This one fit my brain perfectly! 19:11 for me. I don't think I've ever been so fast in comparison to Simon, who routinely clears through puzzles that utterly defeat me. A flash in the pan, but one that I'll enjoy today. Really lovely stuff, Celery!
37:15. I’m usually at least double the video length, so just over 1/2 is unusually fast for me. Simon spent much longer figuring out the red circles, making the logic more complex than it needed to be (which is classic Simon!). I loved the puzzle. These fog-of-war puzzles are an absolute joy!
the easy way to get the first two sixes after coloring the whole grid yellow is to just count that there are only six rows that could contain the red circles
I went by boxes, after 3 and 9 got ruled out, I looked at box 1 and if it had a circled digit it ruled out box 2 leaving 6 and if it didn’t then box 1 was ruled out leaving 6 as well
Kudos to Simon for trying to break his habit of avoiding sudoku in sudoku puzzles. But at this point 31:53 it led to a 20 minute delay in making progress. It’s already possible to determine the maximum number of possible corresponding red circles for r1c3 is: r6c5, r7c6, and r8c7 totalling 4. And since 1,2, and 3 are all ruled out from r2c4, those circles must all be 4s. But by using sudoku to place 3 at r6c6, Simon revealed 2 more of the “4 circles”. And although r6c5 is now a more logical starting point, it creates the flawed impression it is either 4 or 5. That’s the nature of sudoku: you can only ever solve a grid in the order you notice things and populate it.
Constantly cherish your love and enthusiasm Simon for when you solve fog puzzles. When you place a correct digit and the fog clears, the joy you get from it is wonderful! 🙂
Simon does that to my OCD. Not following through with a digit or pointing pair in the affected row, column or box can do my head in sometimes. I'm enjoying the most the puzzles I absolutely have no clue how to solve. Luckily it's most of them, so it doesn't affect my watching his solves that much after all. :D
At 53:46 you could’ve deduced r1c3 was yellow much easier. Since all red circles need a digit surrounding it, r2c4 (diagonal to circle) must be the same digit. Now if you look at the 6 arrow going into box 5, you can see that if those were not the same digit then the arrow would be impossible to fill (both 4 and 5 will be taken away)
@@mfl1341 As soon as I pencil-marked the 6789s, I knew we'd be working our way down to 6s, but it's still nice to find the logic and determine it correctly. To prove the puzzle is solvable.
- solve faster than Simon - watch video in pompous mood - see how many times I was lucky, because missed some possibilities - give back to Simon the best sudoku solver Crown👑
I bow to your genius, Simon, and great video as always. But you trigger my latent OCD - I spent half the video yelling "get rid of the green, it is doing nothing but cluttering up the puzzle." But when I do a puzzle that requires coloring, I clear the colors as soon as I can.
@@zelassin I do, even most of it is gibberish to me, but since it’s Simon, I’ll enjoy watching anyhow 😊 By the way, English is not my first language. Obviously.
48:25 A quick way to see the "5 in r6c5 4 in r1c3" position is impossible is if r6c5 is a 5, the arrow in box five becomes a 24 pair, ruling out the only possible position for a 4 neighboring r1c3
Actually already 46:38 "Must this (r1c3) be yellow?": It's a circle, so it has to repeat in r2c4. But c4 already has a non-yellow 4/5 in row 5 or 6, so it must be either yellow or something >6 (which was ruled out earlier).
I think Simon sabotaged himself by deciding to keep all coloring, even of the first circles, through the entire game. As soon as I figured the location of the 6s I got rid of my red color, then as soon as I got the 3s I did the same and so forth, made it much easier to keep everything in mind.
40:59 for me, the first time I've ever solved it faster than simon! although tbf, simon generously spends half of his time explaining his logic for us :) i just really connected with this one. the logic came to me quite quickly which isn't very common for me. Great puzzle celery! Now to watch Simon's take on this
I figured out the breakin because the two starting circles were in the Phistomephel ring which meant two of those digits were locked away in a corner where they couldn't be in red circles. This got it down to a 6 or 7, but I then realized that it couldn't be in a circle in any of boxes 1, 3, or 9 at all. Putting it in a circle in Box 1 row 3 would make it repeat and clash in row 4, a circle in Box 3 Row 3 would repeat it in box 6, and Box 9 it's just isolated by default. This was a fun one. Definitely some different thinking involved, it was nice.
Can't eliminate box 1 like that. Until the digit was put in you could have it in either box 1 or box 2. (R5c7 with r6c6, r7c3 with r8c4 and a pair in r3-4c1-2.) The important part is that at most one of box 1 or 2 could have it. It's easier to show rows 1 and 2 can't have the reds of the givens along with box 9.
I finished in 39:38 minutes. The ruleset about red circles having to contain its duplicate in its surrounding cells is surprisingly powerful, especially when treating it as a negative constraint. I felt good on this puzzle and it agreed with me. It was quite fun putting multiple digits in at the same time to clear massive amounts of fog. As always, it fells good to beat Simon's time. Great Puzzle!
I had a much more intuitive break in and middle. the red circles have to be on borders, and so have to be in rows/cols 3,4,6 or 7. that means there's a maximum of 8 red circles with the same digit. the green cell in box 7 removes one possible circle as it's in both row 7 and col 4. the green cell in box 5 has 2 choices but both are in a special row and col. this means we can have at most 6 green red circles, fixing green. as for r1c3 (at 47:00). the only surrounding cell it can reappear in is r2c4, which is at least 4. it isn't 7 or 8, since it would need to be in a red circle in col 4 and/or row 3, so it's a 4 or 5. the arrow in col 4 contains a 4 or 5 that int yellow, so r2c4 has to be yellow.
The Werefrog wondered how The Werefrog got it so much faster (at 27:49 total solve time). Turns out, missing that 4 really set you back. Also, the box 5 circled 4 puts a 5 in column 4 box 5, so the circle in box 1 can't be the 5 anymore. That leaves only 4 for it. Also, the circled digits can't be 7 based on what could be circled digits, so it was limited to 4 or 5. Amazing how missing a couple hard to find things makes the solve take so much longer. This marks the 2nd Sudoku The Werefrog managed to solve faster than you. Our relative score is like 3 billion to 2 now.
I saw the video length and buckled up for a difficult puzzle. Finished in 27 minutes and thought "well. That's odd." Think I'll have to watch Simon now and figure out what he did differently.
