Making A Murder... Scene

*** STOP PRESS: NEW MODULAR LINES SUDOKU PACKS ***

We've just released two packs featuring a new sudoku variant: Modular Lines. The base pack is available to everyone FREE here:

The Competition Pack, featuring 18 puzzles, is available to our patrons and you can find it by joining us on Patreon for as little as $2/month here:

We're extremely grateful to the team of setters behind these packs: FullDeck, Missing A Few Cards, JC Godart, jeremydover, Raumplaner and rockratzero. Thank you!

*** Today's Sudoku ***

Today's puzzle has been recommended/requested multiple times and it was only released a few days ago. It's called Constructing A Murder Scene and it's the latest sudoku from Mr.Menace. It's an extraordinary creation and you can play it at the link below:

Rules:
Place the digits 1-9 once each in every row, column and region. The nine regions are to be constructed by the solver and each contains 9 orthogonally connected cells. Additionally every region contains cells from exactly two cages and cells in one cage are distributed across exactly two regions. In cages, digits sum to the small clue in the top left corner of the cage. Digits cannot repeat within a cage.

*** Our New App Is OUT ***
Our new app is OUT on App Store AND Android!! We've completely revamped the interface. Now you download the basic app free and you can choose to download additional content. So there's a FREE pack of puzzles by Prasanna Seshadri and a paid pack: DOMINO SUDOKU!!! Prasanna's free pack includes one puzzle for each variant of our existing apps (so there's a killer sudoku, a miracle sudoku, a thermo sudoku, etc). Domino Sudoku is a pack of 100 handmade puzzles (40 on launch, 5 added each month for a year) by some of the best constructors in the World: Phistomefel, clover, jovi_al, Christoph Seeliger, Qodec, Sam Cappleman-Lynes and Richard Stolk have all contributed sudokus!!

The app is coming very soon to Steam.

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Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic

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Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB

(Please note to use our real names rather than 'Cracking The Cryptic'.)

▶ SUDOKU PAD - Our New App ◀

It's OUT on Windows (released yesterday!) via Steam here:

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. Already available on IOS and Android.

*** Our Book ***
The PDF is available as of today and the physical copy shouldn't be far behind. If you don't own the book then it can still be ordered here:

You can get the German language edition of the book here:

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[kaymennens]

Great solve. Very happy with you finding (and appreciating) the logic I put in. Thanks a lot and keep up the great work!
Mr.Menace

[TelemachusD]

1:10:52 "This six is going to eliminate stuff." *Proceeds to ignore the six immediately and for the entire rest of the solve.*

[orzelgryf]

I'm still waiting for a sudoku, in which you need to build cages and in the end it turns out that all of them are 3x3 cages. Maybe next April Fools....

[Saint_Johnny_von_PaulyMath]

I wrote a reply to another comment, but after I finished writing it, I decided that my reply merited its own post, so here it is:

Simon is the greatest live-action puzzle-solver who ever lived. He's an English poet who expresses the most wholesome child-like enthusiasm for abstract-logical artwork puzzles. Even though he's 10 years older than I am, I can imagine being his father-figure and encouraging him to keep perfecting his craft, because he's a good boy, and he's found his true calling in life. Make hay while the sun is shining. Every day we get to watch Simon solve an artwork puzzle, that day is a blessing. Every single day is a blessing.

[thedrunkenelf]

Anyone else start smiling whenever he tells us the secret because it means we are one of his favourite people 🥰🥰

[TomHickey]

I love watching Simon solve these build-a-region puzzles, even though I don't fancy solving them myself. Well done!

[FelicityWindstad]

I hope that this doesn’t offend mark when I say say that Simon is my favorite of the channel. Mark is wonderful for sure but something about simon just brings me so much joy to watch. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of skill with logic puzzles (myself), Simon explains things in a way where I can understand some of the most complicated logic where I never would have gotten it on my own. And it’s also fun to watch him struggle occasionally on the really hard puzzles!

[filbranden]

22:09 And that’s the genius of Simon! Finding that 3x3 square with a set of 1 to 9 resulting in that 123 triple. I didn’t spot that and got pretty stuck later in the puzzle. Amazing find!

[natalias.]

