[EXTREME] The Hardest Sudoku Variant We've Ever Seen
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- čas přidán 5. 12. 2019
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Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships. We're also "cryptic crossword" aficionados. Mark is the eleven-time winner of The Times championship and Simon is the former record holder for most consecutive correct solutions to The Listener crossword. We hope we can help your puzzle solving while also introducing you to some of the world's best puzzles.
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Simon and Mark
"you might be seeing this much more quickly than i am"
me: pretty colored squares hehe
me: still reading the text box because I have no idea what it means
@@mrmckenzie0 Yeah the directions were a little confusing
I’m just here for the commentary
lol ikr???
exactly the comment i was looking for, he really believes in us hahahaha
[doing black magic] "this is so embarrassing"
I'm spending the first ten minutes just trying to comprehend the rules.
it took me 14 I feel you
First.. Uhh. Number. Grid... Height... Hidden from taller.. Numbers outside ?????.
I finally figured it out it’s just the first number you can’t see so if it’s 6 it can be 1234576 or 96 or 57896 etc
@@2GoodMath Thanks, I was thinking position instead of number
@@2adamast I was thinking the same at the beginning.
“I hope no one think I am a dullard”
“This is so embarrassing”
Me: not even sure how he got the first number and I watched him do it
totally with you on that one. I can't even figure out the rules to this one. way beyond me.
Yep, I'm in the same boat. This is ridiculous.
@@kimlightfoot It took me more than half the video before I finally figured it out, and I started being able to place some numbers before he was.
After I finally "got" it, it made a ton of sense to me. I'm not sure how to word how I thought it worked, but I didn't really understand that each individual number was one building, and I was kind of thinking that the numbers below it/around it had to be in some ascending or descending order, and I didn't get it at all.
Basically, the numbers on the outside are the first building that you CAN'T see while looking from that direction. As long as there is a lower number in front of a higher number, you can still "see" the taller building - and you use that to figure out where the first building you can't see must go.
yeah I don't usually even try the puzzles that take Simon over 20 minutes, the ones that take him 20 minutes take me 2-4 hours. although since finding this channel my sudoku skills have definitely improved. If Simon is a dullard I'm an amoeba.
him: sorry you may be seeing this much more quickly than i am
me: still confused on how the rules work
me too
I got my head around the rules after smashing my head into my desk for like 5 minutes, But I'll hurt you if you ask me to apply them
bro i was just sitting there screaming for him to remove the pencil marks
Yeah, that's why I only play Sudoku in 240MHz 😤
Guy in video: "It's just axiomatic"
Me: *frantically trying to look up the word axiomatic*
What's axiom?
Me: frantically looking up the word frantically
Axiomatic weapons deal more damage against chaotically-aligned mosnters.
Axioms speak louder than....🤣🤣
Hydromatic
its like superman apologizing for taking too long to save the world 'i didnt save anything for the first 10 minutes, sorry lois'
*bois
“You must be seeing this much more quickly than I am....”
Maaaan I don’t even know how to do sudoku. I just like your voice and it helps me sleep (I hope that doesn’t sound insulting, hearing someone’s brain work hard, with good commentary like this is cathartic)
bruhhh i watch this before i go to bed and it helps me sleep lol, i love easy sudoku but i wouldnt dare try this complicated sudoku
I'm the same way. I put on chess videos by chessnetwork all the time to go to sleep, mostly because his voice is cathartic for me. I also happen to love chess and sudoku, though
I also watch these videos to fall asleep, they're the perfect level of interesting! I am interested when I start the video especially when the rules of the sudoku are being explained, but with the calm voice discussing the logic of the puzzle (and as the logic starts to go over my head) I float off to sleep.. then in the morning I usually watch the end of the video to see the last few comments on the puzzle!
I too hope this doesn't come across in an insulting way! I also sometimes watch the videos when not falling asleep too :P
I watch videos of Baumgartners painting restorations before going to sleep for the same reason.
Or good old Bob Ross.
With something like this I just like to keep my focus on how I cannot for the life of me understand how this magic works. Lol
I once saw a movie once.
*Me 99% of the time:* completely clueless
*Me the other 1% of time:* Sees something and ponders of how genius i am
There was a tiny mistake in logic at 24:35. There was no symmetry. You were able to place 5's at row 6 column 2 and row 8 column 3, so row 7 column 2 was not the only option. But row 6 column 2 was occupied by 2, because 2 could be only placed to the left from 1 in row 6, and because of 2's in first two rows the only place left was row 6 column 2. That's why 5 at row 8 column 2 was the right choice. Hope I don't sound rude) I'm really enjoying the video)
I saw this as well with the 2 logic, but nonetheless it is still to hard for me to solve by myself
Another way to get that 5 is by looking at the 3 pair in box 7. Both of them force a 5 in r8c2
@@floyo at first I didn't see what you meant, then I did, beautifully simple. By placing 5 in R8C3 we force 3 into R7C2 where it would be the first hidden digit as 1 and 2 in box 7 are already placed. Good catch!
