-cell segments in the same rows or columns. The thing about four cells in a column having three separate digits among them is a lot simpler, of course, and I completely missed that, but I'm kinda proud of the way I was able to figure it out. Of course, I had no idea where to go from there and had to follow along with the video solution to finish in 17:13.
Thank you Simon, an enjoyable solve from a lovely puzzle.
The way Simon went crazy with pencilmarking is just great!
That's two puzzles from the vault in a row: hang in there, Simon! Take care of yourself -- get well soon. 😻🙏
I truly love this puzzle, Region Sum lines are truly astonishing and wonderful to solve. Only 22 minutes.
What a wonderful debut, the grid looks quite empty but great! I really enjoyed the break-in and I seemed to have discovered the same logic as Simon did for a long time, but eventually I completely broke the puzzle. :-( A nice solving experience again nonetheless. An watching the solve and see Simon enjoy his discoveries is a good consolation.
You smashed it in a fraction of the time i did!
After id got those initial three 9s in, I had to come back to the video and get a tad bit of help because i got stuck for an hour.
0:34 - And the other dot, representing something doves (which are pigeons) do a lot of.
Loved this one! Quite fun.
_"I think ... I just have to propagate this box [box 9] somehow"_ (Simon @21:50)
Yes, before analyzing the white dot in *box 2* you should have deduced that either
*r3c7 = 4,*
or
*r6c7 = 4,*
with *2* and *3* in its blue segment in *column 8.*
Hence, by sudoku
*r3c7 = either 3 or 4*
(and the same is true for r6c7, of course)
This would have made the following deduction (@26:56) a little bit easier to grasp and to explain to viewers.
👉 In other words, it would have made the 4th digit *less astonishing* 🤣
Anyway, the deduction was astonishing and the explanation was crystal clear❗
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
@wirtualtv coop sometime? Would love to see Simon play Trackmania and Wirtual solve a sudoku (maybe while sliding on mayonayse)
I was wondering about that too. The chapter title seems like just a copy-paste error if you ask me, but we could hope there is more to it than that.
@@MasterHigure wirtual talked about liking the channel, so probably isn't a mistake
@@Giveyouthesquid That's encouraging. And I've seen Wirtual have fun with chess, so sudoku isn't entirely wrong for him, even though it's a bit off-brand. But seeing Simon race around in an F1 car would be strange.
@@MasterHigureWirtual has also done collabs with Will Anderson about Scrabble too
Another brilliant solve from Simon.
I am humbled by the master once again.
I'm so sad I was unable to find that gorgeous break-in. I caught a whiff of it, but couldn't quite make the right generalization. Brilliant puzzle.
The dot in box 2 is the dove’s eye. So what’s the white dot in box 9….? 😮
Bird poo
poop
another way to realize that the totals are 9 is to note that for each of boxes 3,6, and 9 there are 3 cells adding up to a total that is less than 10. All these cells are in columns 7 and 8 so only 2 1's can be in these 3 cell totals so for the third 3 cells - it does not contain a 1. 2+3+4 = 9
For me, the simplest logic was that box 6 tells us that the segment is a single digit value, but in box 5, every cell but one is on a line, which means that every digit but one is smaller than the segment value. Naturally, the digit that isn’t smaller is 9. In other words, if the centre digit isn’t 9, you’d have to add another digit to it to get a single digit value, which isn’t possible.
Brilliant puzzle.
Wow, very nice puzzle
What a beautiful puzzle
awww I hope Simon is okay... It would be great if someone could let us know
Seeing simons scanning skills at work in those last few minutes was remarkable :) Mr. Simon "Speedy Gonzales" Cryptic at work (i'm sure thats his last name thats always in the beginning credits 😌)
18:50 - It's the guano dot!
Maybe it's because I've spent a fair bit of time on daily killer sudoku with its little calculator tool that allows you to exclude different ways of summing to the same number but the way I think about the beginning is:
You've got a single digit region so your regions must all sum to 9 or less
You've got 3 digit regions so the lowest number with a 3 digit sum is 6. Your options are now 6, 7, 8 or 9.
There are 4 two digit regions in the middle box so your number has to be made 4 different ways using 2 digits.
The only single digit with 4 different ways of making it from two digits is 9.
2:54
It's the time it took Simon to ruin a perfectly fine hairdo :)
19:40 - The proof that this isn't recently recorded. Simon, let us know what is happening, and if you're alright, please.
This puzzle took me almost 3 hours. But so satisfying when I got it.
Shooting Stars that's a blast from the past!
While I love watching Wirtual (great song btw), I'm confused as to his mention in the first chapter, because there seems to be no mention of him in the video.