Here's me, a person who is not smart enough to solve this on my own, period, screaming "where does 1 and 2 go in purple SIMON" for a solid five minutes

[Aliessil]

39:33 - I'm looking at that bottom row and betting the digit between the 8 & 7 has to be 5 ... it's looking suspiciously like the approximation of pi I was taught at school, being 22/7 or 3.142857 repeating! Now I'm really curious as to a) whether I'm right, and b) whether it's intentional (it must be, surely??!)

[GrandRand]

Simon laughed at my comment last year when I said they should do something special for 500k subscribers like it was ridiculous. I expect my apology 😜

[pierrezanetti]

At 1:04:15 you can say that 3 is in the first line because if it is on the second line he has nowhere to go on the first because. Indeed I would be on a pink cell (thanks to the notation) and this wouldn’t be possible.

[everythingcoffee]

The deduction he made around 24min I found in a completely different way: the 30 cage is of course missing 15 in two cells, so it’s either missing one of the pairs that make 15, 69 or 78. If it’s missing the 69 pair, then it does have the 78 pair, which breaks the puzzle because there’s two 789 cells in the region. Therefore it has the 69 pair and is missing the 78 pair, and the 9 is removed from the 789 cells in the region. Both interesting paths, I think. Great solve!

[RichSmith]

I found if you restart the puzzle and click the check button straightaway, it only highlights the top eight rows of the grid as having a problem. The bottom row isn't highlighted. Makes me think the 'mask' for the region of the grid that should be checked isn't correctly defined. It's missing the bottom row. So on the completed grid, the check function isn't detecting all the digits 1-9 in every column, since it's only looking at the top eight rows.

Edit: Also, the conflict checker doesn't detect duplicated digits in the bottom row, like it does for all other rows.

(The software has been able to cater for build your own region type puzzles previously without having a problem. So I don't think it can be checking 3x3 boxes as some people are saying.)

[thalax]

When you found the 9 in the Purple region @24:45, you could have solved the Orange 9 as well. That's because the blue/orange 24 cage fell within the imaginary 3x3 block at the bottom (that you pointed out with your four columns equals 4x the secret). Since two of the squares of the cage fell within the imaginary 3x3, the 9 could be ruled out of them, due to the Purple 9. Leaving the cage with only one spot to put its 9, in the right Orange square. The fact that I was able to spot this at all is credit to you, for explaining all those tips and trick to solve puzzles. Edit: time note, due to reusing the same colours.

[Coyotek]

I marathoned this one (1:35:46, the last 15 minutes or so done the following day); well worth it!

Phenomenal puzzle!

[emilywilliams]

This was fantastic. Totally fantastic. I came to today's videos a bit later than usual, after Mark's was already out. Tonight I watched them in order, and I am so glad I watched this one early enough to fully appreciate what a brilliant solve this was. You did not slow down at any point, you kept making deductions and testing things and thinking, you used the word "nomenclature" (which as you know I love the vocabulary around here), and just wow. Especially I enjoyed the solution of the ... well, I was going to say the way you deduced how the top sixteen+3 cells worked toward the beginning, but if I focus on that I would be neglecting the wonderful way the 11-cage in the bottom left worked on delineating the regions in that area, and then the way you got the upper right corner of the grid to work ... I was mesmerized all the way through. Thanks so much, Simon, for this fun evening. And thanks to Mr. Menace for this puzzle.

[Thurhame]

I used different logic in column 5: Once we've placed the 9 in r8c5, there's only one way to make 25 without using 8 or 9, so we can immediately fill the 33 cage with 34567. This fixes the 8 and leaves us with a 12 pair in the remaining two cells.

I did get stuck at one point, until I watched the video to where Simon points out that the 9 in row 9 can't be a purple or orange 9. Thank you Simon!

I completely missed Simon's logic for finishing the position of the grey cage; but I later placed it by determining that the last grey cell had to be the 29 cage's 5, which wound up in the top right corner.

I love how Simon takes the time at 59:20 to prove the 9 sits in Grey, when Grey was built starting from the 9 in the first place. I also love how Simon and I found completely different paths to filling in Red and Purple.

[justinfarmer]

At 1:04:16 I don't know if anyone noticed but you can get 3 in the top two rows by thinking 3 doesn't go in the first 4 columns it can't go in red or purple twice so it must go in gray in r2c9 then purple in r1c5. I was kinda proud of myself for spotting it.

[sarahnash]

I don't like doing suduko, but for some absurd reason I'm fascinated by watching you solve them and figuring them out with you!