Counting our Killers

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:06]Hey, how's going? And welcome back to the channel. Today's puzzle which is called killer counters by Barack Oliver.

[00:00:13]Obviously, there's killer cages and there's counting circles.

[00:00:17]I love when uh titles are very obvious as what they are.

[00:00:20]Helps to understand what's going on here. So, normal Sudoku, let's get into this. Every row, column, and 3 by 3 box will contain the digits 1 through 9 once each.

[00:00:29]We've got killer cages. Digits in cages must sum to the number in the top left corner.

[00:00:33]So, these two will be 11, these to 18, these to 20, etc., etc. Easy enough, right? Then we got crop keys. Digits separated by white dots are consecutive.

[00:00:42]So, those two will be consecutive pairs cuz they have a white dot between them.

[00:00:46]And then digits separated by black crop key dots have a 1 to 2 ratio and not all dots are given. So, these will be in a 1 to 2 ratio, so will those, so will those. I.e., one of those two will be double the other.

[00:00:59]And then finally, we have our counting circles. So, a circle a circled digit indicates exactly how many circles contain that digit.

[00:01:07]So, if I were to put an eight here, I'd have to put eight eights in the grid in circles.

[00:01:13]Seven sevens, nine nines, you know it.

[00:01:16]Just go down the line. Whatever you put in one of these things, you have to have an equal number of those circles with those numbers of digits in them. So, those are all the rules. Nothing crazy here. Stuff we used before, but there's very interesting looking uh organization of this thing. So, we're going to dive into it. Link is in the description below. Let's get at it.

[00:01:35]All right. So, where the heck do we start is the first question.

[00:01:40]Now, we obviously have the ability to do nine um counting circles cuz we have nine regions worth of that have circles available in them.

[00:01:54]Now, can we rule in or out a nine?

[00:01:57]That's the next question.

[00:02:00]I don't know if we have anything right away that says we can I guess we can, yeah. Cuz this is a 16, this is a 9 7. That's what I was looking for. Took me a second right brain to focus on the 16 there.

[00:02:12]So, we definitely have a nine, we definitely have a seven. So, we have to find nine nines. So, if we have to put a nine in every single region in a circle, so this has to be a nine, too.

[00:02:22]So, now we know there's also a two somewhere.

[00:02:26]None of these will be nines. This will be the nine in the circle. One of these two will be the nine in the circle.

[00:02:33]We know there's a nine in this 21 cage.

[00:02:36]We know the nine can't go in the eight cage, so it's going to go in the 18 cage.

[00:02:42]And do we know any Well, we got an X-Wing on nines here, I just noticed. So, we know one of these will have nines, we know one of these has nines, so you can't ever be the nine, so you are the two and the nine.

[00:02:53]And I don't think we quite have another Um go.

[00:02:59]Why did I not see this guy sitting right here? You are a nine.

[00:03:03]Hello.

[00:03:04]You are not. So, one of these two will be, which means you are not, you are.

[00:03:09]Now we can say one of those two will be.

[00:03:13]And then I don't know that we can say which one of these is which just yet cuz again, we don't have an X-Wing looking at them.

[00:03:22]We know one of you, we know one of you, but these could go kind of either way.

[00:03:27]Now, we can also do is start counting our circles, see what our total has to be. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

[00:03:35]7 8 9 Don't know why I lost track there. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 and 31.

[00:03:51]>> [clears throat] >> So, we're going to have a multitude of digits that add to 31.

[00:03:55]We obviously know we already have a nine, we already have a seven, we already have a two.

[00:04:01]Now, good. We can do the same We can do some seven-age here cuz we've already removed these regions from having possibility of sevens. So, every other region, cuz there's nine regions, must have a seven. So, there's going to be a seven in this 21, so it's going to be 9 7 5 cuz 9 + 7 + 5 adds to 21.

[00:04:26]We know one of these two will be a seven because we can't put them in these two.

[00:04:31]They We know now that those can't be, so one of those two will be.

[00:04:37]And what happens if we put the nine and the seven here? We have a three to go with it. I guess that could work, too.

[00:04:42]We know there's going to be a seven in this nine cage with the nine cage in the English, can I speak it? There's going to be a nine in the 20 cage. There's going to be a seven in the 20 cage. Nine and seven is 16. There will be a nine seven four.

[00:05:01]You're not not.

[00:05:03]All right. So, now we also know there's a four.

[00:05:06]>> [snorts] >> We've got to put a seven in one of those. That creates an X-wing.

[00:05:11]And we can use this to say this is just a seven.

[00:05:16]And what else?

[00:05:18]Do we have anything else we can work with? Now, that four up there also does kind of give us a little bit of an input into what this can be, but it's not entirely there yet.

[00:05:30]Let's think about some of these others.

[00:05:34]Again, we have nine, we've got seven, we've got five, we've got two.

[00:05:41]16 21, so we're at 23.

[00:05:44]We said 32, if I remember correctly.

[00:05:49]I think so.

[00:05:51]I don't remember. My memory's horrible.

[00:05:53]So, we still have room to work with these, but let's start finding something else. Do we Can we ever have an eight in a circle? We cannot.

[00:06:04]Because we again because we've already used used this concept of the seven.

[00:06:07]We've already used up two regions. So, no more place for an eight. So, eight never goes on to uh in a circle.

[00:06:16]That might help for counting.

[00:06:19]If I can remember what the counting was, I'll have to recount them probably.

[00:06:23]We know we can't ever put an eight on to here, so it have to be one up there.

[00:06:27]None of those can be eights. None of these can be eights. None of those can be eights.

[00:06:33]Let's see if we can find anything useful with that for a second.

[00:06:39]Doesn't look like it. I'm going to have to recount these cuz I can't remember. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31. Okay. So, I was off. So, we know we have 31.

[00:06:57]We said we have 23 right now.

[00:07:00]Oh, no, wait. I don't think I counted those right. I missed a number. Nine seven is 16 plus the four is 20 plus the five is 25. We're at 27.

[00:07:12]So, we need four more in some fashion.

[00:07:15]And we obviously can't use a four.

[00:07:18]So, therefore all of the digits now we know what they are.

[00:07:22]They will be nine, seven, five, four, three, two, and one.

[00:07:30]Do we need to start putting all that in there and see what we can do with them?

[00:07:32]I think we do.

[00:07:34]Um Yeah, I'll just do it. 9 7 5 4 3 2 1.

[00:07:43]Probably should have removed the nines from some of these first, but that's okay.

[00:07:51]Cuz none of these can be nines. All right, let's start thinking about what we can and can't do with some of this stuff. You can't put a four in here, obviously. These can't be fives and sevens.

[00:08:03]These are all kind of up in the air, I think. These can't be twos.

[00:08:10]So, what about this? Cuz there's a restriction here. The 1 7 works. We can't put a two in any of these.

[00:08:17]And you can't be a three.

[00:08:20]And you can't be a one. So, that's a 5 7 with the 1 3.

[00:08:25]>> [snorts] >> What about the 18? Cuz again, we know there's a nine.

[00:08:30]So, the two remaining digits have to add to nine.

[00:08:35]Now, it could be 5 4 or it could be 7 2, but they can't be a one. They can't be a three.

[00:08:45]2 4 5 7 No, I'm not quite there, are we?

[00:08:50]All right, that's close.

[00:08:53]We almost have that worked out. These obviously can't be sevens.

[00:08:58]All right, let's let's kind of go with the flow of this thing now.

[00:09:03]And see if there's any like Can we figure out where the fours go?

[00:09:08]1 2 or the fives maybe.

[00:09:10]Cuz we have one possible, two possible, three possible, four possible. Okay, so the fives are definitely And we can also So, if we know there's a five here, we also now get the X-wing on fives. So, you will be a five.

[00:09:25]Hello, five. So, these can't be fives.

[00:09:28]We can probably jump into you cuz obviously we can't put ones in this.

[00:09:34]We can't put a two in it.

[00:09:36]Cuz if you put a two, it'd be a nine with the two. You have to have another nine. So, these two actually actually have to add to 13. So, we can't put a three either. Or not, sorry, 11. I can't do math today.

[00:09:49]We have to add to 11.

[00:09:51]That does rule out the three, which means you will be the four, you will be the seven.

[00:09:57]I know I'm doing this probably harder than it needs to be, but it's working. So, I'm going to stick with it.

[00:10:05]All right. So, there's going to be a five in one of those. We know that.

[00:10:07]There's going to be five in all of these. We all know that.

[00:10:12]These guys, I don't think we can say which one's what. What about the fours now? Cuz 1 2 3 Yeah, so each Oh, no, we have one here already.

[00:10:22]So, we can't do that.

[00:10:24]There's going to be one of these that does not have a four.

[00:10:28]Do we have any math on these other ones?

[00:10:30]Like we can't put a one here, can't put a five here, can't put a three here.

[00:10:37]>> [snorts] >> This could still be a nine two or a seven four though. But what about the 17?

[00:10:43]Can we say anything about it?

[00:10:47]Mhm, I don't know that we can cuz we could I think we could put any of those digits in there at this stage. What about the 19? Can't put a one in it.

[00:10:58]And we don't Well, can we just push a nine into the 19? Cuz what happens if we don't put a nine in it?

[00:11:05]The most we can ever do is 7 5 4.

[00:11:08]That ain't going to be enough. So, this is definitely a nine.

[00:11:13]Good.

[00:11:15]Which means you're not. Which means you're not a two.

[00:11:18]Now, let's start thinking about this.

[00:11:19]These have to add to 10. So, we can't do fives or fours or twos. That's a three seven. Okay.

[00:11:25]We're getting the the right place now.

[00:11:27]I'm just taking my time here, obviously.

[00:11:29]Did I accidentally remove a two from these? I didn't mean to.

[00:11:32]3 7 We don't know.

[00:11:38]Well, we know one of these has to be a five.

[00:11:41]>> [snorts] >> And we know there's a 3 7. You have to be the five and the seven, so that means you're the five. Okay.

[00:11:47]Good. You're not fives.

[00:11:51]And let's see. What else do I have? 4 7s 9s 4 7s and 9s. Okay.

[00:11:59]Um let's see. Where's next in line?

[00:12:09]9 No, okay. I was going to try to say can we remove the seven or put the seven in you? I don't think we can say it has to be a seven.

[00:12:18]Cuz I can I can put a a seven in here and still make it work.

[00:12:24]Cuz it would be a nine and a seven with the two.

[00:12:27]If this is the seven, we can still make this work cuz we'd have none. We could do a five four.

[00:12:34]Again, we know one of Okay, well, this is actually just a five seven pair.

[00:12:37]Let's be a little smarter about this.

[00:12:41]Cuz one of these will be the five, the other one will be the seven.

[00:12:46]That's a five seven. Okay.

[00:12:49]I really want to get on these crappies.

[00:12:50]I keep seeing them sitting here looking at me and I feel like we should be able to get onto them. I think we can. Yeah, we can. Okay.

[00:12:56]Once we got this four down here, we could say what these are. They will be ones, twos, threes, and sixes.

[00:13:04]That will force these to be fives and eights.

[00:13:11]Eh?

[00:13:15]There's no real correlation to those just yet though, which is kind of interesting.

[00:13:19]What about you?

[00:13:23]Can we do re- anything restrictive on you?

[00:13:27]Cuz what happens if you were like a 1 2?

[00:13:29]I don't know. I I guarantee there's other stuff up here I can look at here, but what happens if it's a 1 2?

[00:13:34]This becomes a 9 This becomes a 3 5 first off. This becomes a 9 4.

[00:13:41]That becomes seven. That works.

[00:13:43]What if it's a 2 4? We break cuz we can't make both these nines. What if it's a 4 8? This would be a 9 2.

[00:13:51]This would have to be a seven. You'd have to be the five and three. So if so far we're at 5 3, but the 3 6 will throw a wrench into that.

[00:14:00]Cuz if I put a 3 6 here, this has to turn to the one. You have to be the seven. You have to be the five. You have to be the nine four. So I think all that I think there's multiple ways this could work is what I'm trying to get at. So All right.

[00:14:13]Um do I have Sudoku that I can work with?

[00:14:17]I think we've kind of already determined our nine-edges.

[00:14:23]So I don't know about those. We know one of those is that seven. We know one of those is Could be any of those, I think.

[00:14:34]Any of those. Nope. Fives, maybe?

[00:14:38]There might be something with that these crop these as well that we can use, but I just haven't discovered it yet. All right, let's start thinking about this cage cuz we haven't looked at it yet.

[00:14:47]Again, we have to put a nine in the 17.

[00:14:50]Okay. There's I'm just not getting to the point quick enough. If I don't put a a nine, the max is 7 5 4. That's only 16. So there will be a nine here. So you're not a nine, which means this is a 4 7, which means you are the five. You are the seven. You are the one.

