Longhand
LiveTrace one line through the letters and read the sentence as you go. Five rungs from a full maze to no walls at all, and one story a day.
From yesterday’s story
Nell Sayer · one puzzle a day, free
Every case has exactly one answer. Everyone else is lying.
A story hidden in a grid as one unbroken line. A room where one guest lies. A night where one alibi cannot stand. Each is proved solvable before it reaches you, and each is new every day.
No account. Progress and streaks stay on your phone. Nothing is tracked.
Four ways to play
Pencil first. Then the page tells you if you were right.
Every mechanic in the line is set the same way: the page gives you everything you need, exactly one reading survives, and a machine has walked every wrong turn before the puzzle was printed.
Play now
Dead Giveaway
ComingFive guests give sworn statements. Every innocent one tells the truth, so the killer’s account must hold a lie. Clear the ones whose word stands.
The Keeper’s Last Watch · the lighthouse
Judge StavrosThe seaward door stayed bolted all night.Judge EllsworthThe paraffin store was never locked.Baroness JephsonThe fog bell was rung twice, I heard it.
Whodunwhen
ComingThree suspects, four rooms, three hours. Build the timeline hour by hour and find the one account that cannot be true.
A Question of Timing · the Ardenmere Hotel
9 PM10 PM11 PM
Miss WhitfieldSaloonLibraryBilliards
The Night ClerkGardenGardenLibrary
Colonel ReyesSaloonLibraryLibrary
Coldcode & the five files
PaperThe murder mystery word search, and the five-file case you solve by striking words out in five pencils. Both live on paper; a page of each to try is on its way.
Five questions, five typefaces
WHOWHATWHEREWHENWHY
The books
Six cases on the way.
Paperbacks from Hoot Hatch. Each one is the mechanic at full length, with the whole story printed after the answers. Listings appear here the day they go live.
Longhand · vol. 1
The Nine O’Clock Door
A case in one line
Nell Sayer
Coming
Case files
COLDCODE
A murder mystery word search
Nell Sayer
Coming
Five files
WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY
Strike the words. Find the truth.
Nell Sayer
Coming
Timeline mysteries
WHODUNWHEN?
55 cases to solve hour by hour
Nell Sayer
Coming
Deduction
DEAD GIVEAWAY
40 rooms. One liar in each.
Nell Sayer
Coming
Mega word search
5,050 Alibis
One word at a time
Nell Sayer
Coming
Nell Sayer is the name the puzzle line publishes under at Hoot Hatch. Where a story is written by a program, the book says so on its listing.
Method
Set fair, proved twice, printed once.
01
One truth
Every puzzle has a single answer, and a solver that knows nothing but the printed rules reaches it before the puzzle is allowed out.
02
Nothing off the page
No outside knowledge, no trick of wording. If the rules would need an assumption they do not state, the puzzle is rewritten, not the reader.
03
Yours to keep
The daily puzzles are free and stay free. Your streak lives in your browser. There are no accounts, no ads and no trackers.
The letter
One puzzle a week, by mail.
Starts with the first book. Until then, the daily story is the letter: come back tomorrow.
No form yet, on purpose. When there is one it will ask for an address and nothing else, with one click to leave.