October Patreon reward - Duality!

Where can I find the first solve videos? Sorry if that's a stupid question but I thought a link will be posted or I can find them on YouTube but it seems that neither of that is true

Cracking The Cryptic

The first set of four solve videos is coming out tomorrow at 10am BST. The rest will be grouped into two posts coming out in the following two days.

We are fielding a lot of questions from Patreons about the Solve Videos. is there an update for these?

For those that might be interested. There is ANOTHER Easter Egg in the Duality pack now. It links to FREE Sudoku Packs Produced by or Affiliated with the Sudoku Skunkworks. over 300 puzzles

These puzzles are seriously fun!

Tiffany Holzer

I only managed because I wrote down the possibilities for each line and kept crossing them out as I went. No way for my mind to keep it all straight without having to restart a million times.

I ran into the same dilemma. It is indeed straightforwardly disambiguated by one of the rules (which I, of course, overlooked at first, after one hour of applying the same rule in the weirdest ways :D)

Their arithmetic ability is indeed impressive. I do OK there, but where I got stuck was detecting clashes when running through the various possibilities along an entropic line. Using the web app (or Sudokupad) I had to go ahead and type in (and back out) some of the combinations in order to detect the same number being used in another row/column. I had trouble remembering the digits I used when calculating sums.

I loved this puzzle. I hope Simon/Mark solve it in a video. It took me hours and multiple tries but am so glad I got it. The puzzle interleaves the region sums with entropic numbers beautifully and without any givens!!

Athel Stan

Thanks, a nice collection of puzzles. Not a massive fan of lockout lines but one puzzle which sticks in the mind is Xenonetix's LL/GW combo.

Allan Bagg

The first cell in the diagonal that the arrow points at indicates how long that line is. The ends of those lines would be diamonds for the lockout lines rule and German Whispers rules are as usual on that length of line.

sampath kumar

They are Lockout lines and German Whispers constraints. The X refers to the value of the first digit to be determined.

Congratulations on solving it! I know that must have been deeply satisfying :) I took a break from it and came back for another attempt with fresh eyes and still failed! Aaaaa!

It is impressive and intimidating that Simon and Mark can do arithmetic so quickly in their heads during these types of puzzles. It’s only arithmetic but still!

Alexander Herges

The rules disambiguate that particular deadly pattern. As I am sure you noticed by now.

Tiffany Holzer

Never mind. I failed to appreciate the limitations the equal sums had placed on each other. Lots of scrap paper later... I figured it out!

Tiffany Holzer

Can you elaborate at all on the traps? I've restarted this puzzle 10 times and either end up breaking the puzzle or failing to find the next step... I'd love to be able to try the rest of the pack but I can't until I solve this one :(

Puzzle 12: What are "X-Lockout Lines" and "X-German Whispers"

Very confused by puzzle 8.. I have a deadly pattern of 2s and 8s across boxes 4, 5 and 6, what's disambiguating them? The software tells me that one arrangement of them is wrong and one is correct, but doesn't highlight any incorrect cells for either configuration. Help?!

Lord Mort

Thanks! Yes didn't think about the directions. So I first thought if C9R1 would be for example a 2 that the 3 must be in C2R1, but it would end up in C9R8 (the second position from the right end).

In numbered room puzzles, the first digit tells the position of the clue in that row/column looking from the direction where the clue is. So for row one, the left clue tells the position of 3 from the left side of the grid, and the right clue tells the position of 3 from the right side of the grid - thus they can (and of course must) in fact point to the same position

Lord Mort

Could anyone help me out with the last puzzle? The numbered room says that the first digit in that direction tells the position of the clue in that row or column. How could that work in row one with two 3's as clues for the same row? Wouldn't that indicate two different positions for the 3 in that row? Edit: Found my mistake. I have to count from the first position by the numbers written in the first place?

Benny Ng

Had a number of false starts, but I finally finished the pack, and I had a blast the whole time. Thanks to the whole "Skunk" collective for these clever and insightful puzzles!

That was an amazing puzzle pack. Kudos to all who were involved.

Ok thanks, but I think you may have decribed lockout lines rather than between lines

Anna Armstrong

I finished it all yesterday and slept the deepest sleep. Excited to have joined in on my first puzzle pack <3

Anna Armstrong

Fufu also took a lot out of me. There's a few key traps people consistently fall into

Anna Armstrong

The numbers along the line between the two endpoints can't include the end diamonds. Ex: if the endpoints are 8 and 4 then the middle can only include 9, 1, 2, and 3s.

I've redone puzzle 4 "Fufu" 3 times and keep getting contradictions. I have no idea where I'm making an incorrect deduction and it's driving me crazy!!

Hi I would like to clarify the rules for the between rule. When placing numbers along the middle of a between line, can they be inclusive of the two endpoints if the remaining rule set allows?

Sumyrda

Wow, I finished. The first 13 puzzles were very enjoyable and I'd say somewhat approachable, although I remember thinking how on earth am I supposed to get this even started on each puzzle from #11 to #13, but they went smoothly once I'd done enough staring at them to find the break-in. But #14 really did a number on me - I had to restart several times because I kept breaking it. I think I spent about as much time on #14 as on all the other ones. Beautiful collection!

Sumyrda

Yes the circles are part of the renban.

Kim Geiger

I need a clarification on puzzle 7. The lines are both between and Renban. For Renban, are the circles considered part of the line? There is a bit of the line in the cell with the circle, so it could be. The instructions don't make it clear.

OMG! I solved it!!!!!!! I didn't set any speed records but I SOLVED IT!!! You folks that can speed thru these at the speed of light each month have no idea how good this feels. I usually only get thru the easy months.

Hmm, i think i've answered my own question. I see one line that must repeat otherwise it breaks.

I'd like to ask for a clarification if I may. Perhaps I've overlooked it someplace, but I'm just starting on the lockout/German Whispers puzzle. I've never solved a lockout before and I'm fairly new to suduko variants in general. My question is "Can a digit repeat on a lockout or German Whisper line"? (If allowed by normal suduko rules of course)

finished alle of them and i loved every single one of them :)

Asweneth

I've only tried the first four so far, but they've been quite incredible!

Brendan R

Wow. I can’t believe I finished the pack. It was very enjoyable… even when I was restarting puzzles for the 4th time. Lol. I think I restarted all but 3 of the puzzles at least once (and 5x on one of them). However I always felt like I was on the right track, even when the puzzles were breaking. No.5 was frustratingly enjoyable. Completing that one after so many attempts was what spurred me to push through to the end of the pack. Previously I would’ve given up on the pack by my 3rd restart, but it seemed so beautiful I had to keep trying. That final puzzle was a killer. I only restarted that one once, but I wound back enough times that I think my solve was at least 4 hours. It was also the only puzzle that broke very late in the solve (on the 3rd to last digit) and I genuinely felt tears building in my eyes. 😂 I didn’t want to restart, so I wound it back to a random position and somehow managed to finish it. What a great pack. Thank you.