27:51 for me. I think it clicked in my brain more easily than in Simon's. I did use a similar methodology but I removed all shading as soon as it served its purpose, and I think that helped. I also worked on the circle in r1c3 as soon as it was revealed, and that was much quicker than starting with the analysis of the circle in r5c5. Luck of the draw there. Fascinating puzzle. I loved the logic around getting that first set of digits in the circles!
This was an different take on FoW based on positions of circles solely based off circles.... Like Simon said, once i saw that the circle above the upper diagonal of 6's could be a 3 if i forced an arrow over the other potential position, I had to stick with it. Thanks for the feature. Hope it was enjoyable :)
33:33 felt like a fitting finish time. Great Puzzle, Celery!! This was not difficult at all and was incredibly fun logic to explore and apply. The trick was to see after the fog was cleared where there were NOT red circles. This eliminated the possibility of multiple red circles, and it therefore forced that 4 in box 1. The slowest part for me was the sudoku at the end. The logic here was absolutely amazing! Well designed!
17:30 for me. I was quite shocked when I noticed the length of the video and assumed there must have been tons of news. This did play to my strengths, which is my ability to easily visualise things. It was clear that the maximum for the initial red circles was 6, because each rules out so many other possible places. They have to cross borders, and you only have 4 to work with. As soon as you place a digit next to a border, that preclude using that border again, unless you continue the diagonal. It is possible to place up to 8, but not from the starting position. Then getting the red 3, it was also clear that there were only two places they could be. The circle in R6C5 had to be either 4 or 5, but so did the one in R1C3, and they couldn't be different because one being 5 would prevent the other even being 3. As soon as they had to be the same, they could only be 4. After that, it was just a fairly simple arrow sudoku with a bit of fog left to be cleared. Even allowing for your inability to work out the red cells, I don't see how the sudoku could take so long. I know you love to colour, but not removing it when it's served its purpose really hurts some of your solves. You have a hard enough time scanning without the visual noise from useless colouring. I didn't use colouring at all, which made the sudoku easier, but I can see that it helps you to visualise.
Lovely puzzle with a smooth finish. Not sure if I short-circuited some logic but I got the circles relatively quickly just by ruling out possible squares and then finished the solve in an alliterative 26:26
29:45 for me which included about 10 minutes before placing those first 6's. Frustrating as had quite quickly ruled out 8 & 9 but made a mistake ruling out 7 using the same correct logic. Wasn't till I went through it again before knowing they were 6's. Flowed nicely from there. Yet to watch video but assume Simon missed some Sudoku to take so long. 😉
I will say I was surprised to see a fog of war puzzle weighing in at great than an hour - and what a delightful video and puzzle it is, Simon. Thanks for solving it - fascinating (and, I think, beyond me at the moment...)
From 38:00 to 53:00, one doesn't need to prove r1c3 is r6c5. One doesn't even need to analyse r6c5 at all. You just need to ask oneself, "What can r1c3 be?". One can quickly limit it to 4 or 5 from r2c4. From there, one can place a maximum of 4 red circles containing that digit, in a unique pattern, and can write 4 in all those boxes.
Normally I approach Celery puzzles with trepidation and foreboding, but this was surprisingly tractable - it did take a couple of leaps of faith, where I was sure something had to be right but was finding it hard to articulate a definitive proof - the placement of 4s in circles was one of those moments! When Simon is considering the possibility of 5 on the red circles, the arrangement of 5s he comes up with is entirely possible _but that leaves r1c3 unaccounted for_ ... and that's what breaks it, because that cell can't be 1 or 2 because there's nowhere to put an adjacent cell, and it can't be any higher because there aren't enough places that circles can go in the fog, so that cell must be part of the same group of circles as the others and therefore must be 4. _Edit: then he gets it ... slightly tentatively!_
Took words out of my mouth. Those green cells were driving me mad! Love Simon but this video made me shout a lot at the screen...!! Part of the reason I suppose is I've watched two suduko solves everyday for a year...
The green and (sometimes black) in the bottom right corner acted as an abstract/cubist representation of Simon, in his matching green top and black chair, caught within his own sudoku
I got hung up for the longest time trying to work out where the circle for the arrow on R3C2 was going to be. I mistakenly assumed that all arrow circles were red. The rules state that not all red circles are arrows but don't explicitly state that arrow circles don't have to be red, and they all had been up until that point. It seemed (and was) impossible to put a red circle in a fog cell nearby that could repeat and was lower than 6. I did eventually give up and resolved the 45 circle in R6C5 which led to the reveal of a white circle arrow elsewhere.
18:36 a way to eliminate 7 from the given circles without as much bifurcation is to see that rows 1, 2 and 9 are fully yellow, so only 6 rows remain for possible red circles. Then, row 8 only has one cell for the 6
I feel like simon made things really hard on himself when dealing with the 45 potential circle by focusing on the one in box 5 instead of box 1. The Box 1 circle could only ever be 4, it couldn't be 1 or 2 because you couldn't put 1 or 2 within 8 cells and it couldn't be more than 4 cause there was no where for them to go.
I already commented on this elsewhere, but Simon so rarely does sudoku earlier than he has to. This was one instance where doing sudoku, to place that 3 in box 5, revealing additional red circles, probably cost him at least twenty minutes.
To rule out red circled 7's was a lot easier than you made out. The only place for red circled 6/7 in boxes 1 and 2 were in row 3. So only one of those boxes could have it and hence only 6 circles max.
19:49 One of the easiest fog of wars I've seen, but beautifully put together. I'm going to have to watch the video to see what made this take an hour because this flowed easily after one initial deduction.
I think I got a bit lucky in my path on this solve. Simon noticed a 3 had to be on r6c6 much sooner than I did, and revealed that circle on r6c5 early, and started thinking about it. Since I hadn't found it yet, I had only the r1c3 circle to think about, and that much more quickly led me to the conclusion it had to be 4 with a diagonal of three 4's. I only started chasing the 3's around sometime after that. Negative shading was definitely the strategy here. Would never have guessed that circles could make a good fog of war puzzle, but this is a great one. I had that "wait, 30 minutes has passed?!" moment halfway through. Great construction!
