Hi there!

I hope you're well, despite the brutally difficult end of week puzzles. The new clue types, like "3 innocents in row 2 have a criminal directly below them", definitely caused some headaches. But no one has reported absolutely hating them! I'm still trying to find a balance for how much to use them in the future. Maybe not in every puzzle...

Besides playing with the new clue types, I've also been working on the archive. I've now given access to everyone who opted in for early feature testing, so if you did, you should now be able to subscribe/purchase access to the archive (check the home page). Huge thanks to everyone who already did! Opting in now won't immediately give you access, but it'll anyways be publicly available very soon!

How soon? Well, last week I mentioned that 1st of May is the official birthday for Clues by Sam. I'm still aiming for making the daily archive available on that date. Once available, the archive will contain all daily puzzles since 1st of May 2025. Unlike old "share scenario" links, these will always use the latest version of the interface, with hints, tags and highlighting features. A bit later I will also introduce an archive for the weekly bonus puzzles, and eventually for community puzzles.

Alright, let's get back to last week's puzzles! What jumps out is the perfect % for Saturday and Sunday. Both are among the lowest ever seen! Also the solve times for Sunday are quite high for Hard. So maybe it should have been Evil? Though I didn't feel like it had the need for testing that many hypothetical scenarios like Evil puzzles usually do. Perhaps we need a new ranking, "Tedious"? Anyway, kudos to those few who got a perfect solve in either of the two!

Top 1% / 10% / 50% / Perfect % / No Hints %
Mon 2026-04-20 (Easy): 1m 17s / 1m 54s / 3m 19s / 48% / 88%
Tue 2026-04-21 (Easy): 1m 35s / 2m 18s / 4m 1s / 50% / 87%
Wed 2026-04-22 (Medium): 1m 39s / 2m 24s / 4m 13s / 49% / 82%
Thu 2026-04-23 (Tricky): 2m 27s / 3m 48s / 7m 0s / 48% / 76%
Fri 2026-04-24 (Tricky): 2m 37s / 4m 7s / 8m 6s / 40% / 71%
Sat 2026-04-25 (Hard): 4m 3s / 6m 29s / 12m 4s / 10% / 51%
Sun 2026-04-26 (Hard): 4m 35s / 7m 19s / 15m 10s / 10% / 42%

As usual, these (and more) are available on the home page.

And here are the weekly bonus puzzles. I had some difficulty ranking the hard ones... Should they be Evil? Are they even in the correct order? In any case, I hope you enjoy them!

#1 Easy - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/6e9c53fc7830
#2 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/7eadcb71607f
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/2fd6ef15a752
#4 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/0abfb0af2e43
#5 Evil - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/0badedf150ea

Also we have more community puzzles. Last week's community puzzle thread on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CluesBySamHelp/comments/1sqypsq/weekly_community_puzzles_april_20april_27_2026/

Enjoy the rest of April, and see you again in May!

-Sam