Hello Chefofdeath here (formerly disasterinprogress but LMD didn’t let me use that name for some reason) Glad you enjoyed the puzzle Simon! This puzzle was inspired by Rubenscube’s puzzle “The Aquarium” which is my absolutely favorite sudoku! I thought of this idea of doing a version of a grid full of swordfish with “wrogn” constraints a while ago, but it took a lot of testing to be able to find things. As I went I kept finding weird logic that I really enjoyed! What was interesting to me is that the eight’s having to be next to the the minimum cell on both sides caused 4’s or 2’s to surround the same digit in the min cell due to the 48 pairs. It was really fun to make and mad respect to the head honcho rubenscube for his masterpiece and inspiring this puzzle 😁
Amazing puzzle. It's so interesting to see so many rules working together without getting in each other's way. Plus the symmetry is so satisfying. Although based on the title I kept expecting there to be some twist at the end that broke the pattern. I would have been second guessing myself the whole way. Great work!
It is awesome to hear that people still remember my Aquarium puzzle. The fact that it is you favorite puzzle is an honor to me! Congratulations on making this awesome twist on it!
Let me explain the elegant logic described in your cryptic comment. At playback time 53:30, you can create "48" pairs in every box by: 🔹placing *2* in *r3c8* (by anti-min-cell logic) 🔹removing *2* in anti-kropky-dots that already contain *1* As shown by Simon, in rows *1, 4* and *7* there must be an *8* on the right side of an anti-min cell containing a *9.* Also, in rows *3* and *6* there must be an *8* immediately above an anti-min cell containing a *9.* Hence, in short: 🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *9* must be next to two *8s* (on its top and right sides). As a consequence, due to the *48* pairs: 🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *6* must be next to two *2s* (on its top and right sides). 🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *7* must be next to two *4s* (on its top and right sides).
When I saw the puzzle, I immediately thought, "This is another Aquarium!" To see that you were inspired by that puzzle is just awesome to me! And I'm with you - Aquarium is probably my favorite solve after the original Miracle Sudoku!
I do love a wrogn puzzle, although I'd suggest fixing the z-index of your minimum/fortress cell symbols because they seem to be hidden behind the purple lines, and I would have taken that to mean that the rule only applied to the indicated cells, and not necessarily to all four orthogonally adjacent cells. Very minor gripe though and only intended as helpful feedback.
@@justinfarmer8371 Yeah I think you're right really, although I thought 'orthogonally CONNECTED' might only mean those connected by a visible minimum symbol. Otherwise just 'any orthogonal cell' would work. Definitely a very minor thing though but it's not quite right for the symbol to only appear on 1-2 sides of the cell and should be a quick fix in the software/CSS for Sven.
Much simpler path near 39:00 to show that 7 can not be in the center cell of a box. 1. A 7 in the center requires a 9 in the minimum cell above it. 2. (previously established) The 9 in the minimum cell accompanies an 8 in the odd cell to its right. 3. A set of 7, 8, 9 breaks the renban.
I have to admit to being a little confused by the anti-minimum cells because I only saw arrows on 1 or 2 sides, so it wasn't until the rule was demonstrated that it made sense. Will need to try again later knowing that.
You'll soon realise CTC should come with a health warning! Just watching the two regular videos takes up a large chunk of your day, and if you try the puzzles yourself that's even more of your life gone, then there's the extras with Mark and Simon playing live video games, occasional podcasts, creators showing how they made their puzzles ...... . Sleep will soon be a distant memory!
My time on this one is 39 minutes. I love the identical 39-boxes throughout... it makes the puzzle look ridiculous from first glance, but it actually gets the solver asking the right kind of question: "Well, if 6 can't go there, where does it go?" ..... super cool. Hope to see more of this constructor on the channel in the future.
When you spot that there are essentially 3 boxes that are each repeated 3 times (and so the digits in the boxes with identical clues _must_ be identical in each one because there is nothing else to differentiate them) the puzzle becomes a lot easier! I found it helpful, once there was no need for colouring for anything else, to colour the three sets of cloned boxes to help see the patterns.
Are the V clues necessary? Doesn't the fact that they all have a white dot above them with a 3 or 5 already rule out the 4s at the time Simon used the Vs?
At 35:00, looking at the Xs was a good idea, but Simon was looking at it from the wrong direction. Instead of focussing on thebulb, look at the 248 in the tip. If it's an 8, then the bulb must be a 9. The 4 can't go with the 6, so that means if it's a 2, it goes with the 6. So, if the tip is a 4, the only options are 5 and 7. This is the start of understanding that a lot of pairs are forced. Similarly, consider the white dots in column 2 (or 5 or 8). If the centre cell of the box is a 3, then the cell below must be an 8. If the centre cell is 1, then the cell below must be a 4. So, what goes with the 2? It's also limited to 5 and 7 at this point.
... and below the 8 (that's below a central 3), you must have a 9, and that must have an 8 to its right. 🙂 I found a few of these relationships. I ended up bifurcation to solve eventually though. The main piece of logic of Simon's that I missed was that 7s couldn't go in the centre. I could complete a logical solve with that missing piece.
Absolutely beautiful puzzle..super concept and very very elegant. I usually catch the puzzles as soon as they are posted (1 am India time), but went to bed early...saw it in the morning and what a wonderful way to start the day !
A very fun puzzle. A bit of logic that was proven in the video but not verbalized simply is that anytime you have two swordfishes on the same digit, you must have the third swordfish.
This puzzle is a ton of front-work and then just speeds through everything after the first digit goes down. It was satisfying as heck solving this one.
I'm used to Wrogn puzzles being crazy and chaotic. What I was not expecting to see something so clever and fascinating. The way all these sword fishes interacted together, the way we managed to pencil mark the whole grid. It was amazing. But the entire time, as we were getting closer to that point, I kept thinking, "how is this going to work? Because even with little assymetries in the clues, there's just too much symmetries in the boxes. And every box simply stands on it'd own. How on earth are we going to disambiguate them?" And it turned to be that little minimum-maximum clue! I completely forgot that the Min-Max cells go between boxes, and we can use that one little thing to tie the boxes together, and tidy up the whole grid from there! Beautiful, absolutly beautiful. And I'm really supriced that the final grid has boxes symmetry. I really should have been able to guess from the clues, that Boxes 1-5-9 are identical, Boxes 2-6-7 are identical, and Boxes 3-4-8 are identical. I should have guessed that just from seeing the symmetry of the clues. And yet I haven't, and I'm surprised by seeing the final grid. Yet it all makes perfect sense. Really beautiful grid, wonderful logic. And that one little step, where we use the Min-Max cell to actually go between two boxes, that was really something.
Great puzzle, even though I didn't find everything without Simon's help (specifically, the idea to look at the sixes). When ignoring the asymmetric clues (i.e. the Vs, the horizontal kropki-dots and the whispers line), there are some repeating patterns throughout the grid: → When you place one 8 or 9, you can place all the others in the column of three boxes: an 8 in the bottom of its box forces a 9 below it [or on the top of the screen for the bottom boxes] and a 8 besides that one], as well as the 9 diagonally above it, and then in the third box the 8 and 9 need to be together on the termo. The vertikal dot above the 8 needs a 3 (because in the other two boxes that would beside an 24 pair). Of course, we don't know yet which of these three options (in each stack of boxes) have the 8, but now the assymetric clues come into play: The horizontal dots exclude one of the options each (as beside the 3 we'd get a 24), the missing whispers get us the 1 and the existing whispers catch the 5s for the 9s. → The X on the termos made sure that we got only 3 options: 98, 26, 47, instead of additionally 27+46.
