Who Is In The Sudoku Penthouse?

*** TODAY'S PUZZLE ***
Marty Sears and Lorena team up today with a fascinating idea about tessellating a fog-of-war sudoku grid into tetrominoes, pentominoes and Ocho (the cat)! It's called Penthouse and Simon recommends reading the rules - it can help with solving the puzzle ;)

Play the puzzle at the link below:

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. The grid is covered with fog. Entering correct digits may clear fog somewhere in the grid. No guessing is necessary. Five tetrominoes (shapes made of 4 orthogonally connected cells) have just moved into a large house with 12 pentominoes (shapes made of 5 orthogonally connected cells). No two characters are exactly the same shape (rotations and reflections count as the same, e.g. there is only one L tetromino). There is also a pet cat called Ocho, who occupies just one cell. Fit all 18 occupants into the grid so that none of them overlap. Outlines of characters are shown with a thick black line. A small clue appearing anywhere within a character indicates the total sum of all the digits in that character. No two characters have the same total. Digits never repeat on a character. Around the grid are photos of some (not all) of the characters. Each photo shows a character as it appears in the grid, unreflected (i.e. photos are not mirrored). It also shows one of its digits, with its correct orientation and position within the character. (Each character must be placed in the grid so that its given digit is up the right way.)

Check out @vinzarelli and his version of our theme music here:

Check out Ben's sudoku made on his father Harry's birthday:

*** APRIL SUDOKU HUNT COMPETITION JUST OUT ***
Our April Fools themed sudoku hunt went live on 1 April. You could win Emily Williams' homemade sudoku cushion cover!!

Check it out for as little as $2/month here:

*** BONUS SOLVE ON PATREON ***
Simon couldn't resist the Scrabble Sudoku mentioned during last week's videos. His solve of LMDemasi's puzzle is available on Patreon now!

*** MONUMENT VALLEY STREAM ***
We're going to be streaming again on Wednesday evening at 10pm UK time. We're going to tackle Monument Valley (and possibly the sequel too).

You can watch the stream here:

The game is available here:

*** NEW FOG APP IS OUT ON APPLE (!), STEAM & ANDROID ***
Brand new incredible Fog Sudoku puzzles by the likes of Phistomefel, Marty Sears, James Sinclair, Qodec, Dorlir, ThePedallingPianist, Sandra&Nala, Peter Veenis, Mr Menace, Florian Wortmann, Math Pesto & HalfBakedLunatic.

*** CRACKING THE CRYPTIC APP ***
Our main app (which is itself completely free) contains packs featuring Fog, Domino, Lines, and GAS puzzles, with a few special free sets as well! All the puzzles are hand-crafted by us and some of the best constructors in the world, with hints by Simon and Mark.
AppStore:
Android:

▶ Contents Of This Video ◀

0:00 Intro music & puzzle intro
2:00 Patreon Update
3.02 Happy Birthdays
1:25 Monument Valley
7:47 Rules
13:47 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking

▶ Contact Us ◀

Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic

Our PO Box address:

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

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

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#sudoku #puzzle #penthouse

[LorenaIsEvil]

What a privilege it was to work with Marty on this puzzle, and what a treat to watch Simon solve it! My favourite part was, of course, when he called it “evil”. Not the first time he uses that word for my work, and hopefully not the last! Believe me, it would’ve been a LOT more evil if Marty hadn’t reined me in. He’s a softie deep down.

[BrianStewart]

Simon saying Awko instead of Ocho is perfect.

[bekahjonesmusic]

"I don't have the checker on, I wonder why they appeared?" Probably because you cleared the fog 😂

[MaierFlorian]

The amusing thing in the end is that you basically solved the fog of war sudoku without clearing any fog after the very first digit and than right at the finish everything cleares and you get wobbly eyes 🤣

[steveby]

My first solve! I usually try them, get stuck, check with the video, then proceed to go til I blunder somewhere. This one I did all by myself!

[camillet]

So I’m guessing the April’s Fools joke of this puzzle is none of the fog cleared until the final digit was placed. Diabolical.

[Kairamek]

An interesting choice to have the fog clear at second to last digits. The penultimate digit. Now I get it.

[JS...]

I solved this quite soon after release and the way fog cleared was hilarious. I liked it a lot, and the puzzle too.

[Scojo]

I just want to offset the comments that only credit Marty for this puzzle by giving some love to Lorena. Having talked to both Marty and Lorena, I know how much work Lorena put into this puzzle, and it comes across as extremely dismissive of her efforts to read so many "What a great Marty Sears puzzle" comments. This happened on Ratfinkz's collaboration with Marty too. Anyway, Marty and Lorena, you BOTH did an excellent job with this puzzle ❤

[RobertWelsh-ju]

you cleared the fog. that's why the googly-eyes appeared.

[michaelmatter]

Got to love any puzzle that uses Ocho-location!

[nulldiamonddragon]

To clarify "Ocho" is eight in Spanish, and makes sense for the cat's name

[hzl]

This puzzle was unbelievable!!! Solved in 58:37!! I can't even fathom how a puzzle like this is set

[AlmostM]

I quite liked this puzzle. It was nice to be able to focus on coloring and shapes and color the entire puzzle, and then shift gears to focus on sudoku, followed by a shift again to focus on distinct cage sums. And the characters are so friendly!

[michaelchamberlain]

what an incredibly smooth solve :) excellent puzzle. 50:46

[jonfbanks]

I was so incredibly stuck on this puzzle so I watched Simon and around an hour in when he discovers the different totals rule that's when I also discovered that rule. So don't feel bad Simon I did the same thing!

[SasCLostChild]

Absolutely loved this puzzle myself and I love your reaction to finding out, that the 23 cross in the bottom left solved the w. Also loved that it's a fog puzzle that reveals itself in only 2 steps (which is why there suddenly were googly eyes everywhere)

[racingstu]

The witty construction was that non of the fog cleared at all after Ocho, until you got to the very end. Very cleverly constructed!

[RobertWelsh-ju]

Marty and Lorena, two very original thinkers. Great puzzle.

[max]

This watch taught me that simon is good with numbers and soduko, but not so much with shapes :D
The W pentomino could be filled very early on with the 1 giving its rotation. It had only one place to go, just like the I pentomino in the top left.
Next is the F pentomino in the bottom middle. Could have been placed very early on, but he got there by realizing the 14 cells include th last tetromino etc.

At some videos i am amazed how fast he sees the number logic, but this was driving me nuts having placed all the shapes in my head waiting, what felt like forever, for him to actually place them in :D