A Very Different Sudoku

Normal sudoku rules apply. In cages, clues show the difference between the two digits. No two cages with the same difference can touch each other (share an edge), except as regards the question-marked cage, which DOES touch at least one cage with the same difference. Cells joined with a white dot have consecutive digits.

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▶Music◀
Tim McCaskey plays Mozart's Sonata no 16 ("Sonata Facile")
▶SOFTWARE◀
Play the puzzle in the video by clicking the link under the video (above). Thanks to Sam Cappleman-Lynes and Sven Neumann for their work.
▶Logo Design◀
Melvyn Mainini

▶Opening Credits Design◀
Joel Blundell
▶ABOUT US◀
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 twelve-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.

Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark

[Riokaii]

I am not offended at all by the presentation! I had wanted to release an alternate version for the sake of colorblind accessibility, i just couldn't figure out a way of doing it that I was happy with. Your solution was roughly the same as what I would've done, with the exception that I probably wouldn't have given the entire Domino Tiling as a given, as finding that was a fun (and hopefully approachable, aha moment of the solve imo) I'm excited to watch your solve and hear your thoughts! Thank you for showcasing my puzzle :D

[briannelson]

Wow so Mark is responsible for the Maverick fly bys and the hornets. What a devious man

[A_Mac]

For colour blind accessibility, could you add an RGB slider to the colour palettes? That way people can choose what suits them best.

[Thebrooky]

loving the sniping back and forth between mark and simon!

[Clocksmith-sw]

I suggest adding in a chocolate brown color and possibly a tan color.

[davidh.]

98 minutes. A bit of a challenge, but not overly difficult. It just took time to figure it all out, and no colors used. Tired but satisfied at the end.

[rungus]

It took me about an hour and a half, and I'm surprised I managed it, really. It was fun, though. And always strange to see how easy Mark makes it, instantly seeing things I never did.

One change I'm really pleased to see in your software, in that you can now deselect squares by clicking any 'neutral' space off the grid, which is a much needed change.

[nomore]

Is there any way Sven could update the app to allow us to increase the size of the cage totals? The "Large Digits" setting has no effect on those totals, and due to the responsive nature of the page, the browser's zoom function affects only the top purple bar; the rest of the page (including the grid) either stays the same size or gets smaller instead than larger. If increasing the size of the cage totals is not desirable because they could get in the way of pencil-marked digits, then what about adding a large-font mouse-over tooltip to the cage totals? The reason I'm asking is that I couldn't find the "question-marked cage" because to me, the question mark looked like a 7 due to its small font size.

[sunscream]

As a viewer with a colour deficiency (Protanopia), I find the pastel shades used in the puzzles too subtle to distinguish. The yellows/greens and blue/purple are almost identical, and attempting to put a name to one or the other is a matter of guesswork. The one I can pick out is red, as it appears relatively dark compared to the others. If the colours chosen were vibrant and provided enough contrast to one another then I wouldn't have too much of an issue following what's going on most of the time. And yes, YouTube, I AM spelling colour correctly, so stop with the wiggly underlining!

[jamespayne]

I loved the puzzle, and thank you so much for thinking of us colour blind people. Hopefully you find a good wasp delivery service next time!

[VeritasUnae]

I got there with a little bit of co-assistance from Mark for when I got stuck - I knew that the focus probably needed to be the centre square, but I was also probably under-marking some of the other boxes. Really fun puzzle though, and another great job Mark!

[jamesmaybury]

Maybe it is time for your app to have more colours. Can I suggest that you have a keyboard of 20 keys. 20 colours. On the ‘numbers’ pad you could have 9 letters as variables (a-i or r-z) and the 0. I would also like a hyphen so that you can quickly write in a list of options like 345678 as 3-8. It would need a smart bit of code to keep the hyphen central. The colours could have a plain set of 9 and a set with horizontal, vertical, diagonal stripes. Small, medium, large round dots. And another set of three, wider stripes, square dots or some other solution. That should be easier for colourblind folks.

[kslingsby]

Great puzzle! Thanks for software improvements - the multi-select is great on iPhone!

[QemeH]

I ended up colouring the entire grid anyways, but I made it in the end. Really entertaining puzzle, good flow.

[Kinada]

I just made each cage the color of their difference since the colors are all bound to the number keys as well it made it easy.

[Raven-Creations]

Really interesting puzzle. I found no use for colouring at all. If anything, I think maintaining the colouring actually slowed down Mark. What would have helped immensely, is if the cage totals were more visible. If the dashed lines around cages were a mid-grey, the numbers would stand out more. Alternatively, or as well, the cage could just avoid going anywhere near the corner. Corner pencil-marks should also avoid cage totals. If you can't see the clues, it can really sap time.

[orlyyyy]

52:04 for me. But Mark - you should have known that the 1is actually grey and the 7 is red... this is the way the software is built...

[CMLachky]

Great Puzzle!! And I was able to do it without coloring!

[boydegg]

68:46 ... I really enjoyed solving this.

[srwapo]

About an hour while watching the kids swim, wouldn't consider that too bad.