Even without pseudo cells, you can have a 3-cell line with a difference of zero. I think that with the pseudo rule you could stretch it to an 8-cell line, maybe even 9 or 10 😎
I've not finished the solve, but did think "ohh, can I have a difference of Zero? Yes. How long a line can I have? A diagonal from r1c8 to r8c1 could all have the 'value' of 9... You could even have a few extra cells included with actual 9s off the diagonal
Ah thanks Simon, and very funny to watch solve! I love how thorough you always are to explore all the options and explain everything. I was actually in hospital today having a small operation on my ear, so this was lovely timing as it was a perfect thing to come home and wind down to, and make me smile after a bit of anxiety earlier in the day. So thankyou for that also :) I really enjoyed setting this puzzle a few months ago. It came after I had just made Pseudoscience, was still in the process of making Pseudo Cluedo and struggling with that... all based on the brilliant pseudo ruleset I had seen on the channel by SenatorGronk a few weeks previously that had really inspired me. It also came after watching quite a few wonderful zipper fog puzzles by gdc, who I think of as the master of fog puzzles and lets face it, probably the master of zipper puzzles too. So while making this I think I was intentionally going for a gdc kind of vibe, but with a few nonsense Marty twists thrown in. Same difference lines are a thing I introduced in my puzzle 'Same Difference' and have explored a LOT since. I really enjoy setting with them, and felt they worked really nicely alongside pseudos and zippers here. This was also my attempt to not use too many different colour lines in this puzzle, intentionally limiting myself to two colours, because in quite a few puzzles recently some of my rulesets have got a bit long due to the urge to include quite a few different line types. While that is sometimes fun, to see how several different familiar line types interact with the core concept / constraint of a puzzle, on the other hand I also appreciate a streamlined and elegant ruleset, which is another element of gdc's style that i was purposely trying to channel here. Finally, I wanna talk about that bit with the zero difference line that you got stuck on. I do think that is the hardest step of the puzzle and everyone I've seen solve it has got stuck on that part for a bit. But your way of progressing past it was actually different to mine, which I think is possibly a bit more straightforward... at 52:46 the 78 pair in row 7 look up at the two 78 ends of that line. By sudoku, because the 78 pair in row 7 are both different digits, 7 and 8, this means that looking up, the two ends of the same difference line can't be the same, ruling out the intuitive assumption of something like 787 or 878. the line must have a 7 at one end and an 8 at the other, which is broken because of the parity secret you mentioned earlier, unless you fix it by amending one of them using pseudoage. And the right-hand end is already green so it must be the left-hand end, being a pseudoed 7 masquerading as an 8. So for me that is actually not the final step in the puzzle, that comes first and is what proves the 15-3-15 line to be true below, and then the puzzle finishes in the top right corner with a deadly pattern that is resolved by having a pseudo cell in the top right cell that needs to be a 4 as thats the only digit left that hasn't been pseudoed yet. I haven't seen anyone do it your way before, but I actually found that a cool way of doing it too, and the fact you ended your solve with finding the 888 line was absolutely fine with me as an alternative finale :D Thanks again Simon, and also thanks for all the kind comments below and anyone who is still reading this waffle x
I've made a puzzle similar to this called Cryptic Snakewords (I love crosswords and wordplay too!) If you google it you should find it. It is a 12x12 sudoku using 12 different letters. You don't solve the whole crossword first though, the crossword and sudoku kind of hopefully work in unison
Hope you recovering well from your ear procedure. Just again lovely from you!! Immensely enjoying your pseudo puzzles!! Appreciate your insight into your brain and some of the interactions /intricies of your incredible setting skills!!
Quite simple to do but very powerful if done correctly, however Simon often doesn't seem to bother in puzzles like these, always jumping to the next bit of interesting logic rather than doing the boring jobs :)
Aha, he explains his methods around 39:00. He is hesitant to colour everything because it's a fog puzzle and it's harder to see which cells are fogged when they are coloured.
What I find particularly remarkable about Marty's puzzles is his level of consistency - fairly even in terms of difficulty, lots of colour and visual flair, he takes what's familiar and gives it a little twist in a way that is always pleasing to solve.
I love this comment mate, really appreciate that ♥ thank you. I find silly and fun twists a lot more satisfying and enjoyable than making a puzzle super hard. Even though people often predict the twists cos they know me now, as Simon did here, I don't mind that at all. A lot of people say things like "I knew that was probably going to be a zero difference line but I was so please when it was!"... and I completely identify with that feeling
a small mistake at 29:38. "if this is 1 then these 2 would be the same number". it means they have the same value, not same number. one could be pseudo. the issue with that is that it's value would be 5 and there's already a 5 in the box
@@marcvanbijnen6798 right, that was more or less my point. simon didn't see or at least didn't verbalize that the 2 cells could have the same value using pseudo numbers. the 5 in the box is stopping the 2 cells from having the same value since their pseudo value are both 5s. without the 5 in the box, r3c3 could have been a 1.
