Solution code: The letters on the illuminated monitors, in the order visited
on 14. January 2025, 09:54 by novato
Amazing! Felt impossible almost to the last letter.
on 5. January 2025, 06:32 by Dasny
One of the best of the serie. Beautiful deductions in part 1. I don't know if it was intended but I abused a lot of the uniqueness of the puzzle to force Frinkz's path and deduce letters positions and order.
Marty: thankyou :) No, uniquesness deductions are never part of the intended solve path in my puzzles, I prefer Simon and Mark's ethos of proving to yourself there is a unique solution rather than assuming that fact and using it to solve. But if you are happy to use uniqueness deductions and you still get enjoyment from the puzzle then that's your call :)
on 30. December 2024, 18:52 by mscha
Wow... It's been almost two weeks, and I've finally solved it. (Hadn't had time over Christmas, though.)
Tough, but awesome. Definitely the hardest Sudoku I've ever solved.
on 29. December 2024, 14:42 by Silverbyte
Definitely a clear gap between the difficulty of figuring out the letters vs. solving the second half once you get them.
Even though I was stuck a bit in the beginning, I Loved the deductions needed in both parts a lot! Great work as always
on 24. December 2024, 10:06 by madhupt
A work of art! Totally speechless by the sheer genius of it!
on 24. December 2024, 01:12 by harwiltz
By far the hardest one yet for me. But it was all worth it for the final clue :)
Thanks for another masterpiece of a puzzle!
on 23. December 2024, 17:11 by amchap
Beautiful. Fun. Hilarious.
on 23. December 2024, 15:31 by cwk
The final disambiguation added at least a minute to my solve time as I was laughing so hard.
on 23. December 2024, 00:20 by sujoyku
I got used to doubting myself, what is forced and what is not. But this was an entirely new level of being lost. Somehow I came out and I don't know yet if I have solved the puzzle or if the puzzle has solved me. When I finally knew which letters needed to be used, it started to appear a bit less impossible. But I got stuck a few times after that as well. Maybe I am overestimating, but I could not give anything but 5 stars for difficulty. Marty, you are so good it becomes frightening. :D
on 22. December 2024, 23:00 by ChristopherStanlake
Another great puzzle! I was stuck on this one for a while (I was dipping in and out of it during a hectic build-up-to-Christmas week). Until I realised I had made a silly mistake by not observing that one of my pencil-marked letters was not in the given cue card! Clearly, like Finkz, I am not used to letters in sudokus! Once this was noticed I got through the rest relatively quickly and was excited to see what Finkz spelt out for us... one can only wonder what this message implies for the future of the series...
on 22. December 2024, 19:30 by Kriodeco
This puzzle was extremely difficult to solve, although every step of the way I felt like I was making good deductions. Turns out, the letters were making it difficult for me to recognize alternatives. I got to the final note card 10 times with errors that made not work. I realized there was a certain vertical triple that fooled me into thinking something wrong. Very fun eventual solve because all the clues were there in plain sight yet hard to see.
on 22. December 2024, 15:19 by Cantabrigiensis
A chap from Korea has published a video of his solve:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc1XXpB3cmU
Go to settings and select autogenerate Korean subtitles with translation to English or other language of your choice!
on 22. December 2024, 13:13 by Hamsterbase
Loved this, although right at the upper limit of my ability to solve. In fact, Finkz made a couple of wrong turns at her first two attempts, and had to go all the way back to the beginning. Still, it made for a delightful afternoon of puzzling over a couple of sessions. Many thanks.
on 21. December 2024, 09:30 by michielbrinkers
I've just learned you can connect a bluetooth keyboard on ios using the accessibility options! Now let's see if I can solve this puzzle :D
on 20. December 2024, 22:37 by firespire
I have an very old Android device so I've got the 'Hacker's Keyboard' app installed and I've enabled it as my keyboard of choice in the settings, I've turned on the option in the app settings to allow me to pull it up from the notification panel when I need to use it. I'm just lacking the brain cells to solve a 4 star difficulty puzzle.
