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And Then There Were None by Agatha "fjam" Christie
🕑 Added 2023-04-03 11:06:52 +0000 UTCMany of you have been absolutely intrigued by this astonishing puzzle, which Simon was pranked by Mark into attempting on April Fools Day.
The video, which is jolly long, can be seen here:
After we made the video, fjam was kind enough to send us their solution guide to the puzzle, which is very interesting and gives a window into the mind of the sudoku Agatha Christie!
Comments
Ahsim Nreiziev
Along with the problems Paolo De Leva mentioned, I also feel that the line "Each line of the rhyme refers only to the remaining digits" should be stripped from the ruleset, as it is explicitly contradicted by, in the final solution, 8 being both on the German Whispers line and in the "evenly spread in a sandwich" cell, aka the very first digit to be murdered. This is very likely to trip people up, and in fact it did trip up Simon when he solved this on the channel.
Stephen Passmore
I love the puzzle concept, unpicking a story and then applying the logic. I watched Simon's solve and have now worked through your solution and thoroughly enjoyed both. Thankyou fjam.
Paolo De Leva
The assumption that the renban line chops the digit is definitely invalid, in my opinion, because it is unquestionably ruled out by the given clue: we are told the digit "chopped itself." So, since the puzzle must be solved based on this assumption, the clue about the renban line is highly misleading. On the other hand, the deduction that the between line must contain the remaining three digits is strongly supported by the clue "squashed between the others."
ProfMeow
Simon's solve path tracks the one described here almost perfectly!
