Printable murder mystery sudoku: which case to pick and how to solve it in pencil

What each download contains

One landscape A4 sheet with everything on it, the same sheet in black and white, and the reasoned solution as a separate file.

Every case in printable cases comes as three files, and it is worth knowing what each one is for before you spend ink.

The color sheet. A landscape A4 with everything on it: the rules, the floor plan with its rooms, the legend of the objects, the cards signed by each suspect and the blank line to write down who did it. You need nothing else, not even the site open.

The same sheet in black and white. This is the one people actually print at home, because it does not eat the cartridge, and the one that photocopies without turning the rooms into gray smudges.

The solution, as a separate file. On purpose: if it shares the page, it gets looked at. And it is not just the filled grid, it is the reasoning written out step by step, which is what you want when you are stuck and would like to know where it went wrong.

Free, no sign-up and no ads. You do not have to leave an email address to download anything.

Which one to print first

Go by the size of the floor plan, not the setting: 5×5 to start, 8×8 for an afternoon, 12×12 for a whole evening.

The setting matters least — a beach, a museum after closing, a Paris flat; what decides how long you will be at it is the size of the plan and how many people are inside.

If you have never done one, print Pine Needles, a five-by-five plan with four suspects. It takes a few minutes and shows you the rules working, which teaches them far faster than reading them.

If you already know the idea, the sweet spot is the middling plans: The Kiosk Still Shut, eight by eight, or Vultures Circling, nine by nine. These are the after-dinner ones: big enough to get stuck once, short enough to finish in one sitting.

If you have come from a book and want more, this is where the two rule changes live. Some cases have a liar: one of the cards is false and you have to work out which, as in The Hall Clock. Others have an accomplice, which changes what being alone with the victim means; the biggest of the lot, Zinc Rooftops, is twelve by twelve and will take you a whole evening.

One practical note if you are printing for several people: the same setting exists in several sizes, so whoever finishes early carries on with the same rules on a bigger plan instead of sitting there.

How to solve it in pencil, without guessing

Start with the most specific card, cross out the whole row and column, and never place anything you cannot justify.

On paper nobody warns you that you have put someone where they do not belong, and that is exactly the point. The method is short and holds up on any case.

Start with the most specific card. Not the first one: the one that leaves the fewest possible squares. “I was in the kitchen” in a two-square room is worth far more than “I was next to the window” in a whole lounge. Almost every dead end belongs to someone who started with the card at the top.

Every person you place crosses out a whole row and a whole column. That is the sudoku rule, and on paper it is a pencil cross you have to actually draw: anyone trying to hold it in their head gets stuck by the fourth suspect.

“Next to” means in the adjacent square and in the same room. Two squares that touch with a wall between them are not next to each other. It is the one rule people misread, and it costs half an hour.

If you place something you cannot justify, rub it out. The solution is unique and forced, so you never need to try something and see. If you find yourself trying, there is a card you have not squeezed yet.

The full method, with the four kinds of clue and a case solved from start to finish, is in how a case gets solved.

Paper or screen

The screen corrects and saves; paper lets you write on it and never runs out of battery.

They are not the same game, even when it is the same case.

The screen crosses out for you, saves a half-finished game and flags anything that does not add up. For learning that helps: mistakes show at once. It runs in the browser, with no account and nothing to install.

Paper forgives nothing, and that is why it teaches more. You can write on it, circle two squares and draw an arrow, leave it half done on the kitchen table and come back at night. It travels on a plane, on a train and in a waiting room, and it does not care about signal or battery. And it can be shared: two people around one sheet arguing out loud is the best way to play this.

Printing without wasting ink

Take the black and white version unless you want it as a gift or on a wall: it is drawn for that, it is not the color one turned gray.

Print at full size, with no “fit to page”. The sheet is landscape A4 and the squares are sized for writing in them in pencil; shrink it and the cards get hard to read.

Do not print the solution at the same time. It is a separate file for exactly that reason. And if several people are playing, one copy of the solution between them.

One sheet per person. Big plans fill up with marks; sharing a sheet works for talking it through, not for writing on.

You may photocopy it

The permission is written down and you can show it to anyone who asks: free to print and hand out in classrooms, libraries and nursing homes. All we ask is that the credit stays: sudokudetective.com

That is what it is for: an after-school club, a homeroom period, a library table, a nursing home. If you are taking it to a group, cases in the classroom and the library has the half-hour session already built, with what to explain first and how to handle the ones working at a different pace.

And when you run out: the book

When somebody gets hooked, the question is always where to find more. The long answer is Sudoku Detective: paperback, full color, its settings drawn, and every case solved step by step. The book's cases are its own and are not on the site.

The short, free answer: it plays in the browser, with new cases every week, and the full rules are on their own page with a case solved from start to finish.