Situation puzzle questions: what to ask, and when

What makes a good question

A good question cuts the possibilities in half. Whatever the answer, it changes what you ask next. “Does the location matter?” is a fine example: a yes sends you looking at the setting, a no lets you forget it.

A bad question teaches you nothing, even when the answer is yes. “Was it a Tuesday?” is wasted until you know whether the day matters at all. Ask whether the timing matters first, then which time.

Questions that fit almost any riddle

None of these give anything away. They get an investigation moving when the statement leaves you blank. Work through them by family, broadest question first. If that one comes back “irrelevant”, move on to the next family.

With a dark riddle, start with people and death. Those two families rule out more stories in fewer questions than any of the others.

• People. Is anyone else involved? Do these people know each other? Is someone lying?
• Death. Did someone die? Was it an accident? Did someone want it to happen?
• Time. Did this happen before the scene described? Does it all happen on the same day? Does the season matter?
• Place. Does the location matter? Is it an ordinary place?
• Objects. Does this object matter? Is it being used for what it’s normally for?
• Knowledge. Did the person know what they were doing? Did they know what would happen?
• Reality. Is anything supernatural going on? Could this happen in real life?

Question the words of the statement

A statement is short because every word is doing a job. Read it slowly and separate what it says from what you pictured. “A woman waits by the door.” The text doesn’t say which side of the door she’s on, who she’s waiting for, or whether she wants them to arrive. You filled all of that in without noticing.

Every assumption can become a question. Is she inside? Is she alone? Does she want the person to come? The best riddles hide their secret in a picture everyone makes and the text never drew.

Look at what the statement bothers to say, too. There’s no room for a pointless detail in three lines. If it mentions that it was raining, ask whether the rain matters.

From broad to narrow

Start wide, then close in. Asking “Did her brother poison him?” straight away is a shot in the dark. Ask whether anyone else was involved, then whether it was someone close, then who. Every yes shrinks the ground, every no takes a piece of it away.

When a line of questions gets three noes in a row, leave it. You don’t have to exhaust it. Go back to the statement and switch families.

Reading the answers

Yes confirms what you proposed, no rules it out. Irrelevant says something else: that detail doesn’t help explain the story. It isn’t a yes or a no, it’s a sign telling you to look elsewhere.

You’ll also hear it when the story has no answer to your question. The narrator won’t invent a detail to keep you happy. If you ask someone’s age and the solution never gives it, their age doesn’t matter.

If an answer surprises you, check that your question said what you meant. “Is he dead?” means nothing when the story has two men in it. Say which one.

Questions that waste turns

Some questions feel productive and return almost nothing.

• Open questions. “Why did he do it?” has no yes-or-no answer. Turn it around: “Did he do it to protect someone?”
• Either-or questions. “Was it morning or evening?” A yes tells you nothing. Ask one: “Was it evening?”
• Whole theories in one breath. “Did he arrive late, grab the wrong bag and cause the crash?” A no won’t tell you which part was wrong.
• Guessing the solution too early. Offering a full story on question five is a bet. Save it until every odd detail in the statement has a place.
• Stray details. The colour of the car, the witness’s first name: until something points at them, they cost questions and return nothing.

A game, with notes

Here is a scene written for this guide. It isn’t in the app, so we can solve it all the way through.

“A woman comes home from a week away. Her house is exactly as she left it. She calls the police straight away.”

• “Was the house burgled?” No. Test the obvious explanation first. It doesn’t hold, and the statement hinted as much.
• “Why does she call the police?” No answer possible: it’s an open question. Turned into a closed one, it becomes the next question.
• “Is she worried precisely because nothing has changed?” Yes. The best question of the game: it turns the paradox around. The thing that should reassure her is the problem.
• “Is an animal involved?” No. A reasonable idea, gone in one question.
• “Was someone supposed to be living in the house that week?” Yes. The statement never said she lived alone. That was the picture we made.
• “Someone in her family?” Yes. “Her child?” Yes. Closing in, one idea at a time.
• “Is the child dead?” Irrelevant. The story ends with the phone call, and the explanation doesn’t depend on what happened next.
• “Her son was meant to look after the house. Nothing has moved, not even the mug she left on the table: he never set foot inside, and nobody knows where he is.” Yes. That’s the whole story. Nine questions, only one wasted.

When you’re stuck

List what you know, the noes as well as the yeses. Two answers side by side often say more than either one alone.

Then reread the statement and find the strangest detail, the one nothing explains yet. Flip an assumption: what if the person wasn’t alone, what if it all happened earlier, what if it was deliberate? Ask the question that tests the flip.

Playing in a group

One question at a time, take turns, and let someone finish their line before you start a new one. Have one person note the answers: twenty questions in, nobody remembers whether the location mattered.

When someone thinks they have it, they tell the narrator the whole story. Agree before you start that the essential facts and the links between them are enough. Nobody has to match the solution word for word.

With the Post Mortem narrator

In the app, you ask the narrator the same questions, on your own. It answers yes, no or irrelevant. An open or either-or question gets no answer, just a request to ask something it can answer with yes or no, so the advice above saves you the detour.

The story’s facts start out hidden. Each one becomes readable once your questions have found its main idea, and the case closes when you’ve found them all. There’s no final speech to get right: your questions solve it. The statement stays in front of you, so you can always go back to the original words.

To practise, pick a scene from the library. You don’t need a grand theory to start. One question that cuts the possibilities in half is enough.