It's such an honor to have my puzzle featured on the channel, and I'm so glad that Simon enjoyed it! I have to give a huge shout-out to Raumplaner who has been doing daily setting challenges with the Sudoku Skunkworks! This puzzle originated from one of those challenges (construct a Fog of War puzzle), first as a 6x6 then expanded into a full 9x9 puzzle.
And at the same time, he's missing an easy 8/9 resolution and an easy 4/8 resolution - either of which would also resolve the 2/8. And he just keeps clicking on things that are part of or next to each of them. I've been poking my screen with my finger in frustration, clearly hoping the poke will go back in time and show him what he isn't noticing. Simon is so much better at these puzzles than me, and I'm mystified how he manages to not see such obvious things. (Simon, you're just adorable, my friend.)
This all shows how much he really hates sudoku, he’ll find the most complex reasoning to fill out the grid when he is looking at 5 sudoku boxes that resolve everything. He could fill out the 2/3 pair in box 3, 8 in box 5, the 4/8 pair in box 8 which resolves the 2/8 in box 7. Basically at this point he can resolve all the 8s and their counterparts. Just need to use some sudoku which Simon really hates. But he knows this is his weakness.
I don't think I'm overreaching my self here, when I say on behalf of the other 2k+ people (at this time) who have watched the video, that you'll pass on to "the little person" our hopes that she has a fantastic birthday with lots of cake. 😀
love it that Simon's looking at clues and spends a lot of time overanalyzing them to get overly complex deductions and then when he notices that column 7 requires 2, 3 and 7 to finish (at a point where there have been eight 3s in the grid for ages) he places the 7 and leaves 2 and 3 unresolved despite one of the eight 3s being right next to one of the unresolved 2 or 3 cells
And he refuses to use the 4 in box 7 to resolve the 48 in box 8 which would resolve the 28 in column 1. But saying that I'd concentrate on sudoku and miss the beautiful deductions Simon makes.
There was a solid 10 minutes where the Bottom middle has 7 numbers solved (needed a 4 and an 8) and he had a 4 in the Square to the left that solved where the 4 and 8 went in that square
Rules: 07:42 Let's Get Cracking: 10:28 Simon's time: 47m44s Puzzle Solved: 58:12 What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?! Three In the Corner: 8x (20:44, 22:20, 22:21, 22:25, 48:00, 50:19, 50:54, 51:01) Bobbins: 4x (29:08, 29:08, 54:33, 54:33) The Secret: 3x (14:18, 14:26, 18:20) Maverick: 2x (28:12, 28:20) You Rotten Thing: 2x (50:07, 50:07) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (38:40) Scooby-Doo: 1x (48:32) And how about this video's Simarkisms?! Touch Itself: 17x (08:39, 08:56, 11:16, 11:51, 12:34, 13:18, 13:25, 13:47, 28:42, 33:39, 34:03, 39:18, 40:05, 44:31, 47:05, 53:01, 55:33) In Fact: 16x (03:20, 05:49, 05:49, 06:54, 13:55, 14:34, 18:58, 19:36, 29:55, 29:57, 32:46, 39:32, 41:50, 44:49, 45:43) Ah: 13x (14:21, 17:45, 28:05, 28:52, 29:02, 29:08, 41:39, 49:40, 50:07, 50:14, 50:51, 53:03, 57:00) Sorry: 9x (06:51, 17:45, 18:07, 21:41, 22:43, 27:05, 29:08, 37:05, 41:50) Clever: 8x (29:22, 29:27, 29:31, 29:39, 43:56, 43:56, 43:58, 49:58) By Sudoku: 5x (43:09, 50:37, 52:09, 54:25, 54:30) Stuck: 4x (38:55, 38:55, 41:39, 58:37) Hang On: 4x (13:29, 47:22, 50:11, 50:51) Stunning: 4x (58:08, 58:11, 59:02, 59:04) Obviously: 4x (07:59, 13:13, 16:29, 45:47) Beautiful: 3x (09:29, 35:28, 38:31) Brilliant: 3x (06:25, 06:46, 58:50) Phone is Buzzing: 3x (10:35, 28:08, 41:27) Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (15:34, 15:36, 48:12) What on Earth: 2x (00:50, 49:07) Goodness: 2x (29:04, 