A Sudoku With No Digits At All!

*** TODAY'S PUZZLE ***
The plaudits for this sudoku have been stellar even though it's only just been released. It's called Post Office Panic and it's the work of tesseralis. This is a weird and wonderful puzzle with some bonkers logic!! Play the puzzle at the link below:

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Cells separated by an X must contain digits summing to 10. Clues outside the grid indicate the digit which has to be placed in the Nth cell in the corresponding direction, where N is the digit placed in the first cell in that direction. Each letter represents a different digit. The grey table is provided to help you record digits you discover.

*** PATREON REWARDS JUST OUT ***

We've just released a brand new Sudoku Hunt from Joseph Nehme themed around Equal Sum Lines! With 13 puzzles in all, this is just a wonderful collection of puzzles. Do have a go if you can.

Just $2/month here:

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[TrackpadProductions]

I think it says a lot about the types of puzzles Simon solves that _"The Sudoku With No Digits At All"_ doesn't really narrow it down.

[tesseralis]

Thanks for featuring my puzzle! Solved with aplomb, as always ^_^. The idea came since, like you, I noticed that numbered rooms was getting popular on the discord. For some reason, the first thought I had was "I wonder if I can make one without any concrete numbers" since, as the video title says, we all love puzzles without any given digits, even if they're on the outside of the grid. From there, I played around with the configurations and tried to see how far I could get, and I think it turned out well.

Regarding the solve, the more formal way to prove A wasn't 4 or 6 is: if it was 4 or 6, then one of the clues at the bottom would be the other of 4 and 6, aka 10-A. But as you said, we already clued 10-A in box 8, which breaks the puzzle! Definitely the most subtle and hardest step of the puzzle but one I'm pretty proud of and I think is elegant.

[HunterJE]

50:59 Earlier on when Simon pencil marked 2 as a possibility for E without noticing that 2 and E are both in box 8 in different cells I figured "probably fine, he'll notice it once he narrows it down further, " guess maybe not...

[bobblebardsley]

26:17 Apologies if this happens in the 40 minutes of video I haven't yet seen, but given the letters B, C, D, E and G all rhyme with 'me', I'm quite excited about the prospect of Simon being able to put them in the corner.

[HunterJE]

For some reason these index puzzles break my brain, I always try to draw conclusions then suddenly realize I'm mixing up the index and the indicated...

[inspiringsand]

Rules: 05:15
Let's Get Cracking: 07:22
Simon's time: 53m17s
Puzzle Solved: 1:00:39

What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
Bobbins: 1x (24:44)
Diddly Squat: 1x (42:46)

And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Ah: 16x (11:32, 11:32, 18:45, 22:15, 25:03, 25:03, 27:43, 28:43, 28:46, 31:26, 41:23, 47:23, 48:39, 54:55, 55:14, 55:26)
By Sudoku: 10x (42:09, 42:15, 43:19, 49:24, 52:47, 57:49, 58:14, 58:53, 59:14, 1:00:04)
Hang On: 10x (09:51, 10:02, 13:36, 16:14, 26:26, 29:31, 31:28, 40:36, 44:42, 53:51)
Sorry: 8x (04:40, 05:03, 19:02, 19:11, 24:27, 42:03, 42:03, 49:43)
In Fact: 7x (27:23, 27:27, 39:52, 47:46, 53:20, 1:01:50, 1:02:10)
Good Grief: 6x (12:50, 12:55, 22:36, 32:58, 57:10, 1:00:41)
Beautiful: 6x (41:28, 48:46, 55:26, 56:32, 1:01:44, 1:02:42)
Pencil Mark/mark: 6x (10:40, 10:47, 27:17, 51:36, 51:41, 54:44)
Wow: 5x (07:44, 29:38, 40:20, 58:00, 58:04)
Nonsense: 4x (19:13, 20:53, 28:18, 50:18)
Incredible: 4x (00:58, 02:41, 02:41, 1:02:36)
Magnificent: 4x (01:05, 02:25, 04:24, 52:16)
Lovely: 3x (41:41, 59:43, 1:01:46)
Obviously: 3x (03:39, 04:05, 09:47)
Symmetry: 3x (14:44, 14:48, 27:59)
Goodness: 2x (36:38, 57:03)
Clever: 2x (57:06, 1:01:52)
I Have no Clue: 2x (07:10, 1:00:35)
Brilliant: 2x (02:40, 05:08)
Approachable: 2x (01:40, 01:53)
Plonk: 2x (47:33, 49:11)
Apologies: 1x (58:41)
The Answer is: 1x (25:10)
Extraordinary: 1x (00:23)
Surely: 1x (48:11)
Disappointing: 1x (54:34)
Corollary: 1x (06:43)
What Does This Mean?: 1x (16:06)
Cake!: 1x (03:36)

Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Ten (22 mentions)
Four (98 mentions)
Orange (3 mentions)

Antithesis Battles:
High (2) - Low (0)
Even (10) - Odd (1)
Column (27) - Row (23)

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!

[timothydoyle]

I never realized how enjoyable it could be to watch someone solve an amazing Sudoku puzzle while speaking in a British accent. It is extremely relaxing, engages the mind, and I feel like I can't get enough!

[dennisc]

It's so interesting to see Simon struggle so much with indexes and the actual values. For my job I work with arrays (and other indexed collection variables) all day every day, and the only hurdle was remembering that the letters outside the grid are the values being indexed and not the index itself. So I suppose being a software developer really makes these puzzles easier to understand.

[crashtextdummie]

I really love when a rule set both tickles and flummoxes Simon, which this puzzle accomplishes in style.

Really not too difficult in terms of logic, just highly unusual, fresh and entertaining.

[GML]

Simon (pointing at the E in r8c5) at around 1:00:25 "I could have got E ages ago...": indeed, maybe longer than he thought, it had been there for about 10 minutes - since the moment the possible values for E had been reduced to 2 or 7 by the 46 pair in r6c19, it had to be a 7 because of the 2 in r9c5.

[crystalgehrt]

I took so so so long to do this puzzle. I kept messing up and backtracking. When I finished, I just sat there stunned and said, "I... think... I... did it?" and then watched Simon's solve to celebrate. I loved Simon's heartfelt WAHOO! ❤

[oneeyedman]

Variant sodoku has entered a new era on this channel, amazing. Please keep bringing us this content

[srwapo]

I like that updated your example to fix the error in the column, but happened to put it in a row with two Es and had the same error as before in the row!

[dicecupmerlin]

I'd been trying to break into this puzzle for a few million years, had to watch a bit of Simon's solve until he asked "where is A on row 5?" to get me anything at all! Thank you Simon

[geminimaxxim]

"That's a 7 by... magic., " has got to be my favourite kind of sudoku logic

[swatea]

Simply brainbusting stuff, I had a great time watching your solve Simon. Kudos to tesseralis for a great piece!

All the novel stuff I can really offer from myself is that, at 21:30, I deduced the 9 in R9C1 differently.
We know that the cells in C1+C9 add up to 90. We also know R2C1+R2C9=10, R3C1+R3C9=10, etc. for 7 lots of 10.
Therefore, we find that removing these cells (sum 70) from C1+C9 (sum 90) gives us that the puzzle corners add up to 20, and so the R9C1 is 9 as we already have the other three corners.

[johnh]

At 37:00, the easier way to see that A can't be 6 is by looking at the possible positions for E in column 5. You can't put an E into the 6th position because it would be in the center of the two Es to either side of the grid. That logic is available from the moment you figure out that A is even.

[hotwheelsnholdem]

Simon's face when he's trying to figure out A, that's how I felt pretty much during the entire solve.

[Alkex]

I was worried you weren't going to get your mojo back after the virus until you pulled out that insane "10-A with the X clue" deduction. That came out of left field for me, had me actually laughing. Great work as always, Simon!

[OgotuMusic]

50:30
one of the most hilarious moments for me on the channel. brilliant