Here is the long-awaited solution video to Saturnalia and By Jove!, from June’s monthly reward, our ‘Planets Suite’ of sudoku. Mark explains a way you could have gone about solving each puzzle.
There were other ways of approaching both puzzles, but especially By Jove! So this is just one approach - we are interested in knowing what else worked for people - please feel free to add comments to the video, which is here:
Hi folks,
RockyRoer sent us a pdf which contains the puzzles (of July's Patreon reward - Kraken the Cryptic) for people who like to print them out and solve on paper.
Sorry if not including these bothered anyone - let us know if this document is useful to many ...
Simon & Mark
2023-07-02 07:49:42 +0000 UTC View PostDid the makers of ‘Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” decide to capitalise on our channel name sounding like from Kraken the Cryptic? Or did we just lean into a lousy pun?
Whichever, it mean that now you get the chance to try six RGTK-themed puzzles as our July monthly Patreon reward. When you have finished all the puzzles (Tentacle, Mermaids, Kraken, Trident, Ruby, and Queen of the Seven Seas), follow the extra instruction very carefully to come up with the code-phrase ...
2023-07-01 15:00:00 +0000 UTC View PostHere are solution paths for the first four puzzles in The Planets Suite: Mercury Rising, The Martian, V-ness between Us and Blue Marble.
We will be creating a video for Saturnalia and By Jove in due course!
Thanks for being with us on Patreon! Here's the video:
Simon & Mark
2023-06-27 09:25:42 +0000 UTC View PostHi Patreons!
Here is a VERY approachable sudoku challenge - five 4x4 sudokus, which anyone can try. Do please try and get your friends, relatives, and especially young children to give these puzzles a go!
Experienced solvers will be done in a matter of minutes, so there are no prizes, but we would love to hear any stories of people who are pleased to have solved the puzzles.
Thanks for supporting us, Simon & Mark
2023-06-18 14:59:01 +0000 UTC View PostSo each month, Mark takes on The Times Monthly Club Special, the insanely obscure cryptic crossword published for Times Crossword Club members. And each month, due to a mixture of confidence and hubris, he tackles it without a dictionary available - just his memory and wordplay deciphering ability.
This is May's puzzle, by Richard Rogan - see how Mark gets on here:
Hello, Patreons! Thank you so much for supporting the channel.
Welcome to June’s monthly reward, our ‘Planets Suite’ of sudoku. There are six puzzles in the pack. To enter the competition, send us the list of digits in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in order (no spacing), by 4pm UK time on June 20th 2023. You will have to solve the other five puzzles to complete By Jove!, but each of the first five can be solved on its own.
Feel free to challenge the planetary factoids pro...
2023-06-01 15:01:00 +0000 UTC View PostSo many thanks to DiMono for his amazing sudoku-and-treasure-hunt-cum-novel The Jewels of Osiris. And now he has created solution videos for the puzzles (and the riddles, and the Arabic) in the story!
DiMono tells us that there is a chance of the story continuing, but it may require a KickStarter and maybe a Patreon to do so. He says "The truth is that I want the story to continue, and I have ideas for it, but since it takes months to make one of these I just can't do it without fun...
2023-05-31 14:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostOn the channel, Mark's Friday masterclass video showed him attempting Thursday's crossword (by mistake). It was suggested that he attack Friday's actual crossword at speed, and then explain it afterwards ... and here you can watch the result:
TS Eliot says April is the cruellest month, and here Mark takes on April's cruellest cryptic, the Times Monthly Club Special - without a dictionary, as far as possible.
This one is by Roger Phillips. You can watch the video here:
Hi Patreons,
Here's another special mid-month reward, conceived as a way for kids to enjoy a sudoku hunt, or those who want some puzzles a bit easier than the regular monthly rewards!
Many thanks to the Paint-By-Numbers Institute, aka Panthera and TheAsylm, who came up with these puzzles, and the fun rebus at the end. They really are very approachable indeed - the biggest hurdle may be grasping the Japanese Sums rules!
