Follow the Sudoku Trail

Añadido: 2026-06-03

[00:00:14]Hello. Welcome back to Cracking the Cryptic and a new setter today called Wickedly Rested. I really like that AC that pseudonym. Uh the puzzle's called breadcrumbs. I mean, I guess there is a scattering of breadcrumbs in the grid, but breadcrumbs is kind of a great metaphor for the clues we find along the way in a sodoku. And if you want to um get yourself a selection of puzzles with interesting clues scattered around, you could try our Patreon where our monthly reward is alien invasion. There are counting circles in each puzzle um and a different take on counting circles in each one. Uh we'd welcome you to have a go at that. Uh if you like if you prefer to dabble at the easier end, there are some 4x4 puzzles included which are fairly straightforward. One of them's a little harder than the others to be fair. Um but they're also in the pack and uh you could encourage your kids or nonsoku relations to have a look at those. Uh but anyway, that you do have to solve even those 4x4s even if you're an experienced solver having go at all the 9 by9s. Um, and thank you to Blobs for providing us, which I didn't bring up. Hang on a second, and I will bring it up. There we go. Here is Blobs' page of the alien invasion solve counts. And uh, as you can see, there have been, we're not very long into the month. Uh, there have been plenty of solves of these puzzles. And uh very well done to those who've got through the whole pack, which looks like around at least 80 people at this point. You can tackle each puzzle without looking at the others if you want. There's no problem at all about that. Um anyway, thank you to Blobs for that as well. Uh and back to our breadcrumbs page. Right. Uh, as well as the alien invasion June monthly reward, we have videos uh of other puzzles on Patreon, including gridoggram, new one tomorrow, connections and crosswords occasionally.

[00:02:27]So, do check those out. They're great fun as well.

[00:02:31]We've also got um we've also got apps and they feature Killer Sudoku and Domino Sudoku as well as Classic Sudoku 2 uh which is a really good one and the worms by such luminaries as Zeta Math who's the latest one. Do have a go at those. While away your time doing Sudoku and the world's problems will recede into the distance.

[00:02:59]Okay, that is the waffle. Apart from mentioning merch, we have a few mugs and shirts and this and the like and uh Marty Sears has designed the rat run merch. But let's look at the rules of breadcrumbs by Wickedly Rested. There's quite a few quite a few helpful stuff.

[00:03:16]So, as well as a bunch of given digits, wickedly rested tells us that normal Sedoku rules apply 1 to nine in every row, every column, and every 3x3 box.

[00:03:27]Cages show their sums.

[00:03:30]Uh digits don't repeat in a shaded region. So those are a set of the digits from one to nine. On a black dot, one digit is double the other. That's all we need to solve the puzzle. And I think there's plenty of info there. I could be proved wrong. It might be very difficult. Let's get cracking.

[00:03:48]So there's no giveaway cages. All the cages are very middly numbers of digits.

[00:03:58]But we must be able to start somewhere, right? This sequence of black dot digits, right? It's in a gray region with a one. These all have to be different. And the only possible sequences of three different black dot digits are 124, that's ruled out by this one, and 248, which this must be. So, we can put in a four and a 28 pair. And then if we just think about this gray region, the digits we have remaining are 3, five, 6 and 7. Only two of those add up to 13 and that is 67.

[00:04:35]So the other two digits are 35. I know these add up to 13 cuz this cage adds up to 14.

[00:04:42]Right? So that's a start. These two in this cage that says 16 have to add to six and they can't use four. They must be five. And the other two cells in the box must be 37.

[00:04:56]I'm not, unless I'm going to be forced to, going to mention the fistel ring and the um equivalent fistel boxes. The digits in those four boxes must be the same as the digits in that area for a reason I can explain, but I doubt that we're going to need it.

