Daily logic puzzles like Clues by Sam
Clues by Sam is good because every step can be worked out from what is in front of you. The game will not even let you guess. If that is the part you like, these daily puzzles play fair in the same way. Beamzag is the one I make. The rest are by other people, and each name links to its own site.
What Clues by Sam does
Twenty people sit in a four-by-five grid, each with a name and a job. You mark them innocent or criminal one at a time, and a correct mark often turns up a new clue. Everyone tells the truth, criminals included, and if you try to mark someone the clues do not prove yet, the game stops you. The puzzles get harder as the week goes on.
Five more for the daily rotation
Murdle
A small murder mystery every day, written by G. T. Karber. You get a few suspects, weapons and places, a short list of clues, and a grid to cross things off until one person, one weapon and one place are left. It started as a free website in 2022 and has since turned into a series of books. Of everything here, it is the closest relative of Clues by Sam.
Queens, Tango and Zip
LinkedIn runs three small logic grids that reset every day. Queens wants one crown in every row, column and colour region, with no two crowns touching, diagonals included. Tango fills the grid with suns and moons so every row and column has the same number of each and never three alike in a row. Zip is one path through every square that visits the numbered squares in order. They live on LinkedIn, so expect the rest of LinkedIn around them.
Daily Akari
One Light Up puzzle a day (Akari is its Japanese name). You place lanterns until every open square is lit, and each numbered block tells you how many lanterns sit right next to it. The grids run bigger than most daily games, from 10×10 to 18×18, and the puzzles are sent in by setters from around the world.
enclose.horse
Each day there is a horse on a grassy grid and a fixed number of walls. You place the walls to fence the horse in, and the more grass the fence holds, the higher your score. Everyone gets the same board and one submission. It asks for the best answer rather than the only answer, which makes a nice change after a deduction puzzle.
Beamzag
The one I make, and the site you are on. Each day you get a grid, a laser, a socket and an exact number of mirrors, and you place the mirrors so the beam lights every gem and ends in the socket. Before a board goes up, a solver tries every arrangement and throws the board out if more than one works, so like Clues by Sam it never comes down to a guess. Monday is a 5×5 with three mirrors and Saturday is a 9×9 with seven. On Sundays two lasers share one tray of mirrors. It is free and needs no account.
If it is the laser part that appeals, the laser and mirror puzzles page covers where that idea comes from, from a 1987 home computer game to ThinkFun's board game.
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