Dear Simon, this was such a thrill and you did a wonderful job on it. But I also have to apologize, because I did “sell” the puzzle as something that would be right up your street. You did see all the steps that you were meant to see, but I did a poor job of ‘telegraphing’ whether, at any given time, you ought to be contemplating high digits next or low digits. Anyway, thank you for your trust and for your perseverance! And I hope to not have betrayed either one of them! ❤❤❤ glum_luthor
another commenter called it internal skyscrappers, I think given how the skyscrapers rule works, it's an apt name it was a superb puzzle, congrats, thanks for sharing it with us
@@imblackmagic1209 one subtle difference: in skyscrapers a digit hides all the digits behind it, but here, for example, a 3 can be seen ‘behind’ a 4 as long as the digit that’s ‘looking’ Is bigger than both!
At 46:25 when you ruled 7 out of r1c5, exactly the same argument applies to 6. It can only see four digits to the East and the 8 forced in r3c5 means it can only see one digit to the South, with nowhere to pick up a sixth.
Same. When he concluded it had to be even I thought he was going to say eight... Went to great lenght to prove it the hard way. But this effect is not just Simon, it's universal. We all have played those Q/A guessing games, where people get so close, but keep thinking in a different direction.
It always amazes me that he repeatedly does stuff like this. He likes to hop from one thing to another before following the first thing all the way through.
The deadpan delivery of "and if we're only picking from one direction, even if you pick Harry Styles, you will not get to the right number" got me extremely good.
Simon: "R1C5 can't be a 7 because it would make R3C5 an 8, and then it could only pick up 5 digits" Not Simon: "R1C5 can't be a 6 because it would make R3C5 an 8, and then it could only pick up 5 digits, so R1C5 must be an 8"
I just got to that part. It's mind-boggling. Simon needs twice as much brilliant ideas than anyone else, because half of the time he has a brilliant idea, he just ignores it and looks elsewhere for another one.
@@istvanmagi473 he was clearly focused on the effects of a particular digit in different places, rather than the effects of different digits in a particular place.
We mere mortals wpuld just get stuck if we don't see the easy deductions. Simon just makes more deductions and brute forces the puzzle with pure brilliancy.
A constructor named Angelo created some amazing puzzles with these rules a couple years ago (posted over on CtC’s Discord). They called these “watchtower” clues, which I really liked because it felt similar to skyscrapers
it's a new rule and therefore an new algorithm. Once I unnderstood better the 'rule' that a cirkelled number needed cells horizontally AND vertically, it went smoother. I used more colourization (lowerish - middleish, highish) that Simon and that helped me a lot.
Wow, this was amazing. I get that this was very difficult, and I enjoyed watching you do battle with it, Simon. I realized that this basic rule (called "watchtower") was in the Sudoku Grand Prix this past weekend. It was a puzzle I did not attempt during the time of the competition, but having seen you work though this very hard version, I think I will return to that (much easier, I am sure) version and give it a try. Thanks to Glum Hippo for such an interesting puzzle!
Thanks Emily. The small difference with Watchtower is that in that puzzle type the circled digit counts itself, so for example ‘1’ can always be in a circle
@@emilywilliams3237 Good to hear! I did create an 'example puzzle' for 6x6 on LMD. But I agree this ruleset could be implemented in a less difficult puzzle. For me the priority was not to create something hard but something that exploited as many logical facets of the constraint as possible without bypass possibilities.
Wow, it takes so long to get into the right thinking patterns with this rule! Rewatching Simons video after having solved the puzzle myself makes me feel stupid sometimes. What Simon found out at 40:42, namely the positioning of the 9 seems so easy in hindsight - but I also had to learn it the hard way. Happy with my 1h18min solve. 🙂 Beautiful puzzle!!
@34:00 Kinda surprised Simon didn't pursue the 8 further. Since it only has one "blocker" (the 9), it MUST see everything in it's row/column in 1 direction. So, the 8 in column 5 box 2 sees 4 to the left or right, and 3 in the column leaving only 1 degree of freedom. Only 2 possible places for the 9 in column 5 & row 3.