I have no idea if it was just blind luck or I just understood the puzzle almost immediately but I managed to solve it in 35 minutes. First time I've ever beaten CtC team by more than a minute or two.
slightly easier way of answering "is R1C3 yellow?" : by shading out the "uncircable" cells, we easily conclude that the only possible values for R1C3 are the same 4-5 as in R6C5. If both circles are different, i.e. one is 4 and other is 5, then we remove both numbers from being able to appear on 6-arrow in center box, yet we previously established that the arrow is either 2-4 or 1-5
Fog of War, always delightful. Got stumped for a little bit forgetting that that the "surrounding 8" rule didn't require another red circle, but I came around in the end. 18:23 solve time.
74:42 Great puzzle! …and not needing to proof each entry paid off. Highlighting the box border possibilities made short work of red circle candidates, and I loved the 3.
Wow, after seeing a puzzle that made me read the rules three times and going howww??? It actually was a straightforward path of eliminating numbers on red cells. So i was able to finish in 33:31 Very happy with a fun puzzle and a great time for me. Thank you Celery for the puzzle and Simon for the video (which i know ill watch ;) )
36:03 for me. Really clever puzzle! Just enough big clues to help clear a lot of fog, and then from there, you're left with looking for the little clues that crop up and need to employ some good logic in figuring out the rest from there. Had more than a few moments where I'd stare blankly where to go next and then realizing I had completely missed a clue that worked out the next steps really neatly. Not to mention for the longest time I confused a couple normal circles with red circles for the longest time and was completely baffled wondering what I was missing, ha! Very enjoyable solve.
One of the few I have done more quickly than Simon. At one key point in the solve R7C6 also had to be at least 4. So easy to make a mistake - I had to backtrack once after putting a digit in a cell instead of eliminating it. Thankfully it didn't hold me up for too long. It was a beautiful puzzle and a cool idea and a solve, once again, which showcased and explained the logic in an interesting way.
When looking at the 4/5 circle, I started from the circle in box 1, since it was the first I uncovered. It needs to be at least 4 because it's counterpart in box 2 is restricted. Looking at the possibilities, 5 was ruled out, and 4 had only one option. Unfortunately, Simon started elsewhere so he ignored this circle's restrictions. If he had, it would have sped things up dramatically.
The missed intended logic was that if there were both 4-circles and 5-circles, 4 and 5 would both be knocked off the 2-cell 6-arrow. Also, GREEEEEN. Not only had all of the information been extracted from green, but the bottom right green cells were even used to momentarily demonstrate where green couldn't go, and then they just stayed there.
The bottom right 2x2 of green was to denote where green could go in box 9, not where it couldn't go. But I agree, the green colour could have been removed. He even had 6s, which green became, corner pencil marked into just two of those four cells for a good while.
20:00 an easy way to disambiguate how many red circles there are is to ask yourself how many red circles (matching the initial ones) there are in row 3.
39:51 for me! Super exited, the first time ever that I’m faster we than Simon! Super funny and enjoyable puzzle, I Guess I had the right thougts! Coloring for the break in was vital!
The moment when I am glad to have 3 initially missed in box 5, and focusing on a revealed circle in box 1, instead of circle with an arrow in box 5! Took 31 minutes for me.
I had a slightly different tactic to rule out 8 and 9 at the beginning. Instead of looking at boxes, I was looking at columns, and saw that the red circle could not be in columns 8 or 9.
Around 1:03:00, Simon provides one of his typical moves where it's clear he's just messing with me. ;) He looks at the restriction on the arrow cell R8C9, and gets 37. So, I'm happy, and I _want_ him to look at the restriction on the other arrow cell, but he just moves away, causing me anguish. (If he'd looked, R7C8 could only be a 2.)
OMG!! I finally solved one faster than Simon. Of course, I wasn't taking time to explain my reasoning, etc. But from 'Let's get cracking' to 'solved' he takes just under an hour, and I finished in 42:50. I consider it a pretty big victory if I solve it in less time than his whole video, counting intro and rules. This is the first time I actually beat his solving time, and I crushed it. I'm pretty sure I didn't cheat -- that is, placing a digit that I hadn't actually proved but got lucky, though I can't say for sure. I believed I had proven every digit I placed, and I did not place any incorrectly. Anyway, I just wanted to crow a bit. Yay for me. Edit: Looking at his solution, my logic was the same until 32:00. After placing those 3's, I almost immediately placed the 4's in blocks 1, 2, 5, 8, and 9, being the only places left to add red circles. It fell pretty quickly after that.
At 48:00, there’s an easier way to prove that circles are not 4s and 5s. The circle in R1C3 has to repeat in R2C4. If that digit was 4 for example and the circle in R6C5 were 5, there is no valid combination of digits to go into R5,6C4. The same is true with 5 and 4, respectively.
Solved it in 54:57. :-) I was about to start watching the video, but the inspiring rule set actually tricked me into actually going to solve the puzzle, which was very rewarding to do, although it is definitely bedtime now... ;-)
Very fun puzzle! I was very surprised of how easy it was considering the video length. Usually I use about twice the time of Simon, but this one I solved in 30:16. Maybe I was just lucky that the logic in this one was very intuitive to me as I quickly got into a good flow of deductions that stayed with me during the entire solve.
My time disqualifies me because of an unwanted reveal about 10 minutes in but was proud of myself for just looking at first dots and seeing it had to be a six within the first 30 seconds. (The 3 cell arrow but knowing the positions of the dots could not allow there to be 7 dots because of the diagonal rule). Based upon the ease of the regular sudoku, which is usually my struggle, I think I would have been about 20 minutes,but did 14:41. Maybe they could adjust the app for (with fog) tou type in the big '3' to place it but need to hit the '3' again to displace fog. That way it prevents accidental placement of a correct number, (say if you meant pencil mark) as well as for those who want to test theories on if a certain digit is possible.
This one sure was a lot of fun! I was able to intuit that the visible circles had to be sixes by doing a little "what if" and "could it be." Not systematic, but it ended up working!
43:55 I believe that the crucial point is the following here: could the red circles in r1c3 and r5c6 contain different digits, i.e. the 4 and the 5? They cannot, because there is not enough space anymore in the fog for 4+5=9 red circles. Therefore, the remaining red circles must contain the same digit and it will appear that you cannot exceed the number of 4 red circles anymore, so they must all be 4. Edit: a few minutes later, he finally got there :-) Take a bow anyway, dear Simon!
