Dots & Knights

Normal sudoku rules apply, and identical digits cannot be a knight’s move apart. ALL instances of digits being half their neighbour are marked with a black dot (including 1 & 2), and ALL instances of neighbouring consecutive digits are marked with a white dot (except 1 & 2).

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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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Melvyn Mainini

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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

[catnip]

Mark, thank you for continuing doing the bonus videos. I got used to having two videos each day so much that I dread the end of lockdown and going back to the original schedule. The current setup is ideal for me: I get to watch a very difficult puzzle done by Simon and then have a go at an easier puzzle myself followed by watchnig Mark's solve.

[RedGyl]

I couldn't solve it until I started watching and realized that "ALL instances" was in there. That restraint is very powerful in this puzzle!

[Coyotek]

One thing I only realized after solving ... I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THE KNIGHT'S MOVE RESTRICTION!

I guess it wasn't necessary.

[Zerji]

24:42, like another user I completely forgot the Knight's constraint. Took me a bit to start, but once I realized how powerful the "ALL instances" clue was, it unraveled quite nicely!

I would recommend this puzzles to people who know sudoku but are beginners in these kind of constrained sudokus.

[keepmylittlesecrets]

48 min, with breaks. I placed most of the ones almost immediately through highlighting, which was very helpful!

[brucecanny]

As I always do, I watch your solve after I (rarely) solve a puzzle, you freaked me out with the 8 in box 7, but you figured it out and validated my solve. Thanks again for a great solve and thanks to the setter for a great puzzle. I too did not use the knights move and was able to solve it.

[someguy-kh]

I love Knights move puzzels. It's made even better with Dots. Thanks, Mark.

[adrianhead]

Loving these short solves (11m40s) - nothing wrong with some good logic, leading to an uncomplicated solve (and doesn't take "hours" from your day!!!)

[DizzyBagel]

One thing I noticed that he never mentioned: Any cell connected by a white dot must not contain a 1. It would have to be connected to a 2, which would made it a black dot. Using this, the 1 from all but box 1 and 2 can be resolved very quickly.

[rickwoods]

I stared at this puzzle for like an hour at almost the very beginning, then looked at the video. Mark's absolutely bonkers realization (which he of course makes really quickly) at 4:55 basically ripped the puzzle open and it all solved very cleanly after that.

[noiplah]

Wow this was a fun one. Needed a little bit of help to get started but once I got the hang of the rules it was smooth, enjoyable sailing. Only remembered the knight's move restriction when I came to the comments too!

[leefisher]

Hi Mark and Simon,
This could be a new idea for you on CTC, which you may want to do: encourage people to give you ideas for a Sudoku (not the puzzle itself). When you have sufficient, you could make a video that gives your viewers the chance to create the puzzle. This would be highly anticipated by people like myself who can think of several ideas, but not their execution. As a couple of examples:
1) A puzzle with nine thermos in it, none of which are shown at all in the grid. Each one begins with a different digit at the bulb and is as long as it possibly can be (ie, consecutive ascending digits).
2) A 'Four Colour Theorem' puzzle where you must divide the grid into sections according to the four colour map theorem, and in which certain digits must or can't appear in any given colour.

I have no idea how to go about creating either of these, but other viewers might.
What do you think of the idea?

[cramer]

I used the knights move and the dots, but I completely forgot about the negative constraint! Lots of ways to solve this one

[KveruLars]

I didn't catch that *ALL* dots were present, so I was stumped on how to start off this sudoku. Mark seemed to be the other way around. He spotted consecutive numbers immediately, but kept forgetting about the actual present dots.

[arismartinian]

Hey, it's my puzzle! Thanks for the feature. It's admittedly very easy, and there are several ways to break it in, but all of the break-ins I managed to find were interesting enough that I thought it warranted a send :)

There's a much harder and more unique puzzle that I'm working on at the moment, hopefully you guys will feature that as well once I send it through.

[danpost]

@Simon, you were correct. The knights move constraint was not needed to solve this puzzle.

[Coyotek]

First attempt: took a while to get started, and once I did, an error caused me start over after about 15 minutes.
Second attempt: finished in 12:03.

Next time I see 'Kropki', I'll remember to get to coloring from the get-go!

[FryGuy]

To me, bifurcation becomes non-logical when you're guessing for the correct answer (as in a competition), and not for the way to disprove a branch by contradiction (by logic).

[stevemayne]

Honestly, I completely forgot about the knights move and I think it would have saved me tons of time

[chaotix]

16 minutes.. i like this puzzle. Much approachable