[00:15:09]Making it harder for myself, but that's what I do.

[00:15:12]What do you have to be cuz these have to add to 13? So they will be the nine four.

[00:15:18]And this will be the nine cuz we just determined this was the 4 7.

[00:15:22]Good. You cannot have fours or sevens.

[00:15:24]You have to have a nine.

[00:15:26]So, it's a nine with two digits that add to eight. So, it's going to be the 3-5.

[00:15:34]One of those will be the five.

[00:15:37]Uh the seven says 9-7.

[00:15:41]That means you can't be the nine.

[00:15:44]One of those will be Good. We have an X-wing on sevens, I just noticed. You're not a seven.

[00:15:52]Not sure that does a ton, but 1 2 One of these has to be a three to finish the three. The one is already done, so we can't put ones.

[00:16:04]The two Okay, this is a 2-3. There it is.

[00:16:09]Cuz we we can need one more two. We need one more three.

[00:16:12]We can't put them anywhere else. So, we're going to have to say Oh, and then that that that breaks up what we thought of our five. Cuz we knew there was one other place that had to have a five.

[00:16:27]1 2 3 4 Wait, that doesn't work.

[00:16:35]Wait Wait, forget that for a second.

[00:16:39]Am I mis- seeing something on the two Oh, this could still be a two. I didn't see this one sitting here. You can't be a one.

[00:16:47]1 2 3 Okay, the four That was the way we needed to work it out. You can't be a four anymore cuz we already have four fours, so you are the two. That now resolves this little issue I was having. You can't be a two. You will be the three. You have to be the five. Okay. Now our five is good. 1 2 3 4 5 Imagine that.

[00:17:09]Okay, threes are good. So, I think all of our counting is now done. You can't be a one.

[00:17:16]We just got to make the rest of this work. You are eight, you are five.

[00:17:21]And are we in the Sudoku now?

[00:17:25]What are these? One, two, and six.

[00:17:30]We know you're not a two.

[00:17:34]Feel like we are in Sudoku in some fashion. So, let's take a gander at that. Yep.

[00:17:39]This has to be the three by Sudoku.

[00:17:42]One of those will be.

[00:17:45]None [snorts] of these are, so one of those will be.

[00:17:49]You could still be cuz this could be a two.

[00:17:54]That doesn't break you yet.

[00:17:56]What are these?

[00:17:59]Cuz we know they are from one, two, three, four, five, six, and eight.

[00:18:05]You obviously can't be twos.

[00:18:07]You can't be ones.

[00:18:11]Six and Okay.

[00:18:13]Doesn't want to quite jump out at me yet. So, let's go back to our Sudoku.

[00:18:20]Threes and threes. We don't have an X-Wing there yet to work with.

[00:18:24]One of these will be a four.

[00:18:27]Actually, you should probably think about what these are.

[00:18:30]Let's do that real quick. One, four, six, and eight.

[00:18:35]We know these aren't fours.

[00:18:38]You are one, four, sixer. That's not helping in any way. I thought we'd get be able to get something there, but we can't.

[00:18:44]These are a one, four, six, and eight.

[00:18:46]That doesn't help us. Okay.

[00:18:49]All right, let's try to find something else cuz this ain't working.

[00:18:52]Let's go back to the Sudoku. Again, we have the X-Wing on nines, so we're good there.

[00:18:57]You can't be an eight, obviously.

[00:19:00]One of those will be that one of those will be. That doesn't tell me anything.

[00:19:06]Sevens, of course, are up there and here, and one of you.

[00:19:10]And one of you the seven could still go to a six or an eight. That doesn't tell me enough.

[00:19:19]All right, we don't have sixes. Let's go back to the fives.

[00:19:23]Oh, we've got a given five now. Didn't see that. You are a five.

[00:19:30]One of those two will be five. So, we get an X-wing on fives, but la-la-la-la.

[00:19:36]Fours.

[00:19:41]None of those will be, so one of these is.

[00:19:46]You could still be a four cuz you could be a three.

[00:19:50]So, we haven't quite gotten to the point where we can click into this, but we do have know what this is though now. Now that I got all this stuff together, I should have looked back at this uh crop key. Can't be one, two, two, four, or four. You are a three-six.

[00:20:00]That means you are not three-six, which means this is a one-two pair. So, you are the two, you are the one, you are that three-six that's left over. Okay.