Please give the puzzles a try, and feel free to let us k...
2023-05-16 15:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostDiMono has asked us - quite reasonably - to provide the accompanying document which supplies some help with the final part of Act 1 of the Jewels of Osiris. Just as a reminder, if you finish the hunt, you have to send us an email with the required text and suggestion to crackingthecryptic@gmail.com.
Good luck,
Simon & Mark
2023-05-02 08:28:15 +0000 UTC View PostHi Patreons,
Please see the Monthly Reward post below/earlier. However it seems that on some devices it is difficult to browse the files in the zip folder, so we are posting them separately here too.
To make sure the Arabic script reads correctly, you might need to use the Word doc that we are now adding to this post.
Simon & Mark
2023-05-01 16:35:00 +0000 UTC View PostHello Patreons! Thank you so much for supporting us.
As a thank you, here is our May monthly reward - an extraordinary story, combined with a Sudoku and Treasure Hunt. The author is DiMono, who we know as a fine and gifted sudoku constructor. We can now experience DiMono's writing too!
You get to read Act 1, but must then find passwords to get into Act 2, and subsequently Act 3 and the Epilogue.
Instructions for submission are in an Overview document (in the Zip folder), whi...
2023-05-01 14:59:02 +0000 UTC View PostThanks so much to the constructors and testers who made the Knightmare on Sudoku Street hunt - you are brilliant! Here you can watch videos of the solve paths of puzzles 13 - 19, which take us up to the end of the pack, including Spirogenesis which could only be revealed by means of having solved all of the prior puzzles.
Here are the videos:
13 Polarity Knightmare by MavericksJD: Video link https://...
2023-04-26 08:59:01 +0000 UTC View PostThanks so much to the constructors and testers who made the Knightmare on Sudoku Street hunt - you are brilliant! Here you can watch videos of the solve paths of puzzles 6 - 12, the middle section of the pack.
Here are the videos:
6 123 Sudoku Street by Doran T: https://youtu.be/5mH2BHmL4Uo
7 Imbalanced by Dumediat: http...
2023-04-25 08:59:59 +0000 UTC View PostThanks so much to the constructors and testers who made the Knightmare on Sudoku Street hunt - you are brilliant! Here you can watch videos of the solve paths of the puzzles - this video covers the first five puzzles, which were necessary to get you into the prize draw for the month.
Here are the videos:
1 The Eye by Wisteria Fall: https://youtu.be/9NZyTGdxuf8
2 Trypophobia by BremSTer: 2023-04-24 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The most devious cryptic crossword regularly published is The Times Monthly Club Special, for Crossword Club members. Last month's is by Richard Rogan, from March 2023.
Mark, as usual, takes it on without using the dictionary - which seems mad! But he keeps trying it - and sometimes he gets away with it. You can watch the video here:
2023-04-19 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostHi Patreons,
Here's a special mid-month reward, conceived as a way for kids to enjoy a sudoku hunt, or those who want some puzzles a bit easier than the regular monthly rewards!
Many thanks to Ashish Kumar, who created the first three of these puzzles, which are LINKED Sudoku - none of them can be fully solved individually, you have to use the fact that red, yellow and blue cells all contain different digits.
Then you have to work out which colour translates to which colour ...
2023-04-15 15:03:17 +0000 UTC View PostMany thanks to the PBN Institute (Panthera, TheAsylm & Montinox) for not only creating the Alice's Adventures in Sudokuland hunt, but also to Panthera, TheAsylm and SudokuHero for making these videos explaining the solutions! This is the second set of videos, including a revision to the Teapot video! Click on the links to see the solutions to the following puzzles:
Teapot (revised video): https://youtu.be/VT6h3oWNp4U&n...
2023-04-04 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostMany 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!