The logic for the second 5 at 24:40 is flawed, isn't it?
The five could still bei in r6c2.
I thought the same, guess he got lucky
He could've put the 2 in that box already. That's is the only allowed place for the 2, when looking at the clue on the left of r6. In fact, he could've done all 2s with that clue. And then the logic for the 5 is correct. But now... yeah, the logic as he applied it, was flawed.
I think I know how to prove that 5. In column 2, the 5 must be in R6-8C2. If it's in R7-8C2, the same logic works as before. But, if you have a 5 in R6C2 instead, you must have a 5 in R8C3 (because in row 8, 5 must be in R8C2-3), which puts a 3 to R7C2, which breaks column 2.
r4c2 cannot be a 2 because of the 6-clue to its left and the 1 already in the box. That makes r6c2 a 2 and then you can use the same logic that he used for the first 5.
As he stated in the vid, yes, flawed. I was looking instead at 3's: if 3 is in c2r7 it will force 5 onto c2r8 (by c2 5clue), while if in c3r8 it will force 5 onto same spot (by r8 5clue). By the logic of 28:15 (somewhat, he didn't fully explain).
"This is so embarrassing"
I literally cant even get one and this guy fills the whole sudoku
You are an incredibly intelligent man good sir
This one was amazing. The break-in was gorgeous, and then it only took a couple more leaps to collapse the whole thing, but they were incredibly hard leaps to find. The end was incredibly satisfying, watching everything fall into place once I had the right set of conclusions. I'm genuinely in awe of people like Laura who can create puzzles this beautiful with such simple twists to the rules.
12tone Didn’t expect to see you here! I’m a fan!
No it wasn't... It was 'asudokuing'😄
" You might be seeing this much more quickly than I am "
This man has more faith in me than I have in myself
It's interesting to see how he's so focused on one part that he fails to see he's tripping himself in another part of the puzzle.
Yes!!! The 2's could be solved by the right-hand side 4 clue: if the two was on that row, it must have a 1 to it's right, so the first skyscraper hidden could be a 4 (but there was no 1's left). Therefore, the two couldn't be there and that solves for 2.
It makes me happy that I’m not the only one this happens to! lol
@@leandro8897 Or just with the 2 clues
Yes. When he was working on box 9 column 8, he said "this square could be a 6, 8, 9" and I yelled "what are you doing Simon?" He could have gotten 2 digits for free immediately after if he had just realized that square could not have been a 6 because it came after the 7. I think this just made the puzzle much harder for him,
Classes: normal sudoku
Exams: this
My niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightmare!
There is actually a good reasoning for this. A common method of testing is to produce the Bell curve - and you technically produce the best Bell curve when its vertex is in the middle of the graph, so that the average testee gets half of the test correct. When teaching, you want to make sure that your students ascend the difficulty levels seamlessly, so the difficulty must be adjusted and at a level they are all expected to cross with each lecture. You cannot have half your students understand less than half the lecture, can you? But you can have them half fail the test and then just adjust the marking so that half-way point simply gets a C.
@@Richard_is_cool I don't like that approach as it then shows how the student did relatively to his peers and not the taught material. It also lead to "everyone is a winner" as, if done correctly, variation will diminish and everyone would gravitate around C.
Now, if one design a fixed scale by providing questions that a straight rehearsing (as seen in curriculum), questions that requires to mix and match (as seen on multiple parts of the curriculum), questions that requires to adapt the material (novel situations) and question that require to incorporate new material to be derived from what was taught (extension, general cases and "tricks").
With that system, students will magically fall on a bell curve! The difference is that the grading is absolute and not relative to peers.
Which means that if for some reason everyone but a student does badly, the grading of the sole student will not magically increase.
That also means that very few student will score above B and that's fine. A, A++ and S should be exceptional. So, it's normal you would seldom give those grades.
Likewise, hitting a F would be quite hard too unless you decided to not even listen during the lesson.
The hardest part is explaining to parents that B or even C+ is a GOOD grade.
