This puzzle took me about 2 hours. My first 5 star difficulty puzzle without any nudges. It's been a long journey since seeing the Miracle Sudoku video and thinking "why would anyone watch Sudoku." What a journey it's been! Thank yous!
Pretty much the exact same thing happened to me. Plumbing the depths of RUclips at like 4am and I find what was the second movie (the one where all the clues are lies) asking in disbelief who in the hell would watching something like this and why is there crap all over the grid? Since then I haven't missed an upload, have even rewatched a number of them, so I guess I know who the hell would watch something like this. People with excellent taste.
Closer to 3 hours for me, but worth it. Got stuck about 3 times, put the puzzle down twice for a meal and sleep, but woke up today and it opened right up to me. Like saying, "Hey. I saw you struggling. Here is an easy digit. Want another? Sure, look right here." It whispered the secrets to me. :)
Simon, you're a certifiable genius, but you're also the only person I know who would count horses in a field by counting the number of legs, verifying each horse has four legs, and then dividing by four.
"I'm in a jolly good mood, because I'm doing a Phistomefel puzzle" I've never pretended to be able to do one of these, but I love watching Simon solve them.
Rules: 02:35 Let's Get Cracking: 04:03 And how about this video's Simarkisms?! By sudoku: 6x (07:06, 26:59, 28:06, 31:47, 33:47, 50:19) Sorry: 5x (07:45, 13:31, 36:16, 1:01:16, 1:05:48) Beautiful: 5x (14:27, 14:54, 33:53, 37:49, 39:03) Ridiculous: 5x (15:26, 16:32, 16:35, 27:29, 1:06:36) Hang On: 4x (19:36, 23:31, 39:15, 1:04:04) Good Grief: 3x (05:38, 44:59, 58:08) The Answer is: 3x (33:11, 38:10, 38:25) Clever: 3x (28:55, 50:14, 1:07:19) I've Got It!: 3x (14:01, 16:35, 16:35) Bobbins: 2x (11:30, 24:31) Bother: 2x (11:39, 58:45) Apologies: 2x (22:18, 48:26) Naked Single: 2x (35:56, 43:02) Maverick: 2x (36:20, 36:22) Stuck: 2x (26:08, 36:30) Incredible: 2x (01:27, 01:37) Gorgeous: 2x (24:20, 28:59) Shouting: 2x (48:26, 48:26) Knowledge Bomb: 1x (22:04) What on Earth: 1x (05:02) Goodness: 1x (43:41) Secret: 1x (01:34) Out of Nowhere: 1x (58:25) Naughty: 1x (1:03:32) Three In the Corner: 1x (55:28) In the Spotlight: 1x (55:30) Lovely: 1x (1:05:56) Off and Running: 1x (08:17) If I trust my Pencil Marks: 1x (49:40) If I Trust My Pencil Marks: 1x (49:40) Magnificent: 1x (04:39) Disappointing: 1x (41:09) FAQ: Q1: What is a Simarkism? A1: A Simarkism is something that Simon and Mark typically or frequently say. Q2: How do you do this so fast? A2: I'm not made of flesh and blood, but of sand ... Q3: Why don't you include 'XX' and 'YY'? A3: Probably it's already on the list ('Scooby-Doo' for example), but not mentioned in this video. But if you think it's not, tell me what you'd like me to include and there's a good chance I'll add it! Q4: You missed 'XX' at 'YY:ZZ'! A4: That could very well be the case! Human speech is hard to understand for computers like me, especially British sometimes! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn! Q5: Could you turn these statistics into videos? A5: I've been playing around with the idea and I'm open to input as to what people would like to see. Let me know if you are interested in this and/or have suggestions.
4,5 pair in column 7 pointing at and ruling out the 5 in r3, c8 around the hour mark😂 driving me crazy Simon 😜 Nah, all seriousness I'm in awe watching you solve these puzzles I love it !
Simon: This puzzle must be very close to cracking now (58 mins) Me: OMG I see it! 6's align in boxes 1 and 4 placing a 6 in box 7!!! and simon at 1:03:00 get it in a COMPLETELY different way. LMAO
Same here... that 6 in box 7 also disambiguated all blue/grey 1/2 pairs as 6 could only pair with one... that said, I would never have got some of the early break-in logic
Wowowow! I was just able to crack this one. It was brilliant, and took me a long time. There were plenty of times I got stuck, but the next logical step was never anything too insane that I couldn't find it with a bit of time which made it more of a pure delight than some of the really hard stuff. Brilliant work on the solve!
