This New Sudoku Rule Is [...........]
Vložit
- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- ** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
A lovely and approachable sudoku today from Chilly called Take The Low Road. Continuing a series of puzzles with short rulesets, this one boasts a brand new ruleset that is both simple to understand and deep in terms of its implications. Simon would love to hear your thoughts about it and, in particular, what is the best way to notate the grid!!
Play the puzzle at the following link:
sudokupad.app/z01nexs74t
Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Some cells contain arrows. A digit in a cell with an arrow must be larger than all the other digits in the grid in the cells along the direction of the arrow.
** HEXCELLS STREAM **
You can watch last night's Hexcells Plus stream here:
czcams.com/users/liveEmtGnpXF0lw
** ROLLER COASTER NURIKABE by the_cogito **
Simon's 2.5 hour solve of Roller Coaster Nurikabe by the_cogito is now available on Patreon. Check the puzzle out at the link below:
logic-masters.de/Raetselporta...
Also there's our January Patreon competition: All The Fun Of The Fair featuring sudokus themed around fairground rides!
Join us on Patreon (for as little as $2):
/ crackingthecryptic
** KICKSTARTER - DELIVERED 24 December 2023 **
Our Kickstarter has finished and we've created the finished novella/puzzle collection for you. It was delivered on Christmas Eve so check your inboxes!
www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
** ORDER OUR NEW BOOK AT THIS LINK **
If you would like to get hold of a physical copy of our new book, Cracking The Cryptic's Greatest Hits - Volume 2, there is still a chance. Visit the link below:
bean-games.pledgemanager.com/...
▶ SUDOKU PAD - Use Our Software For Your Puzzles ◀
You can input classic sudoku puzzles into our software and help support Sven, the programmer responsible for the wonderful user interface we all use to play these puzzles everyday. The app also comes with 12 handmade puzzles from us:
iOS:
apps.apple.com/us/app/svens-s...
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/17...
Android:
play.google.com/store/apps/de...
ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”
▶ Contents Of This Video ◀
0:00 Theme music & Puzzle intro
1:12 Thank you re Hexcells Plus stream
1:53 Riffclown teaser
2:34 Wonderful recent puzzles
3:08 Happy Birthdays
5:08 Rules
6:45 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking
▶ Contact Us ◀
Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic
email: crackingthecryptic@gmail.com
Our PO Box address:
Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB
(Please note to use our real names rather than 'Cracking The Cryptic'.)
**************************************************************
▶ CTC FAN DISCORD SERVER◀
/ discord
▶ OUR BACK CATALOGUE - ALL CATEGORISED WITH LINKS!◀
tinyurl.com/CTCCatalogue
▶ NEW CRACKING THE CRYPTIC MERCHANDISE◀
teespring.com/en-GB/stores/cr...
▶SEND US PUZZLES TO SOLVE/CONTACT US◀
crackingthecryptic@gmail.com
▶FOLLOW US◀
Twitter: @crypticcracking
Instagram (for how to solve daily clues from The Times): crackingthe...
We also post the Wordle In A Minute videos on TikTok. - Zábava
Thanks for the feature Simon - great solve as always! I'm also not sure about notation yet, with it being a new ruleset. However, I think shading cells that are pointed at to reveal where 9s can and can't go is probably a good start.
A very nice ruleset and puzzle thank you for the construct.
Whatever you choose for notation I'd recommend using something where the other option (all the cells are LARGER) is possible to show. So constructors could play around with different rules.
Example: interval notation. So, in these case the arrows could be there but adding ) would mean the set the arrow is pointing at is smaller. ( would mean the set is larger. ] could mean smaller or equal, [ could mean higher or equal.
I think the arrow is fine, logic was very clear. maybe a corner and/or side notation could be better, so multiple arrows could be placed on the same space.
@chilly5 cool ruleset, I enjoyed that, thank you.
