Thoughts on Playing and Recording a 2.5 Hour Ultra-Difficult Puzzle

Last month, I recorded a playthrough of the daily puzzle from August 26th, 2024, a puzzle of size 12 on ultra-difficult mode. I can't tell you what possessed me to choose this puzzle to record in that particular week, since I should've known from my experience of playing a puzzle of size 13 on ultra-difficult mode, just one size up, that solving such a puzzle would take significantly longer than the standard puzzles of size 10. I don't mind recording longer playthroughs so long as I plan for the additional time it would take, something I didn't do for that playthrough.

The playthrough itself took nearly three hours with a few water breaks ("water breaks" makes this sound like a sport, and that's because it is). The editing process, where I cut out long silences and other interruptions to make the video smoother, trimmed the video down to two-and-a-half hours. Despite the length of the video, I never felt that I was stuck at any point through the playthrough, unable to move forward, but I did eventually use a method of uncovering cells that I generally prefer not to use: that of tentatively assigning a cell to either uncover a contradiction, or proceed with solving the board. I call this strategy heuristic provisional selection in my book (which is available on Amazon). I typically avoid this strategy because it has the potential to lead you down multiple branches of cell assignments which can be difficult to deal with. Fortunately, I was able to find a contradiction pretty quickly and undo the tentative assignment, and since that particular cell only had two possible values, I was able to conclusively assign the other value.

The video itself was of decent quality, relative to my current abilities to produce videos, but I definitely see signs of fatigue in myself on the video. I gradually began slacking on certain aspects of recording videos, such as maintaining eye contact with the camera and keeping the energy flowing throughout. There were times when I brought it back, but overall, I'll need to be more careful to keep the discipline in place throughout the playthrough the next time I record a long, difficult playthrough such as this.

If you're interested in watching the playthrough, I've published it on YouTube, and if you'd like to play the puzzle for yourself, you can play it here.