Hearsay (Puzzleship)

About Hearsay (Puzzleship)

In the classic island puzzles, knights always tell the truth and knaves always lie, and you work out who is which from what they say. Hearsay moves the idea onto a line of slots: instead of deciding who each speaker is, you decide where each statement goes, and a statement is only true or false relative to where you put it.

Statements refer to their own position, their neighbours or other statements in the line. Absolute claims, like being first or last, are easiest to test. Counting the slots of each colour first lets you check any statement about how many truths or lies there are.

Puzzleship publishes six arrangements of Hearsay a day, graded from very easy to ultra hard. Each day's arrangements are numbered and dated, the same for every player, and appear at midnight in your own time zone; earlier days stay playable in the archive. The site is free with ads, and a premium plan removes them.

How to play Hearsay (Puzzleship)

1. Open Hearsay and pick one of the day's six arrangements.
2. Count the white truth slots and black lie slots.
3. Drag statements between slots to reorder them.
4. Make every statement in a white slot true and every one in a black slot false.
5. Finish when all statements hold at once.

Tips

• Test absolute claims first; they have only a few possible places.
• Assume a statement is a lie and see what that forces.
• Use the slot counts to check claims about numbers of truths or lies.
• Recheck neighbours after every move; statements about them change meaning.

Questions