‘How will I disambiguate the 1-2’s? It must be the line in box 7.’ Of course, the only box in column 2 without pencil marks must be a 6-7 pair and it can’t be a 6, both because of the six in the row and the pencil marks in the box, and so …. Wait that was too easy, we must find a harder way!!!!
"Almost certainly what I've done is to miss a knight's move restriction somewhere", said Simon while hovering his cursor over the grey 12 that had been placeable in box 6 for over half an hour.
I used to be proud of *myself* when I was able to solve a puzzle that took Simon or Mark more than half an hour or so. Now, like them, my focus is more on the brilliance of the constructor. Well done, Phistomefel, as always.
This is my first puzzle that took you over an hour to solve that I was over to solve at all. It took me much longer than an hour and I had a couple restarts, but I got through it without any hints!
Im gonna pat myself on the shoulder as I spotted an X-wing of 6 in column 1 and 3 somewhere between 55 min and 1 hour that would resolve the 67 on the whisper line in box 7.
Oh, Simon, today you really had me in tears by not noticing that r7c2 was the only place for a 6 in the column at 53:15-ish and not getting it before 01:03:15. Other than that I really really enjoyed this. Thank you, both!
Even more of a tearjerker: Simon placed the 7 in box 4 via one of his virtuoso deductions. Here is a guy who solves sudoku with the mind of an extraterrestrial intelligence and the scanning ability of a stormtrooper. Simon is so differently wired he singlehandedly provokes a crisis in neuropsychology. Simon, *please* don't take this in any other way than love in the purest sense.
I do not know how I ended up watching Sudoku videos but now I am addicted. I am in awe of your analytical and reasoning skills. I can almost feel my intelligence increasing as I watch.
I may not be able to solve them, but I always love watching Phistomefel puzzles get solved. He's dangerously smart, I swear just watching makes me smarter lol.
... out of curiosity, I opened the puzzle before watching. I read the rules, and stared at it. Laughed. Closed the puzzle... and now, I sit back and watch. 🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, and that 6 he so desperately wanted in R7C2 and blew the puzzle open for him was actually just sitting there from ~ 51:30 (as soon as he penciled in the 8 in box 7). If he’d only been a little more careful to color his 6’s in box 1 he’d have probably seen it much sooner.
Yeah, but grey has to be in row 4 column 9 from ~28:08, that would be a much earlier breaking point. I have been screaming for half an hour look at the grey!!!
Yep, Simon thinks we shout at the screen when its just like a pair being seen by a digit but in this case it was definitely "the 6 is right there look at col 1 and col 3 Simon!!" xD
Simon: "I don't like putting pencil marks all over the board" Also Simon: Proceeds to put colors all over the board, each representing a range of numbers to avoid actually penciling in those numbers.
I seriously think that putting colors all over the place instead of removing them for resolved digits has always mess up with his scanning. Not to mention the time wasting in pencil marking + coloring at the same time.
I hear ya... It is nice to see his mind working, as it's easier when he puts it all out there, but half of it isn't truly necessary. But, I'm not gonna fault him. At least he can solve the puzzle, I couldn't even figure out a first number on this one.
The classic Simon fallacy. He sprinkles the grid with colors which then confuse him constantly. If he only removed the colors after they were identified as a certain number, many of his solves would be faster, _and_ much more elegant.
I took the opposite start to Simon. I immediately did parity shading and got my first digit (4 in r3c5) in about three minutes. I kept the blue/low and orange/high throughout the puzzle and used flashes to maintain the differences within, for example, the 123 sets. But it still took me longer than Simon. 71:07 all up. German whispers, anti-knight and Phistomefel. A great combination.
52:49 for me. That was incredibly hard. One of the hardest puzzles feature in the channel in a while. I can’t wait to see how Simon approached it, so time to watch the video!
Obra Dinn has been on my to-play pile forever, so glad they announced yesterday they'll playing it, realized I had to play so I can watch without spoilers and started last night and it is so amazingly up my alley, played five hours straight.
Finished last night (all Fates, didn't look up any spoilers) and wow that was an amazing game, I have not been made to feel so stupid and then so smart by a game in a long time.
73 minutes but this is the first time I have ever completed a Phistomefel puzzle on my own. We're used to his puzzles being ridiculous. And even though the logic in this puzzle was actually relatively straightforward, it still proved challenging, as only Phistomefel can do.
At 59:36, r3c8 cannot be a 5 because the 4-5 pair in r1c7 and r5c7 both see that cell by knight's move. One of those two cells must be a 5, so r3c8 must be 6.
Thanks Simon for making me feel like a genius when i see column 2 where 6 and 7 are missing and in row 5 there is a 6... But then Simon finds an even more genius way to prove c2r5 is a 7...
