Clues By Sam

Daily Clues by Sam: Oct 10th 2025
New puzzle every day at 12am (midnight) New York time.

What's new

Corner tags update
Increased the space you can tap in the top right of a card to activate corner tags. You can now right-click anywhere on the card to cycle through as well.
Puzzle Pack #1
The very first Puzzle Pack is now available! You can get all-new puzzles while supporting the game. Check out this page for more details.

How to play Clues by Sam

Your goal is to figure out who is criminal and who is innocent.
Based on what you know, tap on a suspect to choose if they are innocent or criminal. They might reveal a new clue.
You cannot guess! Just like in real life, you can't convict someone based on a 50/50 hunch. There is always a logical next choice, even when you think there isn't!

You can also check one of the awesome YouTube tutorials below

And that's it. Good luck!

Clarifying details

Everyone is either a criminal or innocent.
Professions don't make some innocent or criminal, unless a hint suggest so. A police is as criminal as an accountant until proven otherwise.
Everyone speaks the truth, even the criminals.
Neighbors always include diagonal neigbors. One person can have up to 8 neighbors.
In between (or sometimes just between) means the persons between the two, not including the two.
Connected means a chain of orthogonal adjacency. For example "all criminals in row 1 are connected" means there are no innocents between any two criminals in that row.
Rows go sideways and are numbered 1,2,3,4,5. Columns go up and down and lettered A,B,C,D.
To the left/right always means somewhere in the same row. Above/below always means somewhere in the same column.
Directly to the left/right/above/below always means the neighbor to the left/right/above/below.
All always means there's at least one. It doesn't necessarily mean there's more than one.
Any doesn't tell anything about the number of criminals/innocents. "Any criminal on row 2 is..." means "If there are any criminals on row 2, they would be ..."
One of the innocents/criminals / one of several / one of multiple always means there's at least two innocents/criminals. This is slightly conflicting with "All innocents/criminals..." and I'm open for suggestions how to improve the phrasing here!
Common neighbors means those who are neighbors of both persons. It does not include the persons themselves.
Share means "have in common". For example, "Share an odd number of innocent neighbors" means "have an odd number of common innocent neighbors".
In total always means the sum of all in the group(s). Two criminal cops and cooks in total means there might be 1 cop and 1 cook, or 0 cops and 2 cooks, or 2 cops and 0 cooks.
Corner means the four corners.
Edge means the 14 persons "surrounding" the board, including corners.
... the most always means uniquely the most. If John has the most criminal neighbors, no one can have as many criminal neighbors as John.
An even number means numbers divisible by two: 0, 2, 4, 6... and an odd number means everything else: 1, 3, 5, 7...
More doesn't mean there needs to be any in the lesser group. For example "There are more innocents in row A than row B" doesn't require there to be any innocents in row B.
Numbers are exact unless stated otherwise. "There are 2 criminal coders" means there's exactly 2 criminal coders.
You never need to guess. In fact, the game only allows you to make logical choices.

Tips

People are in alphabetical order by name.
Tap the top right corner of each card to add a color tag. This is useful for keeping track of deductions or trying out hypotheticals. How will you use it?
Tap on revealed clues to dim them if you think it's no longer useful to you. This is optional, but can help you keep track of which clues are still relevant.
Referenced names and professions are highlighted a bit. Not much, so it doesn't spoil all the fun of discovery. But a bit.
For clarifying details about the clue terminology in the puzzle, press the View Clue button and then a revealed card.

"Is this a logic error?"

Since the game prevents you from guessing, it also prevents you from making mistakes. But if the game prevents you from making a choice, how do you know if the mistake was yours or mine? Did you just find an error in the puzzle?

The game's logic system makes sure the logic is sound, and there haven't been any errors with the current system yet. It's a lot more likely that you might have pressed the wrong button or misread a clue. Please double check your logic first.

If you really think you found an error in the logic, I suggest you post about it on reddit, for example on r/CluesBySamHelp, so others can help confirm.

Stuck?

Don't feel bad, it's a difficult game! Try asking for help for example on Bluesky or r/CluesBySamHelp. You can also try r/puzzles, but only for archived puzzles or yesterday's puzzle, since they don't allow questions about daily puzzles. Press the "Share scenario" button below to copy a link to your current situation. Others can continue from where you are when opening the game through the link. Even on another day.

There is also a hint button available below the grid. It will first reveal the clues you should be looking at, and the second press will reveal the persons you can identify.

Share your result

What would a daily puzzle be without sharing? In Clues by Sam you can share your result in a few different ways. You can either:

Copy your result and paste it where ever you want.
Use text share. This might be easier for you than copying and pasting, especially on mobile.
Use image share. This will create a pretty image presenting your result. This is great for sharing on Instagram and other image based media platforms

Here's what the shared information means:

The time shows how long it took for you to complete the puzzle. If the time is under 6 minutes, seconds will also be shown.
🟩 means you correctly identified the person
🟨 means you made at least one mistake identifying the person
🟡 means you used a hint to identify the person
🟠 means you used a double hint to identify the person

For the shared image the symbols look slightly different, but I hope you'll be able to figure them out.

Issues?

Is there a problem with the puzzle? Or is the game not working properly? Or anything else you'd like to discuss? Maybe you have opinions about the font? Don't hesitate to reach out: sam@adartis.fi

More puzzles

If you're hungry for more, there's a puzzle pack available for purchase. Check out this page for more details. This is also the best way for you to support this otherwise fully free game.

You can also check the newsletter subscription below for some weekly bonus puzzles!

Subscribe for occasional news and bonus puzzles! Sometimes I also re-share previous puzzles with subscribers.

Thank you for playing!

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