I spent 20 minutes trying to understand how to make restrictions on this puzzle and got nowhere. After watching your break in with the 1's, I paused the video to give it another go with another viewpoint on how to go about the puzzle and managed to finish it in 1:05:57 total. This was mind bending, certainly well beyond my capabilities as a solver if it weren't for your help at the start. Brilliant logic by you to figure it out, very well done.
how did you figure out the 3s? his logic there dosent add up and im stuck idk how to continue.
@@MazerTime Haven't watched the full video yet, just finished solving. What I did with the threes was to reason similar to the 1s and 2s that for each of those 4-4 and 5-5 columns and rows, the 3 must be placed just "inside" either the 1 or the 2. That yielded another double x-wing pattern (r3c2, r2c3 and symmetrically around) in the corner boxes. Now you can fill in the center cell of each of those corner boxes. No matter which 3 is which, the center cell of box 1 must be a 6 and of boxes 3 and 7, a 5. In box 9, it seems that either 4 or 7 will do. But you can immediately rule out the 4 based on the clue below column 8. So the center cell of box 9 is a 7.
Now you can look at the 3s in box 9. You can't put the 3 in r7c8 due to, again, the clue below column 8. So the three there is in r8c7. That fixes the rest. Hope that helps. The logic used to restrict the 1s, 2s and 3s is still a little shaky for me, part of it being the one thing I had to claw off of Simon.
@@BlueCyann thank you!
@Pyromonkey83 Wow, that's still really impressive! It took me 4 hours and 52 minutes though I didn't get the help at the beginning; it's insane watching him find all the patterns so fast
Same for me, it took me 2 hours (1h and fifty something minutes) from the break with the 1's
I just want to know how someone goes about making a puzzle like this. Because this puzzle is abslutely beautiful in its symmentry. I felt like every time he got to a new step, it was drawing a new shape around the grid. Very cool.
Edit: woops, made this comment before getting to the end. He said basically the same thing near the end of the video
at about 12 minutes in my brains suddenly just clicked to the logic and I just saw sooooo many numbers the whole video. i was internally screaming the whole time. couldn't get a thing then suddenly my brain just clicked and it became like almost easier than normal sodoku.
Tobias McRae that happened to me around the 30 minute mark and I was just like, I couldn’t have started this but these rules make it really easy after you already have some numbers
I had this in a couple videos before but in this game I keep thinking "WHY HOW DO YOU KNOW EXPLAIN THE SORCERY!" sorry for the screaming
Same, but only on some numbers. I screamed for almost 10 minutes because he missed the 3 on the very center of the top line, which hold him back quite a bit. But then: I couldn't even follow his logic in real time for some of the other numbers he cracked while I was screaming, so ...
@@brag0001 the struggle 😔
Same, it was killing me because I was placing numbers with skyscraper logic and it would kill me because he wouldn't place them without eliminating all other positions
Me : rewinds to follow the logic
Me : rewinds again to follow the logic
Me : rewinds a third time to follow the logic
Every. Single. Video. Haha, not really, but this puzzle in particular was seriously mind boggling.
I surprised myself and I understood it the first time but I couldn’t solve it what so ever 😂😂
At 20 minutes I was screaming: finish the 2s logic in the left middle box!
He was absolutely right when he said that he felt he was missing something because he wasn't using the outside clues enough and should look at them. He was missing many things for exactly that reason at that point, but so flummoxed by the puzzle, he failed to look closely.
Yeah i saw that as well
it was there for so long!
The 2-clue in row six is very powerful for placing 2 in boxes 4, 5 and 6, since it can't be behind the 1 because it's not the first number in the row.
@@ragnkja Aditionally it can't be the second number, when a 1 has already been placed in it's row, and 2 is not the first hidden number from that direction. (As the lowest remaining number would be 3 which would make 2 the first hidden number which goes against the clue)
26:40 bit of faulty logic here; you base your decision on the column having to read, from the top, 1,3,4. But that would fail to cause the 4 to be the first hidden skyscraper, as it's visible over the 3.
That bothered me too
it was infuriating!
the most extreme part of this was the amount of internal screaming I had to endure watching you repeatedly highlight a solved square without realising you've solved it
At first, I thought that it was positional, like, for example, with 7, the first hidden skyscraper would be 7 squares away from that edge. Needless to say, I had a very slow start
Samantha Jensen thought i was the only one
Yes me too! Searching the comments to get it right x)
thats what i thought too! XD
Same here!! I felt so dumb when I finally understood. This man is definitely something else
Dude....honestly it puzzled my mind for the entire video... Why? That number is not hidden by that number and so on... until I read you comment. It makes sense now. Thanks. :)
After 10 minutes looking at the puzzle I tought "no way I'll be able to solve this", I usually skip the very hard ones. But then I decided to give it a try, just because its "the hardest sudoku ever".
