Mystery-o-matic

# mystery-o-matic puzzle of the day

🕵️ Welcome Detective!

Our mission is to solve a murder mystery by uncovering who the killer is, which weapon was used, and when the crime occurred. It’s up to you to piece together the puzzle by examining the following key elements:

The suspects: you'll meet a colorful cast of characters including Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, Frida and Eddie. One of them has met an unfortunate end while some of the others are our prime suspects. Spoiler alert: in this tutorial, poor Alice is our victim so we'll focus on Bob and Carol as suspects.

The crime: a gruesome murder has taken place, and we need to determine how it happened. Once the fatal act occurs, the victim's body remains exactly where they fell–this is a crucial detail for your investigation.

The location: each place can be connected with the others, allowing characters to move freely. For this tutorial, we’ll explore a chilling mystery set in an eerie Victorian mansion, where people have been mysteriously disappearing from time to time. The layout changes from case to case, with three to five rooms to explore. For our tutorial, here's how the rooms connect:
  - The kitchen is connected with the dining room and the bedroom.
  - The dining room is only connected with the kitchen.
  - The bedroom is connected with the kitchen and the bathroom.
  - The bathroom is only connected with the bedroom.

The weapons: various weapons are scattered throughout the rooms and the killer will pick up one of the weapons before the crime, but don't expect them to be where they "should" be. That hammer? It might be in the bathroom instead of a workshop. Logic won't help you here!

The timeline: the murder occurred within a specific time window (e.g., between 8:00 and 9:30). You'll need to reconstruct the movements of the suspects and identify when the fatal blow was struck. There is, however, one important detail that separates these puzzles from other logic whodunit games. Our puzzles try to mimic real life, where statements and clues are often chaotic, redundant or incomplete. In that sense, reconstructing the complete timeline is not necessarily to solve the murder, and often it is impossible!.

The statements: you'll get statements from suspects and evidence from the scene. Everyone will be telling the truth, but not necessarily the whole story. You will need to carefully deduce and combine facts in order to uncover the truth.

🕗 Using the Timeline Board

The Timeline Board is a grid that allows you to keep track of key events, movements, and deductions as you piece together the story behind the murder. Think of it as your detective's whiteboard – it's where all the magic happens. It’s up to you to fill in the board with what you’ve deduced. In this tutorial, Alice has been murdered before 9:30 in the mansion, her body found in the kitchen. We’ll use the Timeline Board to reconstruct this crime. Let’s start with some basic facts we know for sure:

We know where everyone was at 9:30:
 - Alice's body was in the kitchen
 - Bob was in the bathroom
 - Carol was in the dining room

The list of initial clues describe where each character was at 9:30, the end of the timeline. It is your job to deduce, using the suspect statements and other clues, who the killer is, which weapon was used, and when the crime occurred. We can mark the timeline with three simple symbols: ✓ means someone was there, ✗ means they weren't, and ? means we're not sure.

At the bottom of the timeline board lies the weapon section, which shows where each available weapon was located. For instance, the killer took the murderer weapon from one of the following locations:

- The hammer (🔨) from the dining room (🪑)
- The pistol (🔫) from the bedroom (🛏️)
- The scissors (✂️) from the kitchen (🍲)
- The rope (🪢) from the bathroom (🚽)

🎓 Understanding Clues and Making Basic Deductions

Here's where it gets fun! Our suspects may move between rooms every 15 minutes (they're suspiciously punctual), following the location's layout.

They can only move to directly connected rooms during each 15-minute interval - no shortcuts allowed! Think of it like moving across a chessboard - you have to pass through the squares one at a time.

For example, if Alice wants to go from the dining room to the bathroom, she must:

1. Move from the dining room to the bedroom during one 15-minute interval.

2. Stay there for any number of 15-minutes intervals (even if other suspects are also there).

3. Move from the bedroom to the bathroom during another 15-minute interval.

She cannot teleport directly from the dining room to the bathroom, even though they might seem close. This rule is crucial for making deductions - if you know where and when someone started and ended up, you can often figure out where they must have been in between!

Once the movement rules are clarified, let's start this case, with the following statement:

In our murder mystery, characters move between rooms every 15 minutes, allowing us to track their locations over time through their statements.

For example, let's say we have the following clue:

☞ Bob: "I saw Alice when I arrived in the bedroom (🛏️) at 8:15"

What can we deduce? Quite a lot actually:

🔎 Alice was in the bedroom at 8:15
🔎 Bob was also in the bedroom at 8:15
🔎 Bob was NOT in the bedroom at 8:00

The second we finish adding these into the timetable, other deductions start popping up! Since our suspects haven't mastered the art of being in two places at once, we can also figure out where they weren't:

🔎 Alice was not in the bathroom, kitchen, or dining room at 8:15
🔎 Bob was not in the bathroom, kitchen, or dining room at 8:15

But where was Bob at 8:00? This is where our room layout comes in handy.

Since the bedroom connects to both the kitchen and bathroom, Bob could have come from either one. But here's a solid deduction – Bob couldn't have been in the dining room at 8:00 because it doesn't connect to the bedroom!

🔎 Bob was not in the dining room at 8:00

Other types of clues describe when the suspects spend some time. For instance:

☞ Carol: "I was in the dining room (🪑) from 8:00 to 8:45"

This tells us:

🔎 Carol was in the dining room from 8:00 to 8:45
🔎 Carol was NOT in any of the other rooms from 8:00 to 8:45
🔎 Carol was NOT in the dining room at 9:00

Where was Carol at 9:00? Let's go back to the mansion map to figure it out.

Looking at our room layout, Carol must have headed to the kitchen at 9:00 (and therefore, she is not somewhere else!) – it's the only place she could reach from the dining room!

🔎 Carol was in the kitchen at 9:00
🔎 Carol was NOT in bedroom, dining room or bathroom at 9:00

Here's another juicy clue type: