crackingthecryptic patreon

January Patreon Reward - The Hobbit

🕑 Added 2025-01-01 16:00:16 +0000 UTC

Comments

John Fiala

Good Luck!

Fredrik Kronander

Thanks for your reply, I'll just keep on grinding with it for a while and see if I can find a way in it :) Sometimes it helps just to take a day off from it.

John Fiala

No, I never got anywhere good with that. I eventually waited until solutions were posted and tried continuing with the next puzzle, but I didn't finish that either - I think I'm just not good enough from then on.

Fredrik Kronander

Hi John, how did it go with the Goblin Cave? I've been working on these puzzles for the last week and currently I'm stuck in the same cave... :) If you found your way in it, do you have any tips? I'm starting in the top right corner where the given 6 in the box demands a number of cave cells, but I can't find a way to make that work with the wall up there.

Fredrik Kronander

Ah, finally the penny dropped here - always seems so easy once you see it! :)

Fredrik Kronander

I'm stuck with this one too and can't figure out which of the combinations that sum to 10 is the valid one. Any more tips on how to figure that out? :)

Diane Roberts

I needed that. Thank you!

Altnabreac

I'm still not understanding how to do the key? Past date anyway now mind

sara c

Your welcome! Glad I could be of assistance.

Jason Mattis

This was so much fun to complete! I really enjoyed the variety of puzzles and the Hobbit theming is wonderful. A friend recommended CTC to me a few months ago and I've loved watching all the videos. I'm still a novice at variant sudoku, but was able to persevere and finish them all. Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this, Blobz, testers and CTC.

Gabrielle Martin

Just finished! It was so much fun that I'm quite sad it's over. Why does the submission form ask for our names?

Rachel Roubelet

I did it !! Thank you so much for your help !!

Niklas Nabbing

If I remember correctly, you should be able to solve the shorter line in box 1 if you solved box 7 correctly. The longer one will interact with box 7.

Ian Eggleston

I got it, I was misreading the rules. I thought when it mentioned the other cloud tile, I thought it was saying clouded tiles ie. fog tiles and when there was no fog cleared I was messing up

Ian Eggleston

I’ve been stuck on puzzle 11 “when the thrush knocks…” for several days now, anyone have any advice on the break in? I’ve checked the starting digits several times and the puzzle just keeps breaking. I don’t think I’m misreading the rules but there may very well be some wording I’m misunderstanding

Aimee Frost

I was doing so well with these puzzles picking them up when I could with some help from this thread have managed to stumble my way through - Just got to Lake-Town and I knew it would be a tricky one but I am completely stuck with it. I think I've figured out the green line escaping out of box 7 but from there any help would be appreciated :)

Rachel Roubelet

I did think about those digits, but did not think about where they go in the dragon ! thank you i will try it out !!

sara c

I’m not sure where you’re up to so these are the questions that got me my break-in in terms of numbers. What’s the total not in the cage in column 1? Where are those digits in the box with the dragon? Hope that helps.

andy batts

Sigh... Fresh eyes as soon as I sent this noticed the river section in box 1.

andy batts

Great set of puzzles, but I am hopelessly, breathtakingly stuck on VIII: Flies and Spiders. If anyone that has solved this would DM me so I can get a bump, I'd appreciate it.

Shannon Kranich

I finally cracked it! On to the next one!

Rachel Roubelet

Hi ! I'm a bit stuck on Thror's Map, I've put the digits from the previous puzzle, put notes and colours every where i could but can't find a way to break in :( (i'm not the best with the killer cages)

Ryan W

Amazing puzzle pack. Lake-town I had to do some bifurcation to solve so hopefully can see a better solve of that 😁

Elif

Great puzzles, took me 13 days to solve! thank you

Kenneth Jensen

Ah, thank you!

Yelena Alexandrova

No, the rule follows the line down and doesn't affect those two digits

John Fiala

Goblin Cave has me stuck - I'm not used to this sort of 'color in the walls' puzzles. Is there a good guide somewhere that would help me figure out the logic necessary?

Kenneth Jensen

I'm quite glad I joined up and started on this journey! But I have a question about Thror's map. Does row 5 column 4 see row 5 column 3? In other words, does the dragon's neck have to have a difference of at least with 5 with its back/tail?

Shannon Kranich

I may have found my breaking point. I've been staring at "Flies and Spiders" for over 2 hours and can't figure out where to break in. I struggled with "Thror's Map" but the rest have worked out pretty well for me. I'm feeling defeated that a 2 star difficulty puzzle has me absolutely stuck.