53:42 The logic of "That's gray, so that's not gray. So THAT ones gray which means it's not 5 which means THIS one is 5" was such an entirely Simon move lol
Great puzzle, maybe the most satisfying completing in 34:41. I went ahead and watched Simon's solve after it and noticed at 52:01 column 2, row 7 should be an automatic 6 (based on 6's in columns 1 & 3) which should render the puzzle effectively solved in about a minute 'cause it places all the 1's and 2's
Good solve, Simon.... but you had me shouting at the computer monitor that you never looked at column 2. If you had done this around 53:00, it would have cut 10 minutes off your time. Thanks as always, though. Your solves are among the highlights of my day!
I needed 2 hints... Very very clever puzzle and took me over 2 hours.... I was off to such a good start. So lucky we have CTC to show us common folk how to solve these hard puzzles
There comes a point in these rainbow videos where colors are no longer needed to keep track of things. It comes late in the game (for me, anyway), but at that point, I think it better to delete the colors, rather than take the time to keep up with changes in possible colors AND numbers in the grid.
Personally as soon as a cell color resolves to a single digit, it's gone. Too distracting otherwise. Another thing I noticed about this video specifically is that I think the break-in might actually be more straightforward if the box 2 German whispers line is tackled first. That's how I did it anyway. I found Simon's approach to be hard to follow. In any case, the parity coloring only lasted long enough to establish the relationship between the two longer lines. For a while things were a bit colorful though, using purple and green for parity and then separate color sets for corresponding cells.
Brilliant solve of a brilliant puzzle. The easier way to find the 6 in box 7 was to spot the x wing of 6s in box 4 and 1, it would make the video shorter in about 10 minutes or so.
Amazing puzzle and solve, well done both! At 1:03:20 Simon got the breakthrough 6 in box 7, but could have done this for a while because of an x-wing on 6's in boxes 1 and 4 (alternatively r7c2 had been the only place for a 6 in column 2 for some time).
@42:00 and possibly earlier, r7c2 sees 123, so if it is low it must be 4, putting a 9 in r2c2 and r7c1 and leaving nowhere for 9 in c3. Therefore you know the parity of that line. I spent far too long staring and trying increasing convoluted stuff towards the end, with the 4 in r3c5 pointing at the 46 I had in both r5c6 and r4c7 the entire time. Finally noticing that resolved everything else almost immediately. I am extremely good at not noticing knight's moves, almost every single time I do a puzzle involving them.
It's hard and awesome as per usual, but part of it's difficulty is just marking groups - mixing Simon's cell coloring with high-low would be impossible to read, so only one coloring scheme schould be chosen and it's slightly harder to spot deductions that would rely on the other. My answers to it was to go with high-low (i'm got really used to it), but within those assign corner marks to the pairs: i'd have 78,78 one of them corner 7, one 8 (just to distinguish without colors, remembering that those could be flipped at any moment) and that allowed me to keep track of individual cell logic without introducing more colors for the most part, later having the option to introduce more colors for a moment when it was needed. I think a lot of people can do this one after some time, they just need to choose useful ways of marking things that won't backfire and make the grid unreadable.
At about an hour you were thinking there must be some knight's move logic you were missing and there was. It's at R3C8, which sees both of the possible 5s in column 7 and must therefore be a 6. I don't remember how much that disambiguated, but i's always fun to notice something that you don't.
At around 52:42, I deduced that row 7 column 2 must be a 6 because that is the only possible move that could force the 1s and 2s onto a specific color. Ignoring the fact that the 6 there can already be deduced by other ways, is that method of deduction sound logic when solving these? or is it something where you still don't want to fill it in yet until you can confirm it can't be a 7?
Ah, Simon. Always going around your elbow. LOL You got the 6 in box 7 @1:03:24. You could have gotten it @52:00 exactly if you noticed the 6 x-wing in boxes 1 and 5. Still amazing as always to watch. A beautifully colored finish. And a beautiful finish itself. And a beautiful puzzle.
I feel like towards the end, you can conclude the one 67 pair on the German whisper to be a 6 since there are no other constraints remaining that would allow you to disambiguate the 1s and 2s.
as videos seem to be getting longer and longer, looking forward to the 9 hour solve, which would last an entire night of sleep in earphones :) one so tricky, that both Simon and Mark needs to take dinner breaks and such :)
Simon, I think you end up going color blind when you fill the whole grid with colors. They lose their purpose at that point. I think the best thing to do would be once you figure out what a digit is, remove the coloring from it and go back to your standard corner pencil marks. This will allow the remaining colors to “pop” more and serve their purpose.