53:37) Bother: 2x (50:33, 52:05) Naughty: 2x (21:12, 39:47) In the Spotlight: 2x (50:19, 51:03) Lovely: 2x (51:54, 58:58) That's Huge: 2x (42:47, 42:47) Have a Think: 2x (30:12, 49:56) Cake!: 2x (06:34, 59:24) Out of Nowhere: 1x (50:51) Nonsense: 1x (18:16) I Have no Clue: 1x (49:29) Gorgeous: 1x (45:02) Shouting: 1x (05:22) Flummoxed: 1x (49:53) Surely: 1x (24:52) Intriguing: 1x (00:36) Wow: 1x (58:18) What Does This Mean?: 1x (09:44) Middly Digit: 1x (34:54) Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video: Sixteen (8 mentions) Three (80 mentions) White (20 mentions) Antithesis Battles: High (20) - Low (19) Even (5) - Odd (1) Higher (2) - Lower (0) Lowest (2) - Highest (0) White (20) - Black (0) Column (10) - Row (4) 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!
That is one of the coolest and most satisfying break-ins I've ever seen - and I would never have spotted it in a million years. I stared at this puzzle for about 20 minutes and just became convinced there was some clue or rule missing. Amazing.
I can't remember where I learned this tip. On a German Whispers line with no diagonals the digits are a checkerboard of high and low. no diagonals = only orthogonally connected cells
I tried the puzzle myself before watching, made the deduction Simon discovered at 29:00 after some time and I immediately had to watch the video up until this point because I wanted to see Simon's reaction and his "oh, this is mighty clever" face.
I took a small vacation, a month and a half, and came back to watch Simon solve this brilliant puzzle. I can't, but i love, love, love the logic. I love this channel even more.
What a lovely puzzle! I was scratching my head for so long until I remembered the checkerboard/bishop move element that gave me the polarity of the 16 cage! Such an enjoyable puzzle to complete. Thanks yttrio
The love and joy Simon you show in solving Fog of war puzzles, all puzzles on daily basis in fact, is just a wonderful testament to how much passion you have for everything this channel has to offer.
Fantastic puzzle 👍🏻👍🏻 It took me 35 minutes, I was delighted to realise the bishop's move resolved the 16-cage very quickly, not often that I spot something like that quicker than Simon!
Thanks to previous CTC videos, I immediately recognized the "bishop's move" constraint, and that helped me jump right in and cruise quite comfortably to a 16:13 finish. Felt briefly stuck a few times, but never for long. What a lovely puzzle!
Beautiful logic, I would not have got the trick with diagonal polarity until Simon did say we can work out the polarity on the bottom right with the one on the top left, but gorgeous, AND two 3s in the corner with two songs, absolutely loved everything :D
I finished in 67 minutes. It seems like fog of war and german whispers go so well together. I really enjoyed this one. It was really fun calculating all the line possibilities in my head. Great Puzzle!
36:00 An easier way to see this, since I don't understand how Simon gets the 456 triple: the line can't go through a white dot because it violates the whispers rule, so it can't turn right into r7c9 or r8c9. Since it must go up, r7c8 must be high and it can't be 6 or 7, so it's 89, forming a 789 triple in the row where 7 must be in box 8. This removes 3 as an option from r7c5, making it 2.
I did it the same way as you, and feel it's the more elegant path. (Just to wind Simon up, it's definitely less "bifurcatary" - "what if r7c5 was a 3, oh, then I can reach a contradiction several steps down the path"). But to explain the 456 triple, IF r7c5 was a 3, it would have to be between an 89 pair, then r7c7-9 see 127 in the box and 389 in the row, leaving 456 as a naked triple in those three cells.
