Murdle

Not that similar to Wordle actually

Sometimes you make interesting discoveries in bookshops, an experience I had recently. I was looking through the ‘games’ section of a local bookstore to find potential presents for cousins too young for the many sudoku and crossword books when something sparked my own curiosity. Not a gift, but something I came back for later after the gifts had been secured: Murdle Volume 1.

I noticed that there was a mention of a Murdle.com with the same style of puzzle in the book. But even with a free puzzle a day in that vein, my sights were set on the book. It promises the development of a narrative as you go through the book and solve each mystery. Unlike other times I ramble about something, I’m not done with the book yet, but I still want to talk about it.

To give a quick comparative pitch of Murdle as a whole, it’s like a fusion of Clue(do) and Sudoku. You must solve a murder by deducing who did it, with what weapon, and where they did it. To narrow it down you have two tools, a list of clues and a grid. Instead of struggling to describe the grid I’ll show you one from the online version’s tutorial.

You are given a description of each component, which includes details that are referenced in the list of clues and used to narrow it down. For example you get the height of each suspect, and some clues will tell you what the tallest suspect did or didn’t do. Sometimes the final clue in the list is actually about the murder itself rather than crossing out the grid.

Some more involved clues will ask you to decode encrypted or scrambled messages, you’ll need a separate piece of paper for the ones in the book version. Other advanced clues will tell you that either one thing is true, or a separate thing is true. Witness statements, when included, work similarly. Each witness statement gives you something to fill the grid with, but the killer always lies.

I hated math in school, but I enjoy puzzles like Sudoku, KenKen, and Picross because they’re about logic. And this slots in with them perfectly despite not being number based because it uses the same logic. You have to ask ‘if this is true then what do I know is false’ until the process of elimination finishes the grid.

There are two axises on which Murdle difficulty can be adjusted: complexity of individual clues, and the size of the grid. For example more advanced Murdles introduce a fourth thing you must deduce, the motive of the killer. For the online version it states that the hardest puzzles are on Saturdays, while the largest ones are on Sundays.

Murdle has its own cast of characters consistent across both the website and book, with the book having a larger cast due to not being able to recycle suspects as regularly. Much like Clue(do) every suspect has a name referencing a color in some way, from Miss Saffron to Dame Obsidian to Sir Rulean. One thing the book sadly misses out on is that all of its icons are black and white (for ink reasons presumably), while in the website each character’s icon matches their color.

The ‘player character’ of Murdle is Deductive Logico, a graduate from the college of deduction. His rival is Inspector Irratino, who if you get the answer wrong on the web version (even if it was a misinput on the answer selection screen) he will prove you wrong in court and ruin your day. He also gives hints for each puzzle and runs Marot, a fun little website extra that reads you a fortune based on the day’s mystery.

Also on the website is a section called the Murdle Mansion, where you can see the profiles and art (with varying degrees of abstraction) of each suspect, check your streak, and wonder about the various other closed rooms that say they’ll be opened later.

The suspect gallery has a prompt to submit your own art of the suspects, and I’d love to see some artists take a stab at their own depictions of them (as well as Logico and Irratino themselves). The suspects feel like they have enough laid out for designs to have the same range and consistency as the Clue(do) cast. No, I will not stop referencing that board game or doing the parentheses thing to acknowledge its regional title variations.

And in the book the cast gets more to them, as now they’re all part of a greater narrative. The first handful of puzzles get you used to how the puzzles work before the narrative of the book starts to take form, with a plot that continues between all the murders. I’ve already had one case of rereading an earlier mystery with more clarity, and I’m still in the beginner puzzle section.

One issue I have with the book so far is that it’s far too easy to spoil yourself by accident. The book is ordered with puzzles of increasing difficulty, hints for each puzzle, and the solution to each puzzle. It’s hard not to get a glimpse of what the solution for the other puzzles are when they’re right there on the same page as the one you just did.

I’ve had to use a double bookmark system for the book, and I advise you do as well. One bookmark for the current puzzle, and one at the current spot in the solutions section. Too much risk of accidentally seeing a hint otherwise. I wish the hint and solution could be closer to the puzzle itself. Though these issues are nothing new, as anyone who’s read a choose your own adventure style book knows.

The website tracks how long it takes you to solve the mystery, while the book advises you to try to complete the easy puzzles as easy as you can if you’re already used to Murdle. I’ve started comparing times with a friend on the daily Murdles and it’s been a fun little competition.

I’m glad I discovered Murdle, it was a fun little discovery that has liven things up for me with a bit more murder. Two more Murdle books are already planned, and I’ll be looking for them when they come out.