When I heard about Phistomophel ring, I thought about an ancient Greek for some reason. It's cool to think people alive today will be in Sudoku's history for decades.
It took me 3 hrs to solve this five star difficulty puzzle. It would be great, if our Sudoku giant would share his experience on how to develop a Sudoku like this one.
Tangent, but I'm actually really excited you're trying Return of the Obra Dinn, it is probably my favorite game of all time and I can never recommend it enough.
If Phistomefel DID decide to do simple, easy puzzles, I suspect not only would most people be able to solve them, but they would find them clever, satisfying, and make them want to do more challenging ones.
I'm new to this, so at the risk of asking the obvious ... is it generaly recognised that the Phistomefel ring pattern can be transformed to give a number of variants? After some quick sketching of nine-box patterns all with a blank box 5, I identified some 20 basic patterns, and 65 including all rotational variants (the numbers keep growing). The standard Phistomefel ring is one of the basics (with no rotational variants). I gave up trying to draw them all when I realised there's another complete family of transforms involving a blank box other than box 5. I was slow to spot it but there are probably hundreds of variants. If my thought processes are correct and if the standard Phistomefel ring theory is correct, then a crazy thing is that however many variants there are, then *all* them apply *simultaneously* to every correctly completed (standard) Sudoku. Waaah!
Brilliant solve as always.. But I think the intended path at the end of the puzzle was to see the X-wing on 6s in r26c13, which forces a 6 into r7c2, and gives you the 1 on the whisper line you were looking for. Though, that doesn't discount the path in which you solved the puzzle, still a clever way to reach the end.
Yea I yelled at Simon this puzzle. I kept yelling "where does 6 go in the column 2!!?" right after he mentioned that what will solve the puzzle was a 6 on a German whisper's line. He literally had solved the mystery of the 1s & 2s right at that moment. Glad he finished it tho. =)
This puzzle took me about 2 hours. My first 5 star difficulty puzzle without any nudges. It's been a long journey since seeing the Miracle Sudoku video and thinking "why would anyone watch Sudoku." What a journey it's been! Thank yous!
Pretty much the exact same thing happened to me. Plumbing the depths of RUclips at like 4am and I find what was the second movie (the one where all the clues are lies) asking in disbelief who in the hell would watching something like this and why is there crap all over the grid?
Since then I haven't missed an upload, have even rewatched a number of them, so I guess I know who the hell would watch something like this. People with excellent taste.
Closer to 3 hours for me, but worth it. Got stuck about 3 times, put the puzzle down twice for a meal and sleep, but woke up today and it opened right up to me. Like saying, "Hey. I saw you struggling. Here is an easy digit. Want another? Sure, look right here." It whispered the secrets to me. :)
Simon, you're a certifiable genius, but you're also the only person I know who would count horses in a field by counting the number of legs, verifying each horse has four legs, and then dividing by four.
"I'm in a jolly good mood, because I'm doing a Phistomefel puzzle" I've never pretended to be able to do one of these, but I love watching Simon solve them.
4:21 - I will now forever remember this setter as "Phistomefuzzle".
Thank you, Simon. 😆
I'm taking this as my reward for the work I did on my thesis today. I was gonna watch anyway, but at least I also got work done.
Phistomefel and a lot of colours, two of my favourite things in Sudokus! Thank you Simon for the beautiful video as always!
A video of this length ALWAYS makes me smile!
Rules: 02:35
Let's Get Cracking: 04:03
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
By sudoku: 6x (07:06, 26:59, 28:06, 31:47, 33:47, 50:19)
Sorry: 5x (07:45, 13:31, 36:16, 1:01:16, 1:05:48)
Beautiful: 5x (14:27, 14:54, 33:53, 37:49, 39:03)
Ridiculous: 5x (15:26, 16:32, 16:35, 27:29, 1:06:36)
Hang On: 4x (19:36, 23:31, 39:15, 1:04:04)
Good Grief: 3x (05:38, 44:59, 58:08)
The Answer is: 3x (33:11, 38:10, 38:25)
Clever: 3x (28:55, 50:14, 1:07:19)
I've Got It!: 3x (14:01, 16:35, 16:35)
Bobbins: 2x (11:30, 24:31)
Bother: 2x (11:39, 58:45)
Apologies: 2x (22:18, 48:26)
Naked Single: 2x (35:56, 43:02)
Maverick: 2x (36:20, 36:22)
Stuck: 2x (26:08, 36:30)
Incredible: 2x (01:27, 01:37)
Gorgeous: 2x (24:20, 28:59)
Shouting: 2x (48:26, 48:26)
Knowledge Bomb: 1x (22:04)
What on Earth: 1x (05:02)
Goodness: 1x (43:41)
Secret: 1x (01:34)
Out of Nowhere: 1x (58:25)
Naughty: 1x (1:03:32)
Three In the Corner: 1x (55:28)
In the Spotlight: 1x (55:30)
Lovely: 1x (1:05:56)
Off and Running: 1x (08:17)
If I trust my Pencil Marks: 1x (49:40)
If I Trust My Pencil Marks: 1x (49:40)
Magnificent: 1x (04:39)
Disappointing: 1x (41:09)
FAQ:
Q1: What is a Simarkism?