You are not a 'prize wally', Simon. Never. I always find these puzzles with digits that must be some value other than the one they look like to be a bit confusing. You are marvelous at explaining what is going on and solving these puzzles - and with a good dose of panache of your own. Thanks for the video, as always.
10:30 a faster way to get to the point is to observe that the zipper total has to be larger than all other cells on the line. The fake digit can only get larger as it moves away from the top left corner of the cell (since indices go up), therefore the fake can only be on the total.
Also, at that point the pseudocell value is set to 11, so the remaining digits on the line are 4 pairs that add up to 11, thereby totalling 44 ... and by The Secret™, that means we know what the missing digit that is being pseudoified is. (But I can't tell you what it is, just in case you _aren't_ one of Simon's favourite people 👀)
An easy way to determine that the 78-78-78 line has a pseudo cell in it is to consider row 7. If the 78-78-78 line had no pseudo cell in it, the 78 pair in row 7 would be broken.
@@stevieinselby yes this was exactly my intended deduction here.. before getting the 15-3-15 line. I just thought of it as the 78 pair in row 7 look up, meaning the two ends of the turquoise line must be different; one a 7 and one an 8, which only works if you pseudoify the 7 to have a value of 8, and then the middle digit is forced to be 8 too, by nonsense
How I found it as well, beautiful logic there. Possible to find it at 45:00. On the blue line it's clear that R2C7 and R3C5 contain the same value. In a kind of X-wing pattern with row 7 it's clear that R2C7 and R3C5 do contain different digits. Same value but different digits, so either R2C7 or R3C5 needs to be a pseudo cell, of which only R3C5 is possible.
you did it much faster than me but I was happy I even got this one. I went nuts when I realized that last blue line had difference 0. One of the coolest things I've seen in any puzzle you've shown here.
Got stuck until Simon reminded me (in a part of the solve I'd already solved) that each digit can only be pseudo'ed once, which was enough to let me finish off. Lovely puzzle with some clever bits!
Brilliantly polished construction. I hoped that the lower right line were *15-x-15* and the upper right *8-8-8,* and in both cases I was able to prove it immediately after. Thank you Marty for not disappointing me. 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Thank you Marty for another fantastic puzzle. The ending was one of the most delightful things I have ever found in a solve, and so satisfying when it falls into place! I am going to watch now and see how Simon solves it as I am sure there is an easier way to figure it out but for me, once I saw box 2 had to have a 7 in the pseudo cell, that made box 7 a 5 then box 3 a 1, box 8 a 6 so box 9 a 2. What a delight! Edit: Simon didn't get bogged down trying to figure out the 78 pairs like I did, solved it another way but still saw the delight of the ending, that must be a sign of a truly great puzzle!!
I'm halfway through the video and properly bothered that you aren't coloring the surrounding green cells in the box, column and row when you find a red cell. It would make tracking down the red cells much easier.
@@HappyLooter of course he finishes it. He always does. That doesn't make it not annoying when he's half coloring through the solve. Also I get that the coloring makes it difficult to tell if there is fog or not but there is a really simple solution to that. Color in where the fog has been removed.
@HappyLooter I watched the whole video. I was thoroughly entertained by Simon's solve. I also agree that the inconsistent greening of non- pseudo cells throughout the solve path was irritating. I would have found myself enjoying the video more (I still enjoyed it a lot!) with consistent colouring. 🤷♀️
I finished in 58 minutes. I really liked this one. Marty is so good. The logic flowed so well and that 888 turquoise line clue blew my mind. It's insane to think that something like that can occur in a puzzle. Then, the turquoise line in box 9 also blew my mind as I thought it was possible that the end could be a pseudo and it was. Two mind blows in one puzzle. Great Puzzle!
As soon as I calculated that both ends of the bottom right line have the same pseudo-cell value, I was 99.99% sure that this is exactly how it will turn out. So no big surprises there (although - a lot of curse words, because that renders the middle cell completely irrelevant to the line). The 8-8-8, however, was a completely different beast. At first I stared at it in horror - oh no, the line is broken! Where I made an error? It dawned on me very slowly, but I thoroughly enjoyed that moment: wait... what if.... oh, it can't,... no, you didn't... oh, it really does!.. you $%$%##&, you really did that!!! Amazing and funny as hell.