Loved playing through this one, the way the arrows would interact with each other was brilliant having them all point at each other forcing their minimums higher and higher
I think that the notation question that Simon posed, and that Chilly was responding to, was the question of how to pencil mark cells during the solve, whether the solver should use colors or lines or whatever else. I don't think Simon had any questions or concerns about how the arrows appeared in the grid.@@masu33
@@emilywilliams3237 agree
I love the sudoku community, because when I see a new rule set and think to myself “that’s really neat - I can’t wait to see more puzzles like it“ I know that I won’t have to wait long and that they will likely be featured on CTC. ❤
This took me 105 minutes, after a reset. I loved it though. I think the first thing you were supposed to notice, which I never heard you say, was that there are no 9s being pointed at by any arrows anywhere! That's how I figured out some of the starting 9s.
24:13 A nice little addition to Simon's solve might be, that there is actually a 34 pair in row 6, both of which digits are pointing toward r8c6 by arrow logic! This means that there will always be a 3 looking at this cell, so that r8c6 cannot be a 3 anymore. This turned out to be an alternative way for me to lock the 3's in box 8 into r7c5 and r9c5.
Fun puzzle! I marked out all the arrows using the line tool, which admittedly makes a complicated web but I didn't have trouble reading it. Since the most basic rules for this puzzle are "9s can't be on arrow paths and 1s can't be on arrows" it seemed most prudent to mark those clearly from the start.
Yes, that is what I did as well. Once the arrows were completed, I removed them to clean-up the grid.
I broke into the puzzle by searching out 9's and then 8's, but I like Simon's break-in - of finding a chain of arrows, giving a string of 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 almost immediately, to be much more elegant. I would love to see follow-up solutions to puzzles where the "most elegant" solutions are presented!
i found the chain first and then i did the 9 and 8.
Yep, noting that nines cannot have any arrows pointing at them reveals where they are very quickly.
22:23 for me, using a single central pencil mark to indicate the maximum digit that could go in a cell, and multiple central pencil marks (as usual) to list all candidates for that cell.
If I did another one of these puzzles, I would have drawn lines to follow all of the arrows - not because the lines as a whole would help me understand the whole puzzle, but because anytime I place (or restrict) a digit anywhere, the lines would make it much easier to see if that affects an arrow somewhere in the puzzle.
In fact, I probably would draw all of the lines at the beginning, then remove the lines as each arrow is satisfied, thereby making it easier to see which arrows still may require my attention.
This is what I did and it helped. I also did the diagonals and straights different colors, because I had a false start where I thought all the digits along an arrow had to be unique. I got fairly far with that misconception and then had to start again. Marking them different to remember which were more restricted helped especially early on.
I know it'll never happen, but I love the idea of a CTC April Fool's where Simon & Mark do an 18-rated edition with an abundance of swearing. You just know they would have the most entertainingly erudite profanity!
Bobbins!
That'd be cool but I think the best April fools joke is doing a GenuinelyApproachableSudoku and missing naked singles and justifying each step with the most complicated roundabout logic. Color shading an entire grid when it's not needed, and ultimately, it's an easy puzzle but they keep "missing the next step" and it's like an hour long solve for a puzzle That'd take them 15 minutes
if you check the last years' valentine's, you'll find most of that minus profanites.
Hey, I solved this one earlier today. Nice to see it here. What a cool ruleset and I loved the puzzle. Top marks to Chilly. 🎉
I did it a few days ago! First time in about 3 years of watching I've seen a puzzle I've already solved! A really nice ruleset and not too difficult.
@@TheFrogfather1 its quite funny since for me it happens like every once in a week. Im not often on logic masters, but i always seem to pick the ones that get a feature, sometimes weeks later. Its a weird feeling when i start to notice it 5 minutes into the solve
Finished in 21:14. Though I did my thermo-style solving where I fill in all the possibilities, this seems like a new interesting rule set which could lend itself to some interesting logic. This puzzle itself seems pretty approachable though I can see the ruleset being used in more difficult ways....