The 456 was based on a hypothetical but impossible 3 in r7c4, which can't go next to a 7 so would force an 89 pair. The explanation starts at 35:42. That doesn't work since it breaks the loop in box 9, which as you (and I) deduced at this point goes straight up.
This was my intended solve path, and I was a bit surprised Simon didn't look earlier at how the dot restricts the loop's path. It was definitely interesting seeing that it was possible to get the same digit via a different method, though.
The absolute brilliance of this puzzle is that the two initial clues interact with each other. Since the loop is orthogonal, high and low digits alternating can tell you which digits in the bottom-right corner are high or low based on which digits in the top-left corner are high and low. Think of it as black and white squares on a chessboard.
I feel like with the way Simon talks about the different digits personalities in this and other videos, we need a whole storybook with them interacting, based around sudoku
I had to watch for the break in. Lovely puzzle. And The award for hilarity in Simon's solve today goes to 53:32 where he pencil marks a 3 next to a 3 and says "hmm it doesn't seem to have resolved anything" I think the high solve count might be due to people being dishonest with themselves, but then that takes all the fun out of it.
I needed the initial German whispers intro/advice as it's my first time encountering them but when he started thinking about the 16 cage I realised that it was a hot cold from the top left. Managed to solve it from there, super happy!
44:46 for me, including staring blankly at my screen for about 20 minutes before figuring out how to finish the break-in. I have no regrets - that is a fantastic break-in, and a great puzzle. Well done, yttrio!
I could follow Simons’s logic & even anticipate in some places but could not have made all the necessary leaps on my own. Clever setting & solving. Enjoy the cake. 😊
I usually have big problem with breakins, but this one just came relatively easy. I mean its a fog puzzle, and there are only 2 visible parts of the puzzle you have to think about which also raises the question why there are 2 visible parts. From there on i thought about connecting them and then i deduced the bishop rule.
I agree. I would never get that break-in myself . Its just too hard for me to visualize how the loops will evolve and affect the puzzle in those type of puzzles . In fact I am so awfully bad at any loop puzzles that I am seeing cracking the cryptic for about almost an year and I dont even remember finnish any puzzles when I have to draw a loop line
Very nice puzzle. Around 36:00 a simpler way to deduct this, is just to ask how the loop is going out of box 9. Then a 789 triple appear in row 7 so there mus be 7 on the loop in r7c4 or r6c4 making r7c5 not a 2
Wow wow wow. Loved doing this one! Nearly gave up after staring at the opening for ages, but the bishops move was a lightbulb moment that was so thrilling!
I initially got stuck in clearing any fog, then started watching Simon's video and had the "a ha!" moment a couple of seconds before Simon, thus determining the 16-cage had four cells. From there I found it surprisingly straightforward. Bravo!
At my work they play “lose my religion” as part of their playlist and I swear everyone must think I’m a looney bin when I start belting out “THATS THREE IN THE CORNER”
It's interesting to see the end of Simon's solve differ so much from mine. After filling the 19 cage, almost all the rest of the puzzle can be done via sudoku, leaving only a 6-7 pair to be resolved by completing the line. Quite nice to see that you can do the line immediately instead.
Such a good puzzle this one. I've now attempted maybe two handfuls of the puzzles shown on this channel so I don't have a lot of experience with them yet, and this was the first I managed to solve all by myself without any clues from the video. Took me a little over an hour and it was definitely worth my time.
The only thing I actually realized way before Simon was that the loop can’t traverse white dots. But I wouldn’t even have gotten there in the first place. Although the solution was logical in the end 🤩👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
22:20 REM's newest hit: "That's three in the corner. That's three in the spot. Light. Causing a division. Oh no it adds too much. It doesn't add enough. To the German whisper..."
I did spot the trick almost immediately, but I was helped quite a bit by the fact that I solved a bunch of parity step chessboard problems in highschool. (Essentially, the idea being if you take an even number of orthogonal steps from any square on a chessboard, you'll end up on a square that's the same color as the square you started on, and the implications of that when trying to create tiling patterns, or move sequences etc.) Incredible to see that concept incorporated in a puzzle using the genius medium of a BYO german whispers loop!