And hard it was, took me 30 minutes to start making progress, and after 2 hours I was half done, pretty decent.
Then at around 2:30 hours I accidentaly closed the browser, and when I re opened it, all my progress was gone.
I didn't know what to do, so I skipped to near the end of the video and copied some of the squares I tought I remembered, and solved it from there, but I'm not 100% sure I didn't "cheat".
Still, beautiful puzzle, 10/10
NO OMG
I say that’s fair well done 👍🏼
The logic for the 4s’ column at 27:21 is missing the fact that if you put the 3 there you can still see the 4 looking from top to bottom. Nice to know getting lucky is part of even the expert’s strategy.
I struggled with this a bit, too. I believe the right logic would be up place the hypothetical 3 in r2c7 as Simon did, then mark the subsequent fields in that column with 5 and 6 and then realize that 5s are not possible there by Sudoku.
This is an insane puzzle though. I wouldn't dare solve it on my own. Just following Simon is hard enough for me.
The first half I was the most confused I've ever been, honestly feel like I never would have got the 1's, but after he got the 2's in the rest totally clicked for me and it was so frustrating to watch the struggle when I actually knew what to do. I'm usually miles behind or just barely keeping up when I watch these videos, what a weird feeling.
I've watched so many of these videos and only rarely have the "C'mon it's right there and you've just missed it." But this video was that times a thousand. I can really tell the pressure was on- amazing work. This variant really clicked with me and I spent the whole video going "Look across the board! Use the opposite sides to your advantage!" What a cool puzzle. Would love to try and make one of these! Amazing stuff as always.
I wonder if it's possible to take a random solved sudoku figure the skyscraper numbers out ,copy those numbers to an empty puzzle and then solve it...I'm too lazy to try but you sound kinda smart enough to answer the question without trying...
You can't, in fact it's quite hard to get to a valid "clueless" sudoku with this restriction... I managed to make one like that (it's in this channel, on a video called "Brain Training Sudoku") which was a nice solve, but it didn't have as great of a solving path as this one. The one here is truly one of a kind.
The logic at 26:00-27:00 is wrong. You say if c7 goes 134 you can't place the 5, but it can't go 134 as then the 4 isn't hidden.
I agree that that short statement doesn't rule out much, but have you tried populating C7 any other way?
he even explains it twice, there is is a 3 pair in the NE box, if the 3 was in r8c7 then you'd need 5,6,7,8 and 9 in column 7 going up from the 2. but that's not possible because of the 5 already placed in row 2
He states that the 3 cant be there because that will make the 5 be either crashing in box 3 or row 8... and it will as you say force the 4 to not be hidden. So the logic is right
@@liiiinder Yeah you're right. I thought he was using the position of the 4 to prove the 3, but the position of the 4 was wrong.
But actually he was saying with a 3 in r2c7 it's not possible to place a 5, as both r3c7 and r8c7 can't have 5s, and the 5 has to be in one of the two so that the 4 is the first hidden from both sides.
Yeah at that point 136... Which is the next best option in C7 would seem to be fine it still forces the 5 into the c7r8 so even though he gets the 4 not hidden when explaining it the logic bares out regardless
other people playing sudoku: this is either a 5 or an 8
me playing sudoku: *puts a 1* *selects every single square in its row column box* these have just GOT to be either 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7,8 or 9
edit: thx for likes ppl
Well, that's not wrong.
"You must be seeing these much more quickly than I am " , bro I am here to feel smart and be serenaded by your voice , I don't even know how a normal sudoku works
I think you got a bit lucky with the 5s. You can't quite use the same logic in box 3 and 7, even though the symmetry is actually correct. Instead, you can place a 2 below the 1 (therefore in row 6) in column 2, because that's the only place before the 1 in row 6 a 2 can go. After that, it's possible to use the same logic as in box 3 to lock the 5 in the centre of box 7
Without the 2s it would be possible for the 5 to go in r6c2 and r8c3 without breaking any of the clues on the outside (at least not without chaining a bit, I guess)
He could still rule out the 5 being placed in the 2 marked cell, because doing so would make the 2 clue impossible. Or, rather, he could easily deduce that the 2 marked cell had to be a 2, because the other two possible locations for the 2 were to the far side of a 1, which would necessarily make the 1 the first hidden number, not the 2 as required.
I spotted that as soon as he said it. Man it's a lot easier to see the mistakes than it is to see how to actually do the puzzle. This is the first one in a long time that I didn't even attempt before watching the video.
