What an honour to see this one on the channel! Almost 2 hours long too, I really hope the amount of pain my puzzle brought wasn't nearly as much as the amount of entertainment :p I think this is the type of puzzle that requires a lot of stamina to solve, especially when you need to explain your thoughts along the way. It doesn't really get easier at any point, and some of the most complex deductions occur towards the end of the solve. So, congrats on getting through it!
Just amazing, it's so intricate. That was a hard battle for me. The ending took me a long time to figure out. I was worn out, but very pleased when I solved it. Well done.
Simon, please you never have to appologize for taking a long time, we love to watch you solve any puzzle, no matter how long it takes. In fact for me I really enjoy the long videos. They are far more interesting than almost any hollywood movie these days. Keep up the outstanding work you and Mark do. As my favorite youtuber likes to say: take a bow. We love you.
I am so glad Simon decided to try this puzzle. It was pretty fantastic for me as well. And I must say, it's the kind of puzzle where Simon's skills absolutely shine the brightest. He didn't miss a single nuance.
Monstrous. Simply monstrous. I hope you're happy, Agent. This has kept us "entertained" for over an hour already and we're not even halfway coloured with the cells. Brings a tear to my eye, and jolly well done! Edit: just over two hours. People did cry, so definitely a job well done, Agent!
1:11:49 finish. One thing to think of with box 9, once you have the cages set, is to keep going with it. After asking where 1 and 2 go, then ask where 3 goes. It winds up solving almost the entire box in short order. Very fun puzzle, and quite colorful!
What an absolute brute of a puzzle. Major kudos to you Agent for coming up with this masterpiece. Thank you Simon for persevering thru this and featuring it on the channel.
I am just now getting to comment on this puzzle after it took me two days to solve, but this puzzle has given me the most satisfaction I’ve ever gotten out of solving a puzzle all on my own. Thank you agent for setting such an excellent puzzle and thank you Simon for teaching us how to solve these wonderful puzzles
Amazing solve as always. Simon’s ability to work out complicated logic is superb. Often at the expense of simple logic. Like not noticing that box 9 needed a 1 and 2 which could only go in yellow for a solid 10 minutes. Then never asking where 3 could go except by backing into it through some much more complicated logic using maths. 😂
I turned this video on at half past midnight, expected to turn it off within an hour or so because sometimes long videos can be too long, but this puzzle was so amazing I powered the whole way through until 2.27AM. Ridiculous. Great video, loved it
79:14 for me. What I love the most about this puzzle is that I always feel like I've broken the puzzle, but turns out there is always a beautiful logic path to prevent it. I just enjoy to discover all the logic path in it, and even till the end, the way to tackle the 25, 32, 21, 19 cages is just amazing! Love it!
Finished in 132:05. Great puzzle that never really felt out of reach. It seemed like every time I was making progress I ran into a skyscraper clue that seemingly was impossible, but upon further inspection, actually. In particular, the row 9 skyscraper logic threw me for a loop. And the epiphany about r9c9 elicited an audible gasp from me. Now I get to watch Simon's solve and anticipate his reaction to some of these bits of brilliance. These are my favorite videos!
Amazing puzzle. Looking at the rules and the grid at the beginning, I share Simon's sentiment - it does seem incredible that a solution emerges. I wish I'd tried it now, but as my time on the trickier puzzles is often around 3 times the length of the video I thought I'd just sit back and enjoy watching this one. Thanks Simon and Agent!
Certainly not Simple Simon! Great solve, as always, thank you for distracting me from my chest bug for 2 hours. Very impressive puzzle - towers above all others! Clearly, you know 'The Secret' Agent!
This was really something else in terms of a puzzle! I found the ruleset very interesting, and Simon, you were the best person to take it on! Much beyond my ability, but very fun to watch. I was struck during this video about how much mental energy must be expended to keep at a complex puzzle for this long. You need never apologize, Simon, we will watch what we want to watch (and I watched this over the course of two days, myself). These longer, more complicated puzzles are well worth the effort for both solver and viewer (at least, I hope you agree)! Thanks, as always!
