Quill Riddle: Cipher School, a Whodunit Game

About Quill Riddle: Cipher School

The Quill Riddle is a puzzle newspaper that never stays in one town. Its wagon rolls from village to village at dusk, and every edition carries a mini-mystery: a few suspects, a culprit, and a rule about who is allowed to lie. Exactly one suspect fits.

This is a school, so every set begins with a lesson. You step through a small worked example to learn one way of reasoning: what to do when exactly one suspect lies, when only the guilty one lies, when you have to count the liars, when the suspects call each other liars, and when only one voice is honest. Then come three real mysteries to solve with the same idea.

Each suspect card shows a shape and a letter as well as a colour. Mark what you think is true or false with the note buttons, cross off the suspects you rule out and name the culprit. A wrong name is crossed off and the paper tells you in one sentence why it cannot be. Name the right one and the presses stop: the wagon toots, and the EXTRA headline, set in the paper’s cipher, turns into the culprit’s name letter by letter.

Pick Gentle, Standard or Sharp difficulty, switch on large print, and take as long as you like: there is no clock. Your records stay on this device only; nothing is uploaded.

How to play

Step through the worked example: it teaches the way of reasoning the next three mysteries use.
Read the rule box and what each suspect says. Exactly one suspect fits the rule and the statements.
Use the note buttons to mark a statement true or false, and cross off suspects you rule out.
Tap a suspect, then Name the culprit. A wrong name is crossed off, with a sentence on why it cannot be.
A hint crosses off an innocent suspect for 100 points. Pass a lesson by solving all three mysteries without one.
Press Escape, P or Start to pause.

Controls

1 to 5, or a tap or a click — choose a suspect; N or a button — name the culprit
Arrow keys or D-pad, then Space or Enter — move and press
H or Ⓧ — a hint
Escape, P or Start — pause

Frequently asked questions

What do I learn in each lesson?

One way of reasoning per lesson: exactly one liar, only the guilty one lies, counting the liars, suspects who call each other liars, and a single honest voice. A worked example shows it step by step before the three mysteries that use it.

Is there only one possible culprit?

Yes. Every mystery is built so that exactly one suspect fits all the statements and the rule, and the game checks this. If you name the wrong suspect it tells you in a sentence why that suspect cannot be the culprit.

What do the difficulty and print settings do?

Gentle uses three to four suspects, Standard four to five, Sharp four to five with more varied statements. Large print makes the type bigger at once. You can also turn the note buttons off.

Is there a timer?

No. Cipher School has no clock. A hint costs 100 points and means the set cannot be passed clean, but mistakes only cost points.