Fun puzzle and new ruleset!
I tend to pencil mark a lot, and found the ‘compact pencil marks’ setting in the software to be very helpful in this puzzle
What a charming idea - so easy to understand, but it's led to an elegant puzzle. Well done Chilly!
Congratulations Chilly! Fantastic idea and great puzzle that came from it!
Thanks Sandra :)
Rules: 05:26
Let's Get Cracking: 06:55
Simon's time: 23m42s
Puzzle Solved: 30:37
What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
Bobbins: 1x (22:15)
Especially When They’re Kind: 1x (32:26)
Maverick: 1x (05:13)
Phistomefel: 1x (02:55)
And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Sorry: 7x (01:56, 03:59, 10:25, 11:58, 23:03, 24:33, 24:50)
Ah: 7x (07:16, 07:28, 15:32, 16:11, 16:26, 18:43, 24:33)
By Sudoku: 6x (16:17, 19:18, 19:20, 21:03, 27:24, 27:44)
Hang On: 6x (07:28, 18:05, 18:05, 22:19)
Beautiful: 3x (03:01, 18:56, 30:32)
In Fact: 3x (07:14, 07:23, 07:28)
Obviously: 2x (10:40, 10:42)
Jaw-dropping: 2x (01:45, 01:45)
Pencil Mark/mark: 2x (24:17, 32:04)
Good Grief: 1x (29:35)
Apologies: 1x (04:42)
Fascinating: 1x (00:39)
Elegant: 1x (03:01)
Shouting: 1x (05:06)
Alacrity: 1x (22:56)
Propitious: 1x (07:46)
Intriguing: 1x (02:25)
Wow: 1x (19:01)
What Does This Mean?: 1x (11:43)
Cake!: 1x (05:04)
Weird: 1x (09:34)
Most popular number(>9) and digit this video:
Thirty Four (2 mentions)
Three (54 mentions)
Antithesis Battles:
Low (12) - High (2)
Lower (3) - Higher (2)
Row (10) - Column (7)
FAQ:
Q1: You missed something!
A1: That could very well be the case! Human speech can be hard to understand for computers like me! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q2: Can you do this for another channel?
A2: I've been thinking about that and wrote some code to make that possible. Let me know which channel you think would be a good fit!
A very elegant puzzle 👍🏻👍🏻
I didn't go about it particularly efficiently, I started by shading all cells that were seen by arrows, which got the 9s placed very quickly but didn't immediately give me much more of a break in. I think that drawing a web of lines would have been better and would have helped see where there were dependencies - particularly if you can come up with a colour code where each colour represents a minimum arrow value.
Great job, Simon. I really don't think you took a less efficient route than was possible. I wonder why you're so unsure about it! And wonderful puzzle, too!
I enjoyed watching this one! It took a minute to understand the numbers just had to be larger than the other numbers along the arrow and not the sums of the numbers along the arrows. I liked how Simon determined the break in!
I made a mistake becouse i thought they couldnt repeat along the arrow😆Thankfully it was at start of the solve
81:29, probably the longest time I've spent with a sudoku puzzle without giving up or looking at the video for a clue. I just always felt like the next break was so close, staring at me. Cool puzzle
16:34 I love how Simon finds the oddest logical pathways. R6c9 is as simple as minimum 1-5 in the column, and it sees 6,7,9 in the row. Lol 😊
Simon is a prude and is strongly against naked singles
Given the recommendation for someone who hasn't solved a variant sudoku before, I tried my hand at this puzzle before watching further. Took me an hour, but the puzzle was incredibly fun. I especially found pencil-marking the minimum and maximum possible digit for each cell to be exceedingly helpful.
Solved in 14:48. After finding the initial chain, I then looked for 9s around the grid, since they can never be looked at by arrows. Then I pencil-marked along certain arrows that looked under pressure (for example the diagonal 6 arrow, meaning I found the 1234 quad in Box 3 very quickly). I think Simon's aversion to pencil-marking actually made his solve slower
The ruleset reminds me of "tropical addition" from tropical geometry. There addition means taking the maximum of the arguments and tropical multiplication is just the old addition. So we could call the past arrow sudokus "Regular Arrow Sudoku" (RAS) and these with the new rule "Tropical Arrow Sudoku" (TAS) 😊
Very enjoyable puzzle. I used the line tool and a different colour for each chain of arrows that see each other. It was a bit of a spider web at first, but as soon as I had the cells on a line pencil marked, I removed the line. This helped immensely and I quickly got down to just a couple of lines. The web of lines also helped me identify spots for 9, 8 and 7.
I used different color lines depending on the angle it travels. Worked pretty well for me.
I loved this puzzle!
Solved it myself first, felt good about myself, then got real humbled by seeing how quickly Simon knocked it out. I did shade the cells that couldn't be 9 to start, but I think the shading threw me off when I got deeper into the puzzle.
This was very fun, and I did solve the puzzle without reference to your video! I loved your video, though, Simon. As for the notation, I just pencil marked as usual, and highlighted arrows that I was "finished with" - that is, that any of the available digits would satisfy. I didn't have any trouble scanning diagonally (though I have been playing through the Queen constraint sudoku puzzles on your chess app recently ...) Thanks for this video!
I started off by shading every cell an arrow points at. The cells left unshaded are the only ones which can contain a 9. It did help me in a few places, although I'm not going to claim this was the most efficient way of using marks.
Very interesting new rule, I can definitely see it being used combined with a variety of other rules!
I can totally see some evil people putting them with arrows (the other ones) and thermometers just to confuse the hell out of everyone.
@@asktheraccoon I lost count of how many times I started treating the ruleset as normal arrows and had to undo it XD still an amazing puzzle that I do hope to see more of. Im thinking it would be very interesting in a fog of war puzzle where it could maybe allow you to get random digits all over the fog
This us the first time in the history of me watching these videos where I solved it faster than you. I don't know what it was, but something about this ruleset just clicked for my brain. It felt so good to do.
Spectacular solve and equally good video, Simon!
Great puzzle and great solve! I think I trialled all the marking methods.
I switched on the ‘experimental’ setting for compact pencil marks, so I could add a lot of candidates without crowding the cells.
The line tool to mark diagonals was very helpful for the initial break in. I’d limit it to one chain at a time, or use a different colour for unrelated pathways.
Later on, I found it more useful to colour the remaining diagonals as a visual reminder. I used a darker shade to highlight the clue cell, but a circle in the matching colour would work too.
Then delete all marks as each clue is resolved, to keep the grid tidier.
lol @ 16:40 Simon being Simon. The arrow is looking at 5 cells in a column. So it's at least a 6. The way Simon sorted it out (then did a rethink on it!)....truly Simon!
Not suggesting Simon isn't a master....or that I'm any good at these! (My time was "Clock overflow" whatever that means.)
Following the initial chain break-in ( plus a half hour of confusion ) I realized that you needed to find all the arrows limitations which give you all the 9s. A little trickier to do some not all 8s and ..... oh, never mind. Thanks, Simon for showing me that I didn't need the 9s after all. Oh well, at least I can count it as a rare solve without hints.
Love your channel. Been trying to solve some of the easier ones, like this one, before watching the video.
I was able to solve this one. Since you asked for people’s strategies; my start was to shade all cells that could not be a 9 because they were being pointed at. Got the 9s pretty quick, then the 8s and some 7s and 6s. Then did parity shading for the rest.
Thank you!
A couple bits of added efficiency for this thy[e of puzzle that I hit on: One of the first things I did was highlight every cell pointed to by an arrow, because an arrow can never point at a 9. Doing this allows 9s to be filled in quite quickly. Along with that I started highlighting arrows in red once they had been fully satisfied. That reduces the scanning later.
