#cracking the cryptic

[princetfae]

most puzzle solvers when the solution they try doesn't work:

sudoku solvers when the solution they try doesn't work:

[knightscrests]

the sudoku youtube channel i watch is insanely good at thumbnails

[greatfunkystatic]

Me explaining "THESE GUYS ARE FUCKING CRACKED I TELL YOU. THEIR DRIP TOO HARD. SWAG TOO DIFFERENT" to my friends as I show them a video of 2 middle aged British men solving variants of Sudoku puzzles with gleaming positivity and a nigh ASMR level of energy.

[oneefin]

crazy cool premise for a sudoku puzzle that @lenzoli sent me yesterday wtf

from the same guy who made that one insane sudoku where you had to place all of the lines yourself, and he signed it in the corner

fortunately this one is actually do-able, and it solves very nicely. there's one especially tricky deduction in there that i nearly missed but when i saw it it was awesome

if you want to give it a go there's a solver here: https://sudokupad.app/crfrncuk15

[officialhouseguest]

nah actually never mind i’m checking out again and putting on the nice british puzzle man to chill out :) if anyone wants to join me :)

[allthegothihopgirls]

claiming my title as a long-time cracking the cryptic stan because i am a gatekeeper, a sudoku enthusiast, and mildly neurodivergent

[hematitenote]

Sudoku

There is something incredibly satisfying about watching someone do something that they love.

One of my favorite you tube channels is this sudoku solving channel called Cracking the Cryptic. I love it partly because it's been fun to watch the channel grow, and partly because the two presenters (Simon in particular) just seem so genuinely happy to come across a good puzzle. It makes me happy just to watch them. Simon's videos give me the same feeling as when I used to watch Bob Ross paint. It's just happy.

[mittimellan]

why is it so entertaining watching this man think?

[linogram]

cant talk now babe, im busy watching a guy solve sudoku

[theabbott]

The best thing I did for myself in the pandemic was stumble onto a YT channel called Cracking the Cryptic. These two British dudes just solve sudokus on camera. I mainly watch Simon and it’s SO wholesome. His reactions to finding interesting pieces of logic give me so much serotonin

[sofexists]

How I look like rating sudoku I've been solving for 2 hours straight as very easy and nice

[greatfunkystatic]

[oneefin]

screw that sudoku puzzle i was talking about last week - THIS is the sudoku puzzle premise of all time

it's called "foggy on the details" and it's by "karl the fog!". on the surface it looks like an ordinary fog-of-war sudoku variant, it's got some lines and some cages nothing crazy, but you begin solving it and crazy shit happens

i want to break down what it's like to solve this actually because it's so crazy and illustrates the level of shock and insanity that i only ever really see in puzzle hunts. you can choose to experience this for yourself first by checking the solver here: https://sudokupad.app/e3dz5lytps or if you're not up for that, you can just watch simon from cracking the cryptic solve it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KxugQBUi-A

otherwise, spoilers ahead!

okay, so the rules have a lot of caveats that i internalize pretty quick:

cages can't overlap

lines can't overlap

cage totals are always written in the top left

digits can't repeat in a cage

lines always move orthogonally

using these ideas, i end up figuring out that the first number to place is a 6 in this cell, forced there because of the geometry of the cage in the upper right. this is all sort of standard if you've done enough variant sudoku before:

as soon as you lock in the digit though, this shows up:

oh god wtf!

so the rules of the sudoku are getting updated as we go in ways that make the previous logic not work anymore. suddenly the red cage doesn't actually look like that anymore - now i figured it has to be something like this:

the puzzle continues in this way, where i put in a digit and then something i thought i knew about the puzzle shatters the logic i just used to get there.

i start by connecting these blue lines and writing a 6 in the other end. but it turns out the lines don't connect after all

the new lines revealed by this lead to t a 3 in the second box, with some decently intricate logic to get there:

now we're saying the top-right corner has the cage total? if true, this would have very interesting implications for the cage on the left... guess it looks like this? no. of course not.

the next digit was spicy! i figured that this blue line must extend exactly like this, and that manages to poke the far left column and force a digit in the corner, far into the fog.

(this is the sort of far-reaching, surprising logic that fog-of-war puzzles are great at pulling off - the fact that this puzzle makes you do something like it is a sign that the premise isn't just for a novelty, it's extremely well executed

putting that number there reveals a red line (almost forgot we had those!) - with some quick deductions afterward. the grid is about halfway filled, so i'm imagining the momentum of the puzzle will slow down, but then i get hit by a bombshell:

what. no fucking way.

basically for the entire puzzle i had been doing logic to the blue lines as if they had the blue line's rules - but now i have to swap them for an entirely different rule? but when i look back at all the stuff i wrote on them... it just works. that's absolutely wild.

so that mega-long blue line that led to this moment? turns out it doesn't even exist. oh, and the green cage is hecking massive as well - just a little bonus to get the whole thing finished.

yay 🎉

honestly this whole thing was equal parts diabolical, clever, and amazing. it's not only insanely creative to have imagined this idea, but very brilliant to craft it into an unambiguous, linear solve path that's just as gorgeous as it is bonkers. it's the kind of nerdy insanity that makes me love solving and talking about these

[eyetothetelescope]

my youtube is so perfectly tailored to my fixations I adore getting my constant stream of adventure time lore videos, animal and hominin evolution/ history videos, and cracking the cryptic uploads. every night after work i must have my hour of boyrotting consuming them!! every night!!

[zentrodada]

@yorgosson and i just solved this sudoku it was a lot of fun :D

Took us 50ish minutes together and this guy did it in 11 lol but we got some deductions earlier than he did so i'm proud of that

[unicornkissing]

I've found an amazing channel that does sudokus and puzzles, I highly recommend it, it's been keeping me awake at work this past week lol