The Hardest Sudoku Ever

Here is an unutterably brilliant (and mind-bendingly hard) sudoku by Matyas Martinka. The rules are a little complicated but it is worth studying them!

RULES: Normal sudoku rules apply. Each cell in the grid should be coloured blue (for water) or green (for land). For cells containing arrows, the digit in that cell shows how many cells share the same colour with the cell in the given direction, NOT including the arrow cell itself. Note that these same-colour cells need not be connected to the arrow cell. Not all arrows are given. The water occupies a single orthogonally connected region of the grid but no 2x2 area can contain only water cells. An island is an orthogonally connected region of at least 3 land cells. All land cells must be part of islands (so land cells are always in groups of three or more orthogonally connected cells). Islands may touch each other diagonally. Land cells forming any island must contain different digits.

Scott Strosahl's Junior Puzzle Hunt is available free here:

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Play the puzzle in the video by clicking the link under the video (above). We are building a website which will allow you to enter your own sudoku puzzles into the software and this is coming soon!

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▶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

[martepaulsen]

Me: Simon you can place that one number that won’t help you get any further right there

Simon: Okay we can place this, which gives us this and all of this and that. Which disambiguates these two, which disambiguates these four...

Me: Yes okay, but you can still place that one number right there

[tjampman]

"We can prove that's a two, because it has to be" That logic never works when I do it :-)

[ricpotp]

This guy's 'stare at this a minute' is a whole world different to mine

[ietjesiobhan]

I'm only 8 minutes in and I don't think I've ever been this confused in my entire life. I have NO IDEA what's going on. The fact that Simon can make me enjoy solves I do not understand a single bit is remarkable

[karlwolf]

When the video is over an hour is when you know that title is not a joke.

[matteomutti]

Simon: "I have no clue how to start it" *starts after 3 seconds*
Me: "I have no clue how to start it" *places a wrong pencil mark after staring at the grid for 20 minutes*

[kgiggles]

“It still resists! You recalcitrant puzzle!”

-Simon, May 2020 49:13

[glennmelven]

Near the beginning right when he got the 9 his exclamation of joy and then his statement of how useless it was made me laugh.
Never apologize for a long video. We get great enjoyment out of your joy at solving these difficult puzzles.

[quintonwillis]

One of the best Sudoku solvers in the world: "I'm sure you all are seeing this before I am, I'm sorry I'm so slow."
Me, a Sudoku layman: "You severely overestimate my power..."

[vctrsigma]

36:00 "Surely this is going to blow the puzzle open"
Looks at bar only half way.
I think not.

[jakebleiweiss]

Me for 45 minutes “please place the 1 in the top right corner”

Simon an hour in: “things like this, I can place this 1 here but it doesn’t help me at all”

Me: shit

[MrHippyCow]

"There's a nine straight off the bat" 11:41 in...

[jamiederinzi]

"A puzzle I believe I described as a work of sublime genius..."
Sorry, that doesn't narrow it down much :-)

[gombospatrik]

"Those cells have to be 6789, which is


completely useless."
xDDDD

[hieiDN]

"Hey do you know what Sudoku is?"
"Yeah, that's the game where you put 1's-9's in the squares, right? That's too easy, are there harder Sudoku's?
Simon at 13:23, "I don't obviously know which one of these is land and which one is water."

[stefanjoeres]

Me: This title seems like it's clickbait.
Me attempting the puzzle: Uh, no thanks.
Me seeing the length of the video: Oh well, the title seems accurate...

[facilvenir]

"I hope you can forgive me"... I wouldn't forgive you if you didn't show me this.

[hatterson]

Me: Sees video title
Me: Notices video is over an hour long
Me: Sees the rule set is roughly 25 paragraphs long
Simon: Do try it out
Me: Yea I think I'm gonna sit this one out

[onurbole]

I saw the title and thought "Simon fell into the clickbait trend too." Then I checked the video length... And proceeded to read some video game dissertation in the disguise of sudoku rules. Excuse me, Simon.

[troqu]

"We don't know whether this is land or water yet" Exploration: hard mode.