Practical reading for people who like an elimination puzzle: how to work a clue, what the generator guarantees, and why the game refuses to filter the grid for you.
3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Where the names come from
Thousands of generated names drawn as matched pairs, why naming traditions are a property of a name and never a claim about a person, and why the grid is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible.
3 September 2026 · 5 min read
Speed comes from accuracy, not from hurrying
How the clock actually works, what the two help tools cost, and the habits that make a run fast: fewer passes over the grid, not faster ones.
2 September 2026 · 5 min read
Why the marathon track feels so different
Most difficulty comes from clues that are hard to apply. Marathon takes the opposite route: every clue is easy, there are simply a lot of them, and one slip costs the grid.
2 September 2026 · 5 min read
Daily dossiers or free play?
Three shared puzzles a day against a sixteen-rung ladder in four tracks. What each mode is good for, how streaks work, and why a replayed rung is a new puzzle.
1 September 2026 · 8 min read
Why one puzzle a day beats a marathon
Spacing, streaks and the shared-puzzle effect: why ten minutes a day builds more skill and more enjoyment than a two-hour session once a fortnight.
1 September 2026 · 8 min read
The fair-play rules of detective fiction
Knox's Decalogue, Van Dine's twenty rules and the Detection Club oath were an attempt to make mystery stories solvable. The same three ideas decide whether a puzzle game is fair.
1 September 2026 · 9 min read
The families of logic puzzle, and what each one trains
Zebra puzzles, logic grids, nonograms, Sudoku, Minesweeper and elimination puzzles share one skeleton. What separates them, which skill each one builds, and where to start.
1 September 2026 · 10 min read
Do brain games actually make you smarter?
The evidence on brain training, without the marketing: what transfers, what does not, why the 2014 scientist letter mattered, and the honest case for playing a daily puzzle anyway.
1 September 2026 · 9 min read
Detective games that make you do the deducing
Seven detective games that hand you evidence instead of a waypoint — Obra Dinn, The Case of the Golden Idol, Her Story and more — plus what each one asks of you and how long it takes.
1 September 2026 · 6 min read
Why exactly one name always survives
Every case is generated, never hand-written. The four tests a clue chain has to pass, why an unsound chain is thrown away rather than patched, and how to use the guarantee while you play.
1 September 2026 · 5 min read
What a surname can tell you at a glance
Three clue types read the surname as an object rather than as letters: whether it is a trade, whether it has a particle, and whether it carries a special character.
31 August 2026 · 4 min read
Position clues, and why they feel different
Not next to, not in the same row, not in the same column. The only clues that are about where a name sits rather than what it says.
31 August 2026 · 6 min read
How to handle the clues you have to count
Vowel counts, doubled letters, name lengths and comparisons between the two halves of a name. Why they are the hardest clues to apply and how to make them reliable.
30 August 2026 · 6 min read
How to read letter clues quickly and correctly
What counts as a letter, what the puzzle ignores, and the scanning habits that make clues about first letters, missing letters and endings almost instant.
30 August 2026 · 5 min read
The order you apply clues in changes everything
Clues are numbered for reference, not for sequence. How to spot the clue that halves the field, and why applying the same clues in a different order can nearly double your work.
29 August 2026 · 5 min read
Why crossing out suspects is so satisfying
A computer can filter a table instantly, and that is exactly why it should not. What a manual elimination does for attention, memory and the feeling of solving something.
29 August 2026 · 6 min read
How to solve a deduction puzzle without guessing
A five-step method for elimination puzzles: read the clue that cuts deepest first, work name by name, slow down for counting, and use the guarantee that exactly one answer survives.