mystery-o-matic

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Work out who did it, with what and when, in a daily five-minute murder mystery.

on mystery-o-matic.com

The mystery-o-matic title card: MYSTERY-O-MATIC in black letters with a magnifying glass over a red splash as the O, and the line A mystery a day, keeps the coroner away, on patterned wallpaper

mystery-o-matic is a free daily logic mystery. Each day one of a group of friends trapped in an old mansion is found dead, and you use the other suspects' statements and the evidence to deduce the killer, the weapon and the time of death. It plays in English, Spanish and Russian.

About mystery-o-matic

mystery-o-matic sets a new whodunit every day. The story is the same each time: a group of friends is stuck in an eerie abandoned mansion, caught in a time loop, and every day one of them is murdered while the others become suspects. Your job is to name the killer, the weapon and when the fatal blow was struck.

The evidence comes in two kinds. Suspects give statements about where they were and when, such as arriving in the bedroom at 8:15, and the scene gives clues about rooms and weapons. Moving between rooms follows fixed rules on the house map, so you can check whether someone could physically have been at the scene at a given time. You build a timeline of who was where, rule people out, and the one suspect left is your answer.

Before each case you choose whether the killer may lie. In the harder mode any statement could be false, but only the killer lies, and only when the lie helps hide where they were around the time of the murder, so a lie shows up as a contradiction between statements. A step-by-step tutorial walks through a full case before your first day.

The site is free, works in English, Spanish and Russian, and its source is on GitHub. It suits players who like logic grid puzzles and short daily deductions.

How to play mystery-o-matic

Open mystery-o-matic and pick your language; first-time players can follow the tutorial case.
Choose whether the killer is allowed to lie in this case.
Read the suspects' statements and the clues from the crime scene.
Use the house map and its movement rules to check who could have been at the scene at each time.
Rule out suspects whose movements or alibis make the crime impossible.
Name the killer, the weapon and the time of the crime, then come back tomorrow for the next case.

Tips

Start by assuming every statement is true; a contradiction tells you where the lie is.
Work out the time of the crime first: it narrows down which suspects could have been in the room.
Count the steps between rooms on the map; a suspect who could not have walked there in time has an alibi.
Leave the lying-killer mode until you are comfortable with the plain mode.