Greetings!

How was your weekend? Did you celebrate Midsummer by any chance? I know it's not a thing in most countries, but as I've revealed before, I'm from Finland and here it's one of the biggest celebrations of the year! Some were also confused by the date. This year summer solstice, the longest day on the northern hemisphere, was 21st, but the puzzle was celebrating it on the 20th. Well, in the nordics, midsummer has been celebrated on the closest Friday and Saturday for decades to keep people from having an additional public holiday.

And then we have our mates on the southern hemisphere, currently experiencing the darkest days of the year. I hope you had some festivities as well!

And now for something completely different...
Did you solve the mystery of the wooden horse last week? Some of you correctly spotted how it might have been inspired by a certain British comedy troupe. Especially the suggested wooden badger might have been a bit on the nose. Try googling it and earn yourself a laugh!

Enough of the silliness, let's have a look at the stats! The first half of the week was maybe on the easier side, but the difficulty ramped up nicely towards Sunday. Might be that Sunday didn't deserve the Brutal ranking, but it was definitely the hardest one of the week! Still over half of you managed to solve it without using any hints. Impressive, as usual!

Top 1% / 10% / 50% times, Perfect % / No Hints %
Mon 2026-06-15 (Easy): 1m 27s / 2m 10s / 3m 58s / 48% / 85%
Tue 2026-06-16 (Easy): 1m 25s / 2m 6s / 3m 50s / 45% / 87%
Wed 2026-06-17 (Medium): 1m 50s / 2m 44s / 5m 16s / 47% / 81%
Thu 2026-06-18 (Tricky): 2m 24s / 3m 47s / 7m 12s / 28% / 74%
Fri 2026-06-19 (Tricky): 2m 43s / 4m 26s / 8m 36s / 26% / 58%
Sat 2026-06-20 (Hard): 3m 26s / 5m 30s / 10m 13s / 31% / 66%
Sun 2026-06-21 (Brutal): 3m 17s / 5m 37s / 11m 20s / 27% / 55%

Last week there were also a LOT of community puzzles! Head over to the home page (creating an account is free) and you should find the community archive. The ongoing week's and last week's puzzles are available for everyone, and the full archive is available to premium members.

There's still a lot of improvements coming to the archive. Last week a couple of puzzles were completely broken, and it can be hard to find the puzzles that fit your taste. I already introduced a "Recommend" feature which translates into thumbs-up icons showing how many of those who solved the puzzle liked it. The exact math behind it is a secret and I'll keep tweaking it until the thumbs feel right. I will continue trying out ways to make it easier for you to find a good weekly set of interesting puzzles that fit your taste. I'm also open for feedback, eager to hear how you're feeling about the community puzzles!

I'm slowly expanding the number of people with access to the editor, but it's not publicly available yet. As more people are using it, more issues arise, so it will still take a while before everyone has access.

Anyway, here are some of my own favourites from last week's community puzzles:
#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=45fc09-2986530b6e5ceb76
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=11a92e-0b0b709df5aa5993
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=70ce57-f2b2d4755b958ef9

Community puzzles often have a bit of a different flavour than my puzzles. For example, they tend to use a lot of clues like "Alice is the only one with exactly 5 criminal neighbors". These can at times be quite tedious, but also fun when used with taste. Still, if you don't think the community puzzles are your cup of tea, here are the good old weekly bonus puzzles!

#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/43cf2f161736
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/e331bd8408eb
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/0efe3232890b

Have fun!

-Sam