Daily Brains · one short whodunit a day, from a single paragraph on Monday to five on Sunday.
Murder Mystery is the whodunit in Daily Brains (/daily). Every day brings one short, original mystery: a country house in the rain, an ocean liner crossing the date line, a jazz club in a blackout, a ski lodge, a station on the Moon. Read the case, accuse one of the suspects, and from Wednesday also tap the sentence where the culprit gives themselves away. Every case is fair, with exactly one answer forced by the text. Everyone gets the same case on the same day.
STORY & LORE
The case book
126 hand-written cases, 18 for each day of the week, in the cosy tradition: no gore, a named cast, and a tell you can find on the page. The tells vary: something a suspect could not have known, an alibi that breaks a stated fact (a sunset time, a frozen fountain, a lift that was out of order, a train that never ran), a physical impossibility (a dropped spanner on a space station, a rainbow on the wrong side of the sky), or a forged date that does not exist. None of the people or places are real.
The weekly ramp
Monday is one paragraph and three suspects with a plain slip. Tuesday adds a second paragraph and one inference. From Wednesday the story grows to three, four and finally five paragraphs, the suspects to four and then five, red herrings appear, and the key fact is mentioned in passing, far from the giveaway. Sunday cases need a chain of reasoning: timetables, walking times, cloakroom numbers, snow filling footprints.
HOW IT PLAYS
Accusing
Tap a suspect card (their name is then underlined wherever it appears in the story), then Accuse. You have two accusations. A wrong one marks that suspect Not guilty; a second wrong one closes the case unsolved and breaks your streak. Keys 1 to 5 pick a suspect and Enter accuses.
Showing your proof
From Wednesday, once you have the right culprit, tap the sentence that gives them away and press Present this clue. You have two tries; a wrong sentence is struck through. The giveaway is the culprit's own slip or the detail that betrays them, not the background fact it contradicts.
Scoring
Monday and Tuesday: 1,000 for the culprit at the first accusation, 500 at the second. Wednesday to Sunday: 600 or 300 for the culprit, plus 400 or 200 for the clue at the first or second try. The maximum is 1,000 every day. A day counts as solved, and keeps your streak, when you name the culprit.
The solution
When the case closes, the file is stamped Case closed or Case unsolved, the culprit's card is marked Guilty, and the solution explains why exactly one suspect is forced. In the story the giveaway is underlined in red and the facts it breaks in gold. The share card is plain text: the case title, which accusation and which try, and the score.
Content and fairness
Each case was written and then re-read as a skeptical solver to remove any second suspect a reader could defend. scripts/test-murder-mystery.mjs checks the book: paragraph and suspect counts for each weekday, that every giveaway and fact sentence exists, that the culprit is a suspect and is named in the solution, that every suspect is named in the story, no repeated titles or stories, no emoji, and a schedule in which a case comes back only after its whole weekday list has run (126 days before any repeat). Answers are sealed in the shipped file.
GALLERY
DAYS OF THE WEEK
| Day | Label | Paragraphs | Suspects | Clue to find |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Gentle | 1 | 3 | No |
| Tuesday | Easy | 2 | 3 | No |
| Wednesday | Steady | 3 | 4 | Yes |
| Thursday | Tricky | 3 | 4 | Yes |
| Friday | Tough | 4 | 4 | Yes |
| Saturday | Hard | 4 | 5 | Yes |
| Sunday | Fiendish | 5 | 5 | Yes |
REWARDS
| Event | Reward |
|---|---|
| Name the culprit | 15 Tickets |
| No wrong accusation or clue (perfect) | +25 Tickets |
| Case Closed (first solve) | Bronze · 10 Tickets |
| Beyond Reasonable Doubt (perfect case) | Silver · 20 Tickets |
| No Second Guess (perfect Friday to Sunday case) | Silver · 20 Tickets |
| Fiendish Sunday (perfect Sunday case) | Gold · 30 Tickets |
| Three Cases Running (3-day streak) | Bronze · 15 Tickets |
| A Week of Whodunits (7-day streak) | Gold · 40 Tickets |
| Chief Inspector (30-day streak) | Legendary · 100 Tickets |
VERSION HISTORY
- Launch version in Daily Brains: 126 original cases (18 per weekday), one paragraph and three suspects on Monday growing to five paragraphs and five suspects on Sunday.
- Accuse from drawn cameo suspect cards (two accusations); from Wednesday, tap the sentence that gives the culprit away (two tries). Solution reveal with the giveaway and the facts highlighted in the story.
- Case-file look: EB Garamond for the story and cast, IBM Plex Mono for file labels and stamps (both OFL, bundled). The story scrolls inside a fixed sheet with the suspects and the accuse bar always on screen.
- Answers sealed in the shipped book; scripts/test-murder-mystery.mjs checks structure, the weekday ramp, sentence indices, culprits, no repeats and no emoji.