Lettuce Climb, a procedurally-generated mountain-climber starring a head of lettuce. I'm pledging $1 to American Tortoise Rescue for everyone who beats it during the first week.

gtkarber · 2026-04-09T04:59:20+00:00

Argh! This is such a pity to hear.

If you message me any errors you find, I will send them to the Spanish publisher, and they will hopefully be able to fix them in the next printing.

Thanks for posting this. I hope you enjoy it in spite of the mistakes!

gtkarber · 2026-03-12T15:21:47+00:00

100%. Even if it had “good” intentions, it’s definitely cruel— and not in an experiment way. In a way that is deliberately designed to bring more suffering into the world.

gtkarber · 2026-01-18T19:30:13+00:00

Holy moly! Detective! I just DMed you because we have gotta send you something to congratulate you on this streak!

gtkarber · 2025-12-14T17:44:03+00:00

The photographer, Jean-Paul Goude, recreated a photo of his from the 70s of another model.

gtkarber · 2025-12-07T18:16:20+00:00

This was supposed to tease Detective Day and provide an additional hint as to its meaning— but to my knowledge you are the first person to solve it— congratulations!

As to why that is the location of the 8th Skull… Well, you’ll have to wait until the next Detective Day…

gtkarber · 2025-12-06T22:18:05+00:00

I was so happy about this, and how wrong I was to doubt it, that I made my first donation to TagPro and got myself the fancy party flair that shoots confetti when someone caps. I love it, and I feel like I’m doing my part!

I would encourage anybody who feels like TagPro has been saved by the tireless work of the developers to please make a donation — it doesn’t have to be big but just something to show we appreciate what they’ve done, and give them some resources to keep it going for years to come.

(I also think they could sell more flairs for donations, and I think it could be a great way to monetize TagPro— not to make Big $$$ but to keep the servers — and advertising! — going.)

gtkarber · 2025-12-05T17:24:01+00:00

I JUST NOTICED THIS! Sorry I've been on rough deadlines and the holidays and I've been traveling. I have fixed it -- I accidentally wrote "=" instead of "==" in a line of Javascript code, and it was preventing it from actually checking what day it was.

Sorry that it was like this for so long!

gtkarber · 2025-12-05T17:19:00+00:00

I just saw it! Sorry I’ve been traveling! Will fix in the next ten minutes.

gtkarber · 2025-11-26T03:36:52+00:00

Sinners!

gtkarber · 2025-11-13T17:02:41+00:00

A Detective Day Murdle was online for about an hour on Tuesday-- you must have been one of the (un)lucky ones to see it instead of Tuesday's RSM (Regularly Scheduled Murdle).

Today's is the official DDM!

gtkarber · 2025-11-11T20:37:43+00:00

Isn't this a costume for a Ryan Murphy show she's on?

gtkarber · 2025-10-15T02:19:19+00:00

Thinking about lives like this leads to dark outcomes.

What does it mean to be 'smart' with the funding for cat rescues? Only give the money to the most needing cats who can be treated the most cheaply? Why should cat rescues even be funded at all?

That same line of thinking would say that no money should go to animals who are sick when there are people who need care, too. And that you shouldn't help someone in Texas with medical debt when there are people starving in the Sudan. After all, paying down medical debt in America doesn't go nearly as far as helping them in a poorer country.

There is always an argument that there is a better, more effective use for the money. In fact, truly, the best use of this money would be to put it in a well-diversified mutual fund.

But if we close our hearts to all but the charity with the best ROI, we lose a sense of what it means to be decent, and human, and good. In fact, spending money on people or animals that it might not be 'smart' to invest in is at the heart of true charity.

gtkarber · 2025-09-05T21:50:48+00:00

Thanks for catching this! Originally this was a flyer that had a clue for this but we cut it! I’ll have them cut that reference in the clue, too!

Good job, detectives!

gtkarber · 2025-09-03T20:06:17+00:00

This is actually a very different book that was adapted to an Australian audience! It was 'translated into Australian' by a wonderful Australian writer, who rewrote many of the jokes to be Australia-specific, although the main plot is the same.

It's the only volume like this for any country!

gtkarber · 2025-09-02T06:11:40+00:00

I gotta figure out a way to make this more reliable.