Finished in 30 minutes, it flowed so smoothly all the way through! Even the 0 diff line popped out right away for me as the only real option once I colored the 78 pairs. I love fog puzzles because usually my greatest weakness is determining where to look next, but a fog puzzle tends to force that issue.
You're way too hard on yourself Simon! You're brilliant, and it's always such a pleasure to watch you OUTfox these puzzles. Thank you for sharing your brain with us!
→ 11:58 "What I'm going to claim therefore is that the digit that's adjusted by the pseudo-cellage is divisible by 5." - This is be true, but it's much too complicated. An easier observation is that the value of the dot on a zipper line is always the largest value, so here (as it takes the whole box and any possible pseudo cell's value is > 10 due to the position of the box) the pseudo-cell needs to be on the dot. Which then allows to calculate the value (11) and then looking on how to make sums of two digits add to 11 shows that it's not possible with 1, so it goes there. (The difference 10 is actually divisible by 5.) (Simon found this out a bit later too, though he manages to get the secret in here again.) → 31:39 "If this is a pseudo cell, row 2 column 3, would have a value of 6" - Ah, the famous 2+3 = 6. - 32:13 "If Row 3 column 2 is correct, that's a 5" - Ah, 3+2 = 5 now, so we got a non-commutative sum? - 33:02 Simon figured out the problem. → 49:23 "So there's only two possibilities for the pseudo cell in box 8" - Here I used all the pseudo rules: If it were r7c5, then the only options for digits 2 and 6 on pseudo cells are both in row 3 (as well as the pseudo cell in box 2). (But it took me also quite a bit to find.) (56:26 Simon instead found a different path, using the fact that it would give three pseudo 78s.)
34:13 This was magical. The same difference line across boxes 8/9 was driving me crazy for so long with possibilities before I noticed the continuation of the line in box 7 that I'd missed which suddenly forced the last 5 pseudocells. This was a lot of fun and beautifully set.
20:29 How often does it happen that a revelation like that appears to me before Simon realizes it? Once a month? And that is being very generous to myself. Of course, with all the people watching this, many of them much more proficient than me, _someone_ will see it and comment about it. Please Simon, you can't beat all of use all of the time, but you are beating everyone most of the time.
Some really beautiful logic in this one and relatively approachable despite the video length. glad i tried it. it’s one of my fav puzzles in recent times
Finished in 33:42. Fairly straightforward sudoku as long as you look at all the possibilities. I didn't mess up, so it went pretty smoothly. Fun puzzle!
Great puzzle! I've been watching your videos for some time now and this Fog of War variant is just brilliant. Thanks Simon for such clear explanations for when i get stuck. funnily I saw the 8 in box 3 and 5 in box 7 very fast, which gave me loads of information
43:48 - Wow! That was gorgeous. When I saw how long the video was I was a bit worried but I needn’t have been; there some fabulous logic throughout and just the right difficulty for me. My favourite bits were the two same difference lines in boxes 2/3 and 8/9. Another wonderful Marty Sears creation.
The line between boxes 2 and 3 I got by looking at the 78 pairs, and realizing that the ones on the end *had* to be different digits. Made that logic much easier, in my opinion.
At the end, tracking the 7s & 8s round the grid shows that R2C7 and R3C5 have different digits. If both are natural, there is no way to get the line work. So R3C5 is the pseudo. It's easy after that to get a line with 0 difference and a line with 12 difference, both of which made me smile.
31:24 for me. As usual, a fantastic puzzle from Marty. Knowing Marty's puzzles, I guessed the major characteristics of the two rightmost turquoise lines well in advance. Then it was just a matter of proving them. 😁 I proved the line in boxes 2 and 3 a different way: by the line, the two cells on the end needed to have the same value, and by colouring 7s and 8s, they had to be different digits. I think this marks the first time that I've ever yelled at the screen *telling* Simon to colour something. 🙂
I loved the three 8's on the line with a value of zero difference, lol. Absolutely classic from Marty along with the two pseudo's on the same line. Brilliant
This was a really fun puzzle to solve. When you were stuck at the end, there was a much faster path to the solution by coloring the 78 pairs. It forced the cells at r2c7 and r3c6 to have the same value, which would have given you all the remaining pseudo cells.
During my solve I had the following thought SO MANY TIMES: "This step is insanely complicated, and I'll be blown away if it's the intended solve path, but it IS logical, so I'm using it."