54:01 for me. i just gave up on the logic and filled it as i felt it should be filled and it worked.
37:05
i wonder, why hi didn´t directly place the 8 under the 1 in the middle 3x3 square.
Beautiful !
This was hard. Had to check the video a few times to figure out where to look.
Coloring 1/2 took at least 15 minutes off your solve, something I failed to do. You did miss a bit of fun logic, but I am always blown away by the simple, yet extremely difficult to spot, things you do to make solves so much faster and easier.
44:54*, needed help from the video, once to see I had to think about the digits not 1,2,3 around the grid and the second time for using the white dot in box 2 (which I doubt I would have ever gotten on my own without bifurcation).
21:35 - OK, was that Maverick, or some eldritch horror?
Let us agree that the dot in the lower right is an egg.
I only knew this was from his backup stash when he got the 3 in the corner and it wasn’t a Christmas three.
50:47. I found it extremely difficult to work out what was going on with the kropki dot in box 2 and had to bifurcate to get past that step.
I got the 3 quickly enough but just couldn’t spot the implications of the other Kropki. In the end I had to watch Simon show me what to do there after which it was fairly plain sailing. It did take me over 2hours though!
I normally stay away from uniqueness arguments, but that kropki dot in box 2 being the only difference between the possible locations of 7s and 8s was far too alluring.
Indeed, that generated an expectation when I solved it that suggested where to look
If the top left kropki dot represents the doves eye, then what does the bottom right kropki dot represent??? 😉😆
Similar logic but it was the other dot that got my attention first and what it could and could not be paired with given the 3 combinations adding to 9.
If one dot is the dove's eye, what is the other. A dropping?
I did get the break in quite fast, but then somehow I got incredibly stuck, not seeing the R4C4 had to be the orange for the longest time.
What's the name of the game plz, is it exist in play store?
Simons logic is always typically better and this is one of them, getting the right triplet in B2 was nice without stepping. But I like to play was domino/triminio logic
For me the 8 9sum triplets , one can prove each 3set triple on (doublr-R or C) are distinct
And then prove the D- triplet pairs are distinct.
Now curious is without the white dots are their more solutions??? Given the heavy constrained on low digits.
Got stuck, so I watched the video. Missed the hidden xwing.
Crossing into (or exiting) a 3x3 box divide the blue line into segments. Each segment's digits or digit have the same total. (Fixed)
Easier break in, esp. if you expect the sum to be 9:
Where is 9 in the central box? It can't be on a line.
It only can't be on a line in the central box because r4c7 cannot be 10 or 11. (Making it more or less the same break-in as Simon's, no?)
Is it the white bird crap that was crucial?
He was so close to getting the 6/7 in box 2 early on. Then just abandoned it.
Like the old Twitter logo
if you started from a diff triple, you could have identified from the start the 3 different types of 9 and where they positioned themselves......
43:42 for me. I went much faster after I wrote down some information.
I spotted the genius in R4C7!
I also spotted the genius in R9C9!
I didn't see the December snow for the Xmas Three...that means this video is kinda old compared to when it was recorded. Therefore, I hope Simon is doing ok!
00:50:39
I know I'm showing my age, but that dove reminded me of the Plastikman logo.
Bird dropping first.
the other white dot is poop
36:08 for me
49:08 for me.
Asking for a birthday shoutout this week. December 17th is the birthday of long-time follower Daphne from North Carolina.
Too tough for me ... this was a total failure on my part. From the logic leading to the titular "4th digit" to the logic behind finding r3c4 to the logic disambiguating the 1s and 2s, I missed all of that.
*sigh*
100 day old video :)
Hi xy00, it's been uploaded
So the break in for this puzzle was bird poop. Nice.
ooh Simon you're in trouble, lol, you sang the wrong song, it's Oh Christmas 3, lol, but ingenious breakin
It’s a prerecorded video
@nb2vcxz ah, didn't realize that, you're right :)
Yellow/orange was an absolutely atrocious color scheme. Those are way too similar
What's going on? That was supposed to be a Christmas "3"?
This is a prerecorded video from before Christmas 3 was added
The rules aren't right in the puzzle. The first 2 sentences read: "Normal Sudoku rules apply. Place the digits 1 through 9 in each empty cell." Surely this implies that each cell in the grid should contain all the single digits (omitting 0) and is contradicted by the 3rd sentence: "Digits must not repeat within the same row, column, or box."
Any reason why the intro chapter had a shout out to @WirtualTV? One of my favorite TH-camrs, would be crazy if they collabed or knew each other or something
Why does the chapter intro say @wirtualTV in it? I love Wirtual, but what does he have to do with this lol
What's the name of the game plz, is it exist in play store?