One name in the grid did it. Every clue tells you who didn't. You cross names out yourself — the game never applies a clue for you, and that is the whole puzzle. Nederlandse uitleg staat onderaan.
A round, start to finish
- You get a grid of names. Twenty in the easiest daily dossier, up to 250 on the higher rungs of free play. Each name is a first name, a middle initial and a surname:
Sanne M. Visser. - Clue 0 is free. It names one suspect who is innocent. Cross that name out and you have started.
- The rest of the clues are properties of the culprit's name — a letter it lacks, how long it is, whether the surname is a trade. Every name that does not have the property is innocent. Cross all of them out.
- One name should be left standing. Accuse, and the case is closed. Accuse with more than one name standing and the game tells you how many are still in play, not which.
The clues are guaranteed to be consistent and to end on exactly one name. If two names are left, you missed something. If none are, you crossed out too much — the grid has a restore all button, and no round is ever lost.
The clock, and the two kinds of help
Your time is what you compete on: your own best per puzzle, and where you stand against other players. Two optional helpers exist, and each adds 45 seconds to your finishing time:
- Show who this rules out highlights, for one clue, every name it eliminates. Use it when a clue is worded in a way you cannot read quickly.
- Check my crossings looks at the grid and names the first mistake: a name still standing that a clue rules out, or a name crossed out that should not be.
Neither is needed to solve anything, and a run without help is marked as such.
What the clues can say
The wording changes but the kinds do not. Reading them for the letters of the full name — first name and surname together, ignoring the middle initial, spaces, hyphens and accents — is the single most useful habit.
Clues you can answer by looking
- No letter X in the name. Scan for the letter; every name that has it is out.
- The name does not end in X, or starts with X.
- The surname starts with X.
- The surname is (or is not) a trade. Bakker, Visser, Molenaar, Timmerman, Kok — Baker, Miller, Cook, Mason, Weaver. Trades a player recognises without arguing about it.
- The surname has (or has not) a particle:
Van Dijk,De Boer,Van der Meer. - The name contains a special character: an accent, a hyphen or an apostrophe —
Öztürk,Owusu-Ansah,D'Amico. - The culprit does (not) have a name from a given tradition.
- Position clues: not directly next to a named suspect, not in the same row, not in the same column. These read off the grid as it is laid out, five names to a row.
Clues you have to count for
- The name has exactly N letters, or the first name has exactly N letters.
- First name and surname start with the same letter, or have the same number of letters, or the surname is longer.
- The middle initial is in the first or second half of the alphabet — A to M, or N onwards.
- The name has no, one or two double letters — two identical letters side by side, as in
Bakker. - Exactly N vowels, or the first name has more, fewer or as many vowels as the surname.
- No letter appears twice anywhere in the name.
- First name and surname share at least one letter, or share none.
Ways to get faster
- Take the sharpest clue first. A clue that halves the grid saves more taps than one that removes three names, and the order of the clues is not the order to use them in.
- Work per column of the grid, not per clue. Reading a name once against everything you know beats reading the whole grid once per clue.
- Say the letters out loud for counting clues. Vowels and double letters are where mistakes happen, and one wrong cross costs the round more than a slow, correct pass.
- Trust the guarantee. Exactly one name survives every clue. Two survivors means you have a clue left to apply; none means you crossed out a name you should not have — hit restore and redo the last step.
Modes
Daily dossiers: three a day — easy (20 names), hard (50) and extreme (100) — the same for everybody, in Dutch or English, flipping over at midnight in Amsterdam. Finishing one keeps your streak alive.
Free play: four tracks up a sixteen-rung ladder from 10 names to 250. Easy asks only clues you can answer by looking, hard mixes in counting, extreme lives on the counting clues, and marathon uses many clues that each cut only a little — no single clue is hard, but there is a lot of it and one slip costs the grid.
Nederlands — hoe het werkt
Eén naam in het raster deed het. Elke aanwijzing zegt wie het niet deed. Jij streept zelf door: het spel past nooit een aanwijzing voor je toe, en dat is precies de puzzel.
Aanwijzing 0 is gratis en noemt een onschuldige. De rest zijn eigenschappen van de naam van de dader — een letter die er niet in zit, hoe lang de naam is, of de achternaam een beroep is. Iedereen zonder die eigenschap is onschuldig en gaat weg. Aan het eind blijft er precies één naam staan; die beschuldig je.
Let op de letters van de volledige naam: voornaam en achternaam samen, zonder middelste initiaal, spaties, streepjes en accenten. Aanwijzingen gaan over letters (geen Q, begint met een B), over tellen (precies 12 letters, evenveel klinkers, dubbele letters), over de achternaam (beroep, tussenvoegsel, speciaal teken) en over de plek in het raster (niet in dezelfde rij of kolom als een genoemde naam).
Twee soorten hulp zijn optioneel en kosten elk 45 seconden op je eindtijd: laten zien wie één aanwijzing uitsluit, en je doorstrepingen laten nakijken. Niets is nodig om te kunnen oplossen — en er blijft altijd precies één naam over, dus twee overgebleven namen betekent dat je nog een aanwijzing te gaan hebt.
Dagelijks zijn er drie dossiers (20, 50 en 100 namen) die om middernacht wisselen. In vrij spel klim je per spoor — makkelijk, moeilijk, extreem en marathon — van 10 naar 250 namen.