Brian Esselaar

Ok, solved this problem. Apparantly it is hard to follow the instructions on where to fill in the digits from the last puzzle....

Brian Esselaar

Hi all, thanks for this nice set of puzzles. I am stuck on "The Dragons Wrath". I do not understand the rule concerning the arrows. As I understand it, C6R7 should be a 5. The digit the arrow comes from (c6r7) appears in the grid in the direction of the arrow at a distance of 1 cells. I must be misreading this. Can someone clarify this for me?

Zamri Thüring

Oh, if it is solvable without assuming purple lines I just didn't see a step, thanks for the reply :)

Mobius Rex

I'm going back on what I said, it looks like the cobwebs do act like white kropki dots.

Jacob Payne

I still have no clue :(

Mobius Rex

I think you must be right... I'm getting a situation where 7 can only be in two places that are both consecutive to a dwarf cell, which is clearly impossible.

Zamri Thüring

Puzzle VIII: "Cells bound together by a cobweb contain consecutive digits." got me properly stuck as it is not 100% clear that ALL cells need to be consecutive (like a purple line) rather than white kropki dots (e.g. 7-8-7 would be valid if allowed by other rules). Or am I missing something? The puzzle is impossible to solve otherwise...

Kim Wheeler

Just finished the hunt - this was great fun, so cleverly designed!! Lovely hunt, thank you so much CtC and Blobz! And Ted for letting those beautiful illustrations be used. Now I feel an urge to go and re-read The Hobbit!!

Jodi Nicklas

Thank you so much. That makes sense

geneinkc

For most puzzles, the value of a cell is the same as its digit. The Beorn puzzle is different. The "changer" cells and "victim" cells have values of 8 or 0, regardless of what digit is there. You still write in the digit that would be correct by sudoku, but when looking at the cage totals, you have to consider the values instead of the digits.

Jodi Nicklas

Finally worked my way to puzzle 7. Can someone explain what is meant by “value”. I haven’t come across this before. This puzzle hunt has been super challenging for me but I am enjoying it immensely. Thank you Blobz and CTC

Anne Loftager

What an absolut gem of a puzzle! 🤩 Thanks 🙏🍾

Marc Richard Albert

I'm now stuck on Lake-Town, I can barely get going, I'm only able to get out of Box 7 and fill the small bottom left corner whisper line in the town, then eliminate a few possibilities from the central box and then I'm lost... edit: oh no... is it the special ring...

EB

Thanks! I see it now. I wonder how I made that deduction that that was the point it had to touch...

Justin Cheadle

Where your wall touches on the left, there is an alternative square elsewhere that you can shade instead.

EB

My Goblin cave puzzle seems to have a non-orthogonally connected cave in the top left. Is anyone else seeing that? It tells me I solved it anyways.

Eva van Schijndel

I just joined and solved my first puzzle of my first sudoku hunt! Super excited to see how far I will get! Don't expect I will solve everything, but still very enjoyable and a great way to spend my break from uni!

Louise Burnyeat

I'm so stuck on this one!

Louise Burnyeat

Really enjoying these but I'm stuck on puzzle 7. (I'm very shocked to have got this far!)

Laurence McLean

I've worked it out. I can't do simple arithmetic on summing to 18.

Laurence McLean

I'm going somewhere wrong on Thror's Map (Puzzle 3). I keep getting to a point late in the puzzle where I've made a mistake somewhere. I think I'm ruling something out of the runes early on that I shouldn't be...

Louise Roser

Well looking forward to the solution videos so I can see how I was supposed to do it!

Justin Cheadle

Absolutely nerd sniped by this puzzle series, I'm not getting much else done! Blobz, is that a subtle Dwarf Fortress reference I've spotted with the river in puzzle XV, or simply coincidence?

Valery

I think you got lucky because it's not a negative constraint! I didn't use that in my break-in.

Athel Stan

Thanks, enjoyed these. Hard to pick a favourite but the one with victim cells sticks in the mind.

Louise Roser

Really enjoying this series! SPOILER: Does anyone know if the X and Black dot rules in "When the Thrush Knocks" are negative constraints? I inferred that they were and that really informed the break-in for me but then in the completed puzzle I had several non-marked instances of an X or black dot :') Perhaps just got lucky with the break in?

geneinkc

This is my first month as a Patron! I really enjoyed this series, especially the way that one puzzle flowed into the next. Lake-Town absolutely wrecked me, though. I finally solved it, but I sat there stuck for multiple hours, trying to resolve the whisper lines on the right. I'm sure I missed some important piece of logic that would have broken it open. Still, a delightful series overall!