I did a couple of things differently. First, I used the line tool to extend the arrows. Then I channeled my inner Mark and pencil marked the arrows. One thing that helps is to realize a 9 can only be in an arrow or empty cell, never on one of the lines. That helps the 9s fall out. Then it's all about pairs and triples and quads... Fun puzzle!
My strategy was to lightly shade an arrow when I got all the arrows it was looking at, and dark shade an arrow when I got everything in an arrows diagonal down to either digits or at least pencil marks (where the lowest possibility on the arrow was higher than everything else in the diagonal so I know I wouldn't need to scan that arrow anymore). Worked out pretty well for me
My pencilmark system for this puzzle was to write the lowest and highest possible values on relevant cells, or just the highest in the many cases where the lowest was 1. That made it a lot easier to find trios and quadruples. In hindsight, I should have also drew lines along every cell the more relevant arrows see because I kept having to recheck.
46:57, got hung up for the longest time with box 3 giving the value of the arrow r3c6 before realizing it was right in my face haha
Interesting ruleset! Very easy this time, but I'm excited to see how people will iterate on this. I started by shading all the arrows yellow, and unshading them once they were resolved (the arrow digit was confirmed and every choice for digits it points to are lower). This worked well for me to not keep looking at already used clues, I didn't feel the need to draw lines or anything.
After a bit over an hour I was completely stuck and started to watch Simon's solution. It didn't take long before he pointed out that I had completely ignored the effect of the arrow in box 3 and after that it was fairly easy to solve. That's my biggest problem with these special rules that pop up every now and then, I tend to completely forget them sometimes.
This is a really interesting new ruleset. I found myself a bit daunted at the start with no givens but once I figured out the break-in the logical solve path was enjoyable. Great new puzzle.
What a lovely puzzle! Quite easy but still feels rewarding to solve.
I saw the same chain as Simon at the start, I then shaded every cell that is pointed at, not including arrows unless it is pointed at by another arrow.
This revealed constrained 9's
So i finished the puzzle and in the congratulations page i accidentally gave it a heart ❤.
I didn't knew you coul do that. Now i have a backlog of amazing sudokus that deserve the same level a long due affection.
I lost track of how many times I restarted this. But I persevered! I just knew I could crack it, I could feel it. My logic was sound, but apparently my attention to detail was not. Still, I did it, and enjoyed it every. Single. Time!
20:38 finish. Definitely a fun new ruleset, and the presentation works great! Am looking forward to seeing what else can be done with this.
Despite not being terribly difficult, this is such a nice clean idea that feels really fresh. Lovely work
Beautiful puzzle, had a great flow to it!
I struggled with box 7 on this one. There aren't many arrows pointing in that direction and those that are, are not very restrictive. I decided to erase all my pencil marks and immediately got two digits! Simon's pencil mark advice really is spot on.
Loved the break in of this puzzle and the rest of the solve was fascinating as well
27:32 that was pretty cool, nice and easy to do even during lunch :) ❤❤❤❤
Loved it. Next will be puzzles with "High Road" Arrows, and then one with both High and Low Road Arrows...
Low-Road Arrows with Doublers and Non-Integer values.
Watching this, my brain came up with the idea of a yin-yang ruleset where arrows point to HIGHER digits of their same color but LOWER digits of the opposite color...and then it promptly melted when trying to imagine constructing such a monstrosity
And then for sure Simon will be in Scotland afore ye
I was marking all arrow cells with color as soon as they were "finished", i.e., I had pencilmarked or solved all cells they pointed at. That made it visually easier for me to focus my attention on those arrows that were still under pressure. In hindsight, I should have used a dark color to mark those finished cells (because they were unimportant then) but I used a bright green. 🙂
I chose to colour cells that were on an arrow line and then un-colour them once I'd resolved that they were definitely smaller than the arrow - and a different colour for arrows that I removed once I was sure they were larger. Not sure whether that's better though!