Just because he didn’t explain his reasoning right didn’t mean he didn’t know. I don’t think he was guessing based on it being the same, but rather said that because he figured out that part of the pattern and just didn’t think exactly on how he got the answer
The Logic for the numbers in the centre cells of the corner boxes depends on the 3s, actually: because in the third/seventh row/column, there are equal numbers opposed (5s in the rows, 4s in the columns) you get possible 3s in all 4 corner boxes. Now, in all corner boxes the 1 and 2 are already set, so in the 2nd/8th row/column the 3 would be the smallest number. Thus, in the corner boxes with the 5/5 and 6/6 clues, this means that the f (or 6) can not be on the other side of the possible 3, since then the 3 would be the first hidden skyscraper, not the 5 (or 6). So the 5 (or 6) must go in the middle cell. Now to get the actual placement of the 3's you need the unsymetric corner box with the 4/7 clue: the 4 can not be in the centre, because from the 7 (the 8th row) the 4 would be the first hidden skyscraper. So the 7 must go in the middle. This also fixes the 3s, because the if the 3 goes on top of the 7, it would be the first hidden skyscraper instead of the 4 in the 8th column.
So yeah, I think he got a bit lucky there.
He's amazingly brave, as well as talented, to solve a puzzle this difficult 'live', because he knows that there'll be a lot of people commenting on how he could have placed this or that number more quickly or got 'lucky' with a particular number.
I gave this a try and messed it up in an actually pretty crazy way. I got down to the very end until only 89 pairs remained, but none of them had any way of resolving each other. I tried to see if one way or the other would mess things up, but each worked. I knew that I had to have done something wrong, and it took painstakingly picking through the number orders, row by row, column by column, and everything was exactly right. Except for a 6 and a 7 next to each other in the bottom left corner. The 7 blocked the 6 before the first number that was supposed to be blocked. I honestly find it incredible how I managed to get so close, yet so far.
As a one off, this was really remarkable. Firstly, the construction of the puzzle itself, but also Simon getting the break in as quickly as he did. That would have left many of the world's elite thoroughly stumped I'm pretty sure. The rest of the solve was a bit disjointed, and I'm not sure I'd want to solve any more of this type as I don't think it's possible to vary this all that much (at least, not without any givens inside the grid) and still have a uniquely solvable puzzle. Still, I'm glad to have seen this video in case anything like this ever comes up in competition in the future...
I agree that especially the start looks like a one trick pony and the possibilities for other Break-ins seem to be limited. However the execution of the idea is flawless and I admire that. I have seen to many good ideas wasted in mediocre puzzles (and I probably have my share on that).
it took me just over 5 hours to solve this puzzle. I had to start over three times, but in the end I came out victorious. Truly a work of art.
50 minutes, including 15 minutes looking for a start. Solved on paper though. Holy cow, what an amazing construction! I’m really impressed.
I'm pretty sure the chain of logic at 27:00 is incorrect, and you just lucked out. The counterfactual you proposed had a flawed premise, so disproving it didn't actually prove the opposite. You just got lucky with that.
Yeah, column 7 could have been:
1
3
6_
4
9
8_
7
5
2
yes!! I was hoping someone else would notice that
No actually (well he was wrong but it didn't matter). The 5 in row 7 must be in columns 2 or 3 and so cannot be in column 7 - which is what he was trying to prove.
@@fangfabio pretty sure he had a 5 in row 8 so that wouldn't worked, thus proving his point. I think it is valid but his brain was working faster than his ability to verbalize it.
I must say, the sheer number of Sudoku variants are astonishing and the brilliance of starting this one with an *empty* grid is super satisfying!
22:28 Thanks for the shout-out ;)
On the solving tool, we could do with > and < signs!
I’d like to be in the room with the person who set the puzzle watching while he works his way through this maze. This level of expertise on both parts is a delight to see. Granted, well above my capacity.
It's actually how she works, it's a women who set it (Laura Soler, as said in the video). But I agree, must be interesting to watch!
carbone713 Maybe they meant as simon goes through it, so they could see the setter’s reaction?
I went along with your logic at first, but then started looking for myself after the 2s. I think you're incredibly intelligent so I was quite proud that I got quite a few clues before you did. Of course, you got others first. But I like to think this is a collaborative effort :D I feel like I'm doing puzzles with a friend!
Oh, this one was incredibly interesting! Once the skyscraper numbers clicked it all just seemed so elegant! And it was really interesting how I'd see certain numbers clearly while you went on to deal with others that I couldn't see at all, only to not find the ones I saw until nearly the end of it. This channel is definitely worth a sub, absolutely adore it!
Absolutely loved this puzzle! The mix of logic required to solve this made it quite an exciting one.