2023-04-03 11:06:52 +0000 UTC View PostPlease note we have re-uploaded the Knightmare pack (both in the original post and here), with one small revision in puzzle 18. This hasn't stopped some people solving the whole pack already - congratulations to them, but it may help you if you were stuck on that puzzle!
Thanks to Matt Boss for pointing out the required tweak, and to Riffclown for revising the pack.
Simon & Mark
2023-04-03 07:03:17 +0000 UTC View PostHello Patreons! Thank you so much for supporting us.
As a thank you, here is our April monthly reward pack of puzzles - a brilliant set from the Skunkworks collective. Despite the date today, there is no foolery here. Many thanks to Wisteria Fall, BremSter, Fra𝜋, MavericksJD, Doran T, Dumediat, Randall, DJV, Chilly, Raumplaner, Myxo, Sotek, Jeremydover, Rockratzero and of course Riffclown. Also to the many testers and checkers! You are all stars.
The puzzles are themed on the '...
2023-04-01 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMany thanks to the PBN Institute (Panthera, TheAsylm & Montinox) for not only creating our March monthly reward, the Alice's Adventures in Sudokuland hunt, but also making videos explaining the solutions! This is the first set of videos, and another set will be coming out soon. Click on the links to see the solutions to the following puzzles:
White Rabbit: https://youtu.be/ZgR2ckieMXw
Every month Mark takes on The Times Monthly Club Special without using a dictionary (at first) - how mad this is gets revealed when you see some of the puzzle's answers go in, and their clues explained.
These puzzles are the hardest regularly-published cryptic puzzles anywhere. This one - from February 2023 - was compiled by Roger Phillips, the Listener Crossword editor.
Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ZeXb-ES...
2023-03-22 10:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostSimon has a go at at Listener crossword from last year called Late Arrival by Aragon. The Listener is the hardest crossword published anywhere in the World by a mainstream publication and it's being going now for nearly 100 years. It comes out every Friday evening on the The Times crossword club website (which is behind their paywall) and is also available in the Saturday print edition of The Times.
If you have some experience of solving any cryptics then it IS possib...
2023-03-07 10:41:14 +0000 UTC View PostHello Patreons! Thank you so much for supporting us.
As a thank you, here is our March monthly reward pack of puzzles - a brilliant set from the Paint By Numbers Institute (aka Panthera, TheAsylum and Montinox). Many thanks to the constructors/poets/narrators/artists for their brilliant document and series of puzzles.
The puzzles are themed on Japanese Sums Sudokus, with all the rules explained in the pdf. Instructions for submission are within, but (briefly) if you can solve any ...
2023-03-01 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostHere are the solutions to the remaining puzzles from Jay Dyer’s astonishing Numeric Alchemy puzzles, which would have been enough to get you a shout-out on the channel!
The theme of the hunt was Modifier cells, and Jay talks us through the solution paths to these puzzles with their fascinating twists and turns.
Here are the remaining videos:
No 8 Oxygen: https://youtu.be/fKgjIPagHV0
No 9 Cobal...
2023-02-27 10:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostPhilipp Blume, aka glum_hippo, has been kind enough to make us videos showing how to solve all the puzzles in his brilliant Fossil Hunt, the February monthly reward. Here are the videos of him talking us through all the puzzles, and how to find the secret message at the end of the hunt!
The first video shows the solutions of all the first four puzzles, and after that it’s one puzzle per video. Again, we offer the deepest gratitude to Philipp for his excellent work in creating both the...
2023-02-24 10:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostEach month, Mark takes on the Times Monthly Club Special, clearly the hardest cryptic crossword, with the most obscure vocabulary, regularly published anywhere. This is January's puzzle, by Richard Rogan.
The post title references Simon's attempt at a very hard Times daily puzzle earlier this month - Mark did also record his solve of that puzzle - if you are interested in seeing it here, let us know!
Here's the video of the January Monthly Special: 2023-02-23 10:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post