OK, like the last multiple swordfish puzzle, IIRC, we ended up with three 3x3 patterns repeated, diagonally, too. Spotted this when digits started appearing in the grid. Surprised Simon didn;t spot that.
27:42 I have been screaming "swordfish on 6" while Simon did 1 and 3. And now he asks if 4 can go in the same row as a 248 triple? At least he found the 6 immediately after this.
24:10 for me! I rarely do this much better than Simon but I think my method to solve may have gone against his code of sudoku ethics. I realized that the symmetry meant that there would only be 3 unique boxes so I just picked a row of three boxes to solve. Then I just moved them to where they neede to be in the puzzle. One could argue it was bifurcation to a degree, but it got me a good time at least 😎
I used a similar shortcut, but I assumed uniqueness to say that each flavor of box must be the same everywhere it appears. This really speeds things up because anytime you make a deduction it rules stuff out of both a row and column in every box.
If you can prove, without using uniqueness, that the three-box solution applies to the entire puzzle (which looks quite doable) then I'd say there's no ethical issues there and it's not bifurcation, just high-level reasoning like other symmetry/set-theory arguments.
Very late commenting as I only did this today. Once getting all those swordfishes, it meant that each of the 3 boxes was forced with the common constraints, except for the top left and bottom right digit in each box. e.g. 8 in the thermo tip needs 9 below it, 4 in the thermo tip can't have 6 and must have 7 below it, so 26 are a thermo pair. At that point I basically ignored the grid and used pen & paper. For the three boxes with the extra white dot, the middle row options are 239, 456, 817, so must be 817. And the fortress cells mean the box above has 456, the box below has 239, and now you can fill in everything at once except the top left & bottom right, and the boxes without the whisper line must have the 1 bottom right, which finishes the puzzle. A lot of fun to do, quite different to most puzzles.
We are still on such an incredible run of puzzles. What a beauty of a debut! I hope to see more ChefOfDeath puzzles in the future! All the swordfishes and then the brilliant logic to disambiguate them at the end, so cool! Reminds me of that one puzzle that also has all swordfish which was one of my fav sudokus of all time. Great setting, and great solving Simon!!
@@rubens_cube I think he does mean your puzzle! My first thought when I started seeing all the swordfishies was that ChefOfDeath was doing a pastiche of The Aquarium, or maybe the two of you were in a contest to see how many aquatic lifeforms you could shoehorn into a sudoku (you still have him beat of course.)
@@rubens_cube YES THAT’S THE ONE! That one will always be in my memory, I remember being so happy when I watched the CTC vid on that one, thank you again for setting it!
Lovely puzzle and a lovely solve! Thanks. I really appreciate the symmetry here. If we just stare at the empty grid without any digits and pencil marks, we may notice that boxes 2, 6 and 7 are identical. These are the symmetry-breaking ones. The other 6 boxes are also identical to each other. There are no funny king or knight rules here that transcend the boxes. Now, If we move the bottom three boxes to the top, and then move the three boxes on the right to the left of the puzzle, we are getting a correct sudoku. The grid, as it is given initially, is actually symmetric in this transformation, we are getting the same grid. This means we should be expecting the solutipn to have this symmetry, otherwise we are getting three distinct solutions connected by this transformation... Not quite! Another thing that is breaking the symmetry here, and actually did a lot of heavy lifting, is the maximum cell. The maximum cell is on the top of the box, what means that in boxes 1,2,3 it only needs to be larger than 3 cells, but in the remaining boxes it needs to be larger than 4 cells. This is the only thing breaking this rearrangement symmetry and disambiguates the boxes 1,5,9 from boxes 3,4,8, which allows finishing the puzzle.
I was smiling throughout :) I love how the communication between boxes is only through normal sudoko rules plus the less than, while all the other rules communicate within boxes. This means you can create a set of rules that gives possible positions for all the digits within a box and then break the ambiguity by having slight variations in the boxes that identify the orientation of the grid.
29:19. I can definitely see the "The Aquarium" inspiration in this puzzle, so I guess that's why I caught on quickly. Wrogn puzzles are always my favourites though, so this was delightful.
Simon didn't seem to realize that the 2/4/8 triples in the top right cells of each box constituted a swordfish on each of the three digits. Had he done so, and combined this with the odd cell in the middle bottom of each box, he would have quickly seen the other two swordfish on 2, 4, and 8, and since these all coincide, they would also turn into 2/4/8 triple centre marks.
@@maljamin Perhaps I was a but premature. Once you see that the 6's are forced into the center top cell of each box, the "odd" cell (which must be even) at center bottom must be 2/4/8, establishing a second swordfish on these digits. However, at 27:15 he says some nonsense like "so 2 obviously *is* in one of those cells [top right corners] so I can't rule it out of these cells [top center and top left cells]" and also muses about putting a 4 in the top center cells, so he clearly has not appreciated the existing swordfish on 2s, 4s, and 8s in the top rows and right columns of the boxes.
He could've phrased the thermometer rule better(more lying). "Digits on a thermometer must not increase from the bulb end." Because they are all in one box in this puzzle to make the same digit not appear.
I missed this one when I was on vacation recently, but had time to come back to it today. I loved this video, Simon. Really, so enjoyable to watch you work your way through this puzzle. I always feel as if I am learning something on this channel, and this time it was more about swordfishes and how to spot them and what they do. I always enjoy videos when you are having fun, and it sure looked like you were having fun this time. Thanks for the excellent video.
@45:33 You've eliminated the 4s from next to the 1s via V, but isn't that V actually redundant as you could also remove 4s from the same square using the white dot above it since 4 can't be next to 3 or 5?
It feels over-constrained once you get a few digits and there ends up more than one rule forcing particular digits, I'm not sure if all the rules were necessary to produce a unique puzzle.
It's interesting that the V clues are unnecessary. The white dot means that placing a 4 in r3c8 eliminates all possibilities for r2c8, once you have the 1 placed.
They are totally unnecessary 😂 I placed them in as my own little joke/trap to mess with the solver! I tried to put a little bit of humor in (as the title itself is also a joke. How would you trust somebody who just told you they’re lying)
I found Cracking the Cryptic after googling "what the heck is a swordfish?" and having Simon explain it for me. Now to my surprise, I spotted each of the swordfishes before Simon did! Unexpected and fulfilling.
As much as I rate Simon as a solver, this sudoku definitely did not play to his strengths! Not only were there a lot of arrays to keep track of but the boxes contained repeating patterns which if you noticed them made filling out the puzzle much easier! Unusually, finding all the swordfish was perhaps the easier part of the puzzle (provided you know what they are and how to approach looking for them), while the harder part was probably identifying which of the digits were constrained in the resulting grid of arrays. I expect the fact it was a ‘wrogn’ style puzzle was a little distracting to Simon so he did well to get through it. In any case, it was a lot of fun to solve. :)
It seems like Simon prefers not to go off patterns since it can sometimes feel a little cheesy as a solving technique and with the brilliance of some of the setters could be a trap lol.