(Apparently this does not work on newer versions of Android 12+ and I don't know if there are other third party keyboard apps you can call up manually. Hopefully Sven can call up the standard keyboard in letter mode.)
on 20. December 2024, 21:12 by NordenShield
What an absolute masterpiece this series is in all aspects, from logical construction to character development. I'm amazed.
on 20. December 2024, 17:12 by LuanMerlin
I almost gave up shortly after I started the puzzle and I'm glad that in the end I didn't. I really, really loved this puzzle.
on 20. December 2024, 09:52 by PjoeterBliep
I have been able to solve it on my phone by connecting it to a keyboard, good thing everything is USB C now.
Really loved it. Made some wrong deductions when trying to decide which letters are used, but after that the solve was very nice!
Loved the ending where at first I thought I was stuck, but was able to disambiguate after looking more carefully.
on 20. December 2024, 03:50 by antiknight
Cool ideas!
on 20. December 2024, 02:08 by JamesMeowriarty
The puzzle itself is amazing, possibly one of my favorites in the serie, but I almost gave up before I even started because the app doesn't support azerty keyboard. It made it extra hard to play, but my love for Finkz took over and made it worth the hassle.
on 20. December 2024, 01:26 by DonQuichopp
Once another wonderful puzzle. Thank you so much Marty!
I couldn't solve it at the pool with my mobile, so I had to stay up late on the laptop, while my wife was sleeping. But it was worth it every minute.
I think I solved it fairly quickly (counter didn't work, but I think it was about 2 hours).
The letters flowed quite nicely and I only got stuck towards the end for a short while until I found the correct deduction.
Now there'll be one more day at the pool, booringly reading a book and in the evening I'll enjoy CtC Simon's friday solve.
Aaaaand then I'll paitently wait for x-mas, not so much for the festivities but for the last puzzle.
I saw a hint of you Marty about a phase 3, I think, the best present for christmas would be you officially anouncing another 10 of your awesome puzzles.
I am no big sudoku solver, but I think this might be the most enjoyable, most beautiful, most well written series of puzzles I've ever come across.
Thank you so much for sharing your genius with us! It's been awesome to follow Finkz' 19 past solves.
on 19. December 2024, 21:04 by symbolic23
easily the hardest for me so far, but still very good
on 19. December 2024, 18:42 by jakestilesowen
Definitely my new favorite rat run! Marty did such an excellent job! A fun amount of challenge and a wonderful amount of fun!
And the dynamic fog was very cool.
on 19. December 2024, 15:24 by Klausku
This one was very hard for me. It took me almost 3 hours. Had to start over, because I couldn‘t find my error that only showed almost at the end. For me letters are more complicated than digits. But Finkz led me through, unafraid of anything as usual. She seems to like me. Great puzzle, Marty!
on 19. December 2024, 10:54 by misha
Wow! Just Wow.
on 19. December 2024, 10:41 by AsgarArn
very nice, have not played that many dynamic fog, fun! letters don't appear or are solved by me that much since I usually solve on mobile and that, forced be to the computer since I have not found a way to solve on phone.
on 19. December 2024, 08:26 by AsgarArn
Is there a way to get the letters in the phone web app, or do i have to solve at the computer?
Marty: at the moment I believe the mobile version only lets you type the letters A-I so unfortunately won't let you play this episode yet. But Sven has said this is on his list of things to add for the mobile version, so hopefully it will be playable on mobile soon...
on 19. December 2024, 07:35 by bplo13
I hope this series never ends. This one took me a while but I enjoy every minute I spend with my little buddy Finkz
on 18. December 2024, 22:42 by Greenansatsu
I think I get some subtext to the story going on here and wasn't expecting the lore to be this deep as well. This puzzle was definitely tricky but I blame myself for missing a huge clue to narrow down the letters.
on 18. December 2024, 22:17 by droidstr
It was very sad to find out I messed up in the very end. Should try it again tomorrow. Upd: looks like I'we got the same issue as @CorpJigsQuand in his comment above, but just didn't find this message :).
Done it with some stupid typo at very end again.
