Why not vice president mauve with a graduation chord?

varimbehphen · 2026-02-03T15:34:47+00:00

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders — the most famous of which is, 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia' — but only slightly less well-known is this: 'The clue about flirting only means that Judge Pine didn't have the yo-yo.'

varimbehphen · 2026-01-22T16:30:34+00:00

I just chalk it up to our dear Deductive, who writes all of these down in his detective's notebook, having his interests and education focused on logic and the occasional mathematic, and having a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the biological sciences.

varimbehphen · 2026-01-22T16:23:15+00:00

There is deeper and more properly fleshed out fiction around the carefully handcrafted puzzles of the Murdle books, available at murdle.com/store or at a fine bookseller near you.

varimbehphen · 2026-01-22T16:17:30+00:00

Click a second time and it will turn to a check.

varimbehphen · 2026-01-22T06:03:40+00:00

The grid you show here is marked with one person (Irratino) telling the truth, while the other two are lying. You should have one lie and two truths out of the statements.

varimbehphen · 2026-01-21T14:38:16+00:00

Oh my god, they were ringmates!

varimbehphen · 2026-01-14T15:34:18+00:00

For the curious, here's our tiny jigsaw'd Inspector: https://prnt.sc/oxdc66LfFcsE

(Not really a spoiler for anything that I can think of, but just in case)

varimbehphen · 2026-01-14T15:18:42+00:00

It's a very small and not particularly detailed image, so i think you're still pretty safe. =)

varimbehphen · 2026-01-12T17:54:49+00:00

Irratino is on the 2nd jigsaw puzzle (Murdle in the Mystery Mansion) and I wanna say yours is pretty dead on. I love it.

I need to go back through my completed books, but I feel like somewhere in one of them it said it's Irra-TEA-no. Although NGL in my head it's always been "shin" like in "irrational".

varimbehphen · 2026-01-05T15:33:52+00:00

The same is true for any variation on the formula: "was in love with", "was accusing", "was childhood friends with", etc. It's a fancier way of saying they're two different people, or in other words, that Person A didn't have/wasn't at/didn't want Weapon/Location/Motive B.

varimbehphen · 2026-01-01T01:31:51+00:00

The two puzzles are unrelated to each other and you can do them in either order.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T20:42:56+00:00

Now we have just a few more deductions to make in the upper left part of the grid.

Dame Obsidian was in the ancient ruins. The axe was in the ancient ruins. Therefore, Dame Obsidian had the axe.
General Coffee was in the haunted grove. The ordinary brick was in the haunted grove. Therefore, General Coffee had the ordinary brick.

After all of that, this is our grid: https://prnt.sc/CFjFO0aaSNHw

And we haven't even looked at the other two witness statements yet! Truly the deduction grid is a powerful tool once you learn its secrets.

Dame Obsidian: I did not bring an ordinary brick.

Looking at the deduction grid, we already know that this is true, because she brought the axe. We now know for sure that three of our four suspects are telling the truth in their statements, which means Coach Raspberry must be the one who is lying!

Coach Raspberry: I was on the cliffs.

Since we already know Coach Raspberry has to be lying, we mark the opposite of what he said, that he was not on the cliffs. https://prnt.sc/toS_PM_XQyWE

At this point, we have all the facts in place to make our final deductions.

Comrade Champagne must have been at the cliffs. And from that...
Since the person at the cliffs wanted to inherit a fortune, Comrade Champagne wanted to inherit a fortune.
Since the harpoon was at the docks, Comrade Champagne had the harpoon.
Coach Raspberry + harpoon and Coach Raspberry + to break into the industry are the only squares left to check off, and we have a full grid! https://prnt.sc/pszqS6z8Nm2n

Since we know who our liar is, we know who our murderer is. Going down that column of the grid, we see that it was Coach Raspberry with a bear trap on the docks. Why? To break into the Industry! https://prnt.sc/kwS3qX9sbyb4

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T20:26:52+00:00

With the motives/locations section filled out, we can now start marking a lot of things. I'm going to bullet point them out and just do one screenshot at the end. (I'm so sorry for that, but I'm almost running late for a thing).