This is my first time doing a puzzle faster than Simon! I managed to finish in 36:51. I wonder if having less experience with the standard versions of all these rules made it a bit easier for me to not get confused. I loved how the symmetry starts you off and then it’s the little breaks in symmetry that get you your actual digits!
Oh My! What a great puzzle! I love how the puzzle uses older rules but made new logic by reversing them. The symmetry was beautiful. Seeing all killer cages had 39 made me almost quit. After watching Simon get started, I was able to finish. The triple triple swordfish was very amusing.
27:36 for me. I tried my hardest not to bifurcate everything from the beginning, but I’ll admit some of my latter logic was very close to just guessing. Very nice puzzle anyways!!
48:23... I think the next thing I would look at with that is center cell of box 2, because a 2 or a 4 or both is/are next to it in the white dots... I don't think that goes very far but it does also apply in box's 6 and 7 in the same locations with the 2 white dots that all have to have at least one 2 or 4 elminiating 3s from those 3 center cells in those 3 boxes.
Lovely. My final break was a bit different. I had the anti-thermo containing an 8 had to contain a 9 below it and managed to locate which "type" of square it laid in. And then when trying the 3 in the middle square it then unraveled.
Why would you leap onto the swordfish on 9, but not on the triple swodfish on 248? This limits 6 in the row to the top-centre cells, which rules it out of the second circle in the box, giving you a second swordfish on 248, and this gives you a third. Now where does 6 go in C1? In the same cell as the 9, which means the third 6 must be in the same cell as the third 9 too. Boxes 2, 6, and 7 are more constrained than the rest, because they have both two dots and an "allied whisper line" (they're anti-German whisper lines ;), so you can limit the central cell to just 1 or 5 (anything else breaks one of the other constraints), and one of the dotted digits must be 8, which means 9 cannot be in the top-centre cell because it goes with 8 in the top-right. The box which does have 8 in the top-right also forces 15 into the central cell, so 3 must go in the final central cell, giving a swordfish on 135. Following through with this leads to each box having triples on 248, 135, and 679. In the Xs, an 8 on the thermo tip must go with 9, a 4 must go with 7, and 2 with 6. The 1 can never go in the corner on a whisper, because the other cell is 679, so we can place three 1s. These cannot be next to 4 on the V. R3C8 can't be 8 either, because R4C8 is a 67, so it's 2. Once you apply this, all nine swordfish unwind quickly. This really wasn't that hard, you just need to consider of the rules, of the time, which unfortunately for you, is playing to your weakness. When you tried to consider 2, you said you can't rule it out of the non-circle cells in R1 - what utter rubbish - you have a 248 triple in the row. You even later claimed you could put 4 in the max cell, despite the 248 triple. Use your pencil-marks for cryin' out loud. That was a brilliant debut puzzle, I really enjoyed it.
Can someone please explain to me why the 9's had to go in the orange cells? I've re-read the rules and re-watched his explanation but I still don't get it.
Well, if you're talking about rows 1,4 and 7. The anti-minimum aka maximum cells are the only place for 9 in those rows. If 9 was beside one of those maximum cells no digit can be placed in that orange cell.
@@rontyson6118 Ah, okay. Yes I see it now. I missed the rule and the corresponding symbol about the minimum cell. With this updated information it's much more clear.
What I appreciate about Swordfish and X-wing, etc., is that they’re analogous to the naked/hidden complements, except considering collections of rows/columns with one candidate, rather than collections of candidates in one group. It makes me wonder if there is some automorphism of the grid that exchanges the two patterns - maybe you’d have to exclude boxes as a constraint? Or include the positions within the boxes as another constraint?
Love you apps including the new one! Like the ability to have all in one app. Suggestion - if you can it would be nice to import/restore purchases in the other apps and be able to import your puzzles and consolidate into one app. Plus the ability to buy packages of any type. That might be the plan but I was honestly willing to repurchase the other puzzle types again in the new app. Thanks for your content!
I absolutely loved this puzzle and your solution to it. I saw the first swordfish, but could not possibly expect to see the entire grid swordfish-ified. Truly masterful and a wonderful hour of my life spent watching pure genius.
I started this one, got stuck, came to the video, saw the way the 9s cascaded, then immediately discovered that I was able to unwind the rest of the puzzle into a whole bunch of triples. About 44 minutes total for me!
We also have done that in about an hour! At first it struck me as kinda mad and ugly, that all the constraints (especially even/odd and minimum) are reversed. I thought of it as kinda "funky without purpose", but while solving it really showed a great geometrical beauty incorporating many interesting sudoku jellyfish and a lot of new logic. Turned out to be REALLY FUN!
27:30 Simon could have easily deducted that there cannot be a 4 in r1c2 because there would be no way of surrounding a 4 with 1,2,3 without breaking either the anti-renban or the odd number cell constraint.
What's wrong with 3-4-2 across the top row, with a 1 completing the (anti)renban? This has 3 in "even" cell (wrogn), 2 in "odd" cell (wrogn), 1-2-4 on "renban" (wrogn), and 4 is greater than surrounding 1,2,3.
I was confused by the anti-minimum rules but not for the same reason as others (hidden arrows in the cells). I thought it meant that only ONE of the orthogonal neighbors had to be smaller than the anti-minimum cell, as that would be the logical complement of a minimum cell rule. Instead, the minimum cell is actually a maximum cell. Otherwise, a very nice and challenging puzzle.
Got it in 25:52! Very enjoyable overall and loved how each restriction had a very specific role without overcomplicating and evaluating more than a few rules at any one point
46:20 the 'obvious' thing seems to be that the 'V' hint was completely useless. as all it did, was eliminates 4 from cells that may not be adjecent to 3 or 5...... (which hints to me, I must be missing something)
Am-AZING fun to watch. I had a go and spotted the 39+6 thing immediately, and the 248 triple it created, but almost immediately had to give up and follow the video. Liar puzzles look so fun, but it'll be a while before I can do one! Thank you!
Okay, I took some breaks. But this took me 4 hours. I'm still proud of it. I got serious de ja vu (spelling?). Didn't we do a very similar puzzle. I had 248 exclusive swordfish. And swordfish all over on 1's, 3's. (I think they went together). 9's. And just peeled back little bits at a time. Does anyone brag about finishing earlier than they actually did? Because comments always say "took me 30 minutes" or "I never could've solved it, but I liked watching Simon or was able to follow his logic". Am I the only one who takes 4 hours?!
First time leaving a comment here. Great solve, even better puzzle. And I'm happy to say this is the first puzzle that I solved faster than Simon 😁 (33:52)
I don’t mind the Maverick fly-by’s. I think Maverick is just as much a part of this channel as you, Mark, bobbins, three in the corner, naughty snakes, and nori nori
I showed the blank puzzle to my partner (who does not sudoku) and he gives a nervous laugh and goes "sudokus with threatening auras" I think he might be right 😅
I just realised that I never used the thermo constraint. Is it true that if you remove a thermo constraint that this puzzle still has a unique solution?
Took me about 100 minutes though I did a lot of putting the puzzle down and coming back later which made me have to repeat some thought processes to get my bearings. A very fun puzzle and despite my time didn't seem unbearably hard!
So much symmetry in this puzzle, even in the solution. Very interesting that in the 9 boxes, there was only 3 unique orientations of numbers, that repeated through the solution.