24:22 for me which i amazed by. I usually struggle alot with circles but enjoy fog of war so gave it a try. I do wonder if i accidentally made some logical leaps correctly but i got the reds narrowed down to 6 by just thinking how many red cells could possibly be touching from the starting positions and only 6 boxes were!
Ah, that's where things got me. The only hangup I got was proving that the red circled 4's were 4 and not 5. But the problem was, even under the assumption (not even proving like Simon did) that the box 1 red circle matched the other visible red circles, I kept thinking there could be a red circled digit in the fog between boxes 1 and 4, completely oblivious to it conflicting with the already circled digit in box 1. I had even told myself there could be non-red circles after reading the rules, but got far too hung up on the idea that the partially visible sum line led to a red circled 5. I got everything else though, from the "can't get to 7" to the fog hidden circled 3's to deducing the other sums correctly, after having placed the circled 4's even though I couldn't logically prove them like Simon did.
Found this puzzle to be extremely easy which is not usually the case for me lol The initial break in after eliminating box 3 and 9 when you look at box 1 you either don’t use box 1 and it leaves you with 6 or if you use box 1 it rules out box 2 leaving you with 6. The funny part about your circled 4 dilemma is I didn’t get the 3 in box 5 and used the circled digit in box 1 to get the 4s straight away. The 3 clearing the fog made you fixate on the wrong circle and was frustrating watching you go nowhere with it lol
23:06 The hypothesis of R6C6 being 6 is not giving 6 sixes is wrong because R6C2 cannot be a 6 and there will be 2 sixes in box 1 and 4 and 2 sixes in box 5 and 6 and 2 in box 7 and 8 which is 6 sixes...
42:53 for me, very rare beat the video time.. the circle logic really popped out fast at me, I lost a little time near the end thinking I'd broken the puzzle when arrows appeared that couldn't possibly have enough red circles left, white circles didn't occur to me at first.
I don't think the 6 in the r4c6 red circle at 23:00 was properly earned. Simon put a 6 in r6c6 hypothetically, then said a 6 in any combination of r3c3 - r4c4 is invalid because of the 6 in r6c2. There couldn't be a 6 in r6c2 if there is a 6 in r6c6.
Wow. I've never beaten Simon's time by such a large margin. 30:55 for me. And I know exactly why, too. At minute 32 Simon made the critical mistake of doing sudoku in his sudoku puzzle! Placing that 3 in box 5 (@32:18) removed fog that revealed two more red circles. Normally, you would think that would be a good thing. In this instance, however, it just confused the issue. It took Simon 24 minutes from this point to work out they were all circled 4s. Whereas, I didn't do sudoku in my sudoku puzzle. Instead, after revealing the red circle in r1c3, I saw this had to be at least 4 and there was only one way to fit three further circled 4s in the grid. So I placed five 4s, in boxes 1,2,5,8 and 9, within a couple of minutes of revealing the red circle in box 1, even though I was placing three of them into fog! Lesson: Never do sudoku in your sudoku puzzle if you don't have to. 😂
21:52 very surprised to be 1/3 of the video length. Not sure I made all my deductions 100% logically but I think I thought through all the circle options before entering digits that turned out to be correct.
We have a proverb in Flemish that roughly translates as you were staring like a dog stared at a sick cow. I was the dog and this puzzle was the cow today.
slightly more obvious break-in as soon as cells were painted yellow - there is no red circle in boxes 3 and 9, but boxes 1 and 2 can have only one red circle among them since the only available cells for that share the same row. So boxes 3,9 and (1 or 2) cannot have red cell thus leaving only 6 eligible cells, i.e. red cell is 6.
"Or it could be... that I haven't obeyed all the circle rules..."
That realization. Chef's kiss.
This one fit my brain perfectly! 19:11 for me. I don't think I've ever been so fast in comparison to Simon, who routinely clears through puzzles that utterly defeat me. A flash in the pan, but one that I'll enjoy today. Really lovely stuff, Celery!
37:15. I’m usually at least double the video length, so just over 1/2 is unusually fast for me. Simon spent much longer figuring out the red circles, making the logic more complex than it needed to be (which is classic Simon!). I loved the puzzle. These fog-of-war puzzles are an absolute joy!
the easy way to get the first two sixes after coloring the whole grid yellow is to just count that there are only six rows that could contain the red circles
I went by boxes, after 3 and 9 got ruled out, I looked at box 1 and if it had a circled digit it ruled out box 2 leaving 6 and if it didn’t then box 1 was ruled out leaving 6 as well
You are expecting Simon to do Sudoku? In a Sudoku? Are you serious?
Kudos to Simon for trying to break his habit of avoiding sudoku in sudoku puzzles. But at this point 31:53 it led to a 20 minute delay in making progress.
It’s already possible to determine the maximum number of possible corresponding red circles for r1c3 is: r6c5, r7c6, and r8c7 totalling 4. And since 1,2, and 3 are all ruled out from r2c4, those circles must all be 4s.
But by using sudoku to place 3 at r6c6, Simon revealed 2 more of the “4 circles”.
And although r6c5 is now a more logical starting point, it creates the flawed impression it is either 4 or 5.
That’s the nature of sudoku: you can only ever solve a grid in the order you notice things and populate it.
Constantly cherish your love and enthusiasm Simon for when you solve fog puzzles. When you place a correct digit and the fog clears, the joy you get from it is wonderful! 🙂
the colouring not being removed was honestly painful to watch.. especially that green
Simon does that to my OCD. Not following through with a digit or pointing pair in the affected row, column or box can do my head in sometimes. I'm enjoying the most the puzzles I absolutely have no clue how to solve. Luckily it's most of them, so it doesn't affect my watching his solves that much after all. :D
@tamaspolyak5564 yeah im usually ok, i just get so confused when used information isnt cleared thats why i have to have conflict checker on
At 53:46 you could’ve deduced r1c3 was yellow much easier. Since all red circles need a digit surrounding it, r2c4 (diagonal to circle) must be the same digit. Now if you look at the 6 arrow going into box 5, you can see that if those were not the same digit then the arrow would be impossible to fill (both 4 and 5 will be taken away)
I noticed this straight away too, also went on to neglect r2c4 for a while later on too when thinking about colouring the 4s and 5s.
That was todays episode of "Simon does it the hard way" for sure.
Spinning his heels on this for so long is what makes me thing Simon has lost his touch and it's time to retire.
A slightly quicker way to the break-in-as early as 17:03 the non-yellow cells occupy only six rows, which rules 7 out of the starting circles...