Andreas Praefcke

Thanks. I had tried much more elaborate schemes... ;-)

Ruthless John

Sum per cage

Andreas Praefcke

Any hint as to how to decipher that final code?

Richard Buckingham

So satisfying that one!

Jacob Hanson

It means take the entire "Bill" cage from Puzzle 2, and copy it into the "Forest River" Cage in puzzle 3

Lias Verslyppe

Never mind, didn't notice it breaks immediately if you count the arrow's cel

Benny Ng

i absolutely would've never noticed that on my own! thank you so much!

Lias Verslyppe

In "The dragon's wrath", do you count the cel the arrow is in for the distance, or do you start counting after the arrow?

Lias Verslyppe

The boats aren't in the same order in the two puzzles. (I made that mistake and it kept breaking)

Zamri Thüring

Oh, I haven't scrolled down far enough then, thank you!

Benny Ng

i have broken 'when the thrush knocks' multiple times now, so i can only assume i'm misreading one of the rules; does anyone have any insight or tips on that one?

Rasmus Kjærsgaard

There’s a PDF attached to the post as well :)

R S

In puzzle 3, does “clone” mean that the digit in the Bill cell is found somewhere in the Forest River?

Zamri Thüring

I'm new to the Patreon and wanted to ask: How exactly can I play the monthly reward packs? The link isn't for the packs so I assumethere is annother way? :)

Jacob Hanson

Finally finished it, your guys comments helped a lot, for those still stuck, one more hint that got me started was to think, "what would the trees look like on the edge if the entire edge was one color?"

Andy Davis

Spoiler: The reason the corner cells need to have two direct neighboring digits be the same shade is because without it, you would box that shade in. If it only saw 2 digits, including itself, it would have to be boxed in, since you cannot form a 2x2 or a checkerboard pattern. Took me a while myself to figure that concept out.

Helen

Hi Scott. Thanks for the help about the perimeter, finally made some progress! However, the bit about the corner needing both neighbours to be the same colour I’m not quite wrapping my head around. Could you explain that? I took the advice of Martin above to find a CtC video about it, and in the example, I think I found a way to make only 1 neighbour match colour. It may not be a valid drawing I did, but it appears to fit (in a 6x6 sudoku, using red and green, it worked out as - GGGRRG GRGGRG GRRGRG GGRRRG GRRGRG GGGGGG)

Vedran Kordić

@Lorraine - Good question, yes, you can infer this. Different wall segments don't touch each other.

Constant Marks

Ah, I was thinking about other sudoku puzzles that use V to indicate greater that 5. Thank you

Günter Gera

They have to differ by „at least 5“

Constant Marks

On Puzzle 3, Some of the Dragon cells seem to differ by 5, which is not grater that 5. Do have the wrong values or a wrong understanding of the rule. I am a newbie

Martin Bull-Gundersen

If you're not familiar with yin-yang, it's probably pretty hard. (If you're not, perhaps watch a video where Simon or Mark explains the basics of it). SPOILER: The trick is in the perimeter and the trees there. MORE SPOILER: Try to make the perimeter one colour and see what happens to the trees.

whterbt

Loving the puzzles! For "Riddles in the Dark", the instructions say to fill in digits for Bilbo and Gollum matching corresponding diamond digits in the previous puzzle. But there are 5 diamonds in "Goblin Cave" and none are marked as Bilbo or Gollum. Am I supposed to know which specific numbers to enter? Edit: Oh, it's the diamonds in the same *positions*.

Matti Slabbaert

I just finished Out of the Frying Pan. It was a REAL challenge for me (not very used to yin yang), but such a very nice feeling to finaly see through it!

Mario

Just submitted the Key. Once again, a truly remarkable piece of work by Blobz. Absolutely fantastic. Puzzles are approachable and very addictive. I enjoyed them all. Logically sound. Can't wait for the next reward. Happy New Year to all.

Colin Cook

At last, I understand. I conflated rules b and c and never appreciated that it was each individual wall containing 1 to n. I must have reread a dozen times without fully understanding. Confirmation bias ( and stupity) is a powerful thing.

