Games like Murdle

Murdle, and five more to try

Some are daily, some are whole games for a few evenings. What they share is the feeling Murdle gives you: the answer is already there, and you only have to reason your way to it.

• Murdle. G. T. Karber’s mystery logic puzzles. Each one is a short story with a few suspects, weapons and places, and a grid where you cross off what can’t be true until one answer is left. There’s a new one every day, and there are books of them too.
• Clues by Sam. A daily puzzle laid out as a grid of people, each of them either innocent or a criminal. Every person you sort out gives you a clue about the others, and the aim is to clear the grid without ever having to guess.
• Clue (Cluedo in much of the world). The classic board game: who did it, with what, and in which room. You ask questions around the table and check off a notepad until you can make your accusation.
• Knights and knaves. Logic riddles made famous by Raymond Smullyan. Knights always tell the truth, knaves always lie, and you work out who is who from what they say. Of everything here, it’s the closest to finding a liar.
• The Case of the Golden Idol. A detective game from Color Gray Games. Each chapter is a scene frozen at the moment something went wrong. You look around, collect names and words, and fill in the story of what happened.
• Return of the Obra Dinn. Lucas Pope’s mystery about a ship that comes back with nobody left on board. You step into the moments when people died, and work out who everyone on board was and what became of them.

Where Lie of Sight fits

Most deduction puzzles tell their clues in words. In Lie of Sight the clue is the room itself. Each case is a room seen from above. Dad, the Kid, Grandma and Rex the dog each say what they saw, or didn’t see, and exactly one of them is lying.

The trick is that everyone sees differently. Dad sees his whole row and column. The Kid does too, but he’s short, so low furniture blocks him. Grandma sees only two squares. Rex goes by smell. So “I saw the clock” isn’t a sentence to file away: it’s a set of squares where that person could have stood.

You drag the family around the room to test their stories. The honest ones can all be true at once. The liar’s never can. Instead of a grid of crosses, you’re looking for the one arrangement that fits everyone but one.

Like Murdle, there’s no luck and nothing hidden: everything you need is on the board. And if you like a harder case, Fibs the cat joins the family in the Cat Files, part of the unlock.

If you like Murdle, you’ll recognize

• One a day. A new case at midnight, your time, the same for everyone.
• Ruling things out. Most of the room falls away once you take a story seriously.
• A fair answer. Exactly one liar per case, and enough on the board to prove it.
• A short sit-down. A case takes minutes, and there are 25 more free ones when one a day isn’t enough.

Questions people ask