Puzzlebury Mysteries

How to solve a case

Each case has a floor plan, a list of suspects and a set of clues. Every suspect stood on a different floor square, never on furniture, and in a different room from everyone else, so one room was empty. No two suspects stood in touching squares, not even diagonally.

Write each suspect's initials on the plan as you place them. Start with the most definite clues (who was in which room, who stood beside the piano), then use the rules to rule squares out: once someone is in the library, nobody else can be, and nobody can stand in any of the eight squares around them.

When everyone is placed, look at the room with the missing item, marked with a gold diamond. Whoever is in that room is the culprit.

Fair cases only

Every case is checked by computer to have exactly one possible arrangement, and to be solvable by reasoning rather than guesswork. Easy cases need only straightforward elimination. Hard cases may need one “suppose they were here…” step, where you test a possibility and find that it leads to a contradiction.

Easy cases have four suspects in a five-room house, medium cases five suspects in six rooms, and hard cases six suspects in seven rooms, with clues that are more about who stood north of whom than who was where.

Printing tips

Every PDF is laid out for both A4 and US Letter. Choose “Actual size” or “100%” in your printer dialogue rather than “Fit to page” so grids stay square.

The puzzles are black on white with thin rules, so they print cleanly in greyscale and use very little ink. Answers come in a separate PDF, so you can print the puzzles now and keep the solutions for later.