Hi! I just realized that it's been over a year since the first puzzle pack was released, in September 2025. Since then only one other puzzle pack has been released. Instead of creating new packs, I've introduced the full daily archive and community puzzles. I'm definitely going to release another pack still this year, and hopefully several packs next year. But I also have other upcoming stuff, and I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on what I aim to deliver still this year. The number one thing is to have all past bonus puzzles available as part of the Premium Membership. It's been on the home page marked as "coming soon" for some months now, making "soon" a very relative concept. This will also make the stats visible for them, so you can compare how you fared. Also, my ratings are often off, so you can use the stats to see if you were really smart today, or if I accidentally linked to an Easy puzzle instead of an Evil one. Ongoing and previous week's bonus puzzles will likely be available to everyone, just like with the daily and community puzzles. This might affect the number of newsletter subscribers negatively, but if you're only interested in the puzzles and not my other ramblings, that's fair! Another cool thing high up on my list is to have a way to jump to some earlier scenario for retrospection. One option is to have undo/redo buttons appear after completing the puzzle. Also clicking on a tile in the result view could take you to the scenario where you identified that person. Or should clicking a yellow square take you to the scenario where you made that error? I'm not sure yet... Of course I should not forget about improving the puzzles. I'm always eager to find fun new clue types, but not all clues are brief, explicit and fun ones. One idea I recently had is "there are at least 2 innocents on each side". I hope there aren't many ways to interpret this...? If you have any other cool ideas, I'd be glad to hear them. Just remember, they have to be brief and explicit. I also have a list of improvements for the community puzzles. Some top ones are: Having names for the creators Allowing choosing professions (now they are a random selection) Allowing writing your own jokes. But I have to think hard about this one to avoid any controversy. I will probably start by having custom jokes visible only when playing through a link the creator shares personally, allowing them to share them with their friends and family, while the community archive stays "clean".
And then, as mentioned, another puzzle pack. Some have requested a pack with only evil puzzles, and some have requested easier ones, while tricky ones seem to be the most popular difficulty based on earlier polls. So I'm tempted to release packs of different difficulty level, but at least this one will still probably be one pack of mixed of difficulties. There are so many more things I would like to implement, and also another cool project I would like to tell more about, but for now I'll focus on the things listed above. If I focus on too many things, I won't get anything done. Alright, let's have a look at last week's puzzles. Pretty solid week, except Sunday didn't seem that Brutal in the end. I thought it was pretty hard, but can't argue with the stats! The numbers are: Top 1% / 10% / 50%, Perfect % / No Hints %
Mon 2026-09-21 (Easy): 1m 3s / 1m 34s / 2m 56s / 50% / 84%
Tue 2026-09-22 (Medium): 1m 34s / 2m 26s / 5m 3s / 36% / 72%
Wed 2026-09-23 (Medium): 2m 20s / 3m 37s / 7m 28s / 25% / 74%
Thu 2026-09-24 (Tricky): 2m 44s / 4m 25s / 8m 42s / 22% / 65%
Fri 2026-09-25 (Hard): 3m 8s / 5m 13s / 10m 6s / 29% / 48%
Sat 2026-09-26 (Hard): 2m 43s / 4m 41s / 9m 11s / 25% / 62%
Sun 2026-09-27 (Brutal): 2m 59s / 5m 2s / 10m 2s / 24% / 57% And then the weekly bonus puzzles. I hope the last one makes up for the less-than-brutal Sunday puzzle!
#1 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/0fbccf8ed70a
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/563834ddf4b3
#3 Evil - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/1d4625743ed1 And here are some of the most recommended community puzzles. Great puzzles again. I'm a big fan of the "all ... neighbours are connected" and "all ... on the edges are connected" clues, but I still think they will cause too much confusion in the daily puzzles. So it's great to see them in the community ones!
#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=a52d59-45de3c13fc4c45e6
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=3688bb-4b6e4f6dabf84adf
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=ed0c6c-48db3af80b4e8f1a And in case you lost the link to the daily puzzle: https://cluesbysam.com I hope these will get your week started! Good luck! -Sam
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