[00:20:10]We're getting there. Bits and bobs here.

[00:20:12]You're not a three anymore.

[00:20:14]Which means these have to be from ones, twos, and eights.

[00:20:20]You almost had a quad going on there I just saw, but not quite.

[00:20:25]What are these two? Cuz then maybe that'll give us this crop key.

[00:20:28]Twos and eights.

[00:20:33]You can't be an eight because we can't make this a seven or a nine. That's what we needed. I was looking from the opposite side. Two eight that forces you to be that three, which means you have to be the four, you have to be the five, you have to be the four.

[00:20:48]Good.

[00:20:49]These are not threes obviously.

[00:20:52]You are a five now, which means you are a three-nine, which tells us the six and the three.

[00:21:00]Okay.

[00:21:02]Now, you're not six. That is that one-two-eight trip that I was looking for? So, you are the six.

[00:21:09]Eight, one.

[00:21:12]Yep, and two.

[00:21:14]You are not the twos, you are the two.

[00:21:16]You're not a two, you are a two.

[00:21:19]This is a 16 pair, and guess what? You can't be a one, so you're six. You're a one.

[00:21:25]You're a 68 pair, so you're one, you're six.

[00:21:29]You are a given of s- twoness.

[00:21:34]You are a given of eightness, and you are a given of oneness.

[00:21:40]Good.

[00:21:42]All right, what else did we get over here? We got a lot of threes and stuff hanging out. There's probably something there staring at me. Where are you? The one would be one of those things. Eight and one.

[00:21:55]These are from three, four, and seven.

[00:21:57]They can't be seven, so it's a three f- Oh, it's not three. It's a four.

[00:22:03]Which means you are seven. Four, three, seven. The four will give us our nine.

[00:22:10]You are not the nines. That's a 47 pair.

[00:22:14]Nine comes over, gives us the three and the nine. That three will come back and give us the six and the three. You are a given of sixness.

[00:22:26]You two have to be from one and eight.

[00:22:31]Okay.

[00:22:34]Close, but not quite there.

[00:22:36]What about you? There we go. This is a 68 pair. You can't be the eight, you are the six. Eight, six.

[00:22:45]Got to be able to fill in some of this stuff, right? The one and the eight still haven't broken these up, so let's cut over to this, and see if we can break this thing open.

[00:22:54]1 2 3 4 6 7 and 8.

[00:22:59]Want to dig out everything that can't work. Not seven, not six, not seven, not four, not eight, not six.

[00:23:09]So, the four seven has to be a seven.

[00:23:11]Perfect.

[00:23:13]Go away. But, you can still work with the six or the eight is the problem, but that gives us a four and a seven.

[00:23:20]That four will tell us the eight and the six. Good. What are you two? Three and something or other. Three and four, so we can put the three here and the four here.

[00:23:30]That'll tell us that three and finish this boy off with the eight. That'll give us the one eight that we've been looking for.

[00:23:35]What are you?

[00:23:36]Two and us and these have to be one and four.

[00:23:43]>> [snorts] >> And this did not tell me that I beat the puzzle, so I've screwed this up.

[00:23:50]Wait. Oh, I had a mix-up. I had a typo.

[00:23:54]Goodness gracious.

[00:23:56]I just fat keyed it. We said you had to be the four, you had to be the three.

[00:24:04]I don't know what I how I managed to hit a seven there or I just lost my mind, but you are three.

[00:24:11]Let's go back and finish this now.

[00:24:12]You're eight.

[00:24:14]You are still the one and the eight. Got to love it, right? You have to be that soodily boodily doop two that we said earlier.

[00:24:22]This is going to be the one. You are going to be the four. There it is.

[00:24:27]Don't know where I typed that off, but it happens.

[00:24:31]Just get my hands all fidgeting down there and stuff happens. Now, this one's been out for a little while. I did go back and and get to this one, so you can see it's been out for almost 30 days. It only has 350 solves though, so little more difficult. Uh it wasn't really difficult, I'd say, but I guess it not a lot of people got into it, maybe, is what was going on. But, you can certainly get through all the logic and use your counting to determine how to break into this thing and get everything going the way it needs to go.

[00:24:58]So, fun fuzz, I really enjoyed that one.

[00:25:00]Um I hope you all did as well and we'll see you next one. Thanks a lot.