10 Puzzles In One Sudoku?!

*** STOP PRESS: PATREON REWARD + STEAM RELEASE ***

August's monthly reward was released two days ago and we've already had about 1,000 correct entries! It is a Genuinely Approachable set of Sudokus with Puzzle elements - we're calling it GASP! The feedback so far has been great with lots of people managing to finish the monthly reward for the first time.

Join us on Patreon for as little as $2/month to try it out here:

Also, our new app was finally released on Steam today! Link 1 is to a free pack of puzzles and Link 2 is to Domino Sudoku, the game we've been working on for over a year. Enjoy!

*** Today's Sudoku ***

It's rare nowadays that we are completely surprised by a puzzle but AnalyticalNinja's Lego House is quite quite extraordinary. Prepare to do battle with 10 puzzles to finish this sudoku and prepare to love every minute of it!

Give it a try at the link below:

Rules:
Digits on an arrow sum to the digit in the attached circle. (Digits can repeat along arrows if allowed by other rules). In cages, digits must sum to the small clue in the top left corner of the cage. Digits cannot repeat within a cage. This puzzle is solved in two stages: 1. Normal 9x9 sudoku rules DO NOT apply. Solve each 3x3 box within the grid independently (so ignoring the rest of the grid). ie Three digits (selected from 1 to 9) need to be placed in each row/column of that 3x3 box once each. 2. Erase all digits within the grid whose box number does not match their row number (eg you'll keep the digits in r4c1c2c3 within box 4). Then solve the puzzle as a regular killer arrow sudoku using the remaining digits as givens (ie normal sudoku rules will apply at this point).

*** Our New App Is OUT ***
Our new app is OUT on App Store AND Android AND ON PC (via Steam)!! 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!!

▶ 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'.)

▶ SUDOKU PAD - Our New App ◀

It's OUT on Windows 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:

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

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

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Melvyn Mainini

[francescopetracca]

How can someone came up with something like this is beyond me... this is a masterpiece, a work of art. And the best thing is that it's not insanely difficult. Wow.

[tangrybird]

29:14 for me…yes I’m very aware that Simon has introduction and announcements prior to starting the solve, as well as him explaining his every step along the way…but this is the first time I’ve solved a puzzle faster than the video length time 🤗 Simon always talks about the beauty of the logical steps that you have to take, and now I actually 100% know what he means. What a beautiful puzzle, very original!

[nikolausseydel]

Of course, one color in a 3x3 is always a diagonal: Just take the centre digit and think where its friends will be --> in two opposite corners, forming a diagonal!

[stevieinselby]

Great puzzle – and yes, not too difficult, once you've figured out how to interpret the rules!

12:00 - yes, that is a very (ahem) odd way to think about box 7.
➡ You know that the 14-cage must have a 1 in it, because that adds to the 2 cells repeated from the 13-cage.
➡ That means that all three rows in the box have a 1 in them.
➡ The 13-cage _doesn't_ have a 1 in it, so the third cell in that row must be the 1.
➡ Using the arrow logic, the 13-cage must be made up of two numbers that are 1 apart, which are 6 and 7.

[AdventCloudStrife]

21:50 for me. I was REALLY thrown by the initial rule set; I didn't understand that the small 3-by-3 boxes were each meant to be filled with 3 copies of 3 digits (i.e. a box might have the digits 2, 4, and 8, but ONLY those digits), so i had to watch Simon's initial solving of box 4 to get it. From there, though, a pretty pleasant solve. Box 8 gave me a bit of an issue, and I essentially had to brute force by trying every possible arrow solution, but in the end I managed it.

[IamSlax]

This was a mind-blowing ruleset. The single-box solve dynamic was completely new to me and took me longer than it should have.

[paulwright]

Brilliant! what an Amuse Bouche. 9 tasty appetizers before the main course, smile from ear to ear throughout the solve.

[benjaminrealy]

24:34. Perfect puzzle. Definitely approachable! Quite challenging but not at all difficult. And I think this may be the first time it clearly shows that challenging and difficult aren't synonymous. Most puzzles that are difficult are challenging and most puzzles that are not challenging are easy, but they are two different spectrums that tend to rarely stray off of each other, but in this case they did. Usually if they split its the other way where a puzzle is difficult but not challenging, and even then it's not by much. Brilliantly done!!!! Loved the fact that solving some squares needed to be used to solve other squares (or at least if not needed Definitely made easier) 10/10

[wbball]

Always fun to hear the glee in Simon's voice as he's solving.