It probably wasn't the intended path as I try not to make any of my steps too complicated or involve 'thinking ahead' too many moves. But everyones brains work in slightly different ways, and if your way worked then it worked 🙂
@@martysears I haven't watched the video yet to see whether Simon made the same deduction, but the one I was pleased with that I thought was a bit complicated was that if 6 was not a pseudo-cell in box 8, there would not be room to fit pseudo-cells for both 2 and 6 into the puzzle.
@@martysears I've now seen Simon's solve and my path was substantially similar (which I suppose isn't THAT surprising in a fog of war). He didn't use the same logic with the 6s and 2s that I did, but he got to the same place that he could have. (He used the 7s and 8s instead.)
@@benwhite5734 that’s interesting! Simons way and your way were both a bit different from my way. As I mentioned in my main comment, my ending involved first finding 888 by realising that the 78 pair in row 7 looks up, causing the two ends of the same difference line above to be different - one 7 and one 8. By parity (to stop the middle value needing to be 7.5) this only works if the left hand end is a 7 pseudoed 7 becoming an 8, making the line 888. This then forces the diagonal line below to have a pseudo digit on its south west end, forcing the pseudo digit on its north east end for 15-3-15. Then sudoku can finish the last few digits, leaving a deadly pattern at the end which is solved by needing a 4 in the last pseudo cell in the top right corner…
32:17, just flowed, even with spinning my wheels for a little bit in the lower left. I really liked that three cell blue line in the lower right corner.
I broke this puzzle several times not thinking through the options carefully, so while I finished in 35:37 (conflict checker off), I don't feel like the time was fully deserved. 😅 Still an amazing puzzle, many thanks to Marty Sears for it!
Let's Get Cracking: 09:20 Simon's time: 49m47s Puzzle Solved: 59:07 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! The Secret: 6x (11:01, 11:06, 11:10, 11:11, 11:26, 14:18) Maverick: 2x (09:09, 55:44) Goodliffing: 1x (36:20) Three In the Corner: 1x (58:17) Wally: 1x (59:15) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 11x (02:06, 13:51, 20:12, 21:55, 33:01, 34:25, 43:06, 44:35, 44:35, 48:04, 55:47, 56:30) Sorry: 7x (04:17, 13:12, 13:44, 18:40, 20:12, 32:48, 50:47) Brilliant: 6x (00:34, 00:37, 58:55, 58:55, 59:08, 59:34) By Sudoku: 6x (22:50, 22:58, 40:07, 44:49, 56:10, 57:23) Hang On: 5x (33:01, 35:59, 43:03, 51:25, 51:37) Weird: 5x (18:40, 22:47, 42:25, 42:55, 47:29) Clever: 4x (20:20, 37:08, 56:40, 59:21) Nonsense: 3x (20:32, 34:42, 46:29) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (38:13, 48:29, 49:02) Goodness: 2x (20:25, 41:19) Beautiful: 2x (06:27, 34:25) Deadly Pattern: 2x (45:22, 58:24) Discombobulating: 2x (39:09, 47:37) In Fact: 2x (03:51, 30:55) Obviously: 2x (00:32, 39:00) Wow: 2x (58:59, 59:34) Cake!: 2x (04:34, 04:56) What on Earth: 1x (24:02) Bother: 1x (39:52) The Answer is: 1x (46:31) Off to the Races: 1x (37:38) Incredible: 1x (04:06) Shouting: 1x (04:27) Unbelievable: 1x (01:15) We Can Do Better Than That: 1x (38:00) Pregnant pause: 1x (28:04) Baffling: 1x (02:32) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Eleven (15 mentions) Five (82 mentions) Green (4 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (2) - High (1) Even (4) - Odd (0) Lower (2) - Higher (1) Row (37) - Column (37) 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!
This was SUCH a brilliant puzzle and the disambiguation was FABULOUS. Stumped me in a few places, but nothing too bad (got it done in the end after all 😅)
At 29:40 Simon dismissed the possibility of 1 too quickly. It COULD have same two same numbers - one natural and one pseudo-cell. In this case though, the pseudo-cell value is 5 and we already have the 5 in a box, so the 1 indeed is not possible. But Simon never addressed that, so.. he got lucky.
I actually got the final bit of logic in a different way than Simon here. I hadn't yet figured out that the teal line in boxes 2 and 3 had only 7s and 8s. Instead, I realized only one of the four digits in the 2/6 deadly pattern could be pseudo, so the only way at that point to get both a pseudo'd 2 and a pseudo'd 6 was to make the 6 in r9c6 pseudo - all the other 2s and 6s were non-pseudo by pseudoku- er, I mean sudoku. From there, everything fell into place pretty cleanly, as it does for Simon. Regardless, great puzzle, and great solve. :)
Similar for me. I realized if r9c6 and r7c8 were both natural 6s, then you didn't have anywhere left to make both 2 and 6 pseudo cells. The rest as you say filled in from there; it quickly made r1c9 a pseudo 4 and therefore r3c5 a pseudo 7, forcing the 8-8-8 line.