[00:05:17]The fact that those cages have been given totals, I mean, it means effectively we know the total of that ring. But I can't believe that's a major help in solving the puzzle. I may get proved wrong again about that. Right, let's look down this column. This black dot can't have a four in it. So, it's not 84 or 42. It's either 63, which would leave six to fill the cage.

[00:05:46]And that would have to be 42 or break that cell. Or this is one two in which case this pair would add up to 12.

[00:05:57]Actually, that may be more likely.

[00:06:03]Okay, I'm going to do a sum on the first column. There are probably a lot of ways of attacking this puzzle, but this column adds up to 45.

[00:06:13]If this was 63, so that these added up to six, we can add 6 + 14 is 20 + 6 is 26.

[00:06:26]We would need these three cells to add up to 19.

[00:06:31]That would require this one definitely to be five. This one definitely to be seven in terms of just how big they can be. But then this would have to be another seven. So that's not happening.

[00:06:42]So that's quite a weird way of getting that this black dot can't be 63 and must be 1 two. Now we can do the sum again.

[00:06:51]Why do I know by the way that every column adds up to 45 or that column one does? Cuz every row, column and box does because it's the sum of the digits 1 to nine. Anyway, we now know that these two cells add up to 12. Oh, they don't have a nine in by Sudoku. Nine's in one of Nine's definitely in that cell. This gray region already has a nine. Oh, that's that. I wish I'd done that first.

[00:07:15]That's really going to help with the gauge with the column totaling. So 14, 23, and 12 here is 35 plus that is 41.

[00:07:25]These two have to add up to four.

[00:07:27]Luckily, they can do that. And when I say luckily, I mean by design.

[00:07:34]So now we know. Do we know what this pair is? No. It's either 84 or 57. Now, if this was 84, these cells would be 257. And there's definitely not two of those you can put on a black dot. So, this is the 57 pair.

[00:07:52]This is 248. And I don't know about the black dot except that four must be on it.

[00:07:59]So, that is progress. Again, let's look at this top row because we might be able to do some summing.

[00:08:06]Um, I don't know. 16 is a very middly number. If we didn't have 9 or 8 in this, we could only use 6 43. That wouldn't get us there. We can't use both 9 or eight. So, we're going to use one of 9 or eight. If it's a nine, it's in that cell. And these would have to add up to seven. And since they couldn't use five and one, they would be 43. And they can't be nine. This can't be 943 because we've already had a three pair 35 pair in the box. So there's an eight there and two digits that add up to eight that aren't 35 or 71 and are 26.

[00:08:47]This can't be six because we can't put three there because of that three five pair. In fact, I can place nine in the box. Everything else is 1 four or seven.

[00:08:58]This is not allowed to be four in the row or seven on a black dot. So that's one. That's going with a two there.

[00:09:07]These digits are now 349 in some order.

[00:09:13]Taking one out of those cells for this box.

[00:09:19]This black dot can't have one or two on it. It's either 36 or 48.

[00:09:26]I don't know.

[00:09:28]Oh, three there is looking at this digit. I don't know how long that's been going on for.

[00:09:35]Where's one in this row? It's not in these gray cells cuz there's already a one in that gray area.

[00:09:43]So, we get a one here. Might be worth thinking about the 16 case. Probably not yet.

[00:09:50]Five and seven have to fit in somewhere.

[00:09:55]Oh, maybe let's think about this pair, right? Can that be nine? Oh, this can't be a nine anyway. If this was a nine, we're adding up to either 13 or 12 here.

[00:10:05]If it was 13, these would have to add up to six without using 1 or four. That's not possible. So, it's not 94. If it was 93, these add up to seven. They could be two five.

[00:10:19]Now the only alternative is that these are three four and these add up to 12 without using three or four they would be 57. So this pair is either 57 or 25 and it definitely has a five in it and that was promising but didn't actually yield any useful information.

[00:10:43]So maybe this column 2 4 6 and 8 still to place.