I finished in 117 minutes. This was a tough puzzle, but it didn't feel painfully hard. I could sense the pathway and slowly made my way through its intricacies. I quite enjoyed putting 2 in a circle. Great Puzzle!
What a way to end a puzzle! It is a very cool constraint, but I don't think I would ever try it 😅 Some times I think you should pencilmark more when in doubt, like box 2. 😊
MINOR SPOILER ALERT: Really enjoyed this one. I got somewhat worried when I had no 4s or 5s in the grid, then that circle in R3C5 managed to disambiguate it all perfectly... Did it in about 80mins.
I think I used some logic that showed the 1-2-3 had to be in the same column in box 2, that then limited where 4 could go in the box and the puzzle really flowed from that point forward. I'm worried I got lucky now.
I suspect you made the same lucky mistake that I did. It's thinking that the 3 needs a vertical component of 1 and/or 2 and mistakenly thinking it had to get that from box 2. At least that's what I did. I didn't realise until watching Simon's solve. Simon, himself, mentions it was a trap he almost fell into. At 43:28, "For some reason, in my brain, I'd linked the 3s positioning with the 2s position in box 2". Yep, that's exactly what I did!
@@glum_hippo Correct. What O.P. should have said is that a circled 3, _if_ blocked once horizontally and vertically in adjacent cells, will see a consecutive 1-2 pair. The "if" clause is important here.
At 39:08, how does Simon know that if r3c4 is a 3, then r3c3 has to be a 2? Surely r3c3 could be a 1 with the 2 in box 2 on the other side, in r2c6 (making r2c7 a 1 and r4-5c3 a 1-2 pair)? Did Simon fall into the trap he mentions at 43:28, of thinking the 3 in box 2 has to go on the same side as the 2? He uses this logic to pencil mark 2s in row 1 in box 3 and row 3 in box 1, but I don't think those pencil marks are right, at this stage. Am I wrong?
@BryanLu pointed out to me in another comment that this doesn't work because the 1 in r3c3 and the 1 in r4-5c4 would rule out both places for a 1 in box 2. Even though Simon used a similar argument for ruling a 2 out of r3c3 at 16:50, I'm a bit doubtful Simon's using this to say r3c3 would have to be a 2. But it's possible.
After placing the 9 the r1c5 box could only see 5 cells if you put a 6 in there because it would force r3c5 to be an 8. So you could have immediately determined that r1c5 was the 8
Does it break the 2? If, say, r3c4 is a 3, r3c3 is a 1, r2c6 is a 2, r2c7 is a 1, r45c4 is a 12 pair, ... How far does this have to go before it breaks? (Is it obvious before it faces the accusation of being bifurcation?) Or is this Simon falling into the trap he mentions at 43:28, of thinking that the 3 has to go on the same side as the 2 in box 2. (A trap I very much fell into during my solve.)
This took far more persistence than I could ever apply to it. Every month, the art of sudoku reaches a new peak. I hope that never ends, but I also hope it doesn't go beyond the ability of humans to solve these puzzles.
It will never go beyond the ability to be solved by humans *because* these puzzles are _created by humans_ and _for humans._ Yes, there are A.I. created puzzles, which could be beyond human ability to solve, but puzzles solvable by humans *will always* exist, as long as humans exist.
Interesting seeing this on a day Canal View was featured on GAPP, if you think about it it's a similar rule, replacing "shaded digits" with "digits lower than the circled digit"
34:40 Still not quite enough to do be interesting but the hypothetical 8 is here actually effectively at a count of 7 so far, not just 6 - either r3c6 is a 1, in which it's seen, or it's a 9, in which case r3c1 has to be less than 8 and is seen instead...
You did such a good job of cleaning up your colors when you were done with them!!! So proud ❤. You are a beautiful genius. I love how your brain works. You may not believe it, but I would love to speak to you at a party.
Simon, your solve path very closely mirrored my own, and I agree this puzzle is as difficult as it is clever. The LMD comment I made about feeling "smarter than I am" was related to the a-ha moment in realizing that the circles require both vertical and horizontal components...something that glum_hippo requires the solver to understand before any digits can be placed. Truly a masterful implementation of this rule set, thanks again glum_hippo!