@Simon: I saw th length of tje video and like for all puzzles above 45:00 minutes, i knew, i wouldn't be capable of it, so i just rather watched your way of doing it and it was very entertaining.
I absolute loved the previous puzzle with 27 swordfishes lately, so it is quite nice to see that even a wrogn version can be made of that. :-) However, the rule "digit in a minimum cell must not be smaller than any of the orthogonally connected cells" is syntactically ambiguous (!). I bumped into that problem when trying to solve the puzzle. Does it mean that the wrogn minimum cells are just not strictly minimum cells (which is only negative information, see e.g. the "chaotic wrogn" puzzle by Undar Beyond), or does it mean that they are in fact maximum cells (which provides huge positive information)? I see that Simon assumes the latter, which turns out to work quite well and leads to the desired solution. But it would be defendable to assume the former when you strictly interpret the rule set, yet that would provide insufficient information to find a unique solution, I believe. Hence, the only slight flaw of this rule set could be that this specific rule is in fact not wrogn at all, it just implies the positive opposite... I'll need to switch to a different account and nickname soon, but I felt this remark should be made using my old account. Yet I will keep following the channel anyway :-)
I don't think the rule wording is ambiguous. If it had said "the cell must not be smaller than ALL of the connected cells", then I think the meaning could be ambigous, but the fact it says "ANY", and not "ALL", means it has in fact be larger than all connected cells, so acts as a maximum fortress cell.
You can place the 6 in box 3 as soon as you have placed the first 1. On the green line the 9 must go with the 5, the 7 with the 4 leaving the 6 to go with the 1. You can also match up the thermos right away. 8 must go with 9, 6 CAN'T go with 4 so has to go with 2, so 7 goes with 4. Of course I made an error of logic choosing between the 2 and the 8 on one of the Vs and went down the wrong path, rendering most of what I had discovered redundant - but the X's can be very useful much earlier than just the final disambiguation!
Why must 9 go with 5, 7 with 3 (I assume you meant 3), 6 with 1? What's to stop 9 with 1, 6 with 3, 7 with 5, for example? Lots of other options as far as I can tell. Note, the 1 isn't on a green line so can go with any of 6,7,9. The only combination ruled out is 3 with 9 on a green line.
@@RichSmith77 yeah I dunno what I was talking about now looking back at it. I knew there was no green line there but must have assumed there was in my line of reasoning! I can't see any other way to convince myself I was right :)
The third (or second in my case) lot of 1s can easily be placed if you switch to looking at column 2 instead of rows. It can't go in the top row as it has to be greater than, it can't go in the bottom row as it is even, so it has to go in the middle. Exact same logic used to place it in the first row.
Before I even begin to watch the solve this reminds me of my favorite CTC video in which Simon curses Mark for giving him a wrogn puzzle and it took him an hour and a half to solve! Classic!
61:36 for me, although I needed two little hints for disambiguating the anti-minimum cells. I got the majority of the logic in around 20-30 minutes but then far too long to find the final cascading digits. Great puzzle, it's just my eyes to blame!
5:21 I enjoy the implication that you do in fact have an anti-aircraft gun, you are just opting not to use it because to do so would ultimately be too bothersome.
reminds me a bit of one of your older puzzle solves. That one also had each box filled with the same thermo structure and a single line to differentiatie.
39:06 for me. I don't usually like liar/wrogn puzzles, but this was fun. Also, it was nice to finally have a puzzle time under the video length. It feels like it has been a while since I've done that.
![Kumamoto Masters Japan 2024 | Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (INA) [5] vs. Akane Yamaguchi (JPN) [2] | F](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EIjZybhsWqA/mqdefault.jpg)
Hello Chefofdeath here (formerly disasterinprogress but LMD didn’t let me use that name for some reason)
Glad you enjoyed the puzzle Simon! This puzzle was inspired by Rubenscube’s puzzle “The Aquarium” which is my absolutely favorite sudoku! I thought of this idea of doing a version of a grid full of swordfish with “wrogn” constraints a while ago, but it took a lot of testing to be able to find things. As I went I kept finding weird logic that I really enjoyed! What was interesting to me is that the eight’s having to be next to the the minimum cell on both sides caused 4’s or 2’s to surround the same digit in the min cell due to the 48 pairs. It was really fun to make and mad respect to the head honcho rubenscube for his masterpiece and inspiring this puzzle 😁
Amazing puzzle. It's so interesting to see so many rules working together without getting in each other's way. Plus the symmetry is so satisfying.
Although based on the title I kept expecting there to be some twist at the end that broke the pattern. I would have been second guessing myself the whole way. Great work!
It is awesome to hear that people still remember my Aquarium puzzle. The fact that it is you favorite puzzle is an honor to me! Congratulations on making this awesome twist on it!
@@rubens_cube Your *Aquarium* was great. Here is the CTC link:
👉 ruclips.net/video/DUlfr6jmaNA/видео.html
Let me explain the elegant logic described in your cryptic comment. At playback time 53:30, you can create "48" pairs in every box by:
🔹placing *2* in *r3c8* (by anti-min-cell logic)
🔹removing *2* in anti-kropky-dots that already contain *1*
As shown by Simon, in rows *1, 4* and *7* there must be an *8* on the right side of an anti-min cell containing a *9.*
Also, in rows *3* and *6* there must be an *8* immediately above an anti-min cell containing a *9.*
Hence, in short:
🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *9* must be next to two *8s* (on its top and right sides).
As a consequence, due to the *48* pairs:
🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *6* must be next to two *2s* (on its top and right sides).
🔹in rows *4* and *7,* the *7* must be next to two *4s* (on its top and right sides).
When I saw the puzzle, I immediately thought, "This is another Aquarium!" To see that you were inspired by that puzzle is just awesome to me! And I'm with you - Aquarium is probably my favorite solve after the original Miracle Sudoku!
I do love a wrogn puzzle, although I'd suggest fixing the z-index of your minimum/fortress cell symbols because they seem to be hidden behind the purple lines, and I would have taken that to mean that the rule only applied to the indicated cells, and not necessarily to all four orthogonally adjacent cells. Very minor gripe though and only intended as helpful feedback.
I found that quite confusing!
Yah I thought so too but if you read the rules it's clear
@@justinfarmer8371 Yeah I think you're right really, although I thought 'orthogonally CONNECTED' might only mean those connected by a visible minimum symbol. Otherwise just 'any orthogonal cell' would work. Definitely a very minor thing though but it's not quite right for the symbol to only appear on 1-2 sides of the cell and should be a quick fix in the software/CSS for Sven.
Out of context this comment is quite confusing 😂
Thank you so much for this comment, I was stuck and thought Simon was blind!
Much simpler path near 39:00 to show that 7 can not be in the center cell of a box.
1. A 7 in the center requires a 9 in the minimum cell above it.
2. (previously established) The 9 in the minimum cell accompanies an 8 in the odd cell to its right.