Also the only options for boxes 1 and 2 are both in row 3.
agreed. and perhaps the even faster break in is acknowledging that if the answer isn't 6, you will never be able to come to a conclusion.
@@mfl1341 As soon as I pencil-marked the 6789s, I knew we'd be working our way down to 6s, but it's still nice to find the logic and determine it correctly. To prove the puzzle is solvable.
wow, that's even more elegant than noticing shared row 3. Nice.
- solve faster than Simon
- watch video in pompous mood
- see how many times I was lucky, because missed some possibilities
- give back to Simon the best sudoku solver Crown👑
I bow to your genius, Simon, and great video as always. But you trigger my latent OCD - I spent half the video yelling "get rid of the green, it is doing nothing but cluttering up the puzzle." But when I do a puzzle that requires coloring, I clear the colors as soon as I can.
Finished in 28:27. That was fun! Very approachable without any guessing required, but tricky enough that it felt very satisfying to finish.
Simon is teaching me new English words, today; amalgam. And not as a filling, but as a mix of old and new. Interesting.
We must be the only people who use "bobbins!" on a regular basis, especially in the 'States.
Watch his cryptic crossword videos, pretty much half the words i hear there are brand new to me...
@@zelassin I do, even most of it is gibberish to me, but since it’s Simon, I’ll enjoy watching anyhow 😊
By the way, English is not my first language. Obviously.
Amalgam just generally means a mixture or blend - of anything!
@@zelassin yeah the cryptic crosswords aren't in English. Whatever the clues and the solutions are, it's an entirely different language.
The way Simon doesn't delete the useless green shading is killing me 😭
48:25 A quick way to see the "5 in r6c5 4 in r1c3" position is impossible is if r6c5 is a 5, the arrow in box five becomes a 24 pair, ruling out the only possible position for a 4 neighboring r1c3
Actually already 46:38 "Must this (r1c3) be yellow?": It's a circle, so it has to repeat in r2c4. But c4 already has a non-yellow 4/5 in row 5 or 6, so it must be either yellow or something >6 (which was ruled out earlier).
"it's very hard to see" simon says, having created the most complicated coloring scheme to date on this channel
I think Simon sabotaged himself by deciding to keep all coloring, even of the first circles, through the entire game. As soon as I figured the location of the 6s I got rid of my red color, then as soon as I got the 3s I did the same and so forth, made it much easier to keep everything in mind.
40:59 for me, the first time I've ever solved it faster than simon! although tbf, simon generously spends half of his time explaining his logic for us :)
i just really connected with this one. the logic came to me quite quickly which isn't very common for me. Great puzzle celery! Now to watch Simon's take on this
Enjoy it, you’ll only ever get the first time beating him once. :)
you beat me too! 41:21.
Me too. I got 47:44
gg you guys, yo now on the faster than simon club
I figured out the breakin because the two starting circles were in the Phistomephel ring which meant two of those digits were locked away in a corner where they couldn't be in red circles. This got it down to a 6 or 7, but I then realized that it couldn't be in a circle in any of boxes 1, 3, or 9 at all. Putting it in a circle in Box 1 row 3 would make it repeat and clash in row 4, a circle in Box 3 Row 3 would repeat it in box 6, and Box 9 it's just isolated by default.
This was a fun one. Definitely some different thinking involved, it was nice.
^ This
Can't eliminate box 1 like that. Until the digit was put in you could have it in either box 1 or box 2. (R5c7 with r6c6, r7c3 with r8c4 and a pair in r3-4c1-2.) The important part is that at most one of box 1 or 2 could have it.
It's easier to show rows 1 and 2 can't have the reds of the givens along with box 9.
I finished in 39:38 minutes. The ruleset about red circles having to contain its duplicate in its surrounding cells is surprisingly powerful, especially when treating it as a negative constraint. I felt good on this puzzle and it agreed with me. It was quite fun putting multiple digits in at the same time to clear massive amounts of fog. As always, it fells good to beat Simon's time. Great Puzzle!
I usually do not really enjoy the fog puzzles but, this one was rather beautiful. Thank you, Celery.
I had a much more intuitive break in and middle. the red circles have to be on borders, and so have to be in rows/cols 3,4,6 or 7. that means there's a maximum of 8 red circles with the same digit. the green cell in box 7 removes one possible circle as it's in both row 7 and col 4. the green cell in box 5 has 2 choices but both are in a special row and col. this means we can have at most 6 green red circles, fixing green.
as for r1c3 (at 47:00). the only surrounding cell it can reappear in is r2c4, which is at least 4. it isn't 7 or 8, since it would need to be in a red circle in col 4 and/or row 3, so it's a 4 or 5. the arrow in col 4 contains a 4 or 5 that int yellow, so r2c4 has to be yellow.
Simon's joy at 31:38 really made my day
The closest this puzzle got to a 3 in the corner. Corner of box 2 at least.
The Werefrog wondered how The Werefrog got it so much faster (at 27:49 total solve time). Turns out, missing that 4 really set you back. Also, the box 5 circled 4 puts a 5 in column 4 box 5, so the circle in box 1 can't be the 5 anymore. That leaves only 4 for it.
Also, the circled digits can't be 7 based on what could be circled digits, so it was limited to 4 or 5.
Amazing how missing a couple hard to find things makes the solve take so much longer. This marks the 2nd Sudoku The Werefrog managed to solve faster than you. Our relative score is like 3 billion to 2 now.
I saw the video length and buckled up for a difficult puzzle. Finished in 27 minutes and thought "well. That's odd."
Think I'll have to watch Simon now and figure out what he did differently.
47:53 - Loved it - I found it flowed very well. Most enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Celery
27:51 for me. I think it clicked in my brain more easily than in Simon's. I did use a similar methodology but I removed all shading as soon as it served its purpose, and I think that helped. I also worked on the circle in r1c3 as soon as it was revealed, and that was much quicker than starting with the analysis of the circle in r5c5. Luck of the draw there. Fascinating puzzle. I loved the logic around getting that first set of digits in the circles!
This was an different take on FoW based on positions of circles solely based off circles....
