Pseudo Cluedo
(Published on 6. April 2024, 01:13 by marty_sears)
This is part 4 of my Pseudo series:
Part 1: Pseudoscience
Part 2: Pseudo Differences
Part 3: Fakes in The Fog
Part 4: Pseudo Cluedo
Part 5: ???
For friends across the pond, Cluedo is what we call 'Clue' here in the UK :)
Rules:
- Draw a line passing through the centres of some cells to represent your journey from room to room, as you interrogate suspects and look for clues.
- Your path must start at one of the lettered cells (these are initials labelling the six suspects and the victim.) The path must finish at another lettered cell, and visit all the other lettered cells along the way.
- Your path may move orthogonally or diagonally between cells, but may not cross itself.
- You may not pass through a thick black wall; you can only get from room to room by travelling through the CENTRE of a doorway. For some doorways this may mean you have to go through diagonally.
- The value of digits along your path must constantly increase or stay the same (like a slow thermometer). You must never move from a higher value to a lower value.
- Every row, column and room has exactly one 'pseudo cell'. These 9 pseudo cells contain the digits 1-9 once each.
- For the purposes of your path, and for the weapon, victim and suspect rules below, the value of a pseudo cell equals its room number (regardless of which digit appears in the cell.) Rooms are numbered from 1-9 in reading order. Eg: room 1 is in the top left, room 7 is in the bottom left.
- Miss Parity (red) - values of orthogonally adjacent cells have a different parity (one is odd, the other is even).
- Mrs Summer (blue) - a doorway divides her cells into two distinct groups, whose values both have the same sum.
- Miss Tenclumpz (white) - her cells can be divided into smaller distinct groups of orthogonally connected cells, each of which sum to 10.
- Colonel Nabner (yellow) - none of his cells' values are consecutive with (or the same as) each other.
- Professor Zipworthy (purple) - values of cells an equal distance from his central spot sum to the value on his central spot.
- The Whispering Reverend (green) - adjacent cells must have values with a difference of at least 5.
A murder has been committed in Grid Mansion! Dr Awkward has been found dead, and there are six suspects. Can you work out who did it?
Normal sudoku rules apply: place the digits 1-9 once each in every row, column, and 3x3 room.
FIND YOUR PATH:
PSEUDO CELLS:
WEAPONS:
Some weapons have been found, at locations marked by an X. The values of the two cells separated by a weapon sum to 10.
THE VICTIM:
Dr Awkward's body was found lying awkwardly in the doorway between rooms 4 and 7. This has been marked by a white outline.
All that's known about the victim is that the values of his cells form a palindrome, reading the same from either end.
THE SUSPECTS:
Digits do not repeat in a killer cage (although their values might.) Each suspect has a particular trait:
One particular digit (not value) appears in all of the suspects' cages, except for the real killer. Who is it?
Click here to play on the CTC app
Please leave a comment if you enjoy :)
Solution code: Row 9 from left to right, followed by the killer's initial letter (without a space)
Comments
on 15. July 2024, 23:01 by ChinStrap
Phenomenal! Way more fun than cluedo.
on 22. June 2024, 18:03 by wuc
Brilliant mind blowing construction. Cant wait to solve more marty sears puzzles. Thx.
on 31. May 2024, 02:07 by sockerbecca
I absolutely adored this theme! Wonderful design and concept, and the execution..! The character names were so clever. Must be one of the best puzzle ideas ever.
It's a lot of rules to take in, but the break-in really isn't as difficult as you think at first glance. I never really got stuck, I just lost my flow because I kept making mistakes and had to correct them, but that's on me for solving this when I was too tired ^^
on 12. May 2024, 20:36 by BenTen
Great puzzle. I loved the clever names, especially Dr Awkward! I wonder if the victim in the next puzzle will be Mr Arm?!
on 9. May 2024, 02:37 by ViKingPrime
What a cheeky bit of fun this puzzle is; feels like a lot to take in but it will likely dawn on on you quickly, exactly what the puzzle is asking of you.
on 22. April 2024, 23:54 by Nell Gwyn
I figured out "Who" but not "Where" or "With which weapon." Which means you need to add more rules, (since this clearly doesn't have enough rules already)!
on 18. April 2024, 08:24 by LehanLehan
On the first solve I had to bifurcate a couple of times,but solving it the 2nd time I found all the intended logic and understood its beauty. Great puzzle and idea overall, thank you very much, Marty.
on 17. April 2024, 14:03 by wand
this was tricky and rewarding. opening steps took me a while to land on some solid logic I was comfortable with, but really enjoyed the flow!
on 15. April 2024, 14:21 by vfig
absolutely loved it! i bumbled around making mistakes and had to restart twice. but it was a really enjoyable solve.
on 13. April 2024, 07:09 by QuiltyAsCharged
Incredible puzzle! The theme is great, and I can't believe you-know-who did it. The puzzle itself is very clever and original. It was tricky to know how to begin, but once I started interviewing suspects, the investigation went smoothly.
on 10. April 2024, 04:56 by TheBestThatICouldDo
The way the investigation moves along with the interrogation of each suspect works so well... totally wonderful.
on 8. April 2024, 21:12 by gfoot
Brilliant, you have such a knack for novel and fun rulesets
on 6. April 2024, 21:20 by Franjo
Perplexing puzzle! Keep on going, Marty. I really love your work. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
on 6. April 2024, 19:43 by Blobz
Wow! Just so much to unpack in this puzzle! The theming is lovely, and works really well. There were at least a couple of times I laughed out loud, as a "Marty-ism" appeared in the solution.
Excellent puzzle, my friend!
on 6. April 2024, 19:24 by Ratfinkz
The beauty of Marty puzzle is you look at it and think "what the actual banana is this?!" Then....bit by bit, deduction by beautiful deduction it slowly falls into place and you are left feeling extremely satisfied and super clever!
Another stunner!
on 6. April 2024, 19:23 by juggler
What a twist! I kept breaking the puzzle, the slow thermo seemed so impossible at first, but amazingly it all works out in the end. The theming is really clever as well, I can tell a ton of thought went into this.
on 6. April 2024, 18:15 by Laake
Looooooved it, so much of your setting style is shown here
on 6. April 2024, 18:04 by Lion Crow
My puzzle solving skills reveal that I’m more of a Clouseau than a Holmes. In so much of this puzzle, once I worked something out, I thought ‘of course, I should have realised that sooner’.
on 6. April 2024, 16:53 by sorryimLate
That is one amazing slow thermo! I'm not usually a big fan of murder mysteries, but this one really kept my eyes wide open... and made me make false conclusions. Fantastic discovery, setting and design! I'm looking forward to hearing Simon's considerations on the uniqueness of this line :)
on 6. April 2024, 09:03 by Norkas
Very fun puzzle, I loved how it ended up unwinding after figuring out how to start. Still I do wonder if I missed some logic at the beginning. I did end up with logical arguments for everything, but I'm not sure they were rock solid if you were to really pick them apart.
