I first “discovered” Murdle on my birthday when I went to Barnes & Noble. I go once a year on my birthday to buy books. Otherwise, I’ll admit I buy books from Amazon for the rest of the year. But it was on this occasion that I happened to see the cover. It stuck out to me and I almost bought it but for some reason chose not to! 👀
Then a few days later I received an email from Waterstones. I don’t shop there (because I don’t live in the UK and shipping to the US is really expensive) but I like to see the UK covers for books I want to buy just in case it’s cooler and I’m willing to shell out the extra cash. The email featured Murdle and this time, because I recognized the cover from seeing it on my birthday, I stopped to investigate (see what I did there?)…
For those who aren’t familiar with “Wordle” it’s a game that seemed to take the world by storm back during the pandemic when a man decided to make this game for his wife/girlfriend to play that involved trying to solve for a 5-letter word in as few tries as possible. He eventually sold that game for a “large” sum of money to the NY Times. But then there’s Murdle. It’s of similar concept, except it seems to me more like Clue, where the suspects, weapons and locations change with each mystery. I couldn’t believe this book, filled with 100 mysteries, was right there in front of me and I didn’t even bother to pick it up! As luck would have it, there was an opportunity to “kill time” and we decided to trek it back to Barnes & Noble where I was able to snatch the book off the table!
How to play Murdle.com?
If you’ve ever played Clue then you might be familiar with the way it works. You have to figure out who killed Mr. Body? In which room? Using what weapon? Murdle is no different, except, each mystery has a different set of suspects, weapons, and locations. Each mystery comes with a board that you must use to get to the answer based on the various cryptic clues provided. The book is subdivided into different levels of difficulty ranging from elementary to impossible.
Which brings me to why I’m sharing this with you in the first place. I’ve got a couple reasons, actually:
I have OCD when it comes to my books and how I treat them. What exactly do I mean by that?
Absolutely NO bookmarks!
Dog ear? Are you mad?! I’ve ended friendships over such an offense! Not kidding.
Never ever ever break the spine. For those of you who don’t know, it’s when you open a book all the way. Even typing those words hurts my heart.
If it’s a hardcover with a jacket, remove the jacket while reading the book and store it in a safe place. But not like my grandmother’s idea of a “safe place” which means it will never be found, as evidenced by my Harry Potter book 5 which I loaned to her to read and she put the jacket in a “safe place” and now my book is forever jacketless…
Lastly, DO NOT EVER WRITE IN A BOOK OR USE A HIGHLIGHTER!
My OCD knows no bounds!
That last one is the real reason why I am here. I purchased the Murdle book, Volume I (of which there are a planned 3 volumes and I’ve already pre-ordered the other 2), but ran into a problem right away. I had no pencil or eraser anywhere in my house. Not because I don’t believe in pencils and erasers, but because I am in the middle of moving and for some strange reasons it was among the first things to get packed. But I’m glad it was packed because it meant I couldn’t commit the sin on my list of writing in the book! What was I thinking. Alas, this meant the book went untouched and unopened for several days.
Then a glorious friend of mine, Travis I. Sivart’s Author Newsletter, gave me a genius idea that I still can’t believe I did not think of myself! Create the chart on a separate sheet of paper and fill it in there! Duh!
So, I came up with this for the Elementary and Occult levels of difficulty:
And this one for the Hard Boiled and Impossible levels of difficulty:
I even went a step further! I duplicated these so that there are 8 on a page for the Elementary and Occult mysteries and 2 for the Hard Boiled and Impossible ones. If you should get the book(s) and are like me, not wanting to write in it, you can download each page for free below:
As you can see, I took the liberty of including a few cutting lines you can use to cut them out if you want and stick them in the book after you’ve solved the case! If you visit the website there is a daily puzzle of varying levels of difficulty that you could also use these for as well.
I’d love to know if you’ve heard this and Murdle too? And if you use my blank pages, snap a pic and share!
Happy Murdle solving!
You crazy crazy lady.. I love this Erica, your OCDness and the fact that you’ve found time to share printable cut out pages for us when you’re mid house move and your life must be chaos! You’re one hell of a bright star!
I’m off to google Murdle now !
I love this so much. These games are my favorite!