[00:10:50]Oh, what about the the black dot in the 18 cage? The black dot in the 14 was quite useful. But here it can't be a 63 pair because you would need a nine to make up the total. You can't go less than 63 because you'll just never get there with this. So it must be an 84 pair. That is useful. 8 + 4 is 12 + 6 to make 18.

[00:11:14]That gives 8 at the top. I've worked out this is a four by an X-wing. But I can just deduce that this is not four by the cage. So by the box, so the cage in the box. So that's a two. That's a four.

[00:11:30]This on the black dot is one or four.

[00:11:33]But we've had a one. Oh, we've now had two in this gray region. So this is one.

[00:11:40]What else do we need in the gray region?

[00:11:42]3568.

[00:11:44]Not so helpful.

[00:11:47]This box, we need a one. And that's got to go here. The other digits are 3, five, and seven in some order. Now, this 12 cage can't be 912.

[00:12:01]Could be 813.

[00:12:05]can't be 714 cuz four can't go either side and it can't be 516. So it is 813 and we know the order. Now I haven't even got into the basic window premise which is very useful in solving these puzzles with these gray areas that I'm going to mention this because it's useful for other puzzles. It may not matter here. These three rows obviously contain three sets of the digits 1 to nine. If you remove that set of the digits one to nine and that set of the digits one to nine, that leaves three cells that must contain one set of the digits one to nine. And that means they have to contain only one copy of each digit. And in fact, 8 is looking at that by ordinary sedoku.

[00:12:51]Um so that can be useful in solving these puzzles. What that tells me that these digits are selected from four, five, six, seven. And although it's not really going to matter much in this puzzle, it's a useful thing to know about this window. So that is another set of one to nine. And that is and when you've eliminated all these extra sets of one to nine, you actually get left with this set of the kind of interstases which is another set of the digits one to nine in the puzzle.

[00:13:24]But I, as I say, I don't think it matters too much for this one, which is playing fairly straightforward if I'm honest. This pair is three and six. Now, this cage is going to need the high side of both of those.

[00:13:41]589 here. This is quite a straightforward puzzle, but nonetheless for that, I can assure you. 4826. Oh, my goodness. after the struggles I had yesterday with uh or the day before with the knights moves and so on.

[00:13:58]My goodness. 8 91456 237 here 589 there 461 the remainder. But this cage is going to tell us how that works. That's a 4-1 pair. That's a six.

[00:14:16]Um, in this box we need 386.

[00:14:20]And I can do one of them, but not both.

[00:14:24]In this row, we need 1 57.

[00:14:27]I could try and use my secret technique.

[00:14:29]Let's look at this gray area. These are 2 3 68. Twos can't be on top.

[00:14:39]Sixes. No, threes can't be on the bottom. That's a 268 triple. That's a 5 seven pair. That digit is four.

[00:14:47]That gives us three in the corner.

[00:14:49]That's three in the corner.

[00:14:52]That's three in the spot. Light proving its position. Let's try and get a pair that adds to 10 here to make this 16 cage work. Not too difficult. Um, right. We've got 13 there. These have to add to seven. So I'm taking out eight and seven as candidates.

[00:15:20]4 93 1 5 and seven have to be up here.

[00:15:28]H okay. I'm not quite sure what the next stage is. One of these is a six.

[00:15:41]Do I use that five seven pair? That means one of these digits is a two.

[00:15:46]No. Okay. Let's think about this cage again.

[00:15:50]If that's a nine, these are five. That's a two. So, this would be nine and two.

[00:16:00]Then we'd have six and one down here.

[00:16:10]Well, I can I can make that work.

[00:16:18]Ah, okay. There's a bit of a sting in the tail in this puzzle. 143. So, let's think about this region. 25. Oh, eight has come out of those cells. Yes, the region's looking better now. 1 143 59.

[00:16:31]All done. That can't be a five. There we go. Therefore, this is a five because five had to be somewhere in that cage.

[00:16:39]That's a seven. Now, those add up to eight. These have to add up to 11. Still two possibilities, of course. Um, those are a three seven pair down here.

