How Can This Be Someone's First Ever Sudoku?

*** TODAY'S PUZZLE ***
We're absolutely astonished to learn that this puzzle (called Maximum Unique) is constructor Krushed's first ever sudoku. We actually believe that ANY constructor on the planet would be pleased to have made this one - it is that good. Take a bow Krushed - we look forward to your next puzzle with baited breath!

Play the puzzle at the link below:

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Cells separated by a knight's move in chess cannot contain the same digit. Cells joined by a white dot must contain digits with a difference of 1. Digits in a cage must sum to the small clue in the top-left corner of the cage and cannot repeat.

Thanks to all of you who have helped us achieve the milestone of 600,000 subscribers on YouTube. Below you can find a link to a free puzzle pack we have curated to celebrate :)

*** NEW SUDOKU HUNT BY Scojojobo JUST RELEASED ***
We've launched a brand new competition - a sudoku hunt by Scojo, Jojo and JoBo featuring lots of sudokus with loose connections to clones! Check it out for as little as $2/month here:

There's also a new solve of Jay Dyer's brutal sudoku: Repeat Prescription

Other treats on Patreon include:

- The Lord Of The Rings Sudoku Hunt by Blobz (and Simon's solve videos)
- Simon's solve of Sky-Skyscraper by Phistomefel has just been uploaded for our patrons.
- Mark's latest solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword
- Mark's latest series of solves of Connections, the daily New York Times puzzle based on the Only Connect wall game.

*** BRAID STREAM ***
You can watch our recent stream at this link:

▶ SUDOKU PAD - Use Our Software For Your Puzzles ◀

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ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”

▶ Contents Of This Video ◀

0:00 Theme music and puzzle intro
1:40 Our New "Very Approachable" Sudoku app
2:43 Patreon competition
3:12 Happy Birthdays
4:18 Rules
5:26 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking

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[klvsched]

Thanks a lot for the feature and all the too kind words, Simon! Lovely solve as always from both you and Mark, and I'm glad you liked it!
Hopefully you guys will enjoy some of my newer puzzles as well. Cheers!

[Raye]

Simon, as I have watched your videos over time I got better at sudoku, now I understand why you often say "people are probably yelling at their screen." I wasn't educated enough on variant sudoku enough to be yelling at the screen until approachable sudoku! Thanks for the pack.

[The_Wolf_of_Gar]

I like your break in with the 6 i used set myself, knowing Rows (R)4&5 sum to 90 you can subtract 32 and 37 from the rows. After you discover R4 c2&c8 are the same value as the cage cells excluded from R4&5. You are left with a sum of 21 and 6 cells. R4 c3-c7, R5c5. As the minimum value of 6 cells is 21 you know it's the digits 1-6 and since the R5c5 sees the digits 1-5 in box 2 you know it is a 6.

[afrayedknot]

16:00 (37+32)-45 =24 is a very useful point here. Especially because 24 is the max sum of 3 distinct digits.
It immediately gets you: yellow+gray+r4c9 = 789 triple

[Bugonchair]

136 minutes to solve for me, really good puzzle. At least 20 minutes of sitting around wondering how to start, but it flows really well once you do!

[chocolateboy]

I finished in 51:33 minutes. That was one of the most beautiful break-ins I have done and to think this is a first time construction. Absolutely brilliant. I was so happy when I spotted it. I think it was my favorite part. I have to keep my eye out for Krushed in the future. Great Puzzle!

[davidrattner]

Wonderful choices for colors today Simon! Loved how you went about solving.
Thank you for this fabulous debut from you Krushed!! Elegant setting!!

[tahurrrrr]

This was a toughie but it just makes the solve that much more rewarding when you finally get there. Thanks for sharing!

[RoderickEtheria]

17:07, the simple explanation is that if a digit is missing from the 37 cage, it must be in the 32 cage, given that r5c5 appears in the 37 cage. So subtract 3 digits totalling 8 from the 32 cage, and the purple digit reveals its value.

[voidify]

Personally i found r5c5 by doing the maths: 32+37-45=24, so r4c1+r4c9+r6c4+r6c6=r5c5+24

So once we know that r5c5 is the same as r4c1, we know that grey and yellow and r4c9 must sum to 24, and since they all see each other they must be a set of 789. And now all the high digits in r4 are taken and purple is the only one that can be 6

[greenansatsu]

I've fallen off doing these types of sudokus for awhile now, and I'm out of habit with some of the mind processes I'm used to for solving these. However Simon reminds me that you can sneak a way into the break-ins in unintuitive ways (to me) and make progress. He made logical leaps 3 separate times during this solve that got the exact same spot as me just from different ways. this is why I love these puzzles and videos.

[gordonglenn]

LOL at myself, misreading the title as "Simon's first sudoku?"

[davidhughes]

Briliant puzzle, lovely solve and big thanks again to an enjoyable video.

[dinane]

When I colored the digit that you made orange, I also colored it’s opposite and between both of them managed to sudoku via colors and get everything else sorted out until a final clarification offered by a white dot.

[thebishop]

Loved this. Took me over an hour, so pretty slow going but I never felt that I was totally stuck at any point. Like some of the other commenters here I used maths on rows 4 and 5 to get the break in (and luckily too as I don't think I would ever have gotten my head around the method Simon used!)
Many thanks to both Simon and setter.

[emilywilliams]

Fantastic solve, Simon. I loved this video! I always like a knight's move puzzle, for one thing, and this was particularly nice. Thanks for this video (and for all that you do to bring us a full complement of sudoku and other things on this channel every single day).

[isakoolsson]

The explanation of rules was very satisfying. Highlighting the middle row, middle column, middle box, middle cell of the middle box and the dot that was in the middle column 🤤

[RealCadde]

24:43 DO NOT LEAVE R8C5!!!

Yellow and grey sees that cell. This means that cell is a third color for high digits.
Let's call R8C5 "Green" for now...

Where is Green in box 6?
Well, we know R4C9 is from [789] and sees yellow and grey so R4C9 is Green.

Now, where is green in box 5? It's not in row 4 and it's not in column 5 and it's not in the 32 cage so it's exactly at R5C4.

Now, in box 2, Green lives with gray in the 15 cage to the right. So green + gray = 15. Since neither green or gray is a 6, they form a 78 pair.
What remains is yellow and purple. We know purple is 6 so yellow is 9.

And the 15 cage in box 7 is a yellow/purple domino with a 6 and a 9. Since R7C2 sees all of yellow possible in box 4, R7C2 is not 9 and is therefore 6.

And so on...

EDIT: I now also realized that once yellow, grey and the to be green in box 6 were allocated, it would be possible to make solve this much sooner.
But Simon missed BOTH opportunities and returned to the first one late.

[stevieinselby]

At 30:00, the simpler question to ask is what colour r8c5 is ... and it must be green. So in box 5, green is in r5c4, and then in box 2 it pairs up with the grey 15-cage.

[yvibrrr]

I love killer sudokus and the knight moves constraint 😊. Took me about 90 minutes. I found this quite challenging and made some mistakes along the way, but I absolutely loved it. Great puzzle, thanks Krushed! Looking forward to Simons solve!