3. A set of 7, 8, 9 breaks the renban.
Rules: 05:31
Let's Get Cracking: 08:32
Simon's time: 49m36s
Puzzle Solved: 58:08
What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
The Secret: 5x (10:36, 10:41, 10:41, 10:55, 11:30)
Knowledge Bomb: 2x (07:25, 19:31)
Bobbins: 1x (44:05)
Maverick: 1x (05:05)
Phistomefel: 1x (03:02)
Nori Nori: 1x (52:13)
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Ah: 14x (04:57, 31:55, 34:36, 35:24, 36:28, 36:56, 38:24, 43:44, 44:05, 44:20, 45:25, 48:25, 48:27, 49:25)
Hang On: 11x (06:22, 10:22, 16:21, 16:21, 16:21, 33:27, 36:56, 37:58, 51:04, 57:37, 57:58)
Obviously: 11x (08:39, 19:30, 21:14, 27:11, 33:00, 34:41, 34:47, 36:39, 44:46, 45:35, 49:59)
Sorry: 7x (04:28, 05:16, 30:04, 46:13, 46:13, 52:27, 57:44)
I've Got It!: 7x (21:21, 51:37, 51:37, 51:37, 51:39, 51:41, 51:41)
In Fact: 6x (02:35, 08:15, 08:18, 21:23, 23:48, 44:59)
Goodness: 4x (51:19, 52:51, 54:00, 58:13)
Clever: 4x (27:41, 27:45, 45:52, 47:43)
Brilliant: 4x (58:08, 58:08, 58:08, 58:45)
Stunning: 3x (58:15, 58:15, 58:19)
What Does This Mean?: 3x (20:31, 41:34, 42:37)
Pencil Mark/mark: 3x (11:55, 22:14, 40:23)
Symmetry: 3x (08:53, 34:22, 48:10)
Lovely: 2x (33:23, 38:30)
By Sudoku: 2x (54:14, 54:35)
Shouting: 2x (04:50, 46:15)
Good Grief: 1x (30:00)
What on Earth: 1x (09:26)
The Answer is: 1x (39:44)
Nonsense: 1x (44:11)
Naughty: 1x (55:41)
Stuck: 1x (56:39)
Fascinating: 1x (58:30)
Inarticulate: 1x (12:38)
Straight Off the Bat: 1x (54:09)
Come on Simon: 1x (46:32)
Bonkers: 1x (08:15)
Facetious: 1x (22:43)
Magnificent: 1x (30:15)
Puzzling: 1x (04:52)
Wrogn: 1x (09:31)
Progress: 1x (20:59)
Wow: 1x (47:04)
Ask A Silly Question: 1x (14:31)
Let's Take Stock: 1x (30:31)
Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Ten, Forty Five (4 mentions)
Nine (81 mentions)
Blue (15 mentions)
Antithesis Battles:
Low (3) - High (0)
Even (16) - Odd (8)
White (8) - Black (0)
Row (47) - Column (35)
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!
Thank you this is just awesome ☺️
Very inspiring and quite sandy!
35:25 45:49 "What's that doing?"
41:23 42:38 "You guessed it."
WOAH wait is this a bot? But a good one???
I have to admit to being a little confused by the anti-minimum cells because I only saw arrows on 1 or 2 sides, so it wasn't until the rule was demonstrated that it made sense. Will need to try again later knowing that.
what happened was that the arrows for the other sides got hidden under the purple, they are there but we can't see them :P
Just discovered this channel. Now I'm finally caught up and watching the newest videos. Exciting!!
Welcome
You'll soon realise CTC should come with a health warning! Just watching the two regular videos takes up a large chunk of your day, and if you try the puzzles yourself that's even more of your life gone, then there's the extras with Mark and Simon playing live video games, occasional podcasts, creators showing how they made their puzzles ...... . Sleep will soon be a distant memory!
Welcome to the circus of the man who says “Hmmm!” 🙂
Caught up?! How many hours of ctc did you watch before you... 🤣
@@Jonas.Nilsson too much, i had covid and nothing to do for 2 weeks. so i made a rug and watched sudoku
My time on this one is 39 minutes. I love the identical 39-boxes throughout... it makes the puzzle look ridiculous from first glance, but it actually gets the solver asking the right kind of question: "Well, if 6 can't go there, where does it go?" ..... super cool. Hope to see more of this constructor on the channel in the future.
That Simon doesn't immediately sees that the 248 triple's are a triple sword fish is driving me crazy.
Same here. Especially when he then had that eureka moment with the 679 overlapping swordfishes and he still didn't acknowledge poor 248.
Mr. Anthony, take a bow! Wonderful video today. Greetings from Uzbekistan
When you spot that there are essentially 3 boxes that are each repeated 3 times (and so the digits in the boxes with identical clues _must_ be identical in each one because there is nothing else to differentiate them) the puzzle becomes a lot easier! I found it helpful, once there was no need for colouring for anything else, to colour the three sets of cloned boxes to help see the patterns.
Are the V clues necessary? Doesn't the fact that they all have a white dot above them with a 3 or 5 already rule out the 4s at the time Simon used the Vs?
The Renbans are also not necessary
At 35:00, looking at the Xs was a good idea, but Simon was looking at it from the wrong direction. Instead of focussing on thebulb, look at the 248 in the tip. If it's an 8, then the bulb must be a 9. The 4 can't go with the 6, so that means if it's a 2, it goes with the 6. So, if the tip is a 4, the only options are 5 and 7. This is the start of understanding that a lot of pairs are forced.
Similarly, consider the white dots in column 2 (or 5 or 8). If the centre cell of the box is a 3, then the cell below must be an 8. If the centre cell is 1, then the cell below must be a 4. So, what goes with the 2? It's also limited to 5 and 7 at this point.
... and below the 8 (that's below a central 3), you must have a 9, and that must have an 8 to its right. 🙂
I found a few of these relationships. I ended up bifurcation to solve eventually though. The main piece of logic of Simon's that I missed was that 7s couldn't go in the centre. I could complete a logical solve with that missing piece.
Absolutely beautiful puzzle..super concept and very very elegant. I usually catch the puzzles as soon as they are posted (1 am India time), but went to bed early...saw it in the morning and what a wonderful way to start the day !
A very fun puzzle. A bit of logic that was proven in the video but not verbalized simply is that anytime you have two swordfishes on the same digit, you must have the third swordfish.
This puzzle is a ton of front-work and then just speeds through everything after the first digit goes down. It was satisfying as heck solving this one.
I'm used to Wrogn puzzles being crazy and chaotic.
What I was not expecting to see something so clever and fascinating.
The way all these sword fishes interacted together, the way we managed to pencil mark the whole grid. It was amazing.
But the entire time, as we were getting closer to that point, I kept thinking, "how is this going to work? Because even with little assymetries in the clues, there's just too much symmetries in the boxes. And every box simply stands on it'd own. How on earth are we going to disambiguate them?"
And it turned to be that little minimum-maximum clue!
I completely forgot that the Min-Max cells go between boxes, and we can use that one little thing to tie the boxes together, and tidy up the whole grid from there!
Beautiful, absolutly beautiful.
And I'm really supriced that the final grid has boxes symmetry.
I really should have been able to guess from the clues, that Boxes 1-5-9 are identical, Boxes 2-6-7 are identical, and Boxes 3-4-8 are identical. I should have guessed that just from seeing the symmetry of the clues.
And yet I haven't, and I'm surprised by seeing the final grid. Yet it all makes perfect sense.
Really beautiful grid, wonderful logic.
And that one little step, where we use the Min-Max cell to actually go between two boxes, that was really something.
Great puzzle, even though I didn't find everything without Simon's help (specifically, the idea to look at the sixes).
