Send in the Hornets and Wasps

Normal Sudoku rules apply. Digits cannot repeat in cages, which show their sums. The grey square marks an even digit.

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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

[JeremyButlerquarterthru]

Once again, thank you for solving my puzzle! Great job, as always. No I don't typically design my puzzles using SET, but I had this idea and just had to do it. Your solve path was spot on to how I planned. Kudos!

[AussieJohnny]

Being new to the channel I didn't know about SET. So when Mark explained the difference between 32 and 8 I stopped the video and went and had a crack at the puzzle. I got stuck late in the puzzle for a while...because I forgot the four cells had to add up to 32 and the other four add to 8. Duh!! I finally remembered and was able to finish it. Thanks Quarterthru for the great puzzle and thanks Mark for the SET lesson.

[glennmelven]

What a simple, yet elegant explanation of set theory on those 2 corners.

[clarematthews]

I thought it was SET but didn't have the brain this very tired morning to spot what sets it would be - until YouTube gave that one second preview like it does and that revealed enough colours to be able to quickly find the set and get started with all the max/min stuff.

Lovely puzzle. Much fun once that break in is found. And now it's stopped raining - the day is going well!

[flarklooney]

You know things are getting serious when Mark starts getting a nip of the bottle! 🤣

[BlueCyann]

I'm kind of amazed to have solved this one given that puzzles like this usually send me away frustrated. It did still take forever. But so much of it is just believing you can.

[paulunderwood]

I'm gutted but now it's my time. Thanx CtC. I'm going to chill out and get entertained the fairest way. Respesct

[SMTRodent]

Just realised that the sets make the 'wings' of the wasp, which is looking at the top right corner.

[benjaminbrat]

Thank you so much for such fun and peaceful mindfulness.
Am I the only one to find Mark's breathing slightly shorter than usual?

[Uncle]

That was an excellent break-in, Mark.

[BozoTheBear]

At 28:07 there was another way to get out of the mess. Look at the 1349-quadruple in column 7 - the 9 in this quadruple can only go in two cells, and these both see the bottom two cells in the zigzag 32-cage! So those two cells become a 28-pair. (This then has exactly the same effect as Mark's elimination.)

[rungus]

I would have bet money on the central square being a 5.

[chipsounder]

elegant use of the set theory, well solved mark!

[Gonzalo_Garcia_]

37:08 for me. Not my best performance with this one. It took me a while to find out the break-in as I was expecting something easier, and then some poor scanning did the rest. I’m saving Simon’s one for tomorrow to see if I can do better after some sleep.

[Coyotek]

I must be allergic to stinging insects ... I couldn't solve this one to save my life.

I had the right idea at the start, trying to use Set Theory, but I had the wrong boxes; I tried comparing the 5x5 group in the upper-left with the 4x4 group in the lower-right, and then tried comparing the 4x4 group in the upper-left with the 5x5 group in the lower-right. To say the least ... I was close.

Then I completely missed a basic scan (the 4s in the 34-cage forced where the 4 in Box 5 went) ... and *then* I missed how to rule out the 29-possibility in Box 6 near the end.

All in all, I made a complete mess of this one.

[logiciananimal]

Simon's "5 in the center" heuristic, I'd guess, more likely to come when the *rules* are "symmetrical".

[willemkossen]

There, he said it again. Approachable. Well, im busy with the murder mystery hunt. I have gotten stuck on all but one puzzle so far. Only the first one i could finish by my self, am currently working on act 5. Its hard, unless you are very good and experienced, its hard….

Or i am particularly bad at these puzzles….. could be…. Done a lot of puzzles, but apparently i’m still bad…. :/

[juliabogd]

It was somehow very satisfying to watch, nice video and puzzle 😊

[carstenkruse]

just as Simon racks Mark for filling out cells with all the numbers possible ( which is good btw) Mark should rack Simon for not scanning properly...like simon can not scan at all.

[ChicanoryIsMyName]

The length of this video hides the difficulty of this puzzle. I couldn't crack it after an hour.