A1: A Simarkism is something that Simon and Mark typically or frequently say.
Q2: How do you do this so fast?
A2: I'm not made of flesh and blood, but of sand ...
Q3: Why don't you include 'XX' and 'YY'?
A3: Probably it's already on the list ('Scooby-Doo' for example), but not mentioned in this video. But if you think it's not, tell me what you'd like me to include and there's a good chance I'll add it!
Q4: You missed 'XX' at 'YY:ZZ'!
A4: That could very well be the case! Human speech is hard to understand for computers like me, especially British sometimes! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q5: Could you turn these statistics into videos?
A5: I've been playing around with the idea and I'm open to input as to what people would like to see. Let me know if you are interested in this and/or have suggestions.
How did you do this so quickly??
Edit: never mind 😂
@@isamedonnie It either had early access or is a computer. I got to the video after 45 seconds and the comment was already there.
@@jasonsampson3379 it’s a computer I read the faq lol
My Mouth Talked while my Brain moved on.
"If i trust my pencil marks" is repeated twice in different cases. great list still!
Piece of cake. I finished it in exactly the same time as Simon by watching the video
😂😂 Me too!
I am lying in my bed with a horrible cold and watching this makes me feel better.
Thank you Simon, thank you phistomefel!
Simon's Phistomefel headcanon is adorable and I'm here for it
4,5 pair in column 7 pointing at and ruling out the 5 in r3, c8 around the hour mark😂 driving me crazy Simon 😜
Nah, all seriousness I'm in awe watching you solve these puzzles I love it !
Simon: This puzzle must be very close to cracking now (58 mins)
Me: OMG I see it! 6's align in boxes 1 and 4 placing a 6 in box 7!!!
and simon at 1:03:00 get it in a COMPLETELY different way. LMAO
I saw it since the 52, it hurt every second
Exactly, 52:00 naked singles 6 and 7 in column 2
Same here... that 6 in box 7 also disambiguated all blue/grey 1/2 pairs as 6 could only pair with one... that said, I would never have got some of the early break-in logic
I saw it too around the same mark and was screaming my head off!
@@chitraagarwal8259 Yep.. "column 2 SIMON!" but at the same time hoping he would make his way to proving it is a 7 a different way - which he did.
Wowowow! I was just able to crack this one. It was brilliant, and took me a long time. There were plenty of times I got stuck, but the next logical step was never anything too insane that I couldn't find it with a bit of time which made it more of a pure delight than some of the really hard stuff. Brilliant work on the solve!
‘How will I disambiguate the 1-2’s? It must be the line in box 7.’ Of course, the only box in column 2 without pencil marks must be a 6-7 pair and it can’t be a 6, both because of the six in the row and the pencil marks in the box, and so …. Wait that was too easy, we must find a harder way!!!!
"Almost certainly what I've done is to miss a knight's move restriction somewhere", said Simon while hovering his cursor over the grey 12 that had been placeable in box 6 for over half an hour.
I used to be proud of *myself* when I was able to solve a puzzle that took Simon or Mark more than half an hour or so. Now, like them, my focus is more on the brilliance of the constructor.
Well done, Phistomefel, as always.
I'm still proud of myself for solving anything that takes them more than an hour.
Took me about an hour, but solving a Phistomefel puzzle is just *so* rewarding! Worth every minute!
This is my first puzzle that took you over an hour to solve that I was over to solve at all. It took me much longer than an hour and I had a couple restarts, but I got through it without any hints!
Simons of the Lambs
I like that the given digit is a 6, fitting for the Sudoku Devil.
I want to have a half hour discussion about Silence of the Lambs with Simon before I die.
Im gonna pat myself on the shoulder as I spotted an X-wing of 6 in column 1 and 3 somewhere between 55 min and 1 hour that would resolve the 67 on the whisper line in box 7.
Need to add to the quote bank: "you might hear children scream. It's screams of joy, I think"
After many of your videos this is the first one where i found something many minutes ahead that you didnt! I'm so proud of myself right now
1:02:20
When he started to say he wasn't going to look at the 1s and 2s I immediately thought *"NOOOOO!"*
Oh, Simon, today you really had me in tears by not noticing that r7c2 was the only place for a 6 in the column at 53:15-ish and not getting it before 01:03:15.