Quite an amazing puzzle! Took me around 2 hrs to solve, but it’s designed so elegantly that I never felt truly stuck. The only thing that slowed me down was doing all the math in my head and keeping track of the cage totals.
The rule "no two cages can have the same sum" was actually helpful right from the start. I was able to use that rule immediately when thinking about which cells must not be included in any cage.
Oh my goodness, this was one of the hardest puzzles I've ever done. It took me 3.5 hours and a lot of head scratching. There were multiple times where I thought that I had broken it, but there was always just enough wiggle room to get out of trouble. Absolutely amazing. And a brilliant rule set.
For me, I had to open the puzzle in a 2nd window so that I could use it only to keep track of the # of the skycagers. It amazes me how Simon, and Mark too, are able to keep track of so much in their heads!
I got so engrossed in the puzzle I forgot to get up and make popcorn. Guess I’ll have to watch again - there goes Sunday evening…. Wow what a great puzzle!
Hi Simon and co, just wanted to say a big thank you to you and your channel - as someone who deals with intense anxiety on a daily basis, your calming voice, brilliant logic and gentle humor are such a balm for me, and I'm sure many others, in a pretty crazy world. Your community is super wholesome, you guys should be very proud of what you've created here
A "favored manacle of fluorescent greenliness" (48:58) sounds like something I would have tortured my players with in my DM days. I know not everyone shares my opinion, but I always love when we get a movie-length video because I can sit back and just watch a brilliant brain work. Thank you for the popcorn puzzle, Agent! It was brilliant to watch. The way the right side of the grid grows upward even feels a bit like skyscrapers being built. Maybe one day I'll be skilled enough to solve one like it on my own.
That was an amazing puzzle, utterly fascinating and very well set. And an enjoyable solve too! My only two disagreements with Simon are that gray was supposed to be the "not in a cage" color (and so the gray cage should have been some other color), and that this didn't really feel like 5 stars of difficulty to me -- although I admit that assessment was from following along rather than trying it myself, and Simon _is_ good at making hard things look easy. I do wish I hadn't been frightened off from trying it myself because of the video length, because it seemed like consistently "tricky but not absurdly tricky" logic that would have been achievable. And _that_ is something absolutely masterful, to pack this _much_ logic of that level of trickiness into a single puzzle.
I am very very very proud to say that (after a miscalculation of 8+5=11......) I have managed to solve the puzzle in 2,5 hours! Cracking the puzzle was so much fun! Step by step new discoveries! I could stop! Very cool!!!!!! This rulesset is more fun than I gave it credit for in the past. Going to find another puzzle right now, haha:)
Great puzzle and video. I am amazed that non-native English speakers can understand Simon at times when he gets excited and starts speaking faster and faster.
Simon, you needn't apologize for "taking so much of our Sunday evening" (or any later date). No one is forcing us to watch (though, I can hardly imagine stopping midway through this, but that's on me as a viewer.) Thank you, Agent, for an amazing puzzle. Thank you, Simon, for a logical solve, which you explained on-the-fly. Thank you, Cracking the Cryptic, for years of wonderful, mind-expanding entertainment.
I better be able to stop midway through. I've only just started watching, but I need to be at work in a hour and a half (and fit both travel and my morning ablutions in there as well).
109:00 for me. A great puzzle, enjoyed every minute of it. My favorite part is noticing that the 3 cages at the bottom right corner (Simon colored them red, pink and grey) has a minimum of 5+27+34=66, but the maximum is also 24+42=66 (3 cells in the same box + 7 cells in the same box). This immediately resolved everything in those 3 cages. Kudos to Agent for creating such an amazing puzzle.
62:54 for me. What an amazing puzzle!! I'm absolutely delighted that I managed to solve this one on my own, that was one of the most enjoyable puzzles I've ever solved. Fantastic.