Like Simon said, once i saw that the circle above the upper diagonal of 6's could be a 3 if i forced an arrow over the other potential position, I had to stick with it. Thanks for the feature. Hope it was enjoyable :)
33:33 felt like a fitting finish time. Great Puzzle, Celery!! This was not difficult at all and was incredibly fun logic to explore and apply. The trick was to see after the fog was cleared where there were NOT red circles. This eliminated the possibility of multiple red circles, and it therefore forced that 4 in box 1. The slowest part for me was the sudoku at the end. The logic here was absolutely amazing! Well designed!
I do wish the moment he realized green was 6, he deleted all the green and reused green for the next what if's..
SAME
17:30 for me. I was quite shocked when I noticed the length of the video and assumed there must have been tons of news. This did play to my strengths, which is my ability to easily visualise things. It was clear that the maximum for the initial red circles was 6, because each rules out so many other possible places. They have to cross borders, and you only have 4 to work with. As soon as you place a digit next to a border, that preclude using that border again, unless you continue the diagonal. It is possible to place up to 8, but not from the starting position.
Then getting the red 3, it was also clear that there were only two places they could be. The circle in R6C5 had to be either 4 or 5, but so did the one in R1C3, and they couldn't be different because one being 5 would prevent the other even being 3. As soon as they had to be the same, they could only be 4. After that, it was just a fairly simple arrow sudoku with a bit of fog left to be cleared. Even allowing for your inability to work out the red cells, I don't see how the sudoku could take so long.
I know you love to colour, but not removing it when it's served its purpose really hurts some of your solves. You have a hard enough time scanning without the visual noise from useless colouring. I didn't use colouring at all, which made the sudoku easier, but I can see that it helps you to visualise.
Lovely puzzle with a smooth finish. Not sure if I short-circuited some logic but I got the circles relatively quickly just by ruling out possible squares and then finished the solve in an alliterative 26:26
29:45 for me which included about 10 minutes before placing those first 6's. Frustrating as had quite quickly ruled out 8 & 9 but made a mistake ruling out 7 using the same correct logic. Wasn't till I went through it again before knowing they were 6's. Flowed nicely from there.
Yet to watch video but assume Simon missed some Sudoku to take so long. 😉
I will say I was surprised to see a fog of war puzzle weighing in at great than an hour - and what a delightful video and puzzle it is, Simon. Thanks for solving it - fascinating (and, I think, beyond me at the moment...)
Def one for my wall. 20:41. Got the break in within 90 seconds. Excellent puzzle.
From 38:00 to 53:00, one doesn't need to prove r1c3 is r6c5. One doesn't even need to analyse r6c5 at all. You just need to ask oneself, "What can r1c3 be?". One can quickly limit it to 4 or 5 from r2c4. From there, one can place a maximum of 4 red circles containing that digit, in a unique pattern, and can write 4 in all those boxes.
The green sitting there forever made me unreasonably angry 😅
Normally I approach Celery puzzles with trepidation and foreboding, but this was surprisingly tractable - it did take a couple of leaps of faith, where I was sure something had to be right but was finding it hard to articulate a definitive proof - the placement of 4s in circles was one of those moments!
When Simon is considering the possibility of 5 on the red circles, the arrangement of 5s he comes up with is entirely possible _but that leaves r1c3 unaccounted for_ ... and that's what breaks it, because that cell can't be 1 or 2 because there's nowhere to put an adjacent cell, and it can't be any higher because there aren't enough places that circles can go in the fog, so that cell must be part of the same group of circles as the others and therefore must be 4. _Edit: then he gets it ... slightly tentatively!_
I love your videos, but please delete colors when they are no longer useful. The green colors just fried my brains well after their usefulness.
And three versions of grey cells is incredibly hard to decipher. The whole middle of the solve I'm thinking "I don't even know what I'm looking at."
Took words out of my mouth. Those green cells were driving me mad! Love Simon but this video made me shout a lot at the screen...!! Part of the reason I suppose is I've watched two suduko solves everyday for a year...
Yep. I really wish I could have reached across the screen and deleted Simon's greens.
The green and (sometimes black) in the bottom right corner acted as an abstract/cubist representation of Simon, in his matching green top and black chair, caught within his own sudoku
For these things a good help could be, to be able to put out fog and in tis place just empty cells, i dom t know if i explained well
I got hung up for the longest time trying to work out where the circle for the arrow on R3C2 was going to be. I mistakenly assumed that all arrow circles were red. The rules state that not all red circles are arrows but don't explicitly state that arrow circles don't have to be red, and they all had been up until that point. It seemed (and was) impossible to put a red circle in a fog cell nearby that could repeat and was lower than 6.
I did eventually give up and resolved the 45 circle in R6C5 which led to the reveal of a white circle arrow elsewhere.
18:36 a way to eliminate 7 from the given circles without as much bifurcation is to see that rows 1, 2 and 9 are fully yellow, so only 6 rows remain for possible red circles. Then, row 8 only has one cell for the 6
I feel like simon made things really hard on himself when dealing with the 45 potential circle by focusing on the one in box 5 instead of box 1. The Box 1 circle could only ever be 4, it couldn't be 1 or 2 because you couldn't put 1 or 2 within 8 cells and it couldn't be more than 4 cause there was no where for them to go.
I already commented on this elsewhere, but Simon so rarely does sudoku earlier than he has to. This was one instance where doing sudoku, to place that 3 in box 5, revealing additional red circles, probably cost him at least twenty minutes.
I just id not try this. I thought understood everything but I don't think I could even do it after seeing it done.
Bravo!
To rule out red circled 7's was a lot easier than you made out.
The only place for red circled 6/7 in boxes 1 and 2 were in row 3.
So only one of those boxes could have it and hence only 6 circles max.
Much easier without shading. Only 15 minutes of sheer quality. Well done Celery you made Simon sweat it out.
How would you do it without shading? So, making it not a fog puzzle?
Same here. You don't need sharing because you only have to look at box boundaries for circle counting.
19:49
One of the easiest fog of wars I've seen, but beautifully put together. I'm going to have to watch the video to see what made this take an hour because this flowed easily after one initial deduction.
I think I got a bit lucky in my path on this solve. Simon noticed a 3 had to be on r6c6 much sooner than I did, and revealed that circle on r6c5 early, and started thinking about it. Since I hadn't found it yet, I had only the r1c3 circle to think about, and that much more quickly led me to the conclusion it had to be 4 with a diagonal of three 4's. I only started chasing the 3's around sometime after that. Negative shading was definitely the strategy here. Would never have guessed that circles could make a good fog of war puzzle, but this is a great one. I had that "wait, 30 minutes has passed?!" moment halfway through. Great construction!