When ignoring the asymmetric clues (i.e. the Vs, the horizontal kropki-dots and the whispers line), there are some repeating patterns throughout the grid:
→ When you place one 8 or 9, you can place all the others in the column of three boxes: an 8 in the bottom of its box forces a 9 below it [or on the top of the screen for the bottom boxes] and a 8 besides that one], as well as the 9 diagonally above it, and then in the third box the 8 and 9 need to be together on the termo. The vertikal dot above the 8 needs a 3 (because in the other two boxes that would beside an 24 pair).
Of course, we don't know yet which of these three options (in each stack of boxes) have the 8, but now the assymetric clues come into play: The horizontal dots exclude one of the options each (as beside the 3 we'd get a 24), the missing whispers get us the 1 and the existing whispers catch the 5s for the 9s.
→ The X on the termos made sure that we got only 3 options: 98, 26, 47, instead of additionally 27+46.
OK, like the last multiple swordfish puzzle, IIRC, we ended up with three 3x3 patterns repeated, diagonally, too. Spotted this when digits started appearing in the grid. Surprised Simon didn;t spot that.
I loved this puzzle! For such a strange layout, it was oddly approachable, just a little mind-bending. Watching the solve was wonderful too.
27:42 I have been screaming "swordfish on 6" while Simon did 1 and 3. And now he asks if 4 can go in the same row as a 248 triple? At least he found the 6 immediately after this.
27:08 yeah, he was having some strange blind spot in regard to the 248 triples. That sentence about the 2s is just hilarious gibberish. Lol
24:10 for me! I rarely do this much better than Simon but I think my method to solve may have gone against his code of sudoku ethics. I realized that the symmetry meant that there would only be 3 unique boxes so I just picked a row of three boxes to solve. Then I just moved them to where they neede to be in the puzzle. One could argue it was bifurcation to a degree, but it got me a good time at least 😎
I used a similar shortcut, but I assumed uniqueness to say that each flavor of box must be the same everywhere it appears. This really speeds things up because anytime you make a deduction it rules stuff out of both a row and column in every box.
If you can prove, without using uniqueness, that the three-box solution applies to the entire puzzle (which looks quite doable) then I'd say there's no ethical issues there and it's not bifurcation, just high-level reasoning like other symmetry/set-theory arguments.
I don’t think you could instantly conclude that because of the anti min cells bordering boxes
Very late commenting as I only did this today. Once getting all those swordfishes, it meant that each of the 3 boxes was forced with the common constraints, except for the top left and bottom right digit in each box. e.g. 8 in the thermo tip needs 9 below it, 4 in the thermo tip can't have 6 and must have 7 below it, so 26 are a thermo pair. At that point I basically ignored the grid and used pen & paper. For the three boxes with the extra white dot, the middle row options are 239, 456, 817, so must be 817. And the fortress cells mean the box above has 456, the box below has 239, and now you can fill in everything at once except the top left & bottom right, and the boxes without the whisper line must have the 1 bottom right, which finishes the puzzle.
A lot of fun to do, quite different to most puzzles.
This is, absolutely no question, my favorite puzzle I've ever seen solved
We are still on such an incredible run of puzzles. What a beauty of a debut! I hope to see more ChefOfDeath puzzles in the future! All the swordfishes and then the brilliant logic to disambiguate them at the end, so cool! Reminds me of that one puzzle that also has all swordfish which was one of my fav sudokus of all time. Great setting, and great solving Simon!!
You mean The Aquarium?
@@rubens_cube I think he does mean your puzzle! My first thought when I started seeing all the swordfishies was that ChefOfDeath was doing a pastiche of The Aquarium, or maybe the two of you were in a contest to see how many aquatic lifeforms you could shoehorn into a sudoku (you still have him beat of course.)
@@rubens_cube YES THAT’S THE ONE! That one will always be in my memory, I remember being so happy when I watched the CTC vid on that one, thank you again for setting it!
Lovely puzzle and a lovely solve! Thanks. I really appreciate the symmetry here.
If we just stare at the empty grid without any digits and pencil marks, we may notice that boxes 2, 6 and 7 are identical. These are the symmetry-breaking ones. The other 6 boxes are also identical to each other. There are no funny king or knight rules here that transcend the boxes. Now, If we move the bottom three boxes to the top, and then move the three boxes on the right to the left of the puzzle, we are getting a correct sudoku. The grid, as it is given initially, is actually symmetric in this transformation, we are getting the same grid. This means we should be expecting the solutipn to have this symmetry, otherwise we are getting three distinct solutions connected by this transformation...
Not quite! Another thing that is breaking the symmetry here, and actually did a lot of heavy lifting, is the maximum cell. The maximum cell is on the top of the box, what means that in boxes 1,2,3 it only needs to be larger than 3 cells, but in the remaining boxes it needs to be larger than 4 cells. This is the only thing breaking this rearrangement symmetry and disambiguates the boxes 1,5,9 from boxes 3,4,8, which allows finishing the puzzle.
49:48 with some help from Simon. What a lovely puzzle!
I was smiling throughout :)
I love how the communication between boxes is only through normal sudoko rules plus the less than, while all the other rules communicate within boxes. This means you can create a set of rules that gives possible positions for all the digits within a box and then break the ambiguity by having slight variations in the boxes that identify the orientation of the grid.
29:19. I can definitely see the "The Aquarium" inspiration in this puzzle, so I guess that's why I caught on quickly. Wrogn puzzles are always my favourites though, so this was delightful.
I must say, every time you reveal the secret, I smile. It's so fun to have that running through so many videos.
Simon didn't seem to realize that the 2/4/8 triples in the top right cells of each box constituted a swordfish on each of the three digits. Had he done so, and combined this with the odd cell in the middle bottom of each box, he would have quickly seen the other two swordfish on 2, 4, and 8, and since these all coincide, they would also turn into 2/4/8 triple centre marks.
But the middle bottom of each box is not odd, right? Wrogn?
@@maljamin Perhaps I was a but premature. Once you see that the 6's are forced into the center top cell of each box, the "odd" cell (which must be even) at center bottom must be 2/4/8, establishing a second swordfish on these digits.
However, at 27:15 he says some nonsense like "so 2 obviously *is* in one of those cells [top right corners] so I can't rule it out of these cells [top center and top left cells]" and also muses about putting a 4 in the top center cells, so he clearly has not appreciated the existing swordfish on 2s, 4s, and 8s in the top rows and right columns of the boxes.
He could've phrased the thermometer rule better(more lying).
"Digits on a thermometer must not increase from the bulb end."
Because they are all in one box in this puzzle to make the same digit not appear.
12:02
A lovely way to demonstrate the power of swordfish.
Certainly reminds of the fish tank puzzle from about a month ago, which was fantastic. I love the wrogn twist though!
I thought the same... It's a wrogn fish tank!
So are those German Screams lines?
Another nice puzzle. I like when Simon said maybe this puzzle is a troll. 😂😂 Thank you Simon and the maker of the puzzle.
I missed this one when I was on vacation recently, but had time to come back to it today. I loved this video, Simon. Really, so enjoyable to watch you work your way through this puzzle. I always feel as if I am learning something on this channel, and this time it was more about swordfishes and how to spot them and what they do. I always enjoy videos when you are having fun, and it sure looked like you were having fun this time. Thanks for the excellent video.