50:33 was my solve time. Absolutely beautiful puzzle. Need to think really hard on those constraints but you get there. A tripple also helped me get there.
I don’t believe I could have ever solved this puzzle on my own. However once he got the ones done for the first time ever I was seeing numbers and logic all over the place that he wasn’t. Really interesting and funnily frustrating at the same time. I love their videos watch every day and I may see something here or there in a video before them. But for some reason this entire video that was happening for me. Good video
I love watching you solve puzzles, simon. Your enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.
By far the most laid back I've been while watching solve a puzzle :-).
43:38
Phew. I've been eyeing that thing and it chews at the back of my mind seeing it unresolved.
Took me a long while to even understand the rules and get the hang of them. This puzzle is no cakewalk.
I love it when Simon says, "You may be seeing it much more quickly than I am," when I haven't seen a single thing so far.
Thank you Simon for taking the embarrassing moments and using them to help us through this puzzle. I'm excited I got to watch this video. Always love the content
1:05:58. Holy cow that was exhilarating. I've never been so happy just to solve a puzzle.
Translation of the rules to useful hints:
The smallest number is either between the two opposing numbers or on the outermost. Just need this one logic to solve (plus sudoku logic, ofc.)
Reversely, if not outermost, has to be in betweeen.
Work your way up from smallest numbers up to the given clues.
Most useful clues are the repeating (5-5's, 4-4's). c3, c7, r3, r7.
@43:45 I literally cheered out loud when Simon saw that it couldn't be a 6. Fun solve to watch. Nicely done.
This was really cool puzzle. I was struggling with how to even begin solving this puzzle. However, I actually was able to figure it out fairly quickly after you put the 1’s in, which surprised me because my limit is usually just the regular-hard level sudoku. Thank you for sharing these puzzles with us! I’ve really learned so much!
After using the starting logic for the 1's, I was able to get through the puzzle very smoothly. I would have never found that starting logic on my own though
I didn’t try it but this was great to watch! Thanks for the video!
This is so amusing! Your voice is so soothing that it makes me sleepy but i’m so invested on how you solve this that i’m battling my own sleep to watch it.
Loved this! Recently found it and am loving the access to more tricky sudoku options other than just killer sudokus which are my one true love ❤️ Guess I should have researched my options before :)
Oh my brain hurts, but solving this one was incredibly satisfying. I had many false starts to this one, as I tried to logic out how the numbers interacted with each other. I got 1's filled in for the 4-4 and 5-5 pair rows/columns, but the next step eluded me for quite some time.
I concede that I had to get hints from your solve; I needed help getting the next 1 and the pair of 5's in the first box (about 25 minutes into your solve), but that was enough to get me the rest of the way to the solution. 105 minutes in total, including the 25 minutes spent watching your solve.
Yeesh. I think I need a nap after that one.
Me: How did you get that to start with?
Also Me: OMG just finish the logic you've just done at the other end of the bloody row!!!
3:40:05 took me over 30 min to get the first number. Then got all the ones and twos and got stuck again for over 2 hours being on and off the puzzle. When I finally figured which way the threes go the rest was fairly easy. Absolutely brilliant puzzle newer seen anything like this before. Keep up the great work!
I'll have to look into this style of sudoku, this is my first time seeing this variant as well as my first time I was able to solve puzzle faster than you were able to.
I see a 40+ minute video, I instantly press like!
Are you kidding me, a 46 minute video? I guess we had a few too many easy lately.
*too
This was stunning to see and watching you solve it was a joy!
What an amazing puzzle! I felt proud to be able to work out the logic of the 1s and 2s. Needed a hint for resolving the 3s...then was able to slog through. As an amateur it's hard to fathom how quickly you do the routine stuff while chatting away. I can crack a tough bottleneck one moment, then stare vacantly at some obvious rookie thing for minutes before the penny drops.
"we know..." bold of u to assume i know anything
20:42 I couldn't solve this but I noticed something here. The 2 in r4c2 is ruled out because it would have to have a 1 before it, but the 1 is already in the box. That fixes all the 2s in that point.
Not necessarily if the 6 in column 2 is before that number (which it is in the solution it's in position r2c2) than the 2 before the 1 doesn't matter
Jonathan Hargrove If the 2 is at r4c2, then you’d have to have a 1 at r4c1, otherwise that 2 would be the first hidden skyscraper from the left, but you can’t have a 1 in r4c1 anyway because there is already a 1 in r5c2, meaning you can’t have a 2 in r4c2
When it comes down to the extremely hard puzzles I begin watching trying to follow Simon's logic and then I just give up and keep watching because I like to see him smile and say "this is breathtakingly clever".