At the start I figured that once you knew the polarity of one cell, by the fact the loop is orthogonal and cannot cross itself you can work out the polarity of the other corner by just counting hi/low from R1C1 to R8C8
Can we assume that young Miss Anthony has inherited her father's taste for chocolate cake? And that her father will be indulging her by not eating every scrap of it himself but saving a slice for the birthday girl? Happy birthday, Simon's daughter! 😸
The bishop's move polarity trick was so cool! What an awesome puzzle! I've been constructing a similar loop sudoku and that really helped me with this one because the logic is quite similar
Decided to try solving it myself while i got stuck at the beginning and needed help on how the bottom cell is 4 the rest flowed really well while the ending making the loop matter once again after doing a bunch of sudoka to answer a 67 pair box was a wonderful way to finish it.
Awesome stuff. I solved the entire puzzle except for four cells which had a 67 pair, and realized I had to close the green line to get resolution, since a 6 could not be placed at that spot - so that's what forced the 7. Really clever puzzle!
33:56 with help with the break in. I completely didn't think about how the loop had to be high/low/high/low and didn't see how the two give cages related to each other. It was a breeze after that.
I figured out the bishop's move to infer the polarity of the line in box 9! It's my first time figuring out whatever Simon just realized when he says, "Pause the video to figure it out" 😁
I saw the polarity trick pretty quickly, then proceeded to get bogged down by missing so many easy deductions like '7 cannot go next to 3 on the whisper line' and simple sudoku stuff that it took me just over 75 minutes to solve it, oops. Great sudoku, very beautiful!
Saw the bishop's move really early on, then got stuck not resolving my own pencil marks in box 2 (and Simon pointing out the X-wing on 3's helped too). Lovely puzzle, more like these please!
i bet so many people solve it by guessing numbers to reveal fog and then they know the polarity of the line without having to understand the geometry of the grid trick. nice work simon!
Technically, a loop can touch itself diagonally, but only when both cells connect to the same adjacent cell, otherwise you cannot make any 90 degree turns. Just seemed like a bit of a rules gap. Although I cannot imagine anyone making that mistake in the execution of the puzzle.
What two distinct points of the loop are touching, when the loop bends? The inside of the corner is only one point of the loop. That would be a meaningless definition of touching itself, since every single point of the loop would also then be the loop "touching itself".
Finished in 65:11. Not too much longer than the video length! It helped that I've constructed a whisper snake puzzle so I'm pretty familiar with the things you need to think about for them.
I had helped test this puzzle originally, but decided to try it again as it's been a while! It was amazing how I nearly forgot all of it. 😄 22:42 this time around, as I do recall I forgot to do a lot of basic sudoku to solve it the first time, hence a slightly faster solve on this pass. 🙂 Really wonderful puzzle from yttrio!
Wow... I've been watching for years, and this break in is the first time where I've thought I wouldn't have ever seen that given enough time. Never noticed that polarity cheese board on whispers because they are normally much shorter lines
I got the possibilities for the two initial cages alright, but just could not figure out how to disambiguate them. Had to watch the start of the video to get a hint unfortunately, but the rest of it flowed from there. Very nice puzzle!
(around 34/35 minutes in...) Once you place the 2 in box 9, there's only one way the line can leave box 9, because a german whisper line can never go through a white dot. That places an 89 pair in box 9 and is (for me at least) a more straightforward way of resolving the 23 pair that was placed in box 8. I'm kicking myself because I've solved other types of puzzles using global parity, but didn't get the aha moment until Simon said "I have to look at the whole grid."
The bishops move is a great way to visualize the breakthrough, but it can also be thought of algebraically. Once you know the r1c1 is low polarity, then r9c7 must also be. You must traverse 8 rows down, and 6 columns across for a minimum of 14 moves, an even number. If there is any inefficiency to the path like a move up or left (from the context of following the loop counter clockwise) then it must be made up for with exactly one extra move in the other direction forcing an even number of moves on the path there. Forcing the polarity of the squares to match