Oh boy, what a beautiful sudoku to end the week! Looking forward to the next 2h! :D edit: And I'm also VERY glad how thoughtful and nice this community is ❤
Alternate logic for 1:17:58. If the red cage in box 9 had a 4,6 in it then 5,7 would have been the only options for all three squares in column 9 box 9
Yes, I was willing Simon to get that while he was going through more complicated logic trying to find a way forward - 4 was a given for r9c6 at that point. It was obviously a day for blind spots with 4s - the one in r2c7 eluded him too later on.
I had done that quite a bit earlier, before putting any digits in the box. It's available in the video @65:00. red + grey = at least 61. So the 3 grey in box 6 add to 22-24, the 3 non-red/grey in box 9 add to 6-8 and are only from 12345. r9c9 sees 1 & 3 in the row, 2 & 4 by the repeated cage sum rule, so it is a 5, that means the sum in box 9 is 8, which forces 12 into yellow (and forces yellow to take another cell), plus fixes the contents of red & grey.
1:28:43, Simon you can fill box 6 with 3 leftover numbers in row 4, (1 is a write in even). Then fill box 5's row 4 digits, and solve the 5,7 pair (there has been that 5 in box 5 for a while too). Then your question on how to simply solve for all leftover numbers being in the 4 cages or not, should be answerable with simplicity, not even ease. Loved the solve sofar btw, great job, you got immersed and it showed, made me happy to see you involved like that.
Another incredible puzzle featured on Cracking The Cryptic. We're truly spoiled by the high quality of puzzle after puzzle. I was pleased to see Simon also thought the 2 clue in row 8 may have been broken, at around 58:15. But whereas it took Simon all of thirty seconds to see why it wasn't broken, after 15 minutes of staring and back tracking, my only recourse to see why it wasn't broken was to take a sneak peek at the latter stages of the video. Of course! r8c9 could hide the red and yellow cages! So obvious, yet I just couldn't see it for myself. 😂 At least that was the only hint I needed.
Simon, I must say emphatically, any time you declare yourself to be "really, really stupid" after solving 80% of a puzzle that most of us wouldn't even know how to start, not a single person watching would agree with you! As to "wasting our time", this may have been a long video, but just as it flew by for you, it flies by for us as well!
Great puzzle with some smashing logic. The ending was monstrously difficult, and took me ages to spot (unlike Simon), but it was so clever I can't begrudge Agent for setting it!
This was an amazingly fun puzzle to solve. I struggled hard on the bottom row. Not realising i could increase to the max before hitting the 27 (i tried putting a cage between the 22 and the 27, but i just couldn't find one)
At 1:16:30, another way to make progress would be to ask where 3 is in box 9. It must be in the 27-cage, which already contains an 8 and a 9, so it must be 3+7+8+9, therefore putting a 5 in the corner, a 6 on top of it, and a 4 on top. Which means gray is a 34-cage, with digits 4+6+7+8+9, where 789 are on box 6. I'm not sure how this connects to Simon's path (haven't watched the video further), but that's what I saw there.
Awesome puzzle awesome solve. Out of the three times I was yelling at my screen I was dead wrong the first time and the second and third your apologies made me laugh so cheers to that. I made several logical errors watching you solve it where I would have made invalid assumptions so I'm glad I didn't try it. That is a puzzle for the history books though.
Just over 8.5 HOURS!!!! I felt so sure I was going to be able to do it, and in the end, the only reason I didn’t was not remembering the cage numbers not repeating in R9C9. I’m so disappointed I didn’t spot that as I managed all the rest.
Can someone explain to me how R1C3 isn’t considered a cage and therefore can’t be seen from a skyscraper perspective? But R9C9 is considered a cage and counts?
Around 1:05 Simon deduced that the grey cage - it shouldn't be grey, because grey was uncaged in box 1 - in boxes 8 and 9 is either a 34 or a 35. So the sum of the red and grey cells in box 9 is at least 37 (27 + 4 + 6). The sum of the three purple and yellow cages in box 9 is eight at most. Since purple can only be 5 or 7 it must be 5, yellow is 1 and 2 and red is 3, 7, 8 and 9.