Rules: 05:50 Let's Get Cracking: 08:49 Simon's time: 1h17m19s Puzzle Solved: 1:26:08 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Knowledge Bomb: 1x (09:38) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 11x (09:47, 09:57, 19:41, 19:48, 29:36, 46:20, 50:30, 1:03:06, 1:16:07, 1:23:25, 1:24:38) Sorry: 10x (01:25, 06:12, 12:54, 13:25, 18:11, 42:21, 43:43, 46:23, 46:44, 1:13:34) Hang On: 10x (13:34, 23:12, 23:18, 40:05, 53:55, 1:09:00, 1:13:33, 1:20:52, 1:21:58, 1:22:01) Beautiful: 9x (01:21, 01:25, 01:36, 16:43, 29:47, 41:42, 41:44, 42:16, 57:14) Obviously: 9x (01:55, 03:42, 08:58, 14:18, 14:44, 45:01, 48:49, 57:21, 1:06:40) Wow: 8x (16:37, 17:00, 35:15, 40:41, 1:26:02, 1:26:02, 1:27:29, 1:27:29) Goodness: 6x (40:41, 1:02:21, 1:08:17, 1:08:20, 1:26:07, 1:28:23) In Fact: 6x (09:47, 14:44, 21:51, 50:56, 1:19:25, 1:20:00) What Does This Mean?: 6x (19:27, 40:15, 59:23, 1:10:05, 1:16:19, 1:24:40) Pencil Mark/mark: 6x (12:39, 22:36, 44:20, 51:36, 1:00:42, 1:19:09) Clever: 4x (1:23:47, 1:26:50, 1:26:57, 1:28:20) Have a Think: 4x (09:19, 30:55, 48:36, 1:03:51) Naked Single: 3x (1:15:48, 1:15:57, 1:16:27) Lovely: 3x (1:23:45, 1:25:42, 1:25:45) By Sudoku: 3x (31:40, 1:16:58, 1:19:18) Baffling: 3x (32:20, 32:26, 36:09) Weird: 3x (29:47, 43:28, 1:26:50) Good Grief: 2x (57:29, 1:08:41) Axiomatically: 2x (34:05, 42:08) Phone is Buzzing: 2x (07:11, 35:41) Cake!: 2x (04:54, 05:37) What on Earth: 1x (06:46) Bother: 1x (57:37) The Answer is: 1x (1:16:52) Nonsense: 1x (1:00:18) Brilliant: 1x (1:26:07) Ridiculous: 1x (57:31) Hypothecate: 1x (57:22) Our old Friend Sudoku: 1x (1:15:21) Come on Simon: 1x (52:20) Shouting: 1x (05:12) Spider-Sense: 1x (1:00:53) Bizarre: 1x (01:25) I've Got It!: 1x (46:20) Losing my Marbles: 1x (44:09) Box Thingy: 1x (1:23:18) Pregnant pause: 1x (36:21) Progress: 1x (1:14:19) Almost Interesting: 1x (28:39) Fabulous: 1x (1:23:47) Nature: 1x (1:25:49) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Eighty Nine (8 mentions) Two (178 mentions) Green (3 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (5) - High (3) Even (8) - Odd (0) Lower (36) - Higher (21) Inside (2) - Outside (0) Row (22) - Column (20) 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!
when simon goes for complicated ways: 44:20 he figures out 7 can not be in r1c5 by notice there are only 5 lower numbers seen... (6 can also not go in therefor) 11 minutes later at 55:20 he finds a different way for placing 8 here :D
This puzzle would have benefited greatly with a way to notate one cell being greater than another. as simon pointed out in the video, you need a vertical and a horizontal component that is less than the circle. the circles on the edges or next to a cell that is greater than itself has to be greater than the cell on the other side. this is useful in box 2 as it gives us this relationship: r1c6 > r2c6 > r3c6, so r3c6 is not a 9. without seeing that r1c6 > r2c6, it's hard to notice that r2c6 > r3c6 which breaks into the puzzle.
Also a way to mark when a cell can't be a digit. Or maybe that already exists. I'd rather make one box not being able to be a digit than flagging eight that can.