Other than that I really really enjoyed this. Thank you, both!
Even more of a tearjerker: Simon placed the 7 in box 4 via one of his virtuoso deductions. Here is a guy who solves sudoku with the mind of an extraterrestrial intelligence and the scanning ability of a stormtrooper. Simon is so differently wired he singlehandedly provokes a crisis in neuropsychology.
Simon, *please* don't take this in any other way than love in the purest sense.
The 6 was available since 52:00 when he placed the yellow 8 in box 7. :) Which meant he would have had the greys as 1 right after that.
If only he coloured the box 1 6’s as black he would have seen the x wing on 6’s in boxes 1 and 4 10 minutes earlier
I do not know how I ended up watching Sudoku videos but now I am addicted. I am in awe of your analytical and reasoning skills. I can almost feel my intelligence increasing as I watch.
I may not be able to solve them, but I always love watching Phistomefel puzzles get solved. He's dangerously smart, I swear just watching makes me smarter lol.
“Phistomefuzzle”
... out of curiosity, I opened the puzzle before watching.
I read the rules, and stared at it. Laughed. Closed the puzzle... and now, I sit back and watch.
🤣🤣🤣
What a lovely stroll through such a tricky puzzle! Exceptional work, Simon, and the brilliance of Phistomefel is on fine display yet again.
It's always a good night when Simon uploads a video longer than an hour.
you can tell his brain was fried at the end that he forgot that 6 had its own color. great solve
I think adding the ability to pencil mark a color would be great, like it colors just a little bit of the corner.
Row 5 column 2 being a 7 was available from ~53:00 onward. Finding the solution using grey was quite interesting though!
Yeah, and that 6 he so desperately wanted in R7C2 and blew the puzzle open for him was actually just sitting there from ~ 51:30 (as soon as he penciled in the 8 in box 7). If he’d only been a little more careful to color his 6’s in box 1 he’d have probably seen it much sooner.
Yeah, but grey has to be in row 4 column 9 from ~28:08, that would be a much earlier breaking point. I have been screaming for half an hour look at the grey!!!
Yeah it was a naked single as soon as he put the 4 in r2c2 at 49m45.
Yep, Simon thinks we shout at the screen when its just like a pair being seen by a digit but in this case it was definitely "the 6 is right there look at col 1 and col 3 Simon!!" xD
I'd love to see constructors routinely putting a 3 in a corner in the future.
Simon: "I don't like putting pencil marks all over the board"
Also Simon: Proceeds to put colors all over the board, each representing a range of numbers to avoid actually penciling in those numbers.
I seriously think that putting colors all over the place instead of removing them for resolved digits has always mess up with his scanning. Not to mention the time wasting in pencil marking + coloring at the same time.
I hear ya... It is nice to see his mind working, as it's easier when he puts it all out there, but half of it isn't truly necessary. But, I'm not gonna fault him. At least he can solve the puzzle, I couldn't even figure out a first number on this one.
The classic Simon fallacy. He sprinkles the grid with colors which then confuse him constantly. If he only removed the colors after they were identified as a certain number, many of his solves would be faster, _and_ much more elegant.
You say Hi Low I say Low Hi.
Underrated comment :)
I took the opposite start to Simon. I immediately did parity shading and got my first digit (4 in r3c5) in about three minutes. I kept the blue/low and orange/high throughout the puzzle and used flashes to maintain the differences within, for example, the 123 sets. But it still took me longer than Simon. 71:07 all up. German whispers, anti-knight and Phistomefel. A great combination.
The evil genius strikes again! Superb work, Phistomefel!
@47:33 That is one of the biggest Simon celebrations I have ever seen!
Brilliant. I expect nothing less from you two. Well done.
Over an hour with Simon and a puzzle by the great man, cop of tea time
What a beautiful puzzle. Took me a long time to solve, but I kept plugging at it and got it in the end. Now to watch Simon do it more efficiently :)
52:49 for me. That was incredibly hard. One of the hardest puzzles feature in the channel in a while. I can’t wait to see how Simon approached it, so time to watch the video!
Funny, I took multiple hours with this, but I wouldn't consider it that hard or I've been doing too many of these lately
Phistomefel shines again. Brilliant puzzle!
Obra Dinn has been on my to-play pile forever, so glad they announced yesterday they'll playing it, realized I had to play so I can watch without spoilers and started last night and it is so amazingly up my alley, played five hours straight.