I think there were a few ways to see box 9. I found it easiest to first ask where 1 and 2 could go (yellow), then where 3 had to go (red), and finally what had to partner 3 in that cage (789).
The corner-touching green cages in the top left have just triggered something I didn’t know I had, why do that then 2 minutes later make the bottom one blue for the reason ‘it’s far away’! Jokes aside I’m 28 minutes in and already love this, when I saw the 2 hour time stamp I licked my lips
I think this was actually much more approachable than a lot of the brutal puzzles we see on here. The 45 cage is such a clear signal of where to start that it flows pretty smoothly, kind of like a Fog of War puzzle. You obviously start with the 45, work down the left side , briefly nip up to the top for the 26 cage, and then work down toward the southeast, eventually coming around to finish in the top right. I'm not entirely sure why it took Simon two hours, even after watching, as he was never really stuck and pretty much found everything he should have found other than some snags due to the usual Simon things like not pencil marking the last 2-3 cells in a box when all the others are filled or marked. (Particularly in the lower right where the placement of the 1-2-3 should have been much quicker. The actual hardest part is probably the end, when you get down to the last 4 cages, where it would be very easy to guess a couple times and figure out which things work and don't work but finding the logical path to work everything out without bifurcating is pretty tricky. I thought this was fantastic and skyscraper cages feels like such an obvious idea it's incredible if no one has thought of it before.
Love the long videos! I think Simon could have used the 3x3 box sudoku logic to find more digits easier. I think it was the use of black pen tool to denote cages, rather than say green, which made the 3x3 boxes harder to pick up for the eye; even with Superman glasses
I contend this puzzle was designed specifically to prank Simon. It requires brilliant leaps of logic, inextricably intertwined with vanilla sudoku logic. Simon truly excels at the brilliant leaps of logic 😀
I've done this one twice now, and had to stop and let Simon show me the logic on the right side. I just can't keep all those variables straight to get there on my own, even though I can follow his logic.
You feel bad for your video taking two hours of my Sunday evening? What about the six hours of my Sunday afternoon it took to do the puzzle! I actually made "quick" steady progress on the first three columns and then broke it repeatedly on row nine. Great (time-consuming) puzzle!
Can anyone explain why the 1 in r1c3 doesn’t count as a building for the 1 clue on top of the puzzle, but the 2 (r3c1) and the 4 (r3c2) count as buildings for the 4 clue? I noticed this at the end of the solve and can’t quite understand.
Because, in general, cells don't have to be in cages. The solver has to determine whether they are in cages or not. The 1 in c3 cannot be in a cage, otherwise the 1 clue is broken. So we determine that it is uncaged. (It just happens to be the only one). The 2 and the 4 count as buildings in r3 because we need them to, to satisfy the 4 clue in the row.
When Simon pauses and ponders deeply which color to use, as he did at 18:35, i can guess his choice correctly about 80% of the time. I think I may have watched too much CtC.
I am basically a native speaker of English. Simon, however, has got me with a dictionary on standby, because of his incredibly rich vocabulary of niche words and expressions 😅
I saw the example of the skyscraper puzzle in the beginning, and I'm counting using that method the finished solution, and I don't see how some of them are correct. The 4 clue on line 3 for example, it sees 2 4 and 9 and that's it, where's the fourth digit? Been watching over a couple of days so I may have missed an explanation!
1:48:10: Isn't it possible to make a purple T-pentomino of 19, than the orange 21 and than a non-caged 3/8 cell which doesn't count as a skyscraper? I'm sure that doesn't work somewhere else along the way, but didn't Simon make a logical error here?
Drunkenly misplaced a digit in the lower right corner, didn't realize it, and thus my time ended up at 10 hours 3 minutes and 20 seconds. After I had seen what the problem was, a restart (keeping time) had it done in 35 minutes because I had all the logic figured, but everything always ended up off by one before I figured out what was wrogn.
Excellent puzzle. It was a bad idea to draw the cage boundaries in black, the same as the main sudoku boxes. Simon should ask a kind friend to help him get a better feel for visual presentation.