Got this in 43:12 after some serious head-scratching at the start. The logic in the first box felt vaguely miraculous, and then the puzzle managed to keep coming with more interesting logic all the way to the end. Sublime stuff, glum_hippo, and thanks to CtC for featuring it!
I didn't find this at all intuitive either, but then I worked some stuff out and got into it. Then I found I had stuffed it up so after a while restarted and made a successful second foray. In the end, I really liked this ruleset, it produced some interesting logic. Hard to start though. Wow I never even spotted the point about r3c6.
after looking at new rule and length of video, my brain immediately had the right thought: _lets watch Simon solving this masterpiece!_ now im eagerly looking forward to next riddle with this ruleset ^v^
i must admit i started differently. once you get the 2 potential options for 1,2, and 3 into box 2. if you check 4 out the same way, you can see that 4 can only go into the bottom two circles. and of those two it cant go in the corner otherwise the 5 cannot see enough smaller numbers. first digit was 4 directly below the 5, and then the 3 directly below that with the 12 combos and 89 across the X
54:20 "There may be a million easier ways to see this" - yes, for instance by not showing at the complex behaviour of the cells the 8 sees but instead just seeing that the 6 that is forced into R1C5 can only see 5 cells in that configuration :D That being said, I would have had no chance to solve this puzzle myself.
At every step, this seemed like it should be easier than it was. I actually had to start over twice, because I made mistakes following longer logic paths (my weak point - I lose track of digits when I do this). In the end, none of the steps were individually difficult - it was desceptively hard. I enjoyed it more than I should have.
Indeed you did something very similar just one day earlier with the arrows pointing to lower digits. And I spotted the most probably candidate for the 8 was r1c5 using my "temparature/height" coloring I explained there.
I assume there is general true that it must always look in two directions as you need N digits and there are only N-1 digits lower than N allowed in a single row or column. The harry styles rule
Yes, there was definitely a lot of learning about beachcomber rules here, which definitely slowed it down. And when I say "slowed it down", I mean "stopped" in my case ... no way I could figure out how to break into it. But having seen Simon's solve, I feel like I might be able to attempt another one with the same rules.
A really fun puzzle. I haven't watched Simon's solve but it seems he found it a lot more difficult than i did. Maybe my brain is just wired up differently!
I haven't started the puzzle yet, but the video title made me burst out laughing. Definitely a prime entry in the "weird sentences that make perfect sense to CtC fans" category! I look forward to having a stab at this a little later (and fully expect to have to watch the video for help along the way).
29:33 finish. Looking back at Simon's solve, I may have made a step or two that were not logically supported. But once I was done with box 2, I flew through the rest, clearly seeing each next step. An excellent puzzle, fun fun fun!
53:55 for me. Definitely not easy. I don't think Simon missed anything major. The one smallish thing that came up a bunch of times was that (after the beginning of the break-in), "What digits can go in this cell?" was generally a more productive question to ask than "Where does this digit go in this row/column/box?".
168:17 I would have probably done it sooner if I realized 8 > 6. Once I placed the 8 in Box 2 (pretty early on), I should have placed 9 in the column under it, but I didn't, forgot about it, and later pencilmarked it to be either 6, 7, or 9. It took a looong while before I went through each circle and checked its bounds before I realized that I could have put a 9 there at least 2 hours ago. It would be interesting to see this done with the digits 0-8 instead. Then you can have 1's and even 0's in circles, and circled digits can have all their digits in one line instead of needing to go into the second dimension (ie, 3 could see 0, 1, and 2 in a line, and not need to see 1 and 2 straight ahead and a 1 or 2 off to the side).
Made a mistake early on and had to back way up and do it again. Still ended at 100 min solve time which I expected to be a bit longer. It actually went smoother than I expected for me.
I solved this puzzle a while ago when it first appeared on the discord, and I agree it was challenging. Today I went to try and solve the puzzle that Simon did, and I couldn’t solve it anymore 😂 The rules are just that unintuitive
42:47 There was some nice Sudoku after the initial break in and r2c1. I'm guessing when I watch the video, other than the explanations, that lack of pencil marking and normal Sudoku will account for Simons longer solve!