Finished last night (all Fates, didn't look up any spoilers) and wow that was an amazing game, I have not been made to feel so stupid and then so smart by a game in a long time.
73 minutes but this is the first time I have ever completed a Phistomefel puzzle on my own. We're used to his puzzles being ridiculous. And even though the logic in this puzzle was actually relatively straightforward, it still proved challenging, as only Phistomefel can do.
At 59:36, r3c8 cannot be a 5 because the 4-5 pair in r1c7 and r5c7 both see that cell by knight's move. One of those two cells must be a 5, so r3c8 must be 6.
Note to Simon. The puzzle you refer to as 16x16 is actually 12x12.
Thanks Simon for making me feel like a genius when i see column 2 where 6 and 7 are missing and in row 5 there is a 6... But then Simon finds an even more genius way to prove c2r5 is a 7...
53:42
The logic of "That's gray, so that's not gray. So THAT ones gray which means it's not 5 which means THIS one is 5" was such an entirely Simon move lol
I promised myself that I would finish the next Phistomefel Sudoku. Now - after 253min of amazingness - I'm really proud that I did!
Great puzzle, maybe the most satisfying completing in 34:41. I went ahead and watched Simon's solve after it and noticed at 52:01 column 2, row 7 should be an automatic 6 (based on 6's in columns 1 & 3) which should render the puzzle effectively solved in about a minute 'cause it places all the 1's and 2's
What a joyous solve! Loved every minute of it.
Good solve, Simon.... but you had me shouting at the computer monitor that you never looked at column 2. If you had done this around 53:00, it would have cut 10 minutes off your time. Thanks as always, though. Your solves are among the highlights of my day!
My excitement when the gray in box 6 was finally discovered and used as the break-in is a problem because I was hoping to get back to sleep!
I love that I legitimately get a twinge of fear when I hear the name "Phistomefel".
If i had looked at the author of this puzzle before i solved it, i would have saved myself four hours.
I needed 2 hints... Very very clever puzzle and took me over 2 hours.... I was off to such a good start. So lucky we have CTC to show us common folk how to solve these hard puzzles
Yay, I was hoping for a Chess Sudoku again :D
Even better that it's made by Phistomefel
95:03 for me. This was tough! But extremely fun and rewarding. Thanks, Simon and Phistomephel!
find someone who talks about you the way simon talks about phistomefel
There comes a point in these rainbow videos where colors are no longer needed to keep track of things. It comes late in the game (for me, anyway), but at that point, I think it better to delete the colors, rather than take the time to keep up with changes in possible colors AND numbers in the grid.
Personally as soon as a cell color resolves to a single digit, it's gone. Too distracting otherwise.
Another thing I noticed about this video specifically is that I think the break-in might actually be more straightforward if the box 2 German whispers line is tackled first. That's how I did it anyway. I found Simon's approach to be hard to follow. In any case, the parity coloring only lasted long enough to establish the relationship between the two longer lines. For a while things were a bit colorful though, using purple and green for parity and then separate color sets for corresponding cells.
Brilliant solve of a brilliant puzzle.
The easier way to find the 6 in box 7 was to spot the x wing of 6s in box 4 and 1, it would make the video shorter in about 10 minutes or so.
Amazing puzzle and solve, well done both! At 1:03:20 Simon got the breakthrough 6 in box 7, but could have done this for a while because of an x-wing on 6's in boxes 1 and 4 (alternatively r7c2 had been the only place for a 6 in column 2 for some time).
@42:00 and possibly earlier, r7c2 sees 123, so if it is low it must be 4, putting a 9 in r2c2 and r7c1 and leaving nowhere for 9 in c3. Therefore you know the parity of that line. I spent far too long staring and trying increasing convoluted stuff towards the end, with the 4 in r3c5 pointing at the 46 I had in both r5c6 and r4c7 the entire time. Finally noticing that resolved everything else almost immediately. I am extremely good at not noticing knight's moves, almost every single time I do a puzzle involving them.
This is officially the first phistomophel puzzle I solved
76:39 for me! My first Phistomefel completed without the video for help, very good puzzle :D
Ah yes. Another glorious puzzle, and another glorious day.
It's hard and awesome as per usual, but part of it's difficulty is just marking groups - mixing Simon's cell coloring with high-low would be impossible to read, so only one coloring scheme schould be chosen and it's slightly harder to spot deductions that would rely on the other. My answers to it was to go with high-low (i'm got really used to it), but within those assign corner marks to the pairs: i'd have 78,78 one of them corner 7, one 8 (just to distinguish without colors, remembering that those could be flipped at any moment) and that allowed me to keep track of individual cell logic without introducing more colors for the most part, later having the option to introduce more colors for a moment when it was needed. I think a lot of people can do this one after some time, they just need to choose useful ways of marking things that won't backfire and make the grid unreadable.