@45:33 You've eliminated the 4s from next to the 1s via V, but isn't that V actually redundant as you could also remove 4s from the same square using the white dot above it since 4 can't be next to 3 or 5?
It feels over-constrained once you get a few digits and there ends up more than one rule forcing particular digits, I'm not sure if all the rules were necessary to produce a unique puzzle.
It's interesting that the V clues are unnecessary. The white dot means that placing a 4 in r3c8 eliminates all possibilities for r2c8, once you have the 1 placed.
They are totally unnecessary 😂 I placed them in as my own little joke/trap to mess with the solver! I tried to put a little bit of humor in (as the title itself is also a joke. How would you trust somebody who just told you they’re lying)
I love the way this one unwound once you notice the 2/8 relationship. Just beautiful.
I found Cracking the Cryptic after googling "what the heck is a swordfish?" and having Simon explain it for me. Now to my surprise, I spotted each of the swordfishes before Simon did! Unexpected and fulfilling.
As much as I rate Simon as a solver, this sudoku definitely did not play to his strengths! Not only were there a lot of arrays to keep track of but the boxes contained repeating patterns which if you noticed them made filling out the puzzle much easier! Unusually, finding all the swordfish was perhaps the easier part of the puzzle (provided you know what they are and how to approach looking for them), while the harder part was probably identifying which of the digits were constrained in the resulting grid of arrays. I expect the fact it was a ‘wrogn’ style puzzle was a little distracting to Simon so he did well to get through it. In any case, it was a lot of fun to solve. :)
It seems like Simon prefers not to go off patterns since it can sometimes feel a little cheesy as a solving technique and with the brilliance of some of the setters could be a trap lol.
I feel like the thumbnail should have been a picture of Mark in the spirit of wrogn
This is my first time doing a puzzle faster than Simon! I managed to finish in 36:51. I wonder if having less experience with the standard versions of all these rules made it a bit easier for me to not get confused. I loved how the symmetry starts you off and then it’s the little breaks in symmetry that get you your actual digits!
Oh My! What a great puzzle! I love how the puzzle uses older rules but made new logic by reversing them. The symmetry was beautiful. Seeing all killer cages had 39 made me almost quit. After watching Simon get started, I was able to finish. The triple triple swordfish was very amusing.
Wonderful, so glad I got through that one!
27:36 for me. I tried my hardest not to bifurcate everything from the beginning, but I’ll admit some of my latter logic was very close to just guessing. Very nice puzzle anyways!!
48:23... I think the next thing I would look at with that is center cell of box 2, because a 2 or a 4 or both is/are next to it in the white dots... I don't think that goes very far but it does also apply in box's 6 and 7 in the same locations with the 2 white dots that all have to have at least one 2 or 4 elminiating 3s from those 3 center cells in those 3 boxes.
“Sixes are even” I don’t believe it. I’m going to need some mathematical proof on that one, simon!
Lovely. My final break was a bit different. I had the anti-thermo containing an 8 had to contain a 9 below it and managed to locate which "type" of square it laid in. And then when trying the 3 in the middle square it then unraveled.
Why would you leap onto the swordfish on 9, but not on the triple swodfish on 248? This limits 6 in the row to the top-centre cells, which rules it out of the second circle in the box, giving you a second swordfish on 248, and this gives you a third. Now where does 6 go in C1? In the same cell as the 9, which means the third 6 must be in the same cell as the third 9 too.
Boxes 2, 6, and 7 are more constrained than the rest, because they have both two dots and an "allied whisper line" (they're anti-German whisper lines ;), so you can limit the central cell to just 1 or 5 (anything else breaks one of the other constraints), and one of the dotted digits must be 8, which means 9 cannot be in the top-centre cell because it goes with 8 in the top-right. The box which does have 8 in the top-right also forces 15 into the central cell, so 3 must go in the final central cell, giving a swordfish on 135. Following through with this leads to each box having triples on 248, 135, and 679. In the Xs, an 8 on the thermo tip must go with 9, a 4 must go with 7, and 2 with 6. The 1 can never go in the corner on a whisper, because the other cell is 679, so we can place three 1s. These cannot be next to 4 on the V. R3C8 can't be 8 either, because R4C8 is a 67, so it's 2. Once you apply this, all nine swordfish unwind quickly.
This really wasn't that hard, you just need to consider of the rules, of the time, which unfortunately for you, is playing to your weakness.
When you tried to consider 2, you said you can't rule it out of the non-circle cells in R1 - what utter rubbish - you have a 248 triple in the row. You even later claimed you could put 4 in the max cell, despite the 248 triple. Use your pencil-marks for cryin' out loud.
That was a brilliant debut puzzle, I really enjoyed it.
Can someone please explain to me why the 9's had to go in the orange cells? I've re-read the rules and re-watched his explanation but I still don't get it.
Well, if you're talking about rows 1,4 and 7. The anti-minimum aka maximum cells are the only place for 9 in those rows. If 9 was beside one of those maximum cells no digit can be placed in that orange cell.
@@rontyson6118 Ah, okay. Yes I see it now. I missed the rule and the corresponding symbol about the minimum cell. With this updated information it's much more clear.
What I appreciate about Swordfish and X-wing, etc., is that they’re analogous to the naked/hidden complements, except considering collections of rows/columns with one candidate, rather than collections of candidates in one group. It makes me wonder if there is some automorphism of the grid that exchanges the two patterns - maybe you’d have to exclude boxes as a constraint? Or include the positions within the boxes as another constraint?
Love you apps including the new one! Like the ability to have all in one app. Suggestion - if you can it would be nice to import/restore purchases in the other apps and be able to import your puzzles and consolidate into one app. Plus the ability to buy packages of any type. That might be the plan but I was honestly willing to repurchase the other puzzle types again in the new app. Thanks for your content!
Should one start to say Stencil-Simon?! Every cell is marked. It's wonderful!
Pencil-Simon I mean;)
I absolutely loved this puzzle and your solution to it. I saw the first swordfish, but could not possibly expect to see the entire grid swordfish-ified. Truly masterful and a wonderful hour of my life spent watching pure genius.
I started this one, got stuck, came to the video, saw the way the 9s cascaded, then immediately discovered that I was able to unwind the rest of the puzzle into a whole bunch of triples. About 44 minutes total for me!
We also have done that in about an hour! At first it struck me as kinda mad and ugly, that all the constraints (especially even/odd and minimum) are reversed. I thought of it as kinda "funky without purpose", but while solving it really showed a great geometrical beauty incorporating many interesting sudoku jellyfish and a lot of new logic. Turned out to be REALLY FUN!
I love Simon's early comment about swordfishes only appearing in the really good variant sudokus
43:15 this is just beatiful!
27:24 You are missing a swordfish on 2s and 4s in the columns (and rows). It is a whole school of swordfishes!
27:30 Simon could have easily deducted that there cannot be a 4 in r1c2 because there would be no way of surrounding a 4 with 1,2,3 without breaking either the anti-renban or the odd number cell constraint.
What's wrong with 3-4-2 across the top row, with a 1 completing the (anti)renban?
This has 3 in "even" cell (wrogn), 2 in "odd" cell (wrogn), 1-2-4 on "renban" (wrogn), and 4 is greater than surrounding 1,2,3.
