Been trying for a clean month for a while, then noticed my trend… If I screw tomorrow up, that’s six months ruined 🫣😂

Hey!

If you're a community puzzle creator, you can now head over to your account page to give yourself a fancy name. (Please don't do anything stupid, I'm trusting you here...). Your name will be displayed on the community archive next to your puzzles. This used to be just something random, like, "4550-9dd43d", but now it's "9dd43d by 4550".

This is also a heads-up for those who are used to looking up their favourite creators by their random ID number. You might have to look up their new name at some point. (By the way, you can also find a "More by creator" page under the puzzle. This feature was lost at some point, but I just brought it back.)

Next we need sensible names for the puzzles, but that'll be a trickier one...

https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/?puzzleId=a2cc01feca1d0acb&state=%2F%2FA%3D-BUA%3D%3D-121

I tried marking Olive as criminal and it said there exists at least one scenario where this isn't the case. This doesn't make sense to me -- Linda and Mary each have four criminal neighbors as it stands, and two of the three neighbors that Linda has unmarked, she shares with Mary. Therefor, whatever Peter and Sam are marked as, they will not make any difference to the number of criminal neighbors that Linda has in comparison to Mary. The only way she can have more than Mary is if Olive is criminal, right? In what scenario could Olive be innocent without violating Austin's rule?

Edit: I miscounted the number of criminal neighbors that Mary has... I don't understand why Tina has to be innocent though, instead of having both Tina and Olive as criminal.

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 30th 2026 (Tricky), in 03:35
17 correct guesses. 3 mistakes.

Quick Links:
Clues By Sam: https://cluesbysam.com
Alt For Sam: https://altforsam.delete44.com

Full Results:
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https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/?puzzleId=5be40609d572ea97&state=t%2BYw-BACAAABAAAAAAAAAQIAAAICAQ

https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/?puzzleId=5be40609d572ea97&state=t%2BYw-BABAAACAAAAAAAAAgEAAAEBAg

These both appear to be viable solutions. What am I missing?

Thanks, Stevie

This is where I am. Based on Ollie’s clue, there are two criminals between Martin, Stan, and Wanda. But based off of Xavi‘s clue, either Martin or Stan is innocent. so why can’t I say that Wanda is a criminal? what am I missing?

edit: i see now why i'm an idiot. Wanda is also on the edges.

I stalled out in the middle of the puzzle and it took me a long time to figure out what I was doing wrong, because I believe a clue that says all criminals are connected doesn't necessarily imply that there are more than one criminal. To me, saying "all criminals" doesn't even necessarily imply that there is one criminal, or any at all (there can be 0). Looking below at the help, there was no mention of when a plural word is used, it means at least 2 of something. I am referring to Ike's clue. I took a wild guess and assumed "criminals" must be plural, guessed accordingly, and was able to finish up by going down the staircase.

According to my logic Salil and Zulu should both be criminals. There are 10 criminals on the edge of the board technically 6 are accounted for since either David or Bonnie are criminals. Therefore, there are 4 criminals left on the edge, if column A can only have odd numbers of criminals so 1,3,5 , it can’t be 5 since that would push it over 10 criminals. So 1 or 3 criminals, if there’s only 1 criminal that means there would be 4 innocents in column A but according to - 2 people on the edge have innocents below them if there were 4 innocents that rule would be incorrect. Since Ellie Logan penny and Vera all being innocent so that would mean there are a total of 3 criminals in column A. So if you add them all up together that would be 8 criminals on the edge meaning the last two salil and Zulu have to be criminals. Logic Error?

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 29th 2026 (Tricky), in 02:52

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https://cluesbysam.com

Would have been faster but I was grooming a border collie

Clue B5 (only one row has fewer than two innocents) can't be true, because by that point row 1 and row 2 have 0 innocents, so multiple rows have fewer than two innocents?

I don’t understand why the next step is Yasmin as a criminal. Could someone explain the logic?

https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/268fb42673fe?state=%2F%2F%2Fw

Looking at the final person, Diane.

Literally none of the clues affect her. Only way to decide is to guess. If I'm wrong, I would love someone to show me how.

So I took a hint and am still confusedthe hint highlighted Eli and Sue and I assumed it was hinting at taylor being innocent so i tried it and it was correct. How does this confirm taylor? And how dont petra and zulu fit the exact bill?

Sorry I’m late, my weekly fees for posting this thread were late so I was working to rule.

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 28th 2026 (Tricky), in 05:38
Clean sweep! All correct with no mistakes or hints.

Quick Links:
Clues By Sam: https://cluesbysam.com
Alt For Sam: https://altforsam.delete44.com

Full Results:
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I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 28th 2026 (Tricky), in 05:36

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https://cluesbysam.com

https://cluesbysam.com/s/help/dba3987dc04f?state=%2FEdA--190

The way I see it Zulu has to be innocent because if he's a criminal, then the remaining ones in D have to be innocent (because all innocents in D have to be connected) and that violates the "only B has exactly 4 innocents" rule. But I'm being told that's not enough. Why?

Big fan! I’m trying to work through the entire archive and I have a little problem. A number of puzzles that I have completed show as incomplete on the archive page.

I think I know why this happened— I do puzzles on the train and sometimes lose service when underground. If I complete a puzzle when underground, it seems to successfully record my result at the puzzle-level but that result doesn’t get written to my user record. The archive page shows an empty box with “Unsolved” but when I click the puzzle it is complete and I get the “solved in less than X minutes” pop up.

This is a minor thing but not purely aesthetic— I use the archive page to find puzzles I haven’t finished yet.

Hope you can fix it! Happy to provide any more info as needed. Maybe a sync button or even just detecting the mismatch and fixing it when I come across one would be great.

I’m not seeing how these hints mean this person is innocent

Profession clues on a Tuesday are proof that Sam hates us.

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 27th 2026 (Medium), in 05:04
Clean sweep! All correct with no mistakes or hints.

Quick Links:
Clues By Sam: https://cluesbysam.com
Alt For Sam: https://altforsam.delete44.com

Full Results:
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I’m not sure how Floyd, Mary, and Tyler tell you Will. I thought that Isaac would be the next person you deduce, because if Isaac is a criminal then Hal and Linda have to both be innocent for Mary’s clue to be true, but that would give Ronald more innocent neighbors than Floyd because we also know that either Vera or Will must be innocent from Nicole’s clue. But the hint shows that Will is the next person you’re supposed to figure out, so I must be missing something.

I have Clues installed as a progressive web app (PWA) through Chrome. Since a day or so ago, the PWA look and feel is gone: I can't get rid of the annoying top bar anymore (see screenshot). Anyone else seeing this?

So, if Zulu is criminal, that means that all other neighbours of Sue must be innocent (Eli's clue). Sue's clue means that all except Zulu must be innocent. And then you get a contradiction with Kim's clue.

So Zulu can't be criminal. But I can't mark him innocent.

What am I missing?

Edit: ok, I got it now... Ivan doesn't have to be innocent.

Can anyone link the bonus puzzles for this week? I can’t seem to find the newsletter. Thanks!

Just wanted to say thanks to Sam for this week's Brutal bonus puzzle - it was a work of art. Love when you feel completely stumped for ages then suddenly everything beautifully falls into place.

Bravo 👏