Cluedle

Wordle for armchair detectives: a new mystery every day on a detective’s corkboard, complete with red string, ciphers and pencils.

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Inspiration

Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a detective. I liked the stories I saw in books and movies and thought I could grow up and solve puzzles and save lives just like them. I grew up and found out that detectiving is actually not the same in real life and ended up not pursuing that career, but my love for logic puzzles always remained.

What it does

Cluedle is a daily mystery puzzle where you get to pretend to be the detectives you see in movies or on TV, complete with a corkboard, red string, clues, ciphers and pencils. You have to work out the clues and put them together in a way that makes sense. When you're done, you get to accuse the guilty party. Of course, like we know in real life, the first person you think is guilty is not always the person who did it. Sometimes, you have to rework your problems and figure out what really happened. Along the way, you tend to find that some people will lie, even if they're not lying because they are the criminal.

How we built it

I built it by using Claude and just talked it through the steps and what I wanted. It was really nice to have the scopes and requirements written out early because it foresaw a lot of problems that I would've eventually run into, so I was able to save a bunch of time.

Challenges we ran into

I wanted a way to make this game something that people could pick up and play quickly and easily. I wanted something that could be finished in maybe 10 to 15 minutes, for the people who have busier lives but would still want a slice of fun. It's hard to make a case where the problem is solvable within five clues, but isn't so easy that you always get it on the first try.

In addition, I'm by no means a mystery writer. Claude helped me write the cases but it struggled to not make the same story with different words.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The ability to move things around the board and tie the red string really gives you that detective feel. When I'm solving the puzzle, I always feel like I am that detective in the movies I watched as a kid. I love that I was able to capture the noir feel and that I was able to strike a balance of a fun, solvable puzzle that is just the right difficulty.

What we learned

People will break your game in ways that you never expect. I didn't think that someone would put 100 strings on the board, but they did, so I had to get into the minds of users who really test your limits and think outside the box.

What's next for Cluedle

I need to write up more cases. I need to have a way to make them consistently be creative and fun without being too hard or too easy.

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