[00:16:51]We've got 13. We know these are adding up to seven. I'm not finished yet.

[00:16:58]I'm nearly finished, but I'm not finished.

[00:17:02]I've got to find some other way of finishing off, haven't I? Right back to this region. 14359. This is 27 or8.

[00:17:17]Am I missing Am I missing a big black door or something somewhere?

[00:17:22]That pair has to add to seven. This pair has to add to 11.

[00:17:30]If that was 92, this would be 61. 4 5 7 3 8.

[00:17:42]I can't see the problem with that. There might be one, but I can't see it.

[00:17:46]There's a seven in one of these cells.

[00:17:51]Oh, do you know what? I could use my secret technique. So this group of cells have to be nine different digits and we've got 637 in the middle group. So this digit can't be a seven now. And now that gives us a five pair. I mean basically I could have done that by thinking about a seven x-wing. But the the windoku technique came to my rescue uh because I wouldn't have thought I wouldn't have noticed that's seven and five. This is seven and five. I'm hoping that does something else. I don't think it's actually going to, weirdly.

[00:18:32]So, I should have been able to eliminate the seven from those without anything clever at all.

[00:18:37]Right. So, we're just left in this limbo of trying to sort out these two cages.

[00:18:43]And one way it's not going to work.

[00:18:45]Right. Well, I tried 92 there, thinking that would have an impact down here.

[00:18:49]Let's try 47 here because that would put 3 1 then this would be 52 473 1 52 9 and a 68 pair left over. I don't see the problem.

[00:19:12]How am I going to disambiguate this puzzle? It's very confusing.

[00:19:19]Everything seems to right. Let's go through it again. If this is 92, that's 61.

[00:19:27]Then we've got five, 7, 4. And then these three candidate cells are eight and three.

[00:19:41]On the other hand, if it's 47, that's 1 three two five down here, nine there.

[00:19:56]And then these are an 8 six pair. So, this can never be two by that logic.

[00:20:03]That's that was the one overlapping um issue there.

[00:20:10]Do you know what? I don't know what that that taking that candidate out hasn't really done anything. If this is two, ah, that's interesting. If this is two, that forces this to be two, then we do have 25 down here, which forces 74 up here.

[00:20:34]That's going to make this digit a three.

[00:20:44]I don't know. Is there a problem with that?

[00:20:48]I can't see how to solve this puzzle at the end. I've been almost almost treating it with a very casual air.

[00:20:59]Have I forgotten a rule? What have I done wrong?

[00:21:10]Why can't I work out a disambiguation of these last bits?

[00:21:19]H. Okay, I'm going to think about it in light of if that's a four and a seven, then we get three and then this is a 68 pair.

[00:21:35]Four and seven forces this to be two and five and this is not two. Does that determine which of these is two?

[00:21:56]I I do not think it does.

[00:21:59]Eight is kept out of both of these cages.

[00:22:04]That's quite interesting.

[00:22:08]Eight is definitely in one of those two cells.

[00:22:14]Oh, look. I've got this two looking at that cell. Honestly, this has just been an embarrassment again.

[00:22:22]This just fills in.

[00:22:24]Oh, did I think I had deadly patterns in golems two and three? I certainly acted like I did.

[00:22:32]Honestly, you wouldn't know I'd ever come 2 sec 21st at the World Sedoki Championship, would you? It really doesn't look like it most days. Right, let's add this up. 6:15. We need a five.

[00:22:49]I mean, that is utterly straightforward in the end, even the finish of it. And I have treated it like a fool. Well, I just wouldn't pick up the breadcrumbs that Wickedly Rusted had left out, including noting that that too resolved this pair for the longest possible time.

[00:23:06]Oh, and there must have been some other equivalent with six or seven or something that would have done the job just as well in those columns. Hey ho, we move on to tomorrow and I'll see you then. Bye for now.