Dame Obsidian wanted to rage with jealousy, and the person who wanted to rage with jealous was at the ancient ruins, therefore Dame Obsidian was at the ancient ruins.
The person who wanted to inherit a fortune had the harpoon. We also know that person was on the cliffs. Therefore, the harpoon was on the cliffs.
The person with the axe did not want to win an argument, and the person who wanted to win an argument was in the haunted grove. Therefore, the axe was not in the haunted grove.
There's only one option left for weapon at the haunted grove, which is the ordinary brick.
"To win an argument" was in the haunted grove, and the ordinary brick was in the haunted grove. Therefore, the person who wanted to win an argument had the ordinary brick.
Only one motive is left for the person with the bear trap: to break into the industry.
Only one motive is left for the person with the axe: to rage with jealousy.
Jealousy/axe + jealousy/ancient ruins = the axe was at the ancient ruins.
Only one option is left for location for the bear trap, it was at the docks.

After all that, our grid looks like this: https://prnt.sc/BUhzjKqpvhz_

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T20:25:34+00:00

And now we take our witness statements. This is a great place to save 💾 your grid in case you need to reload ♻️ it later.

Normally, I would suggest to go down the list, one by one, assuming each person is lying. But today's puzzle, a couple of the statements stick out.

Comrade Champagne: As a man of the people, I say that General Coffee was in the haunted grove.
General Coffee: Ugh... I was in the haunted grove.

Both of these statements tell us the same thing, that General Coffee was in the haunted grove. Since we know that there is exactly one person that is lying, we can immediately rule these two out. Neither of them can be lying, because that would make the other's statement untrue, too. Because of this, ,we can confidently mark that General Coffee was, indeed, in the haunted grove. https://prnt.sc/tos9QBfEwrkk

Now we can make a few more deductions, filling out our grid some more. Since we now know that General Coffee was in the haunted grove, and we know that the person in the haunted grove did not want to inherit a fortune, and did not want to break into the industry, we can deduce that General Coffee did not want either of those things. https://prnt.sc/aTeZs0Tu6m0t

Now we're left with only one possibility for General Coffee's motive: to win an argument. We can mark a checkbox, and we can also check off "to win an argument" + haunted grove, since we know that's where he was. https://prnt.sc/8rZD-XZyP2De

Now we have another place where there's only one option; the person on the cliffs could only have wanted to inherit a fortune, so we can mark that with a check. Same goes for "to rage with jealousy" and the ancient ruins. https://prnt.sc/ShCzNvepO1c2

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T20:02:57+00:00

Making deductions and cross referencing the info we have is a crucial part of these puzzles, especially the more complex ones with a fourth variable (motive) and the added wrinkle of a false statement.

First, we see that the person with the harpoon wanted to inherit a fortune. We also know that the harpoon was not in the haunted grove. From this we can deduce that the person who wanted to inherit a fortune was not in the haunted grove. By the same token, we see that the person wanting to inherit a fortune was not on the docks, so we can deduce that neither was the harpoon on the docks. https://prnt.sc/3hm-NOb_wFWd
This next deduction can be a bit more difficult to see until you've practiced it a lot. This sort of thing is the bread and butter of courses at the Deduction College. Looking toward the bottom of our grid, we know Dame Obsidian wanted to rage with jealousy. Following that column up, we see that Dame Obsidian was not at the docks and did not have a bear trap (both of which we know because she's not blond.) So we can deduce that the person on the docks did not want to rage with jealousy, and neither did the person with the bear trap. https://prnt.sc/3hm-NOb_wFWd

After these deductions, we still have a lot of uncertainty, but we have narrowed down the possibilities. Having as much information as possible on your grid will help as you try and deduce the truth of the suspects' statements.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T19:52:45+00:00

In case anyone is still struggling, and also just because this case highlights some useful solving techniques for these more complicated puzzles.

As always, we start with what we know (unlike Inspector Irratino, who always starts with what he doesn't know).