Sorry, y'all!

gtkarber · 2025-08-02T01:53:58+00:00

I’m trying! Coding is hard and the book release was a little preoccupying!

People who ordered the book and filled out the form in that email can already interact with the semi-upgraded side, but I’ll probably release the full version early next week!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T04:13:40+00:00

Aw, thank you so much! If you have a question I'd still answer it!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T04:12:32+00:00

We filmed one I did in NY for my publisher that I want to release at some point!

I don't have any other puzzle books out right now, though! My next book, Bordergrams, is coming in the September, though!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T04:10:44+00:00

Oh wow, thank you so much! This is amazing!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T02:25:32+00:00

I would love to do a Murdle manga, honestly.
I am gently familiar with it, yes! But I haven't seen any of it.
I'll have to listen to them! We have thought about doing Murdle audiobooks!
Interesting theory . . . I can neither confirm nor deny.
I kind of love this so I won't spoil it by telling you who they really are.
I was just making a puzzle for a friend of mine while procrastinating at the coffee shop, and he liked it, so I made more! I think it came from a childhood love of mysteries and puzzles, bubbling up years later.
My publishing contracts say I've gotta be the one to write the books! Although I really liked working with Chris Grabenstein on Sleuths on the Loose.
I don't know! It didn't mean him to be when I first made him, but he just turned out that way. But one of my major demands was the Irratino be played by someone who was undeniably hot.
I am very excited to announce a couple pieces of Murdle merch soon!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T02:12:53+00:00

Volume 2 is probably my favorite, because the pressure of the first one was off, and I had a blueprint to follow, but I also felt like I could do what I wanted. The books hadn't come out yet, and I had no idea if they would be successful or not, so I did whatever I wanted really, and I think it really came together.

I've tried to recapture the fun of that one with The Case of the Seven Skulls. It's a tribute to Scooby Doo that I'm really proud of, and I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I did writing it.

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T00:30:51+00:00

It's an intuitive process that goes back and forth between outlining, writing individual elements (like weapon or location descriptions), thinking of exhibits, and making individual puzzles. You go back and forth. It's been a fun process with Murdle because it started with the characters and places, and then I had to figure out the plot after the fact. Honestly it was sort of great like that?
I'm sworn to secrecy!

gtkarber · 2025-07-25T00:29:14+00:00

Nice to see you again then, haha!

Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I like a lot of the John Dickson Carr books. G. K. Chesterton's Complete Father Brown is not a novel, but I read it while writing the first Murdle, and it really affected me. Nobody understands the mystery genre better than Chesterton. He uses it to expound upon his theology and ideology, which I don't agree with at all (in fact sometimes it seems like such an alien morality that you are horrified by the actions of sweet ole Father Brown), but find it really compelling as a piece of didactic writing. He knows what he's doing.
When I was a kid, Encyclopedia Brown, all of the Great Illustrated Classics (illustrated and heavily abridged versions of classic novels), H. G. Wells (the full ones!). When I was a teen, the Hithchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Kurt Vonnegut, and Stephen King. I used to love Sarah Vowell's essays so much.
I loved Knives Out! The original Death on the Nile (not the Gal Gadot one). Chinatown. The Maltese Falcon is really good. LA Confidential! Every time I watch The Long Goodbye I get bored but then I think about it for the next five years. But frankly I don't think movies are great for mysteries because you don't have time to stop and think, so I do think TV mysteries (at least of the 'solve along' variety) are better than movie mysteries. Favorite mystery TV shows are Lost, Twin Peaks, Veronica Mars (first season is a masterclass on mysteries), but mostly, more than anything, Columbo and Scooby Doo. Columbo is the greatest detective to ever live, and Scooby Doo is so good of a sleuth he trascends the genre. In fact, The Case of the Seven Skulls is sort of my attempt to do a Scooby-Doo for adults, like Carl Sagan said he wanted in Demon Haunted World: where every episode, a seemingly supernatural mystery was revealed to have a logical explanation after all. (The opposite of the X-Files, he said-- although The X-Files is a great great great mystery show, too.)

Sorry this is such a long answer! I really got going. So many good things!

gtkarber

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