'The Witness' Sudoku

We've just released Padlocked, an extraordinary Lockout Lines-themed Sudoku Hunt, on Patreon. You can join us on Patreon here:

($2 a month for puzzles, $3 a month for puzzles and solution videos).

Ricky Cruz does it again with his thematic take on the computer game The Witness. This is just a magnificent sudoku and celebration of one of the great games! Give it a try at the following link:

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Draw a path along the grey lines from the lower-left to the top-right that goes through all ⬡ cells. ⬡ cells indicate that the digits before and after them along the path have a 1:2 ratio. Red squares must be coloured depending on their odd/even parity. The path must separate the red cells such that all red cells in each region are the same colour. It is NOT REQUIRED that red cells in adjacent regions be of different colour.

Sam Cappleman-Lynes has made an extremely clever 6x6x6 set of puzzles. We have released a solution video for this puzzle on Patreon and you can try to solve it yourself at these links (one to our software, one to penpa (which allows you to increase the size of the grids):

PS We've managed to reach 400,000 subscribers - thanks so much to everyone who has joined us on this journey. We've released a celebration video where Mark and Simon answer community questions here:

▶ SUDOKU PAD - Our New App ◀
You can now input your own classic sudoku puzzles into our software using our new App! The app also comes with 12 handmade puzzles from us and we're also releasing occasional bonus puzzles too. Get SudokuPad at these links:

iOS:

Android:

**************************************************************

▶ OUR NEW ARROW SUDOKU APP IS OUT ON ALL PLATFORMS!
Here are the links:
Steam:
App Store:
Google Play:

▶ OUR NEW KILLER SUDOKU APP IS OUT ON ALL PLATFORMS◀

▶ SIMON REACTION BOARD (!) ◀
With thanks to Andrea for creating this :)

▶ CTC FAN DISCORD SERVER◀

NEW: Guide To Our Discord Server:

▶ OUR BACK CATALOGUE – ALL CATEGORISED WITH LINKS!◀

▶ *NEW* CRACKING THE CRYPTIC MERCHANDISE◀

▶ OUR CHESS SUDOKU APP IS NOW OUT!◀

▶TRY OUR CLASSIC SUDOKU APP◀

▶TRY OUR SANDWICH SUDOKU APP◀

▶SEND US PUZZLES TO SOLVE/CONTACT US◀

▶FOLLOW US◀
Twitter: #crypticcracking
@crypticcracking

▶SOFTWARE◀
Play the puzzle in the video by clicking the link under the video (above). We are building a website which will allow you to enter your own sudoku puzzles into the software and this is coming soon!

▶Logo Design◀
Melvyn Mainini

▶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.

Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark

[RickyCruzMedia]

I'm so excited to finally see this on the channel! I'm so glad you enjoyed this, and managed to get the solve path exactly as intended. (EDIT: Also, how could I forget to mention that the added sound effects are such an amazing touch to the video!)

There was one bit where you made a slight logical leap that luckily worked out: At 18:30, you mark a 4 in the triple in box 8, but you haven't yet proven that 4 is in the bottom row of box 9 (that Kropki chain could still be 4-2-1, reading left to right). You can still rule out the 4 from r9c5 though, using the Kropki chain in column 5: regardless of the permutation of that chain, it will always have a 2 and a 4 in it, so r5c9 can only ever be 1 or 8, forcing the 2-4 pair in box 9. From there you can then get the 3-4-6 triple in box 8 and all the parity logic that came with it. (EDIT: Ha, started scrolling through other comments and saw that apparently Simon did notice this and arrive at the 3-4-6 triple that way, but didn't note the logic out loud. Hope you feel better soon, Simon!)

I'm really glad this was fun to solve; I hope the general structure and large chunks of the path being revealed from just the hexagon placement is more than outweighed by the logic required to get the upper half of the path sorted out.

The Witness is one of my favorite games of all time, and your stream of it was a wonderful journey to watch. Anyone watching this who hasn't seen Mark tackle Sktx's Witness sudoku should definitely try that out; there's also a wonderful Witness sudoku by Trevor Tao from a while back on the CTC Discord server (it's [3495] in the archive, for those who are in the server).

[remmoze]

3:11 the added soundeffect of witness path drawing is 10/10 for the editor.

[herrofof]

That sound effect at the end is one of the many reasons why I'm in love with this channel. Simon having such *wit* (pun intended) is just absolutely lovely.