[sarahnash]

I just have to tell someone cos I'm well chuffed with myself! I've just completed the first 4 puzzles on the CtC app! OK it's stupidly long times, almost 3 hours for the last one, but up until I found your channel looking for cryptic crossword help, well Sunday really, I couldn't even do normal sudokus! Thank you SO much 💜

[Derek_Koni]

37:41, my first puzzle done on this channel!! It was difficult to get my head around the 3x3 without set numbers, but after that it just rolled out with a really smooth solve. I just looked back at Simon when I got to stage 2 and I was happy when I got it right!! What an excellent and unique puzzle.

[tananari]

Fun fact: this puzzle can also be solved without the first stage. Which is what I did because I am a dumb and saw a bunch of familiar rules and didn't think to check of there was any special trick to play.

[frankophetveld]

When checking the video length, a 30 minute video is usually at the upper end of my abilities. But you made such a beautiful and elegant puzzle that I actually managed to solve it. Bravissimo!

[Weaseltube]

I feel like a whole new type of Sudoku has just been invented, the 10-in-1. This was so much fun once I got the rules figured out.

[boydegg]

34:36 .... how does this exist? I am often blown away by the puzzles and can't begin to think how the setter built them so cleverly. For me, this is next level clever. I feel like it should be shown on TV or on the news or something. Amazing.

[inspiringsand]

Rules: 05:23
Let's Get Cracking: 05:59
Simon's time: 22m44s
Puzzle Solved: 28:43

What about this video's Top Tier Simarkisms?!
Maverick: 2x (05:50, 25:08)

And how about this video's Simarkisms?!
Brilliant: 6x (01:15, 02:13, 02:27, 19:40, 29:16, 29:16)
Sorry: 5x (04:26, 09:01, 21:17, 21:55, 24:19)
By Sudoku: 5x (07:18, 10:02, 13:55, 13:57, 27:34)
Ah: 3x (12:01, 12:02, 15:32)
Clever: 2x (28:41, 28:41)
Beautiful: 2x (15:43, 20:12)
Fascinating: 2x (14:07, 14:09)
Incredible: 2x (02:20, 02:20)
Extraordinary: 2x (00:32, 05:28)
Hang On: 2x (07:28, 18:55)
Surely: 2x (14:26, 15:04)
In Fact: 2x (20:01, 24:47)
Obviously: 2x (01:38, 11:35)
What on Earth: 1x (19:04)
Lovely: 1x (01:13)
Shouting: 1x (01:05)
Approachable: 1x (05:38)
Intriguing: 1x (21:58)
What Does This Mean?: 1x (27:32)
Cake!: 1x (01:16)
Unique: 1x (00:20)

Most popular number(>9), digit and colour this video:
Ten (13 mentions)
Two (66 mentions)
Blue (9 mentions)

Antithesis Battles:
Even (18) - Odd (11)
Higher (3) - Lower (1)
Black (3) - White (0)
Row (28) - Column (4)

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!

[danielcamp]

I absolutely loved the concept of this puzzle & it was a lot of fun to solve. It never ceases to amaze me, the creativity & brilliance of the puzzle setters to be constantly evolving new & interesting concepts & rulesets.

[HunterJE]

I could see an evil version of this same ruleset where some of the step-1 boxes don't solve independently (either the lesser-evil way would use clashes between cells in indexed rows via columns, e.g. r1c1 and r4c1 can't be the same since they will both be left in the step 2 puzzle, or the truly-evil way where you have to actually start solving step 2 with incomplete info in order to get info needed to resolve step 1 in the remaining boxes)

[pinkponytail]

This puzzle is absolutely amazing. Took me an hour but I loved every minute of it. Just beautiful, there's no other way to describe this one...

[majora]

I enjoyed this puzzle a lot. I've been playing along with these videos for about two weeks now, and I almost always find myself spinning my wheels and having to watch the video for the "break in". But this time I was able to figure it out [almost] by myself. It took me 43:39 to solve though because I accidentally transposed two of the digits during stage 1, which produced an unsolvable stage 2. After watching the first few minutes of Simon's solve, I noticed my error and quickly finished up.

One trick I found quite useful was noticing that there's two shared digits from rows 1-3 (and likewise for 4-6 and 7-9), which gave me a head-start when independently solving boxes 3, 6, and 9.