OMG I was realy struggling to see what I might have done wrong, then the 8's possibility dawned on me. It really made me laugh. What a fanbulous puzzle. I love the fog, but I almost think it might have been easier with it than without because it forces you to focus in the right area.
34:24, spent ages at one point because I didn’t remember each digit is pseudo only once. Then promptly forgot it again and thought I had a uniqueness deduction to resolve a deadly pattern. Luckily I don’t use uniqueness because my “deduction” was wrong… Really enjoyed the whole puzzle, especially the ending. I’m a big fan of both fog and all kinds of pseudo digits, and the pseudo digits make the lines really fun here.
At 57:00 I worked it out differently and maybe easier to see(I think, I might be wrong). With the turquoise line you can see R2C7 and R3C5 must have the same value, but they can't be the same digit because that would make R7C5 and R7C7 have to contain the same digit whatever value R7C5 would have(it could be a pseudo cell at that point). In that way I think you are allowed to say that R3C5 must be a pseudo cell in order to have the correct value for the line(and you know it must be 7 because 8 couldn't appear in a pseudo cell anymore). Nice puzzle by the way! :-)
solved in 45:35. honestly took me a bit to see the final trick in the puzzle, but it was a really fun final deduction for the setter to plan out after all the *other* ways the pseudo cells do or don't work.
I love to read this kind of comment haha. I actually enjoy it when people predict my silliness... and I know it would be a bit of a disappointment if I didn't give it after it is seen to be possible. Sometimes it is just more fun to make people prove the fun thing, rather than strive for unpredictability. Having said that I do like to sometimes throw in a few surprise things that people aren't expecting too... but only if they add to the fun rather than scuppering it
Wow! I can't believe I managed to solve it. For some time I had forgotten the rule about each digit being pseudo only once, so I was blocked with box 1, 4 5 and 6 done but I could not go any further. So I started watching Simon and when he used that rule at 23:30 I had the "of course moment" and I finished that puzzle. It was not even difficult (if I managed to go past the fact that 3+3 is not equal to 8). Even my time, at 71 something minutes is not bad .
Delightfully smooth and lovely, thanks. Think Simon would have made his life easier if he'd been more consistent in his greenaging. The way I ruled out r7c5 being pseudo was that it would rule out possibilites for 2 and 6.
9:50 "Do not get any ideas, constructors." How long does anyone think it will take? A couple months ago or so, I commented on a puzzle, and inadvertently gave a particular setter the name for his next German whispers puzzle. I haven't seen or heard of anything coming of it though. 10:10 It's easier than that. A pseudovalue other than the dot would have to add to a greater pseudovalue on the dot. 47:00 The setter was particularly nasty with the line in blocks 8 and 9. It could be either 6-X-6 or 15-X-15. It was hard to resolve. 54:55 It took me time, and what I did with the 78 line was slightly more complicated than what I see now: R3C5 and R2C7 must be opposite because they see the 78 pair below. If they're both natural, R3C6 is trouble.
I colored all my 78 pair so I found the r3c6 and r2c7 are same numbers. It's too crazy so I thought I must made some mistakes! Then I found the difference 0 solution. What a fantastic puzzle!
I got the ending by considering polarity of 7-8 pairs. It told that (two rightmost) consecutive cells at the 'same difference' line are the same, i.e. difference is 0, and that can happen only if all the numbers on the line are the same. And that is possible only with sudo cell having value 8.
I have a good idea for a variant Sudoku. Why not have a crossword Sudoku? A deconstructed grid might be nice for it. You give the nine digits a letter value and after you solve the crossword, you have enough given digits so that can finish up the puzzle with Sudoku.
thankyou! I always appreciate a puzzle with a fun finale rather than just lots of sudoku cleanup. I am not always successful in achieving it (sometimes a certain ruleset makes a sudoku cleanup ending unavoidable)... but I was pleased with the finale in this one (even Simon's one which was slightly different from mine)... I think probably my favourite 2 endings I've done though are in The Fourth Killer and Pseudoscience.
I hate that sometimes when you get a digit wrong but you can't tell because the area is already lit by other digits, that it's kinda easy (for me) to fall into a trap of guessing to try and fix errors.
101:13 minutes for me. O found the break-in quite easily, and got good progress, but then was stuck with the middle three rows (and first box) solved for quite a while. At the end it needed some tricky reasoning combining multiple of the rules. Nice puzzle.
