I'm officially going to call it Simoning, especially since the last time I thought about Goodliffing something, it was the 1-3 and 7-9 quads in the GAS a few weeks back where it turned out that Mark himself seemed to not notice that a quad with a 1 or 9 on it has to be the four extreme digits.
And resorting to looking to Sudoku for help. (Honest, I understand: it is very hard to get the brain to switch from advanced logic to simple patterns and then back again.)
Simon really hates using pencil marks. He doesn't place them when it could totally help him, and when he does place them he proceeds to ignore them when they could answer the the question he is considering.
I'm the creator of this puzzle, and it makes so happy to see you solve it. Thank you so much for giving it a shot even though the rules are a bit tricky, and way to make it through the solve. You spotted the 235 hidden singles in row 1 MUCH earlier than I expected, and that definitely helps with the midgame. Also, not sure if the pun in the title was noticed, but the importance of the bi-cycles having orders that sum to 9 from rows 2-6 is what gave the puzzle the name. (you were so close when you said the puzzle was bi-chromal!)
Thank-you for a terrific puzzle! The realisation that N couldn't go in the Nth column in rows 2-6, and hence the naked singles in the top row, was certainly a break-through moment for me.
Thank you for such an interesting puzzle! I enjoyed solving it. And also I'm very happy that my solving time wasn't much longer than the length of the video (As it's usually the case) I guess it just clicked for me :)
What a terrific puzzle, thanks so much for creating it! I’d be curious whether it’d be hard to use this rule set in a multitude of puzzles, or whether it is a one-trick-pony. Was it a hard puzzle to set Would I be off the mark to assume that Veritasium’s recent video on the prisoners’ dilema inspired you to think about this rule-set?
The occasional "complicated rule set" never hurt anyone, just for the sake of variety. And especially in this case it was well worth the trouble! Plus "meemeemee" and "ner ner-ner ner ner" digits have entered the vocabulary for all time! Thanks so much for presenting this gem of a puzzle.
Yeah but it was inadequately explained. You shouldn't have to have to work to figure out what the rules even mean. I took it to mean a thermo cell didn't even necessarily have to be counted on the increasing cycle count if the cell wasn't on the cycle. Too confusing; no good.
@@bobblebardsley When setting the puzzle, I went through many iterations to resolve the end, and the LK clue was one I ended up going with. It was not intentional that it was 23 when I initially set it, though when I noticed this, it certainly gave that version an edge over the few other versions I had tried out (most of which involved an extra given digit). Also this version allows for there to be a 3 in the corner (R9C1), as the other versions of this had that bottom 23 pair switched.
@@SirSchmoopy The only thing it was apparently missing was not letting Simon finish it off with Sudoku and forcing him to actually think about cycles again :P (around 1:08:10 Simon laments boxes 1 and 4 not being resolved and eventually solves them with Sudoku on the rest of the puzzle rather than noticing that each row can be resolved by realising only one ordering respects the cycle-order thermo)
This rule set "fit" my brain. I do a lot of coding so I spend a lot of time thinking about how functions reference each other. Exactly like the cycle references.
Starwarigami has a good number of puzzles that use cycles like this one: Cyclotron, Cyclones, Unicycles, Thermodynamics, and Quad Bike You should give them a solve!
Simon, I really enjoyed your solve. I don't know if it's been suggested, but you could ask Sven to let you put colored pencil marks in the grid, to give you the flexibility to do things like mark cycles or numbers across boxes by assigning a color for the digit. It should be "reasonably" easy for Sven to do so.
@@simonalbrecht9435 I don't see why. Sven could make it act just like the pen tool. Invisible by default, but when enabled, a box with a color wheel pops up, defaulted to black. Pencil marks would be displayed with the color chosen by the color wheel.
This would be nice, there have been other puzzles where this would've helped although I can't remember any off the top of my head. Personally, I just used the color tool to color cells according to their cycle order (since you can use the numpad in color mode, so color 1 marked a digit with cycle order 1 and so on).
The N-Chains puzzle pack is amazing! It was constructed by a different author, and we came up with these variants independently of each other. Do give them a shot though, they're amazing fun, and there's a good progression in difficulty, the first few in the pack are very approachable, and the last one in the pack, while very difficult, is one of the best puzzles i've done in quite a while.
Regarding complicated rules: if you sheltered us from rules like “digits in a cage sun to the given clue” then I would have never discovered the beauty of killer sudokus. Same goes for thermos, kropki, etc. Please don’t stray away from complicated rules, they are the genesis of my love for sudoku variants
This ruleset was fine, as Simon said it's reasonable once you get your head around it. But to be fair, there is quite a difference between thermos indexing cycles with increasing orders and a killer cage.
I don't think the cycles ruleset is any more complicated that other variants. I am sure that if it became a 'standard' variant, the logic it could produce alongside other variants would be fascinating. It certainly hit the mark alongside thermo and little killer rules in this case.
@@davidblake6889 Don't really get what you're trying to say. Even Simon mentioned multiple times this is an extremely complicated rule set to get started with. And somehow you think it's at the same level as a killer cage.
@@tezcharold the point is that all of the variants were considered "complicated" when they were first introduced. I remember a similar conversation about between lines and lockout lines, and now those are considered "standard" variants. Yes this is objectively more complicated than killer cages, but killer cages are objectively more complicated than normal sudoku rules
I think the ruleset has a potential to become extremely complicated, *but*, the puzzle presented actually uses simple logic steps. It could have been much much worse. I don't think this should become a standard sudoku rule though. In programming terms, we'd call these self-referential pointers and are generally a headache. Although, here we at least have rules that make them a bit more manageable.
This is a great rule-set and a beautiful puzzle. Thank you for choosing to showcase it. Cyclical logic could have help a lot more in disambiguating box 1, but you, surprisingly, used sudoku to solve those.
Funny how often he forgot that when a number is confirmed to be a part of a cycle >1, it then can't be the number of the column it is in. EG: that fact resolved the 1,6 pair in box 2 ages before he resolved it by other means.
I have been literally cheering you on for the first 20 minutes while you are discovering and step by step learning and then successfully applying the rules! I'm glad you two "overrode" the recommendation of the testers, because so far, this has been a treat.
I was dying inside at 11:40! // I'm also still wondering where in the rules it says the cycle in the row must include a digit on the thermo. Seems as if the cycles can start in any column... // No wait I got it - I think. Actually, every cell in the grid has a cycle, and therefore an order. But - we don't know anything about the orders of the non-thermo cells. We do know that the orders increase on thermos. That's why Simon is focusing on the thermo-cell orders. // At 27 minutes I think I got R7C1. It must have order 3. So it goes R7C1 --> R7C? --> back to R7C1 (which requires a 1). So if you try to make R7C1 a 3, then it points to R7C3, which has possible values (6,7,8,9). None of which points to 1! So R7C1 must be 4, and R7C4 must be 5, which points at the 1, which brings us home in order 3! Yay!
I love Simon so much but it's infuriating to hear him say things like "I can feel you all shouting at the screen" and "I feel so stupid" while I'm sitting here thinking "what on earth is going on??"
This may be my favorite video I’ve ever seen on the channel. I really love cycle/indexing/159 puzzles and have done a few other Sir Schmoopy puzzles with my friend and they are absolutely fantastic as they use similar rule sets and each one we’ve done has a nice unique twist to it. I really find the logic around indexing is incredibly fascinating, and the coloring logic Simon did in this puzzle was just brilliant.
So I did this in two hours and 15 minutes. Most of the time, I was thinking "I'm not at all sure I understood the rules correctly, but if I did it's a pretty cool puzzle. And if I didn't, it may be two pretty good puzzles, because what I'm doing is working." I was happy to see Simon confuse himself for the first few minutes so I knew it wasn't just me. This puzzle really needed a 6 x 6 sample puzzle to illustrate the new rules. Quite enjoyed it.
If it would help, I did create a 6x6 sudoku with a solution where I went through all of the main steps to go over the logic. the puzzles name is 'Cyclometer 234' on Logic Masters Germany
@@michaelhird432 omg that would be awesome, especially if there are only two reasonable interpretations of the rules and they both have unique solutions. That would be high level trolling
Simon, your sudoku solves kept me sane in 2020, and I still keep coming back to them for the sheer joy. This was one of the best. I actually love it when it's a new rule set to you, because I'm not lagging quite as far behind you as I usually do. Please never ever retire!
I loved the premise of the cycles, once I caught on to how they worked, as an addition to Sudoku logic, I was amazed at what they added to the puzzle. Beautiful puzzle.