Erin Toler

It doesn't directly say it, but it's inevitable because of the rules as written. "Each WALL segment includes exactly ONE diamond, and contains the digits 1 to N (with no repeats), where N is placed in the diamond." Since a region containing the digits 1 to N will have N cells, and N is the digit placed in the diamond, the diamond will always be the size of the region.

Katsa Middluns

Wow!! So glad I continued to work through puzzle 3. It took a lot of coloring and letters to try to keep track of things, but I felt so proud when I finally got it! Great setting, even when I was stuck for bits I was eventually able to see the logic of the next step. Excited to continue!

Colin Cook

The circle rule is clear and provides extra information. The diamond rule simply states that each one contains a different digit. It doesn't say that said digit also gives the size of that section of wall. Maybe the information isn't needed for the solve or it was just coincidence. All I'm saying is I inferred it and it helped reach a solution.

Jacob Hanson

The important thing to remember is that each wall segment must touch the edge of the grid, and the cave must be one continuous area

Benjamin Good

Same here, I'm out of ideas and I'm finding it much more difficult than the previous puzzles, despite it only have a rating of 3.

Lorraine Blanks

Also a newbie to cave sudoku here. My query (though probably different to Colin) is whether we can infer the wall segments need to be distinctly separate from each other or whether they can touch?

Reece Powell

This unlocked it for me, thank you both! That's probably the hardest sudoku I've ever managed to finish.

sovotchka art

for blobz, just to say i love the order of the dwarves popping up in the first puzzle, with one exception they were book order for me (think i forgot to do sudoku there) which is amazing to me! ♡

Gaurav Data

Same here, stuck for about 30 min then cycling through the comments for help. Thanks a lot!

Vedran Kordić

Which unstated rule would you infer? The rules as given were fine for me. It's hard to say what might be going on without seeing your board, but maybe you aren't following the circle rule?

Loonie C

It’s 7 cells. Row 5 columns 2 to 5, row 6 columns 2 to 4.

Ubermensch

On Puzzle 3, is the Dragon 7 Cells or 6 Cells long?

Colin Cook

Newcomer to cave sudoku. So, is it normal to infer a rule which is otherwise unstated? I'd bludgeoned my way through mainly using suduku before appreciating the full meaning of the diamond in each wall. Even then, I seemed to have landing up with three ways of completing the bottom left corner cave and still maintain cave rules as given. Confused!

Erin Kesterson

Same. My brain is stuck on puzzle 2, and can’t reconcile how to get a 5 cell 17 cage to reconcile with the 2 cell 5 cage. What is wrong with me. lol

Chris Noonan

Happy New Year to everyone from Scotland. Already on Smaug's puzzle but now I have to get some sleep as I can't think straight anymore. Wonderful!

Kairamek

After you figure out Jacob's clue, may I suggest the runes could use a bit of... color?

Jacob Hanson

I had worked out what you mentioned about there only being one color change on the outside, but how did you work out that the neighbors of a corner have to be the same?

Jacob Hanson

Look at the runes in the leftmost box, and notice how all of them are also in the central box with the head of the dragon

Lord Mort

Long story short... I am stupid 🤣

Scott Walker

Consider that paths around the outside of the puzzle can only have a single change of color, and that the two immediate neighbors of a corner cell have to match its color. Also recall that no 2x2 box will be all the same color. You could start by applying these ideas to box 1 where there are lots of trees and you have a given digit taken from puzzle #5.

Kairamek

Question for Blobz. I notice that only something like 2 puzzles are 4 stars. Everything else is 1-3. Largely approachable. The Hobbit was conceptualized as a children's story, as opposed to LotR which was for adults. Is that an intentional correlation or am I reading to much into that?

Lovlydragon

I got to the third puzzle when I started to get stuck

Lord Mort

I am already lost in puzzle 1 😭

Menno Timmermans

Thanks, I misread the rules the same way.

Reece Powell

Thanks! I'm a bit of a newbie struggling on puzzle 3, the only numbers I've got are the given ones from puzzle 2. Any tips on where to focus my attention would be appreciated!

Konsl

Was stuck here as well, think about the edge!

Jeff Ahituv

same here, would appreciate any and all hints

Jacob Hanson

Loving it so far! ... Until I hit Puzzle 6 (Out of the Frying Pan). Been staring at it for almost two hours without being able to break in. Anyone got a hint? All I've been able to figure out is to narrow down the circled cells