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The Rat Race by Marty Sears

Cracking The Cryptic

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** TODAY'S PUZZLE **
One of the most original and witty setters in the whole world of sudoku is Marty Sears who has now invented another new type of puzzle! It involves finding a route for our pet rat (Finkz) through the maze to the cupcake!! This is a lovely & clever puzzle and not too tricky (2 out of 5 stars)!

Play the puzzle at the link below:
https://sudokupad.app/iu50qghplg

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply.

AIM OF EXPERIMENT:
Finkz the rat must reach the cupcake by finding a path through the maze. The path will be a snaking line that passes through the centres of cells, without visiting any cell more than once, crossing itself or passing through any thick maze walls. As well as moving orthogonally, Finkz may move diagonally if there's a 2x2 space in which to do so, but may never pass diagonally through the rounded end / corner of a wall.

TEST CONSTRAINT:
In this experiment, any two adjacent cells along the correct path must sum to a prime number. Also, ALL digits within a marked 3x2 sudoku box that lie anywhere on the correct path must sum to a prime number too.

** THE LORD OF THE RINGS SUDOKU HUNT RELEASED ON 1 JUNE **
We've just launched the sudoku event of the summer! Blobz' puzzles and Ted Nasmith artistry combined in one of the most beautiful, approachable and fun hunts we've ever published. Get hyped!!! Teaser puzzle here:

https://sudokupad.app/blobz/a-long-ex...

Play the full version here:
Patreon: crackingthecryptic

Other treats on Patreon include:
Simon's solve of Sky-Skyscraper by Phistomefel has just been uploaded for our patrons.
and Mark's latest solve of The Times Club Monthly cryptic crossword

** LAST NIGHT'S BRAID STREAM **
You can watch our stream from last night at this link:

https://youtube.com/live/WcqUhQkwUSY

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ALSO on Amazon: Search for “SudokuPad”

▶ Contents Of This Video ◀

0:00 Theme music & puzzle intro
1:20 The Lord Of The Rings Sudoku Hunt
2:01 600k Subscribers
2:17 Happy Birthdays
3:30 Rules
7:23 Start of Solve: Let's Get Cracking

▶ Contact Us ◀

Twitter: @Cracking The Cryptic
email: crackingthecryptic@gmail.com

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Simon Anthony & Mark Goodliffe
Box 102
56 Gloucester Road
London
SW7 4UB

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20 Comments

@martysears 2 years ago (edited) Pinned

Hi Simon, lovely surprise to see this featured this evening! Thanks again for another thoroughly entertaining solve. I have been beavering away on this series for several months so it has been very exciting for me to finally publish the first episode and share it with everyone, and especially to see it is already getting a good response.

The lead protagonist is named after Sarah (AKA Ratfinkz), an excellent member of the sudoku community who is delightfully lovely and kind to everyone, as well as having a very cheeky sense of humour. Oh and she also loves rats. She has even been featured on the channel before - her puzzle Diamond Mining (which is very clever and fun) was solved by Mark. She has always been very supportive of my puzzles, and it never fails to puts a smile on my face chatting with her.

I've always enjoyed mazes... I used to make my parents take me to the castles that had hedge mazes outside them, and for a long time when I was young I used to love designing them and made several whole books of mazes over the years, some of which are currently under my bed. So anyone who knows me well would probably think I was bound to do this mash-up of maze and sudoku at some point.

The first Rat Run puzzle I made was back in February and will probably end up being episode 7. It's quite a tricky one and I decided I wanted to make a series with a gradual learning curve that adds in different elements one by one. So since then I've gone back and made some easier ones, including this one. I was originally going to have one of the later puzzles use this prime number rule, but when I thought of the title 'Primer' it seemed perfect to use it in the opening episode instead, and I thought the difficulty level of this 6x6 version was just right.

Beware though Finkz, they won't stay at 2-star difficulty for long ;) 🐀

@Ardalambdion 2 years ago

How nice of Simon to dress up for the rodent.

@Ratfinkz 2 years ago

I feel so incredibly honoured to be the rat in this beautiful puzzle! 💜 Thank you so much Simon for solving it, and thank you Marty for everything 💜

@jsdodgers 3 months ago

to see that simon was making logical blunders way back on rat run 1

@rubenverg 2 years ago

welcome to today's episode of "are the digits moving?"

@hipparchos 2 years ago

I am ashamed to admit that I spent a good five minutes wondering why cell r3c3 couldn't be 8 since 21-8=13

@benharkness8152 3 months ago

Where it all began...

@Pulsar77 2 years ago (edited)

It's amazing how Marty is not only extremely prolific but also highly original and consistently great. He's published 72 puzzles on LMD since April 2023, all of which have a rating above 90%. I started setting at the same time, and I've only come up with 4 half-decent puzzles... some people seem to have a special brain for this stuff.

@emiknits02 2 years ago

Even though I hear it nearly every day, I'm always so happy when Simon tells me I'm one of his favourite people:)

@MarkBennet10001 2 years ago

This is ridiculous - the quality of puzzles on the channel, I mean - another beauty, and the next one in the series is also excellent ...

@chocolateboy300 2 years ago

I finished in 44 minutes. I thought I had misunderstood the rules and broke the puzzle. Rereading it, I realized my stupidity that the center of the puzzle has no walls and can cross. I, then, thought that I broke it again until I happily realized that 2 is a prime number. I knew that the grid was going to alternate between even and odd and realizing that 1 and 1 equals 2 was an amazing feeling. I really enjoyed this puzzle and the storytelling. I look forward to more from the great Marty. Great Puzzle!

@stephenvale2624 2 years ago

I am astonished at how many ways the setters can create rules/puzzles that are almost breathtakingly impossibe to imagine.

@Ryan_Britt 2 years ago

Interesting how different people can approach things in different ways. I didn't think about parity at all and instead used a German Whispers approach, thinking about which digits can "pair" with others. For example, any 3 on the line MUST be flanked by 2 and 4, and that fixes the position of 3 in the left-middle box.

@davidfincher490 3 months ago

Starting from the beginning after yesterday’s mammoth achievement. I am astounded by this series and I only caught the end of them..

@katiekawaii 2 years ago

Please do the rest of the series, Simon!

@grahamania 2 years ago

00:23:17 for me. Loved the puzzle! Always fun to have a little story to go along with the logic :) Kind comment.

@BaronWarthog 1 year ago

I learned about this series of puzzles and your videos solving them from another youtube channel, I was confused starting out the puzzle on my own so I began to watch this video and your explanations helped greatly with understanding the puzzle, when I got stuck I'd resume the video to see what I overlooked and then pause again to see how much further I could get on my own. Proud that I was able to work out the clever trick at the end with square next to the cupcake needing to be a five which then reveals the final square values on my own, but wouldn't have gotten there without your explanations of earlier parts.

@manudude02 2 years ago

I can't get enough of a puzzle that looks impossible, and then falls into place much faster than expected.

@thejuggler42 2 years ago

Great to see this one on the channel! When I solved it myself, I was stumped for a good long while in the middle because I foolishly had it in my head that there were no even prime numbers. Another great puzzle from Marty.