Ok, got that wrong. Turned out it was all about the break in. After realising the 2 had to go into the middle row of Box 2 and the 3 in an accompanying corner, whatever way they went, it always forces a 4 into r3c5 and that forces the 3 into the circle below. Seems like the trick was to think about all 3 low numbers that had to go in box 2 circles together. So that 4 was the first digit I placed after about 10 minutes but Simon placed it after an hour. It really is a fun rule set if you enjoy working through multiple cells possibilities at the same time.
@@Paul-cn3ijI don't think 3 has to go in the accompanying corner, though. (Although I made this same mistake during my solve). If 3 went in r3c4, you could have 2 on the other side (r2c6) if you have a 1-2 pair below the 3 in box 5 (r4-5c4). At least, it's not obvious to me how this can be ruled out.
@@RichSmith77 That was my point about the 4 in box 2. Once you realise that will have to happen and therefore need a 3 in the circle below in box five, it sorts the position of the 2 & 3 in box 2. Or have I got that wrong?
@@Paul-cn3ij Apologies. You may be right, but I'm struggling to follow why 4 is forced into r3c5. When you said 3 would have to go into the "accompanying corner", I could only interpret that as meaning the corner next to the 2 that's not occupied by 1.
@@RichSmith77 Don't apologise. That was my fault for not explaining that well. I should have added eventually into that about the 3's relationship with the 2. As for the 4. Wherever the 1 goes in box 2, the 2 has to follow. You can't put the 3 in r3c5 as that would force a 2 into r4c5 which doesn't work and obviously a 1 can't go in a circle. So the 3 will be in a corner. If you try to put the 4 anywhere other than r3c5, you'll run into trouble as you can't put the 3 there and without that, the 4 won't see enough low digits. So it's the lack of low digits available for the 4 because once you place the high digits, wherever you put them in box 2, you stop the 4 from seeing enough lows unless it goes in r3c5. I think to be fair it's close to bifurcation but I'd argue that this rule set lends itself to plenty of 'if' type pencil marking.
The ruleset is completely new to Simon, so the fact he needed to get adjusted to the ruleset slowed him down very significantly. Had Simon been familiar with the rulset, I am sure things would have been very different.
Also, Simon did not take full advantage of the tools at his disposal. I think lettered pencil marks and using coloring would have helped streamline the solve.
Hey Simon! I'm actually from Colorado and there is a suburb of Denver called Arvada! How does someone across the pond know about a little thing like that?? 😂
My home town!! Arvada, CO, USA is a north west suburb of Denver. There are many ways to say it. Most common, and accurate is to rhyme it with the state Nevada. So, Simon did a great job, though Are/VAH/da is more common. That’s the American accent for you.
That just brings up the controversy about how to properly pronounce Nevada (vaa or vaw). I was going to write "vaa like baa", but then I realized that there are at least two different ways to pronounce "baa", one of which I associate with lambs and one of which I associate with adult sheep. It's just an endless circle!
@@psiphiorg yeah, the baa like sheep is the most common. I guess that’s the better way to write it. Yeah, there’s even people who say ar/Vade/a rhyming with Darth Vader.
anyone bragging about their solve time in the comments can go kick rocks. it's always easier to do something when you're not trying to explain aloud what you're doing, and at the same time knowing you're being watched even if you're not being watched live, in the moment. do I sometimes holler at my screen when I've seen something you haven't? absolutely, but in the same way that a sports fan hollers at their favourite player.
Who's bragging? At the end of each video, Simon asks viewers to let him know how they got on. (He does so at the 1:28:02 mark of this video.) Many people do that by posting how long they took and their comments on the puzzle. I don't see anyone saying that they're better than Simon because their time was shorter than his. I'm just seeing people answering the question that Simon specifically asks at the end of each video.
@@steve470 He also said in the video that there was one person in particular who makes a point of rubbing in how much faster they are at solving than Simon, and this was my way of telling that person to piss off, Steve. Nowhere did I say that simply posting a time is equivalent to bragging. If it's not about you, feel free to ignore it.
@@steve470 When I said "well said", I certainly didn't mean to agree that simply posting one's solve time was objectionable... I don't believe that that, in and of itself, is 'bragging'. All good.
