Retro Gaming Guides
How to Solve Murdoku: A Beginner’s Deduction Guide
Murdoku asks you to reconstruct a crime scene, not fill a grid with numbers. Place every person according to the clues, keeping each person in a different row and column. Once the arrangement works, identify the person alone with the victim in the same area. Start with a definite placement and use it to eliminate possibilities elsewhere.
This guide uses an invented example rather than an answer to an official case. For the original rules, see Manuel Garand’s printable Courtroom puzzle. The definitions below follow that case; always read the legend for the puzzle you actually open.
Read the scene before placing anyone
Look for the victim, named areas, furniture and the scene legend. An area is a marked part of the scene; it is not necessarily the entire row or column. A clue about being in a room restricts a person to that area, but it may leave several possible squares.
Do not assume that every furniture square is blocked. The Courtroom legend distinguishes occupiable spaces, including chairs and carpet, from objects that cannot be occupied, such as tables and plants. Consult the current scene’s legend instead of applying a blanket rule to all objects.
Work through an original elimination example
Imagine an invented five-by-five scene. Casey has two candidates: row 2, column 2 and row 2, column 5. A definite clue places Rin at row 4, column 2. Rin occupies column 2, so Casey cannot use that column and must stand at row 2, column 5.
Nori’s candidates are row 1, column 5 and row 1, column 3. Casey has now occupied column 5, leaving Nori at row 1, column 3. Owen’s candidates are row 1, column 4 and row 3, column 4. Since Nori occupies row 1, Owen must stand at row 3, column 4. One confirmed clue has produced a chain of three deductions.
For this example only, the victim is at row 5, column 1, and the Studio area covers the bottom two rows. Rin at row 4, column 2 is the only other person in that area: Casey, Nori and Owen are all in the top three rows. Rin is therefore the example’s killer. Check that all five people, including the victim, occupy different rows and columns before accepting the conclusion.
These names, candidates and the Studio layout are fictional, not a secret solution to a published puzzle. If Rin’s initial position were only a tentative note, the later placements would also be tentative. The deduction chain needs a confirmed starting fact.
Keep notes separate from confirmed positions
Record all the squares a person could occupy until the clues leave only one. In the desktop embedded build previously checked on POKOPIE, a short click records a candidate and a press-and-hold confirms a placement after selecting a person. Follow the current game’s tutorial if the controls differ, and use Undo to reverse an accidental action.
Before confirming a square, ask: does it satisfy the person’s clue, is it in a free row and column, and does the legend allow someone to stand there? A square that passes only one of those checks is still a candidate.
Interpret beside without adding diagonal squares
In the official Courtroom rules, beside means immediately left, right, above or below an object, within the same area. A diagonal square does not qualify. A square across an area boundary also does not qualify just because it touches the object.
For a plant beside a boundary, first list the orthogonal neighboring squares. Remove any outside the relevant area, any blocked by the legend, and any in occupied rows or columns. This combines the spatial clue with the global placement rule.
Identify the killer after checking the arrangement
The final question concerns the victim’s area. Find the one person who shares that area with the victim and nobody else. Do not select the nearest person on the grid or stop after one suspicious-looking clue. Recheck every placement before submitting your conclusion.
If you get stuck, return to the last confirmed fact and inspect the notes that depended on it. Common mistakes are treating a note as a fact, allowing two people in one column, counting diagonals as beside, or overlooking an area boundary.
Open a case and check device support
The POKOPIE detail page includes a quick-start card and the browser play entry. The embedded build is listed for desktop use. If it refuses a phone, use the official-site link on the detail page rather than repeatedly changing the website language.
Play Murdoku and read the controls:
https://pokopie.com/en/games/murdoku-html5-2026
Sources and further reading
Official Courtroom puzzle and rule legend:
https://murdoku.com/pdf/the-courtroom-bw.pdf
Murdoku by Manuel Garand, including free online and printable cases: