Hello! First of all I want to welcome all the new subscribers. Clues by Sam was recently featured in NY Times "The Good List", which is absolutely fantastic! It invited many people to try the puzzle, and many apparently liked it enough to subscribe for more. So, welcome! Balancing the puzzles for both veterans and new-joiners is always tricky. That's partially why I keep Monday on the easy side, so there's something for everyone. Last week I also toned down the overall difficulty after seeing all the new detectives. But don't get me wrong, the puzzle is still very hard, and even Monday can feel brutal if you're not used to the deductions. If you feel overwhelmed at times, here's a quick recap of things to know: 1) Play through the tutorials to learn all the basic tricks, like tagging and tap-highlighting.
2) Use the "Share scenario" button to copy a link to your current scenario. This makes it easy to ask for help, since the link will take others directly to your scenario. Try asking your friends, or join r/CluesBySamHelp. In a pinch you can even send the link to me, but I might not be able to reply immediately.
3) Some people post playthroughs on YouTube. Here's for example Leonid's explanation for Sunday's Brutal puzzle.
4) The puzzle is always correct. Even if you're convinced there is no logical next step, or even if you're sure you found a deduction the game doesn't allow you to make, there is something you missed. Many people way smarter than me has tried to prove the puzzle wrong time after time, but they've always missed something. You can always trust the puzzle. This is crucial to ensure your enjoyment, since if you can't trust the puzzle, what's the point of solving it? So, how did last week go? As usual, I'll share links to last week's puzzles, and share some stats about them. Here we can see that Thursday was easier than Wednesday. I think I made Wednesday a bit too hard for a Medium puzzle, and then I was too cautious on Thursday with so many new-joiners. On Monday solvers made a lot of mistakes resulting in almost the lowest Perfect %. Yes, I admit there was a pretty devious trick in there. Go give it a try if you missed it to see if you can avoid the trap! Here are top 1% / 10% / 50% times, % of perfect solves and % of solves with no hints. Many have also requested "solve times for perfect solves", but those aren't that interesting: If we only look at perfect solves, we leave out beginners and only compare with the best, resulting in even faster times. Mon 2026-08-17 (Easy): 1m 21s / 2m 2s / 3m 40s / 21% / 82%
Tue 2026-08-18 (Medium): 1m 45s / 2m 45s / 5m 26s / 38% / 74%
Wed 2026-08-19 (Medium): 2m 13s / 3m 25s / 6m 45s / 42% / 74%
Thu 2026-08-20 (Tricky): 1m 52s / 2m 54s / 5m 44s / 39% / 70%
Fri 2026-08-21 (Tricky): 2m 25s / 3m 50s / 7m 34s / 20% / 67%
Sat 2026-08-22 (Hard): 2m 46s / 4m 27s / 8m 45s / 29% / 66%
Sun 2026-08-23 (Brutal): 3m 7s / 5m 39s / 12m 6s / 19% / 40% You can also find these and more on the home page (creating an account is free). Then we have the weekly bonus puzzles! Last week I made a blunder with them. I shared the wrong link, and the Evil puzzle was far from Evil. Let's see if I get it right this time!
#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/f786da228be1
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/c4f7da7282cf
#3 Evil - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/cca71baa3f7a Finally, some community puzzles. These are created by community members using an editor I've given some access to. It's still being developed slowly (I haven't had time to improve it in a while, sorry for that), and I don't dare giving it to everyone in one go. But even with the current editor, people have managed to create some fantastic puzzles! These often have a bit of a different flavour than the daily ones. They use clues in ways that I'm afraid to use due to potential ambiguities, and they are often build upon one clever idea. Here are some of the most recommended community puzzles from last week. The last one is my personal favourite!
#1 Medium - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=5270ff-ac05e3ed1d2b081c
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=2c715f-19fe14ff67087efe
#3 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/s/share/?puzzleId=9dd43d-0aae00ce1286e861 And this wraps up this week's newsletter! Thank you for subscribing, and thank you for being part of Clues by Sam! -Sam
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