I have no idea if it was just blind luck or I just understood the puzzle almost immediately but I managed to solve it in 35 minutes. First time I've ever beaten CtC team by more than a minute or two.
slightly easier way of answering "is R1C3 yellow?" : by shading out the "uncircable" cells, we easily conclude that the only possible values for R1C3 are the same 4-5 as in R6C5. If both circles are different, i.e. one is 4 and other is 5, then we remove both numbers from being able to appear on 6-arrow in center box, yet we previously established that the arrow is either 2-4 or 1-5
Fog of War, always delightful. Got stumped for a little bit forgetting that that the "surrounding 8" rule didn't require another red circle, but I came around in the end. 18:23 solve time.
74:42 Great puzzle! …and not needing to proof each entry paid off. Highlighting the box border possibilities made short work of red circle candidates, and I loved the 3.
Got this one in 25 minutes. This one just really clicked I guess. Time to see why this is an hour long. Loved the puzzle.
Where Simon colours the entire grid so far, i used the crossing off border option in the penn tool to eliminate quadrants from having red circles.
Wow, after seeing a puzzle that made me read the rules three times and going howww???
It actually was a straightforward path of eliminating numbers on red cells. So i was able to finish in 33:31
Very happy with a fun puzzle and a great time for me.
Thank you Celery for the puzzle and Simon for the video (which i know ill watch ;) )
102 minutes (and you helped me with a couple of deductions). Thanks again for an enjoyable video and puzzle.
36:03 for me. Really clever puzzle! Just enough big clues to help clear a lot of fog, and then from there, you're left with looking for the little clues that crop up and need to employ some good logic in figuring out the rest from there. Had more than a few moments where I'd stare blankly where to go next and then realizing I had completely missed a clue that worked out the next steps really neatly. Not to mention for the longest time I confused a couple normal circles with red circles for the longest time and was completely baffled wondering what I was missing, ha! Very enjoyable solve.
I was staring at that poor resolved 4 in box 2 for way too long, but I think that was part of what made this solve entertaining :)
64:06 great time for me! What a fun puzzle! Thanks Simon for helping me find the break in!
One of the few I have done more quickly than Simon. At one key point in the solve R7C6 also had to be at least 4. So easy to make a mistake - I had to backtrack once after putting a digit in a cell instead of eliminating it. Thankfully it didn't hold me up for too long. It was a beautiful puzzle and a cool idea and a solve, once again, which showcased and explained the logic in an interesting way.
When looking at the 4/5 circle, I started from the circle in box 1, since it was the first I uncovered. It needs to be at least 4 because it's counterpart in box 2 is restricted. Looking at the possibilities, 5 was ruled out, and 4 had only one option.
Unfortunately, Simon started elsewhere so he ignored this circle's restrictions. If he had, it would have sped things up dramatically.
Unusually fast for me at 38 minutes. My favorite moment was putting in four 4's simultaneously. Very satisfying.
You missed out. You could have put five 4s in simultaneously (four in red circles, plus one in box 2). 🙂
The missed intended logic was that if there were both 4-circles and 5-circles, 4 and 5 would both be knocked off the 2-cell 6-arrow.
Also, GREEEEEN. Not only had all of the information been extracted from green, but the bottom right green cells were even used to momentarily demonstrate where green couldn't go, and then they just stayed there.
The bottom right 2x2 of green was to denote where green could go in box 9, not where it couldn't go. But I agree, the green colour could have been removed. He even had 6s, which green became, corner pencil marked into just two of those four cells for a good while.
Why do you keep green color so long? For me this makes coloring more complicated, while using black yellow pink and blue later
20:00 an easy way to disambiguate how many red circles there are is to ask yourself how many red circles (matching the initial ones) there are in row 3.
39:51 for me! Super exited, the first time ever that I’m faster we than Simon!
Super funny and enjoyable puzzle, I Guess I had the right thougts!
Coloring for the break in was vital!
The moment when I am glad to have 3 initially missed in box 5, and focusing on a revealed circle in box 1, instead of circle with an arrow in box 5! Took 31 minutes for me.
Ditto.
Simon, for once, did sudoku early in his sudoku puzzle, and it cost him dearly. 🙂
I had a slightly different tactic to rule out 8 and 9 at the beginning. Instead of looking at boxes, I was looking at columns, and saw that the red circle could not be in columns 8 or 9.
Around 1:03:00, Simon provides one of his typical moves where it's clear he's just messing with me. ;) He looks at the restriction on the arrow cell R8C9, and gets 37. So, I'm happy, and I _want_ him to look at the restriction on the other arrow cell, but he just moves away, causing me anguish. (If he'd looked, R7C8 could only be a 2.)
OMG!! I finally solved one faster than Simon. Of course, I wasn't taking time to explain my reasoning, etc. But from 'Let's get cracking' to 'solved' he takes just under an hour, and I finished in 42:50. I consider it a pretty big victory if I solve it in less time than his whole video, counting intro and rules. This is the first time I actually beat his solving time, and I crushed it.
I'm pretty sure I didn't cheat -- that is, placing a digit that I hadn't actually proved but got lucky, though I can't say for sure. I believed I had proven every digit I placed, and I did not place any incorrectly.
Anyway, I just wanted to crow a bit. Yay for me.
Edit: Looking at his solution, my logic was the same until 32:00. After placing those 3's, I almost immediately placed the 4's in blocks 1, 2, 5, 8, and 9, being the only places left to add red circles. It fell pretty quickly after that.
Simon did a wonderful job of solving this one!
He most certainly did!! 💙💚💛
@@davidrattner9 ❤️❤️
At 48:00, there’s an easier way to prove that circles are not 4s and 5s. The circle in R1C3 has to repeat in R2C4. If that digit was 4 for example and the circle in R6C5 were 5, there is no valid combination of digits to go into R5,6C4. The same is true with 5 and 4, respectively.
Solved it in 54:57. :-) I was about to start watching the video, but the inspiring rule set actually tricked me into actually going to solve the puzzle, which was very rewarding to do, although it is definitely bedtime now... ;-)
Very nice new solution type. It was such a journey.
Very fun puzzle! I was very surprised of how easy it was considering the video length. Usually I use about twice the time of Simon, but this one I solved in 30:16. Maybe I was just lucky that the logic in this one was very intuitive to me as I quickly got into a good flow of deductions that stayed with me during the entire solve.