I'm still miles away from attempting a puzzle like this, but I'ved reached a point where I'm spotting leads of my own that you aren't spotting for a few minutes. It's really exiting to think that my skills are improving to the point where this makes enough sense for me to make my own observations. One step closer to solving these extremely hard puzzles myself!
"That square cannot be a 3"
Me: Wait, why??
*pauses video and frantically scans the grid*
Me: Ooooohhhh, that's why.
“You might be seeing this quicker than I am”
Me: I just understood the rules
Hi @CrackingtheCryptic
As I was solving it with you, I eventually went on my own, while keeping your video on pause. I eventually made a mistake, but I didn't notice at first, and when I noticed, I didn't want to give up like that and just kept going. To my surprise, it actually came out to be correct! So, with different numbers put in, I got a 2nd version!
If you'd like, I can send a photo-copy of my result.
The numbers don't all add up to the "hidden skyscraper" numbers outside the sudoku, but inside of it, it's a working one
Greetings, Fingal G.
Interesting take on how to denote where the different numbers could be. I went about it the opposite way, initially putting in all the numbers in every square, then gradually removing them when I spotted clues. I did end up color coding the squares that could contain 1's to make their placement easier, and later did the same for the 2's. Definitely a very interesting puzzle, would love to see more puzzles like it.
I am intrigued
Roughly 3 hours and I was using the video to find the starting logic and to get unstuck a few times 😬😂
SAME! I had to use the video for detailed hints about 3 times: (1) To get started with 1s (2) to followup the 1s into the boxes (3) to break the 3s logic, but I didn't want to guess and follow a chain.
Though my logic was much different than his for quite a few parts, I ended up calculating many numbers before he did. He tunnel-visioned the "special case" that applied in this video (the 4s opposite from each other and 5s opposite from each other) -- he didn't look for other logic once he placed the 1s and 2s.
Took me slightly over 2 hours, but proud that I did it all on my own. Now I'll watch the video to see how Simon did it while making a very late dinner. Thanks for getting my brain working tonight.
@42:32 Mark: "Just wish it didn't make me feel like such a darlard (not sure what word it is but I can guess what it means by the context)"
Me: Mark, you make me feels like such a darlard. XD
I’m drowning in wholesome
43:23 I have been looking at that box for the last 6 min and you just hover your cursor over it for a bit before going elsewhere.
Edit: Ok nvm he got it a few seconds later.
At 9:57, my brain exploded.
I knew about two minutes in that the towers from both views must increase on both sides to a tower, and then have the 4 in the middle of those two towers, but I didn't know what to do with that information. You are absolutely brilliant!
I agree there were some mistakes, but a puzzle like this is still enjoyable to do with you Simon. No matter what- I learn to do better soduko by watching you guys. Big thanks.
Okay I spent like 2 h 40 m on this, but I freakin’ got it in the end. So satisfying, yet I have not felt so dumb in years.
Sir,
At 24:29 how did you know the 5 must appear in that square? Why could there not have been a 5 just below the 1 in column 2, and just left of the 1 in row 8?
Brilliant as always Simon!
That was tough. Really tough. I solved it in about 41 minutes, while watching the video (for the first 25 minutes). Definitely copied off of some of your early logic and ran with it. Spotted quite a few things on my own, nothing too spectacular though. Interesting how the solution built up through the numbers sequentially - that really was the key to the whole thing. Once this got far enough along there was usually multiple logical approaches to any given cell. Brilliantly designed puzzle, thanks for presenting it!
SUDDEN THOUGHT: Is it possible ANY finished Sudoku can be uniquely represented by ONLY its Hidden High-Rise co-ordinates? Too motivationally restricted (read: "lazy") to verify this at present ("ever"), but IF true, then the job of Hidden High-Rise Sudoku Puzzle Compiler would look VERY attractive ("easy") to one ("me") with limited initiative (again, "lazy").
i doubt it. what if you had a 89 choice on each r1c4 r1c6 r9c4 and r9c6. a regular 17 clues sudoku would hint you into a unique solution. you could build a sudoku where those 8s are never a first hidden high rise on row 1 and 9 because there was one in both columns 1-3 and 7-9 (and column wise by not having a row-2 8 hidden behind a row-1 9). Now knowing only what the first hidden high rise is won't be enough to distinguish the order of 89 in the 4 cells; unlike the regular sudoku you started with. Therefore SOME finished Sudoku can have a unique solution with ONLY first hidden high rise. But you can't do it automatically with just ANY sudoku.