Absolutely loved this! Spent ages, over to hours, I'm not really a maths brain, but as someone working with literature on a daily basis, I really appreciate the poetry in a good sudoku - there's a rhytm to the solve, there are quirks, references, repetitions and sort of evolving themes. Not to mention the potential for great puns in the name of the puzzles, like this one! The neatness of a sudoku grid is way more fun when it comes to numbers than words (I love a good sonnet but I'm happy that not every poem is one), but I'm amazed at the wonderful variety sudoku setters manage within a nine-by-nine grid. Thank you so much for this one, @givengels !
This is another one like the 159 rule set where being a software developer helps a lot. I saw a lot of logic early on and was willing for Simon to see it. E.g as soon as he pencilled 9 in box 3, I saw r3c5 couldn’t be a 9 as that would make it a 2 cycle, meaning r4c5 would then have to be a 1-cycle 5 but we already knew the cycle lengths of that row. I love these indexing rulesets but can see that they can be mind bending unless you’re used to it from a maths or programming background.
@@99stiggbeard99 I went to a very confusing class once where we solved the same problem with algebra, geometry and groups...left me dizzy...but I think at some level a lot of the branches of pure maths converge again.
I'd really like to look at puzzles like this with smarties like you guys. I get a lot of things before you, and also have no idea where you are half the time. But I love following logic, it's so engaging.
58:27 really liked the cycles constraint, though it took a few minutes to understand fully. used a break along the first row because it requires a high amount of cycles of length 1
For a couple of these long solve videos I've been watching recently, sometimes I spot a detail you don't see for a few minutes, but this one I kept seeing things a couple of steps ahead or a way of doing it once you mentioned a detail. So I opened up the puzzle in another tab and I would start doing some things, pencil mark a bit, stare at it for a while to see if I could tell where to go next, and then I would come back to the video until you made an observation that made me realize what to do next. I went back and forth a good number of times, and I feel like it's eventually gonna help me with my puzzling skills for these very complex puzzles (more complex than the GAS's I mean, since that's what I've been doing), and also it was very fun to sort of do it alongside the video! And I do feel very proud of the little things that I spotted by myself, even though there's no way I could've solved the whole thing on my own (yet)
Catching up as I am on old videos, this was one of the hardest puzzles I've ever solved, but also a really fun one. A big part of the challenge I found was wrapping your head around the rules (including not making the mistake of thinking that a digit on a thermo has to indicate the size of the cycle for that thermo/cell) and figuring out how to remember cycle sizes through some sort of notation or pencil marking. What I found was helpful was to open a second version of the puzzle in another tab, and in that version only pencil mark the cycle order/size, and also color in known cycle cells once found. On the main page I didn't make any pencil marks for cycles once I started with the second tab, but would frequently switch between the pages to refresh my memory about cycle sizes. Once I started doing that and was able to sort out the information in a way my brain was able to retain, I was able to discover and appreciate the beautiful logic this puzzle has.
Even though this sudoku had a complex rule set, it is one of my favourite Simon solves. The logic involved is absolutely incredible, and it was amazing to watch you solve it.
Couldn't have done it without you, but it was a pleasure to go along with the ride. I did find some things before you did, but probably only 10%. Thanks for trying something so wild.
I’m no where near an expert at sudoku. I wouldn’t even consider myself good at it. Most of the time when I watch your videos I’m in complete AWE! I definitely was this time too, but I found myself figuring out your next step a few times. This puzzle is beautiful and mind-bending!
Loved the puzzle, loved the video. It was definitely mind bending. One of the things I’ve found really interesting about these brand new, incredibly unorthodox variants is how you have to develop the tricks as you go. So much of getting good at Sudoku is learning patterns, so you can spot and utilize a jellyfish, for example. I suspect if you did more of this variant, this one wouldn’t seem so hard, but so much of figuring it out is learning all these little rules that aren’t necessarily stated, like the sum of all cycle lengths in a row must always be 9. Seems obvious once stated, but once you realize that, it gets quite powerful.
What a cool puzzle! I found the rules fairly easy to understand once you gave an example, I think the extra tricky part is trying remember the size of a cell's cycle when you place a digit. Maybe a solution for this could be to have a shape tool that places a small shape in the corner of a cell (like a size 4 cycle would be a square, a size 6 would be a hexagon and so on). Near the end, you could have resolved those pairs in box one and four by just observing the cycle, I.E. r3c3 can't be 5 because that ends the cycle too soon. Excellect solve though, really entertaining
How about keeping single number center pencil marks as "solved" instead of replacing them with big numbers? This allows corner pencil marks to remain visible.
@@stefanladewig8910 Well no because then they don't look solved and that could get confusing. But your comment made me realize that the solution to this would be a mark that persists when you place a big number. Like a "pen" mark instead. That doesn't sound too hard to program either; it's just a mark on a different layer
Well done for even understanding the rules, that was tough! And as for how you remembered which of the corner pencil marks were your new rule for his puzzle about marking the order, and which were ones you had forgotten and just put ordinary corner marks in, I'll never know, but it was making me nervous the whole way through!
This took me 123 minutes, love the cyclical nature and advanced pointer arithmetic you need to do. Bicyclical thermos, both order and number are relevant, brilliant.
I only partially solved this, as I find watching the video far more interesting, but the break in was great... once you realised the tip of the thermo wasn't the same number as the order. It really does add new elements on how you think about things. Like Simon ignoring the 2 cell thermos for ages, while I had realised they help work out which cycle they are in. Definitely channel worthy imo.
Fantastic puzzle and fantastic solve. It is so refreshing to see Simon working out the logic for a new rule set from scratch, AND still explaining it all so clearly as he goes, rather than the ‘let’s get this done as quickly as possible’ approach that can tend to happen!
Tip for Simon: Look for ways to use your tools in complicated pencil marks. In particular, 0. In this case, Corner marks including a 0 could have meant "order pencil marks", while corner marks with no 0 means regular corner marks.
I think this ruleset is actually quite intuitive, but is difficult to define intuitively and precisely in lay parlance because of its novelty. I think it's actually an interesting technical writing challenge. Here's my shot: "Within each row, a CYCLE is a set of digits, where each digit indexes the column of the next digit in the cycle. A 5 in r2c1, a 9 in r2c5, and a 1 in r2c9 is a cycle. A cycle's length is the number of digits in it before it repeats. The example "591" cycle above has a length of 3. Along each thermometer, each thermometer digit's cycle's length must also increase from bulb end."
I absolutely loved this puzzle. It's possible that being a mathematician made it easier for me to wrap my head around the cycles. But with that in mind, I had a fantastic time. 55:49 for me.
Got to love the excitement when things begin to make sense. Thank you for sharing this puzzle. It was a new way of thinking. And it helps to see that others can be confused too. Amazing puzzle rules!
I'm so excited, I beat simons time in a long video!! 59:56, very proud. I'm so glad you chose to put this puzzle on the channel after all, I love the ruleset. I think it looks a bit more complicated than it is because it's hard to explain rules like that clearly over text without looking really complicated
I was determined to solve this on my own. It took me a while to get my head around the ruleset, but in the end I managed to solve it in about two hours. Loved it, what a fascinating puzzle.
I really liked this puzzle. Also the way you explained some characteristics of the cycles. You even gave us time to think about those explanations before using them.
More with this ruleset please! I didn't manage to finish it - I got fairly far through several times, but I think I kept making a silly mistake around the same point, so in the end watched the video. But I'd love to do more of these!
I found this ruleset perfectly clear from the get-go and was immediately amused by how much Simon struggled with it throughout. Sometimes the best part about watching Simon solve a puzzle is seeing the totally backwards ways in which he finds numbers in the grid.
First time I've ever been quicker than the video! 59:18 Quite pleased as my times are usually well above the video length. I thought this was a really interesting puzzle and all the cycles fit together so neatly.
Loved this puzzle, even though it took me nearly two hours. I got stuck for a good 30 mins because I forgot about the diagonal clue, but it flowed nicely after that :) Only my second time attempting one of the puzzles Simon does...I just really liked the sound of the ruleset!
Beautiful puzzle! A bit frustrating at times early on whilst Simon got his head around the ruleset but once he got going it was a pleasure to see the genius at work. Thank you for another great solve.
Loved this puzzle!! I got just a couple of minutes into Simon's solve before I realized I just *had* to try it myself. Took over two hours (partly because I had to pause a few times to do my job), but it's my first ever long video solve!
I almost did not try but glad I did... Took me 1:40.37 which is one of the longer efforts I have made on a puzzle without giving up or peeking for a hint in the video but I was always making a little progress so I refused to give in. Thanks for the video and Sir Schmoopy for the setting! EDIT: After watching video wanted to add... LOVED IT... Wish Simon did not have to feel that people would be mad... Too bad if you were I am sure plenty more than me enjoyed and welcomed this puzzle... Variety is the spice of life so embrace it even if it is not always your cup of tea as the channel is for everyone not one individual.
I think this is a great rule set. The orders on the thermos increasing on one thermo and decreasing on the other leading to bi-cycles is nice. Then the little thermos in the middle giving you clues about which digits are in each was also good.
67:53 for me and without referring to the video. First time I've beaten the video length though probably slower than Simon's solve. Definitely one of my favourite puzzles ever, but that's probably because I'm a mathematician! I enjoyed the logic of the puzzle so much that I watched the video straight after my solve to see the logic again!
I, like I think a lot of people, use the length of the video to gauge whether or not I will attempt a puzzle. Anything beyond the 40 minute or so mark, and I just sit back and enjoy the ride. But, unironically, Simon at 8:57 and the fact that I thought I saw a move or two led me to actually give this one a go, despite it being nearly twice as long as I'd normally dare try. 2 hours, 12 minutes, a near full restart 20 minutes in when I realized I made a serious logical fallacy (which, ironically, didn't yield any incorrect digits, but I didn't know it at the time), and a desperate bifurcation later, and by god I actually solved it. Over a year of CTC videos and their apps has honed some skills in me at least XD
I have to say I very nearly didn't even start this puzzle cos I thought the rules were too confusing. But I'm so glad I gave it a try. It was very challenging and I had to get creative with my pencil marking and colouring but I was really chuffed to solve it in just slightly more than an hour.
This was amazing! I slogged my way through it for a couple of hours but was so satisfying when I finished. I used colouring for the cycles - but I substituted the colours of the rainbow for the order of the cycles - cycle of 1 = red, cycle of 2 = orange, etc. It was very colourful by the end!
My timer said 93:15 but I think I left it running for at least a few minutes while I was doing other things (though probably not more than 15) The interplay between the ascending and descending thermos on the two edges, and how the given 1's restrict the minimums and maximums for the break-in was just beautiful setting. It sure wasn't easy but it never felt unfair, and the logic had some really wonderful steps to it.
Awesome setting and solving. Love this ruleset, I love this whole cycling idea and using cycles on thermos, wow wow. And I was far from annoyed by your solve, you handled that expertly in my opinion! Bravo.
While this did take me a couple of hours to solve it was not nearly as scary as the rules and the video length made me think it would be. I'm glad that I attempted it and catching the interaction of the thermos via the ruleset in the first 10 minutes then taking a break to make food before really diving in giving me time to think about it really helped. Very enjoyable puzzle.
This man slowly descending into madness as he describes a puzzle as "being either a nuh nuh na nuh nuh or a me mee me me, but it can't be me me me eme so it has to be nuh nuh na nuh nuh"
LOVED this puzzle, thank you! The logic at 45min was very clever -- i.e. where are the "me me me" digits of 2 and 3 in columns 2 and 3 respectively. Only in row 1 because the other rows are completely filled by the 2 cycles totaling 9.
I really enjoyed this puzzle. Group theory was something I studied and enjoyed at university (with cycles / permutations as a subset), so the cycle logic is firmly embedded into my brain.
That is a fantastic puzzle with a quite brilliant ruleset! The solve path is beautiful, especially once you realise the implication of cycles in the same row and those of order 1 and despite the supposed difficulty, it all seemed to flow quite naturally (I used colours to represent the cycle lengths). I only said about a sudoku favourite a few days ago but that’s another which is going on the list (and a perfect puzzle for anyone who enjoys the algebraic side of Maths as well)! Superb setting, thanks Sir S and well done Simon for braving the idea of cycles! ;)