60:54 for me, not especially quick but didn't need any hints from the video, quite pleased with how I compared to Simon's time!
Amazing puzzle! Seemed a bit intimidating at the first glance, but once you get the idea, it flows really well, 22:00 for me as a result.
My time disqualifies me because of an unwanted reveal about 10 minutes in but was proud of myself for just looking at first dots and seeing it had to be a six within the first 30 seconds. (The 3 cell arrow but knowing the positions of the dots could not allow there to be 7 dots because of the diagonal rule). Based upon the ease of the regular sudoku, which is usually my struggle, I think I would have been about 20 minutes,but did 14:41.
Maybe they could adjust the app for (with fog) tou type in the big '3' to place it but need to hit the '3' again to displace fog. That way it prevents accidental placement of a correct number, (say if you meant pencil mark) as well as for those who want to test theories on if a certain digit is possible.
39:46 for me. Interesting fog of war puzzle!
What a beautiful puzzle. I'm proud I could solve it in 32:37 - of course without guessing! Now I'm curious to see how Simon had solved the puzzle.
This one sure was a lot of fun! I was able to intuit that the visible circles had to be sixes by doing a little "what if" and "could it be." Not systematic, but it ended up working!
43:55 I believe that the crucial point is the following here: could the red circles in r1c3 and r5c6 contain different digits, i.e. the 4 and the 5? They cannot, because there is not enough space anymore in the fog for 4+5=9 red circles. Therefore, the remaining red circles must contain the same digit and it will appear that you cannot exceed the number of 4 red circles anymore, so they must all be 4.
Edit: a few minutes later, he finally got there :-) Take a bow anyway, dear Simon!
24:22 for me which i amazed by. I usually struggle alot with circles but enjoy fog of war so gave it a try. I do wonder if i accidentally made some logical leaps correctly but i got the reds narrowed down to 6 by just thinking how many red cells could possibly be touching from the starting positions and only 6 boxes were!
Ah, that's where things got me. The only hangup I got was proving that the red circled 4's were 4 and not 5. But the problem was, even under the assumption (not even proving like Simon did) that the box 1 red circle matched the other visible red circles, I kept thinking there could be a red circled digit in the fog between boxes 1 and 4, completely oblivious to it conflicting with the already circled digit in box 1. I had even told myself there could be non-red circles after reading the rules, but got far too hung up on the idea that the partially visible sum line led to a red circled 5.
I got everything else though, from the "can't get to 7" to the fog hidden circled 3's to deducing the other sums correctly, after having placed the circled 4's even though I couldn't logically prove them like Simon did.
I almost never attempt a puzzle if the video is longer than about 40mins, but fog of war is too tempting, so I am stoked with my 45 minute time.
Found this puzzle to be extremely easy which is not usually the case for me lol
The initial break in after eliminating box 3 and 9 when you look at box 1 you either don’t use box 1 and it leaves you with 6 or if you use box 1 it rules out box 2 leaving you with 6.
The funny part about your circled 4 dilemma is I didn’t get the 3 in box 5 and used the circled digit in box 1 to get the 4s straight away. The 3 clearing the fog made you fixate on the wrong circle and was frustrating watching you go nowhere with it lol
46:02. Really really enjoyable. I expected it to be more difficult, based on the video length. Not complaining though.
33:03 with bathroom and tea making breaks. Love the fogs!
23:06 The hypothesis of R6C6 being 6 is not giving 6 sixes is wrong because R6C2 cannot be a 6 and there will be 2 sixes in box 1 and 4 and 2 sixes in box 5 and 6 and 2 in box 7 and 8 which is 6 sixes...
42:53 for me, very rare beat the video time.. the circle logic really popped out fast at me, I lost a little time near the end thinking I'd broken the puzzle when arrows appeared that couldn't possibly have enough red circles left, white circles didn't occur to me at first.
An ingenious utilization of the fog constraint mixed with a position based ruleset! (Cheers from 99%Sneaky)
26:04 - happy with how quickly I managed it!
I don't think the 6 in the r4c6 red circle at 23:00 was properly earned. Simon put a 6 in r6c6 hypothetically, then said a 6 in any combination of r3c3 - r4c4 is invalid because of the 6 in r6c2. There couldn't be a 6 in r6c2 if there is a 6 in r6c6.
Watching the video right now and scrolled down to the comments to see what is being said about this. At least somebody noticed.
Wow. I've never beaten Simon's time by such a large margin. 30:55 for me. And I know exactly why, too. At minute 32 Simon made the critical mistake of doing sudoku in his sudoku puzzle!
Placing that 3 in box 5 (@32:18) removed fog that revealed two more red circles. Normally, you would think that would be a good thing. In this instance, however, it just confused the issue. It took Simon 24 minutes from this point to work out they were all circled 4s.
Whereas, I didn't do sudoku in my sudoku puzzle. Instead, after revealing the red circle in r1c3, I saw this had to be at least 4 and there was only one way to fit three further circled 4s in the grid. So I placed five 4s, in boxes 1,2,5,8 and 9, within a couple of minutes of revealing the red circle in box 1, even though I was placing three of them into fog!
Lesson: Never do sudoku in your sudoku puzzle if you don't have to. 😂
21:52 very surprised to be 1/3 of the video length. Not sure I made all my deductions 100% logically but I think I thought through all the circle options before entering digits that turned out to be correct.
(For the 67 starting circle) Doesn’t box 2 red circle cancel the possibility for the box 1 red circles? Which cancels for box 4? Forcing 6.
Finished in 27:06. Interesting break-in which eventually leads to a fairly normal sudoku.
31:22! Did I actually get it faster than Simon? This is a big deal for me
We have a proverb in Flemish that roughly translates as you were staring like a dog stared at a sick cow. I was the dog and this puzzle was the cow today.
I really like fog puzzles. This one was super interesting! 🐯
This was fun and surprisingly approachable, solved it in 35:50.
slightly more obvious break-in as soon as cells were painted yellow - there is no red circle in boxes 3 and 9, but boxes 1 and 2 can have only one red circle among them since the only available cells for that share the same row. So boxes 3,9 and (1 or 2) cannot have red cell thus leaving only 6 eligible cells, i.e. red cell is 6.
thanks for the video, one of the best fog of war i tried :)
30:29 for me