[Gonzalo_Garcia_]

16:07 for me. This is one of the best puzzles I’ve ever solved, I really felt like I was solving one of the puzzles from The Witness at some point. Kudos to the setter ‘cause this is absolutely perfect.

[bertbergers]

I loved the sound effect on the finish :P great solve and composition by both Simon and Ricky

[mauryapatel]

The sound effects borrowed from the witness is just genius. Kudos to your editing team!!!

[NettoTakashi]

I love the way this puzzle blends kropki/odd-even sudoku logic with Witness logic, in such a way that the two puzzles have to work together to reach a solution in either. Very elegantly constructed, and an absolute pleasure to solve. 6 stars out of 5, would love to see more puzzles like this.

[DanielMorris]

At 18:42 Simon puts the digits 3-4-6 into the middle row of box 8. But can't the 4 still go in the center of the bottom row of that box?

[andrewgrant]

This would be great combined with the "make one mistake" symbol.

[alarictaqiarentza]

Glad to see this get featured. I solved this when it first posted to archive and its absolutely beautiful and very fun puzzle!

[inspiringsand]

Rules: 02:48
Let's get cracking: 05:34

And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Lovely: 7 (16:33, 19:15, 23:28, 27:06, 31:01, 31:03, 32:53)
Gorgeous: 4 (18:32, 26:46, 33:20, 33:22)
Good Grief: 3 (12:17, 24:04, 27:20)
Hang On: 3 (10:43, 17:58, 18:11)
Naked Single: 2 (22:34, 23:54)
Beautiful: 2 (18:32, 32:51)
By sudoku: 2 (18:44, 32:03)
Bobbins: 1 (15:52)
Cooking with Gas: 1 (25:28)
Out of Nowhere: 1 (22:19)
Break the Puzzle: 1 (31:24)
Elegant: 1 (33:24)
Come on Simon: 1 (23:08)
Of All Things: 1 (33:41)

FAQ:
Q1: What is a Simarkism?
A1: A Simarkism is something that Simon and Mark typically or frequently say.
Q2: How do you do this so fast?
A2: I'm not made of flesh and blood, but of sand ...
Q3: Why don't you include 'XX' and 'YY'?
A3: Probably it's already on the list ('Scooby-Doo' for example), but not mentioned in this video. But if you think it's not, tell me what you'd like me to include and there's a good chance I'll add it!
Q4: You missed 'XX' at 'YY:ZZ'!
A4: That could very well be the case! Human speech is hard to understand for computers like me, especially British sometimes! Point out the ones that I missed and maybe I'll learn!
Q5: Could you turn these statistics into videos?
A5: I've been playing around with the idea and I'm open to input as to what people would like to see. Let me know if you are interested in this and/or have suggestions.

[timedforpress]

Very much looking forward now to the Baba Is You themed sudokus to follow

[reubenmckay]

Been enjoying catching the uploads of your streams of The Witness (just finished the 4th one) and this was a really nice crossover between the game and sudoku. Props to Ricky Cruz for creating this and to you for battling through a sore throat to bring us this solve. Hope you recover quickly and don't be afraid to miss an upload if your voice goes completely. We understand and want you to keep in good health.

As an aside: I found the ability to draw lines between cells with the latest version of Sven's software to be really useful in making the path distinguishable without using colours. Don't know how useful you might have found it...?

[Sktx_]

Oh, that's a very good one ! I remember having a great time solving that one about a month ago. I'm really glad it made it to the channel :). ~Sktx

[ninjakillvizard]

One thing missed on this beautiful solved puzzle is not considering that whatever parity you give the box cells in a full row or column the other cells in the said row or column gets the other parity.. since there are only 4 even numbers in a set of the digits 1 through 9 lol.. not sure if someone else commented this or not but that's definitely some beautiful logic I wouldn't have thought of without watching this channel. 😀

[st.armanini]

First sudoku ever with thematic sound! Loved it!

[joelstevens]

Now THAT was a ‘Witness’ sudoku, great fun! Thanks Ricky for the puzzle and Simon for the solve (it really helped to correct any assumptions about the path direction)!

[SMTRodent]

That was an absolute joy to watch! I love this puzzle format.

[viodragon]

This was a lot of fun to be watching. Glad you shown this puzzle.

[superiorinteractive]

Wonderful design work again by Ricky Cruz, and expert solving by Simon.