I like how you persisted with the ridiculous coloring long after it was useful for anything other than the ambiguous 1s and 2s.
At about an hour you were thinking there must be some knight's move logic you were missing and there was. It's at R3C8, which sees both of the possible 5s in column 7 and must therefore be a 6. I don't remember how much that disambiguated, but i's always fun to notice something that you don't.
"This is the puzzle for me. The devil tips his hat to me."
I was shouting at him that 6 has only one place in c2.
And then I realized he simply does not see 6 on black.
Me too! It was literally the first time I've shouted at him.
So much Sudoku, so little time
“Phistomefuzzle” had me almost spit milk out of my nose!
Edit for grammar.
1:03:30 poor 6. it does have its own colour 😢
Phistomefuzzle is a truly tremendous froidian slip XD
At around 52:42, I deduced that row 7 column 2 must be a 6 because that is the only possible move that could force the 1s and 2s onto a specific color. Ignoring the fact that the 6 there can already be deduced by other ways, is that method of deduction sound logic when solving these? or is it something where you still don't want to fill it in yet until you can confirm it can't be a 7?
As a bonus, my English improves as well. TIL: “I wouldn’t put it past him” - “Ich würde es Ihm zutrauen”. Thanks 😊
Ah, Simon. Always going around your elbow. LOL You got the 6 in box 7 @1:03:24. You could have gotten it @52:00 exactly if you noticed the 6 x-wing in boxes 1 and 5. Still amazing as always to watch. A beautifully colored finish. And a beautiful finish itself. And a beautiful puzzle.
It took me hours but I did it!
Some of that logic was hard to find, eesh. All of it very pleasing, too.
I feel like towards the end, you can conclude the one 67 pair on the German whisper to be a 6 since there are no other constraints remaining that would allow you to disambiguate the 1s and 2s.
as videos seem to be getting longer and longer, looking forward to the 9 hour solve, which would last an entire night of sleep in earphones :)
one so tricky, that both Simon and Mark needs to take dinner breaks and such :)
Simon, I think you end up going color blind when you fill the whole grid with colors. They lose their purpose at that point. I think the best thing to do would be once you figure out what a digit is, remove the coloring from it and go back to your standard corner pencil marks. This will allow the remaining colors to “pop” more and serve their purpose.
He sits there and he broods. 😂
Man that gray 12 in r4c9 was killing me for over a half hour since 28:00
When I heard about Phistomophel ring, I thought about an ancient Greek for some reason. It's cool to think people alive today will be in Sudoku's history for decades.
It took me 3 hrs to solve this five star difficulty puzzle. It would be great, if our Sudoku giant would share his experience on how to develop a Sudoku like this one.
Tangent, but I'm actually really excited you're trying Return of the Obra Dinn, it is probably my favorite game of all time and I can never recommend it enough.
at min 50 look at r2 ti put the 6 in block 7
If Phistomefel DID decide to do simple, easy puzzles, I suspect not only would most people be able to solve them, but they would find them clever, satisfying, and make them want to do more challenging ones.
First digits within twenty minutes? This must be an easy Phistomefel puzzle! 😆
54:30 the curse of the hovering cursor returns!!
I'm new to this, so at the risk of asking the obvious ... is it generaly recognised that the Phistomefel ring pattern can be transformed to give a number of variants?
After some quick sketching of nine-box patterns all with a blank box 5, I identified some 20 basic patterns, and 65 including all rotational variants (the numbers keep growing). The standard Phistomefel ring is one of the basics (with no rotational variants). I gave up trying to draw them all when I realised there's another complete family of transforms involving a blank box other than box 5. I was slow to spot it but there are probably hundreds of variants.
If my thought processes are correct and if the standard Phistomefel ring theory is correct, then a crazy thing is that however many variants there are, then *all* them apply *simultaneously* to every correctly completed (standard) Sudoku. Waaah!
Oh my favourite Christmas movie
Brilliant solve as always..
But I think the intended path at the end of the puzzle was to see the X-wing on 6s in r26c13, which forces a 6 into r7c2, and gives you the 1 on the whisper line you were looking for.
Though, that doesn't discount the path in which you solved the puzzle, still a clever way to reach the end.
Yea I yelled at Simon this puzzle. I kept yelling "where does 6 go in the column 2!!?" right after he mentioned that what will solve the puzzle was a 6 on a German whisper's line. He literally had solved the mystery of the 1s & 2s right at that moment. Glad he finished it tho. =)