Good puzzle wiht bad impression left.
on 18. December 2024, 22:02 by Big Tiger
I really wanted to like it. I was enjoying it for a bit ... then got stuck ... then got HOPELESSLY stuck. I'll just wait for Simon to do a video on it.
on 18. December 2024, 21:57 by mir85
Loved it! Made a lot of mistakes along the way, but got to the cupcake in the end <3
on 18. December 2024, 21:04 by Franjo
This was very tricky! In the end I could solve this masterpiece, though it was so irritating not clearing any fog for quite a number of steps... Thank you!
on 18. December 2024, 18:27 by AshBrown
Great as always, not horrendous after the break in but still took me 2.5 hrs
on 18. December 2024, 17:40 by sorryimLate
I'm not sure how difficult this is, but it took a looong time because I'm sooo slooow with letters. Fascinating puzzle as expected.
on 18. December 2024, 17:02 by Samoth
The end of this puzzle cements it as quite possibly my favorite thus far, even if it took me forever and a day to figure out how to get there. Fantastic as always!
on 18. December 2024, 15:39 by teff
i would die for finkz
on 18. December 2024, 14:57 by HumanBirdsong
A beautiful puzzle, as always!
on 18. December 2024, 13:45 by mscha
Oof, this is hard... I've got three letters and a few tiny conclusions about the path. And now I'm completely stuck.
I must be missing something; 45 people have been able to solve it so far.
Lovely ruleset, though. Very different from any earlier Rat Run.
on 18. December 2024, 13:35 by davidemsa
This puzzle has the wildest ruleset of the Rat Run series and I love the creativity. Having to determine which letters to use gives the same effect as a mean mini in a full sized grid, I've never seen that.
on 18. December 2024, 12:40 by wuc
Masterpiece puzzle. Agree on the 150% rating. Took me longer than usual. But again the new ruleset makes it so amazing to solve. Great work. Thanks a lot.
on 18. December 2024, 11:09 by Nairurian
Finally got around to a computer so I could solve it. I like the concept, it threw me a bit at first (and I pencil marked the entire grid since I find letters are harder to remember than numbers) but once I got the hang of it, it felt very smooth.
on 18. December 2024, 10:17 by softie
Just incredible. I am amazed. This puzzle deserves a 150% rating. Such a fun and gratifying solve!
on 18. December 2024, 08:34 by LehanLehan
Well that's annoying,I have no laptop
on 18. December 2024, 05:31 by CFood
that was cool
i really liked the part when you had a fully complete set of candidates and the effect that had on the rest of the puzzle.
the hardest part of this puzzle is really just making sure my hand gets to the right part of the keyboard
on 18. December 2024, 04:38 by Elker
Wow. I don’t know how come up with these amazing constructions. I can’t wait for number 20.
on 18. December 2024, 04:08 by by81996672
Is it okay to go from Z to A?
Marty: no, that would be too naughty for words
on 18. December 2024, 04:08 by Justalilguy
Aww, Finkz deserves a lot of cheese
on 18. December 2024, 03:33 by OrestisLomis
Simply incredible how you can make me feel so smart by allowing for such elegance in impossible seeming puzzles. Never tedious, always brilliant. Loved it and well worth grabbing my laptop for.
on 18. December 2024, 02:38 by sorryimLate
I guess there's no way to solve this on mobile, is there?
Marty: sadly not right now, but I believe Sven has it on his list to update the mobile functionality to include all letters of the alphabet
on 18. December 2024, 02:37 by npinguy
i'm starting to feel something for this finkz
on 18. December 2024, 02:36 by Nairurian
Well this is a bit of a bummer, is this not solvable on mobile? (I can only get the letters A-I to show on mobile)
Marty: I contacted Sven about this, hopefully this functionality will be updated soon. Sorry, I only found out about this problem after I had set it.
on 18. December 2024, 01:08 by ChinStrap
The most experimental one yet, but I loved it! Maybe Finkz can do a cryptic crossword next...
on 18. December 2024, 01:07 by ViKingPrime
Beautiful and unique.
Difficulty: | ![]() |
Rating: | 96 % |
Solved: | 390 times |
Observed: | 3 times |
ID: | 000L3S |