Rules: 03:29 Let's Get Cracking: 09:07 Simon's time: 1h2m57s Puzzle Solved: 1:12:04 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Bobbins: 2x (37:57, 53:13) Goodliffing: 1x (50:46) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Ah: 17x (17:10, 17:57, 27:10, 29:27, 33:22, 33:25, 35:28, 39:21, 46:59, 47:08, 51:05, 53:45, 53:47, 1:07:20, 1:08:20, 1:10:17, 1:11:16) By Sudoku: 13x (19:49, 32:57, 33:49, 42:53, 47:14, 54:57, 55:20, 58:35, 1:02:13, 1:03:32, 1:08:44, 1:11:33) Sorry: 12x (06:42, 07:49, 10:08, 14:26, 25:25, 27:33, 39:14, 40:41, 42:17, 48:32, 51:11, 1:00:49) Hang On: 10x (04:18, 13:01, 13:30, 14:02, 27:18, 27:21, 29:45, 48:43, 1:05:19) Good Grief: 9x (01:47, 12:08, 14:49, 17:10, 29:19, 36:24, 1:03:38, 1:10:20, 1:11:21) In Fact: 9x (03:48, 06:32, 09:52, 16:26, 21:45, 24:59, 28:34, 51:38, 1:09:21) I Have no Clue: 7x (07:03, 08:49, 40:35, 46:31, 49:11, 55:34, 1:10:01) Clever: 6x (00:35, 20:48, 20:56, 23:56, 23:59, 29:22) The Answer is: 4x (20:39, 46:31, 53:21, 56:27) Beautiful: 4x (00:45, 23:02, 36:24, 1:10:20) What Does This Mean?: 4x (10:42, 24:09, 49:08, 52:50) Useless: 2x (10:05, 51:23) Goodness: 2x (31:24, 1:12:06) Ridiculous: 2x (50:09, 58:28) Obviously: 2x (26:22, 58:22) What on Earth: 1x (37:35) Diddly Squat: 1x (50:55) Nonsense: 1x (1:04:01) Horrible Feeling: 1x (25:25) Fascinating: 1x (1:12:21) Going Mad: 1x (39:00) Our old Friend Sudoku: 1x (49:48) Shouting: 1x (25:27) Surely: 1x (43:02) I've Got It!: 1x (58:09) Doesn't get a Song: 1x (47:28) Wow: 1x (23:56) Baffling: 1x (58:00) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Twenty Three (6 mentions) Nine (122 mentions) Orange, Blue (33 mentions) Antithesis Battles: Low (4) - High (3) Even (4) - Odd (0) Higher (6) - Lower (0) Outside (2) - Inside (0) 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!
About 1h20m for me. I had figured out the cycle length for the whole thermo on the left except the tip. Is it a cycle of 9? Well, if it was, the bulb of the little thermo on row 2 also has a cycle size of 9, and its tip has length 10. Not possible. This has escaped me for over an hour. 15 minutes later, I had solved the puzzle. It is an absolutely brilliant puzzle.
Awesome puzzle, I almost can’t believe I solved this. my break in was different, with first digit a 4 in r7c1. Once you wrap your mind around the rules, it’s very interesting and more restraining than what it first appears to be.
I have a feeling programmers will be quite fond of this rule set. It certainly worked for me, I was able to spot things quite quickly. I noticed Simon was struggling quite a lot to keep following the cycle logic, he'd take one step in the right direction and then veer off into sudoku or some other train of thought that would lead him no where. For me it felt like I was debugging code. Just stepping through variable/function references and following the call sites until I come to something important. Critically, working "backwards" was key, as in: "where would/could the number that points to this cell go"
I found using single-digit centre marks as the actual Digit, and corner digits only as the Order, really helped here. I could still see what order it was even after placing each cell's actual Digit
To answer your question, Simon: loving it! I love sudokus with number-theoretical rule-sets. If other setters could have a go at this idea, I would be very happy!
There are several other puzzles that I've made with similar rulesets on logic masters germany if you'd like to try them. As for puzzles by other setters, N-chains puzzle pack has a similar ruleset and is a lot of fun.
I was completely stuck, with about 2/3 of the grid filled in (and lots of ambiguous cycles), so I returned to Simon's video and suddenly when he remembered the "23" diagonal clue (45:50), I realized I had completely forgotten it too! That made short work of the rest of the puzzle, taking just a few more minutes. A brilliant puzzle, but my brain hurts now... I too wonder (in awe) at how SirSchmoopy's brain works!
I had a similar moment in my solve. Lots of 23 pairs and incomplete cycles. Wondering how they all resolve. "Is it the 15 cage...I bet it's the 15 cage...I'm guessing one way round makes the 15 cage impossible...must resist the temptation to bifurcate...WAIT, THE 23 LITTLE KILLER CLUE!!!"
I tried this one on my own at first and struggled to understand the cycle logic. Simon's wonderful me-me-me and na-na-na-na explanations for cycle length 1 and 2 finally made the concept click and it was a lovely Eureka moment.
Absolutely worth it, only took me slightly under 3 hours, but I´m relieved actually that after seeing Simon´s solve, he used the same reasoning and logic as I. A tad faster than me, I admit (*cough*) but having solved it on my own makes me feel more confident yet again. Love this channel. Thank you - again - Simon, for this treat! Love, Sheila