Some very fun logic in this one! Loved the break-in!
Disjoint thermos❗
Very easy, but also very nice.
I did not need special notation for this one, but I like Simon's minimalistic "minimum value" notation for the break-in 😏👍
I just used Snyder's notation. It was very easy to find 1-2-3-4-5 quintuples or 1-2-3-4 quads.
This was a pretty cool puzzle; I enjoyed watching you solve it.
I used lines to track the first set of digits we revealed, it looked pretty cool. Anyway it's simpler with one colour since you can't overlap colours and then write a minimum number for each change in arrow similar to how you did at the beginning
My time 01:01:15
I did it! 40 minutes!!
I haven't been able to solve any lately, but this puzzle wasn't too hard despite a new rule and no given digits. So much fun!
46:09 - That was a lovely new rule set with some unusual logic. Very enjoyable.
I tried to use lines as notations, with a keeping a colour as the line branched with new arrows. It made the break in easy (no 9s on lines that are not arrows, as well as finding the forced path Simon found), but in the late solve it became more confusing as I mixed up arrow/line dependencies.
This is one of my favorite break-ins ever!
23:20 for me
Drawing in all the lines definitely helps solving this gorgeus puzzle.
I think the rules could have been 2 sentences only, atleast for me its quite clear that some cells contain arrows when looking at the grid
I noticed the redundancy as well:
_"Normal sudoku rules apply."_ -Some cells contain arrows.-
_"A digit in a cell with an arrow must be larger than all the __-other-__ digits __-in the grid in the cells-__ along the direction of the arrow."_
What lines did you draw? Straight lines along the direction of each arrow?
@@Paolo_De_Leva yes straight through the grid
That way you can easily see where you cant place any 9s, or 8s, when theres no 8 in the arrow etc.
Good puzzle, just finished it myself(I needed exactly 3 and a half hours tho, its 4am now😆)
First more serious puzzle I solved and first sudoku without digits that I solved. Thank you! Have a great day!
This puzzle was fun . Thank you !
Great new constraint. Not so hard, yet! 😅
Thanks for the solve Simon! 😊
I drew lines where every arrow was pointing so overlaps became very obvious. Once a given arrow's constraints and effects were fully pencilled I'd remove that line so only relevant ones remained. Worked well for me though I'm a novice.
Really liked that one! I wonder if you could do "low roads" but that curve
I wish I could reset my memory and do this one again, so satisfying.
Fun puzzle and a clever new constraint! I was surprised that this alone could make for a unique solution, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised by now. All of these creators are good at finding new ways to make us think!
My time was 20:28, solver number 1366.
Shading all cells that are pointed at by an arrow a light grey, would already help with locating the 9s and throughout the puzzle with checking whether there's an arrow to consider. It would've sped up this solve, I'm sure.
Awesome rule set!
39:21 .... love it! Great rule idea
00:18:36 for me. Simple yet very fun rule set! Kind Comment.
Finished in 20:30. I loved this puzzle, it was like a more esoteric thermo/fortress sudoku!
Probably wouldn't work for grids using the ruleset more sparsely but I got most of the 9s and 8s by colouring which couldn't be first 9 (pointed to) and then 8 (pointed to by a not-9). Then central for max, cormner for min but that did get confusing
I found that shading paths to see what forced high numbers or restricted 9s was a good start, then mostly i just used ordinary notation
Great puzzle. I asked where 9 couldn’t go which really limited them, and indeed placed a few fairly early on.
31:13, nice start, but I made the mistake of forgetting that numbers could repeat on a diagonal and pencil marked all work at first. Was stuck for like ten minutes near the end before I started coloring 34 pairs and saw how I could continue.