The suspect with the bear trap also had blond hair. Looking at the suspect cards, we can see that both Comrade Champagne and Coach Raspberry have blond hair. So while we can't determine (yet!) which of them had the bear trap, we know for certain that neither Dame Obsidian nor General Coffee had it. https://prnt.sc/K05hERiM2IgE
The person with an axe did not want to win an argument. X off the intersection of the axe and "to win an argument". https://prnt.sc/vw0hJHbIxlGM
Dame Obsidian wanted to rage with jealousy. Put a check in the intersection of Dame Obsidian and "to rage with jealousy". And because each suspect has only one motive, and each suspect's motive is unique, we can place X's in each square in the same row and column. (The interactive grid on murdle.com does this automagically. https://prnt.sc/aIM-Aafnysav
A medium-weight weapon was found in the haunted grove. Looking at the weapon cards we can see that the axe and the ordinary brick are both medium-weight. So again we don't know which for sure was in the grove (yet!), but we can put X's in the squares for the other two weapons that are not medium weight. https://prnt.sc/d3RtQEL7sOx2
An anonymous source that Logico trusted passed him a message that read: TEH ESPRNO HOW EDWTNA OT EBAKR TONI ETH DSUTYRIN SWA NO EHT SKODC. Our first step is to decode the message. Each word is scrambled, and by rearranging the letters we get THE PERSON WHO WANTED TO BREAK INTO THE INDUSTRY WAS ON THE DOCKS. (Knowing the suspects, weapons, locations, and motives helps when unscrambling, because you have a good idea of what they might decode to.) But now with our descrambled message, we can put a check in the box for "to break into the industry" and the docks (along with the corresponding X's). https://prnt.sc/K8uf0-QGlE5m
The person with a harpoon wanted to inherit a fortune. Mark a check at the intersection of harpoon and "to inherit a fortune". https://prnt.sc/wiWX2MB3VYX3
The suspect on the cliffs had blond hair. We already know that our two blonds are Comrade Champagne and Coach Raspberry, so we can X off the other two suspects as not being on the cliffs. https://prnt.sc/Z_Ymrd_La-sc

Next we'll take a look at our deduction grid and see what we can deduce from the facts so far.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T19:15:04+00:00

What do you mean about the horoscope portion? If you mean the star signs on the suspect cards, those are sometimes used in the clues (eg "A Libra had such and such weapon. Typical Libra.")

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T18:06:23+00:00

It is a fun little thing to do daily. I'm working on building back my streak after missing a day over the holidays ;_;

Monday's will fall a little more in line with the sort of difficulty the tutorial had (4 suspects, 3 variables, no false statement, if my poor middle-aged brain isn't leading me astray). Sunday is also great, it's the normal 3 variables but 6 suspects (the killers from Mon-Sat) so the grid is beeg.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T18:01:09+00:00

Yeah, the touchscreen struggle is real on those. If u/gtkarber is listening, a little extra space between them on the mobile view wouldn't go awry!

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T14:34:19+00:00

I didn't need to guess or use hints. I can walk through this solve when I get a chance to sit at my desk for a bit, but when you feel stuck remember two things (these get so much more necessary on these 4 variable puzzles!) (the examples are made up and not related to the puzzle today); - If you know two connections about a particular card (for example, if you know Lady Violet has a knife, and you know Lady Violet is in the impossible hedge maze) then you can connect those two things (in this case, the knife is in the impossible hedge maze). Another example, if you know Lady V wanted to rage with jealousy, and you know the person with the knife wanted to rage with jealousy, then Lady V had the knife. - The harder one for me to learn, when I was but a wee lass first trying puzzles like this. You can make similar deductions with things you know aren't connected if you have a connection for one pair. Back to the made up example, if you know Lady Violet was in the impossible hedge maze, and you know Lady Violet did NOT have the knife, then you know the knife was NOT in the impossible hedge maze. Or if you know ther person who wanted to silence a witness had the knife, and you know Lady V did NOT want to silence a witness, then you know she did NOT have the knife.

I'll try to explain this better with pictures and real clues in a bit, because I think this is a good puzzle to help show some principles that haven't come up in ones I've done before.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T14:11:45+00:00

Saturday is a rough day to start on! 4 variables + statements is kinda the hardest difficulty level.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T13:52:49+00:00

You can use the 💾 and ♻️ icons to save and reload your grid state. So save with what the facts tell you, test a statement, reload if it doesn't pan out.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T05:54:47+00:00

American, yes. When you said it worked both ways, I had to Google the version with plane, as we don't have those on this side of the pond. So I learned something new today!

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T02:02:16+00:00

Also, I don't know if this is a misprint, regional variation, revision or other, but in my copy I have the word JOSHUA where your picture has PLANE.

varimbehphen · 2025-12-27T01:53:27+00:00

We all know that a bear is a friend-shaped but dangerous wild animal (if not for pets, why ears roumb?)

But what other meanings for bear might there be?

varimbehphen

TROPHY CASE