123 minutes for the solve without watching your video... Proud of that one
It could have been noted at the start from the clues given that the boxes rotated one to the box to the right. So box 1=5=9,2=6=7,3=4=8
I was confused by the anti-minimum rules but not for the same reason as others (hidden arrows in the cells). I thought it meant that only ONE of the orthogonal neighbors had to be smaller than the anti-minimum cell, as that would be the logical complement of a minimum cell rule. Instead, the minimum cell is actually a maximum cell. Otherwise, a very nice and challenging puzzle.
Got it in 25:52! Very enjoyable overall and loved how each restriction had a very specific role without overcomplicating and evaluating more than a few rules at any one point
46:20
the 'obvious' thing seems to be that the 'V' hint was completely useless.
as all it did, was eliminates 4 from cells that may not be adjecent to 3 or 5......
(which hints to me, I must be missing something)
Am-AZING fun to watch. I had a go and spotted the 39+6 thing immediately, and the 248 triple it created, but almost immediately had to give up and follow the video. Liar puzzles look so fun, but it'll be a while before I can do one! Thank you!
Okay, I took some breaks. But this took me 4 hours. I'm still proud of it. I got serious de ja vu (spelling?). Didn't we do a very similar puzzle. I had 248 exclusive swordfish. And swordfish all over on 1's, 3's. (I think they went together). 9's. And just peeled back little bits at a time. Does anyone brag about finishing earlier than they actually did? Because comments always say "took me 30 minutes" or "I never could've solved it, but I liked watching Simon or was able to follow his logic". Am I the only one who takes 4 hours?!
This is a glorious, glorious puzzle. Bravo!
Swordfishified and sorted! Crazy looking grid, but much fun to be had.
Maximum swordfish puzzles are always fun
This puzzle is fantastic, and so is your idea for "The Man Who Says 'Hmm...'" 😄 Will follow it immediately.
First time leaving a comment here. Great solve, even better puzzle.
And I'm happy to say this is the first puzzle that I solved faster than Simon 😁 (33:52)
I don’t mind the Maverick fly-by’s. I think Maverick is just as much a part of this channel as you, Mark, bobbins, three in the corner, naughty snakes, and nori nori
Solved it with much help from the video. Very unusual!
took you 35 minutes to "Goodliffe" the grid. Mark would have done it in under 5.
I showed the blank puzzle to my partner (who does not sudoku) and he gives a nervous laugh and goes "sudokus with threatening auras"
I think he might be right 😅
I just realised that I never used the thermo constraint. Is it true that if you remove a thermo constraint that this puzzle still has a unique solution?
Took me about 100 minutes though I did a lot of putting the puzzle down and coming back later which made me have to repeat some thought processes to get my bearings. A very fun puzzle and despite my time didn't seem unbearably hard!
So much symmetry in this puzzle, even in the solution. Very interesting that in the 9 boxes, there was only 3 unique orientations of numbers, that repeated through the solution.
And the boxes in the grid have the same arrangement as the individual swordfish triples in a box :)
Nice to see a new aquarium puzzle. Lots of (sword)fishes in the grid
The secret is always important in Killer Suduko .
@Simon: I saw th length of tje video and like for all puzzles above 45:00 minutes, i knew, i wouldn't be capable of it, so i just rather watched your way of doing it and it was very entertaining.
"Two-four-eightify all these digits" - one of the best phrases I heard on this channel.
I absolute loved the previous puzzle with 27 swordfishes lately, so it is quite nice to see that even a wrogn version can be made of that. :-) However, the rule "digit in a minimum cell must not be smaller than any of the orthogonally connected cells" is syntactically ambiguous (!). I bumped into that problem when trying to solve the puzzle. Does it mean that the wrogn minimum cells are just not strictly minimum cells (which is only negative information, see e.g. the "chaotic wrogn" puzzle by Undar Beyond), or does it mean that they are in fact maximum cells (which provides huge positive information)? I see that Simon assumes the latter, which turns out to work quite well and leads to the desired solution. But it would be defendable to assume the former when you strictly interpret the rule set, yet that would provide insufficient information to find a unique solution, I believe. Hence, the only slight flaw of this rule set could be that this specific rule is in fact not wrogn at all, it just implies the positive opposite...
I'll need to switch to a different account and nickname soon, but I felt this remark should be made using my old account. Yet I will keep following the channel anyway :-)
I don't think the rule wording is ambiguous. If it had said "the cell must not be smaller than ALL of the connected cells", then I think the meaning could be ambigous, but the fact it says "ANY", and not "ALL", means it has in fact be larger than all connected cells, so acts as a maximum fortress cell.
Thanks just got back from work perfect timing❤️
25:08 I was trying to bifuricate and somehow stumbled on the correct solution?
Although I had gotten to where Simon got to at about 34:00 before trying bifurication.
Coloring odds and evens makes it easier to see some swordfishes
You can place the 6 in box 3 as soon as you have placed the first 1. On the green line the 9 must go with the 5, the 7 with the 4 leaving the 6 to go with the 1. You can also match up the thermos right away. 8 must go with 9, 6 CAN'T go with 4 so has to go with 2, so 7 goes with 4.
Of course I made an error of logic choosing between the 2 and the 8 on one of the Vs and went down the wrong path, rendering most of what I had discovered redundant - but the X's can be very useful much earlier than just the final disambiguation!
Why must 9 go with 5, 7 with 3 (I assume you meant 3), 6 with 1? What's to stop 9 with 1, 6 with 3, 7 with 5, for example? Lots of other options as far as I can tell. Note, the 1 isn't on a green line so can go with any of 6,7,9. The only combination ruled out is 3 with 9 on a green line.
@@RichSmith77 yeah I dunno what I was talking about now looking back at it. I knew there was no green line there but must have assumed there was in my line of reasoning! I can't see any other way to convince myself I was right :)
Love the beautiful color patterns with the triple swordfishes.
The third (or second in my case) lot of 1s can easily be placed if you switch to looking at column 2 instead of rows. It can't go in the top row as it has to be greater than, it can't go in the bottom row as it is even, so it has to go in the middle. Exact same logic used to place it in the first row.
and the 3s :)
Before I even begin to watch the solve this reminds me of my favorite CTC video in which Simon curses Mark for giving him a wrogn puzzle and it took him an hour and a half to solve! Classic!
61:36 for me, although I needed two little hints for disambiguating the anti-minimum cells. I got the majority of the logic in around 20-30 minutes but then far too long to find the final cascading digits. Great puzzle, it's just my eyes to blame!
5:21 I enjoy the implication that you do in fact have an anti-aircraft gun, you are just opting not to use it because to do so would ultimately be too bothersome.
The joke about the anti-aircraft gun cracked me up 😂
reminds me a bit of one of your older puzzle solves. That one also had each box filled with the same thermo structure and a single line to differentiatie.
And here I was thinking "oh, sure, start with a swordfish, why don't you?" And it's swordfishes all the way down...
39:06 for me. I don't usually like liar/wrogn puzzles, but this was fun.
Also, it was nice to finally have a puzzle time under the video length. It feels like it has been a while since I've done that.
Very pleased to have solved this! 🎉
Looks scary, but honestly not that hard. Fishing for swordfish is surprisingly fun.
Thanks ChefOfDeath for cooking us up a very pleasurable repast which thankfully failed to kill me.