I wasn't too big a fan of this puzzle and the ruleset on it's own, but I am curious about how this ruleset interacts with different rules. There could very well be some good potential there. What I didn't like about it is, that It felt fairly simple in terms of logic, but made the puzzle overall look fairly messy and hard to keep track off. I personally prefer difficulty in terms of deep interactions of a few clues over difficulty of finding the right combination of clues to progress with. Thinking over scanning perhaps. With that, an additional rule or two and an easier to grasp grid might be all it takes for me to like that new rule.
Solved it in 42:54. 🙂 Very nice puzzle!
That was a fun ruleset! And a really approachable puzzle!
Didn't expect to need more than an hour and correction with the vid for this. I really liked the idea and I though this will be easy, but after 30 minutes clashed my digits because I treated them thermo like. I didn't thought of to put the same digit on the arrow directions. Nethertheless It was fun to solve, and i liked the Soduku and in 30 minutes the video😊.
Loved this one
Over an hour! I just could see things easily with this variant.
Oh, I love this ruleset!
Haha I went about this one quite... intense. I just started with pencil marking every cell completely and then eliminating more and more as I went on. For sure not the most efficient way, but it did the trick!
puzzles like this make me wish the developer of the app could add a + and - sign to the pencil marks. It would be great to be able to jolt down 4+ or 8- instead of 456789 and 12345678 respectively, since with the latter you'd simply never bother.
l guess it gets kinda tricky if you wanna denote 12348 with that tool (4-8 would be ambiguous probably), but it could still be a helpful option to have in more math'y puzzles l think, especially since adding a + and - would be extremely little effort to program in l'd imagine :]
Not the same, but there’s a compact pencilmark option, so if you pencil mark 456789, it will show up as 4-9
@@MissKapanadze oh l genuinely didnt know about that,, l'll look into that thanks
Solved in approx 38 minutes, ground to a halt a few times but very enjoyable finding where to pick up the solve thread.
Really enjoyed the interacting arrows leading to the breakin, took me 28:40
Thank you Simon
Great ruleset! 29:35 for me, and I couldn't figure out a way to mark it up either!
Love the new ruleset
Lovely new ruleset, one of those which has that "How did we not think of that before?" feeling of inevitability about it.
I got all the 9's really early by shading all the cells being pointed at by an arrow
I eventually shaded cells based on their maximum possible value (blue for 8, yellow for 7, etc.) which was only useful for some early digits
I was a lot slower than you with the Sudoku deductions lol
The other thing that was useful was pen lines along unsolved arrows
Lots of deductions like "Oh this is a six so that arrow must be at least seven but can't be eight or nine" were plainly obvious but difficult to see because of the diagonals
Thanks Chilly for a very fun puzzle. I'm curious if it would properly solve on the opposite spectrum where digits would need to be larger than the arrow cell.
It'd be the exact same logic. Just replace all the 9s with 1s, all the 8s with 2s, etc.
@steve470 That's what I was thinking too. Had a small thought that it might mess with the logic, but i realize that's ridiculous. I assume that's why they arbitrarily chose 'digits on arrows must be higher'
Maybe not the best way, but I followed each series of lines backwards and fully pencil marked each square. Then anytime I updated a square with an arrow, I check it's path and updated the marks
19:58 for me. took a while to get used to the rules, but then it was not that hard.
No lines or colours for me... just a healthy dose of Goodliffe-ing, starting with the arrows that looked the most limited to being higher numbers, and the blanks that looked the most limited to being lower numbers. Doesn't take long before you wind up with a chain reaction of eliminations.
I spent half the solve being annoyed that Simon saw a 4 in front of a 5 arrow and not making the 2 squares add to 5 when I realized I was using the wrong arrow logic and I owe Simon a mental apology. Even just playing along I somehow made a lot of logical leaps that weren’t actually logical (like the top left arrow that wound up being 9 but because if an arrow chain, not because it pointed at 7 other cells - those cells could have been all 1s & 2s!)
Anyway, it was interesting watching him work out the logical implications of this rule set.
36m19s for me. (1.53x Simon's solve time.) Lovely puzzle.