Six cases to solve with a pencil
Each case comes with a floor plan, five suspects and a list of clues. You place every suspect in a cell, with no two sharing a row or a column, so that all the clues hold. Once everyone is placed, whoever is left alone with the victim is the murderer.
It is the same format as the playable version on the site, which we call Criminoku. On paper it gains something: you can cross out, scribble in the margin and go back with an eraser, which is exactly how these puzzles get solved.
How to read the plan
- The thick lines are the walls between rooms.
- Each room name sits in its top left corner.
- The ✕ marks the cell where the body was found. Nobody can occupy it.
- Rows are numbered top to bottom and columns left to right: that is what the clues mean when they say «row 3».
One tip to start
Go first for the clues that pin a whole coordinate («was in column 2») and leave for later the ones that only narrow an area («was in the bar»). Every person you place removes a row and a column for everyone else, so the first two or three placements are what open the case. And do not try to guess the culprit early: it falls out on its own at the end, and thinking about it beforehand distracts you.
Every case has a single solution and is solvable by deduction: at no point do you have to try at random. It is verified case by case by walking through all 14,400 possible arrangements.