@@lrrobock Wow - clearly you do not share my motivational impairment - that very same failing that makes me more inclined to accept your assessment rather than expend whatever effort might be required of me were I to verify the soundness of your reasoning. So my first fuzzy-brained take-away is that you are presenting at least one possible scenario wherein these exterior notations alone are not sufficient to guarantee a solvable and unique answer. I initially intuited this was likely the case, but took a flier and threw it out there in hopes that IF, (after some effort from OTHERS), the improbable should be discovered to be actually TRUE, then I might attract some undeserved recognition without having either done the work or even made a claim strong enough to risk any damage to what dubious reputation I imagine I have. So, (sigh)...thanks anyway.
@@lrrobock actually, kidding aside, well done and thanks.
I haven't looked at your solution yet but 10 minutes in I called it a day and I haven't found a single number or even been able to pencil mark a single number. Just cannot work out how to begin
It's a hard thing to wrap ones head around this one, but it's not too hard to figure out some points about it.
its ok on 10:00 he didnt got anything yet either
@@MazerTime I couldn't get my head around this one at all
Well me neither. Im still stuck at the 3s
Watched 10 minutes of this, then tried to do it myself, then made a mistake, went back, redone, etc. Finally did it 80 minutes later. This is NICE!
Just finished the video. I ended up solving a lot of the puzzle with different logic. Cool to see how that it can be done different ways.
Simon complains about the puzzle making him look like a dullard and I didn't even comprehend the logic he used to get those first 1s.
well, since the first hidden building is the same on both said of a column, then the others digit have to ascend up to that hidden building if it's 4 then you have to have something like that 123564987 and if you have to ascend up to the hidden building, therefore the one must be on one of the ends of the column
@@yozarahirvi4750 i've so far understood that to be the case but the logic doesn't hold true when he's finished with the puzzle, so i'm still very confused
It was a brilliant bit of deduction that I had been missing. After seeing that I was able to continue solving the puzzle without referring to the video. Truly a brilliant puzzle.
It was frustrating seeing you figure out most of the 2s and then stopping before finishing them
The 2-clue in row six is brilliant for sorting out the twos in the middle three boxes, because the 2 can't be behind the 1 since it's already hidden.
I got hooked up by this channel couple of days ago. I do like puzzles, but never really tried Sudokus. Catched up quite a few tricks here and tried some medium and harder ones first and decided tacke this before watching the video. Took me 1:02:24. from which probably 20min where lost finding out how to even get started. Amazing puzzle!
24:34 why?
I think 5 could be in (3, 2) and (2, 4)...
((1,1) to (9,9) from leftmost, bottom)
Yeah he made a lucky guess, it could also have been r6c2 and r8c3
27:10 this is extremely flawed logic, you're breaking the constraint of the column right away. You got very very lucky there.
Edit: I see now that you were using 4 instead of 5. The logic stands, you're justing using the wrong number which severely confused me.
yeah I got really frustrated by the flaw in the logic
not really, if he placed the 136 in the top it would still be 25 and crash in the bottom box or 24 and miss the hidden skyscraper:P
@@liiiinder yea took me a while to see that the end result holds true, it's just that the way Simon presents it breaks the basic rule of the sudoku in question
@@liiiinder Thanks for your explanation, you are spot on, however I would agree with the original comment that may have gotten lucky.
For your explanation to work, you need the 5 in the bottom left box. His logic to place that 5 was flawed since he hadn't placed the 2 in column 2 yet (in other words the logic of the top right couldn't be duplicated due to the extra space for the 5). I am also not entirely convinced that he saw your logic (which I agree is sound, once the 5 is bottom left 5 is placed).
Anyway thanks once again for assisting me with this step.
@@ripe_aces No his logic on that wasnt really flawed
its just not enough numbers for it to be anywhere else. In the row you have 7 from the right so that needs 8 or 9, and from the left you can use the 689 and 789 on the column but there's not enough numbers to kick it outside in any of them so it has to be in the middle of box 7 (r7c2) :)
edit: And if you placed 789 in the column to place the 5 in the r6c2 , then you would have to have the 5 in r7c3 with a 6 in r7c1 but then you dont have any place for the 3 to go as that is marked to 2 squares :)
edit2: And the 5 cant be on the right of 1/2 as its the hidden skyscraper so it cant be in r7c6-9 so no need to know where the 2 in column 2 are
This was like.. the greatest "Boss Battle" of Sudokus! \m/ Rock on!!! 😎👍
Holy crap... you were finishing up by the time I was (finally) just getting the rules sorted. Seeing you solve this monstrosity was mind boggling. I would wonder at how one could create this, but I don't think my brain could take it.