The Interview
Room

What the game is

The Interview Room is a logic-grid whodunnit — the classic magazine deduction puzzle rebuilt as a detective case. Something valuable disappears during an evening gathering: a reception at Blackthorn Manor, a private view at the Marlowe Gallery, an interval at the Lyceum Theatre. Every guest gives a short interview. None of them saw the theft, and none of them lies — but between their statements, where every guest lingered, when each slipped away and what each carried can be reconstructed completely.

Your workspace is the deduction grid: a block for every pair of categories, guests against rooms, guests against times, objects against rooms and so on. Tap a square once to cross it out — that pairing is impossible — twice to dot it as certain, and a third time to clear it. Exactly one dot belongs in every row and column of every block. The case file also carries one trusted fact about the thief: which room the item vanished from, or what its taker was seen carrying. No statement names a culprit; the finished grid does.

Case procedure

1. Read everything first. Note the trusted fact, then read all the interviews once before marking anything. Direct statements give the fastest opening marks.
2. Open the exact rulings. Every statement carries fine print — whether “before” is strict, what a conditional does and does not promise. If wording ever feels loose, the ruling settles it.
3. Cross before you dot. Most testimony rules things out. When a row in any block has a single square left, that square is your dot — and the dot clears its row and column.
4. Carry deductions across blocks. The blocks agree with each other: if the umbrella’s carrier was in the gallery, then everyone ruled out of the gallery is ruled out of the umbrella too.
5. Mark statements as worked. Tap a statement’s number once you have squeezed it dry — and expect to come back, because a statement spent early often has more to say once the field narrows.
6. Accuse. When the grid shows which guest matches the trusted fact, make the accusation. A wrong one is stamped on the file and costs pride, not the case.

The rulings that matter most

• Every statement is true at every rank — the puzzle is in combining them, never in doubting them.
• “Before” and “after” are strict. No two guests slipped away at the same moment, and a guest described two ways is still one guest — so “the guest in the library left before Alma” also proves Alma was not in the library.
• Either/or names exactly two possibilities. Cross out everything else it covers, but never guess between the two.
• Conditionals work two ways only. Prove the first half true and the second half becomes fact; prove the second half impossible and the first half falls. If the first half proves false, the statement is spent.
• One dot per row and column, in every block. Two dots in a line mean one of them is wrong — Check will find it.
• The trusted fact is not a clue about the grid. It tells you which finished row is the thief; it never helps you finish the row.

Choosing a rank

Constable (four suspects, rooms and times) teaches the grid in five to ten minutes with direct, friendly testimony. Inspector (five suspects) adds a third category — what each guest carried — and with it the cross-block reasoning that makes logic grids sing. Superintendent (six suspects, the full evening) brings conditional testimony, consecutive-moment clues and a wall of interviews that rewards notes and patience. Bigger grids add more interlocking deduction, never unfair steps.

Working habits of a Superintendent

• Start with direct statements and either/ors — they put the first crosses on the board and give the ordering clues something to grip.
• Work ordering statements from the ends of the evening: whoever left first can be no one’s “after”, and the last to leave is no one’s “before”.
• When a statement describes a guest by room or object, translate it into the guests block as soon as the description is pinned to a name.
• Revisit spent statements every time you place a dot. A conditional that said nothing an hour ago may close the case now.
• Trust the fine print over instinct. If a ruling feels ambiguous, you have not opened it.

Fairness, hints and reveal

Every case is generated and then proved before you see it: the statements complete the whole grid by step-by-step deduction alone, exactly one arrangement satisfies them, and removing any single statement would leave the case unsolvable — so there are no dead statements and no guessing. Check flags marks that cannot be right without adding any of its own. Hints point at the statement or block where the next forced deduction waits, without making it. Reveal fills the grid, walks the deduction path and excludes the case from your cases-cracked tally. Wrong accusations are stamped on the file; the case stays open.

Printing a case

Any case can be downloaded as a PDF pack built entirely in your browser from the same case number as the on-screen puzzle: the briefing and trusted fact, every interview with its rulings, an empty deduction grid sized for pencil work, and an optional answer key with a worked deduction path. Packs print comfortably on two or three A4 sheets and suit classrooms, puzzle clubs and long train journeys.

Questions from the interview desk