"Hints" are useless

[kgf]

The hints for this puzzle type are worthless. I got to a point where I needed two more guilties with something like 7 possibilities. i asked for a hint and told me "this person can't be guilty because of clue 7", which told me how many were on the edge. The only way that clue could tell me that person wasn't guilty would be if I already knew which ones on the edge were guilty. This is not the first time I've experienced that.

[dotnich]

When I feel like that, it's usually because either:

• there are only guilty folks left, or
• some other clues have eliminated some candidates and I haven't marked them as innocent

[KatanaCS]

One of the things which catches me sometimes is mixing up the columns/rows clues, like in "There are 3 guilty in rows 1 and 2" - I may think there are 2 or 3 guilty in rows 1 and 3.

[galore]

Completely agree that the clues are worthless

[dotnich]

Hey galore, I just encountered this puzzle where you found the hints confusing.

Rachel was the last one in for me too. In this case, she had to be guilty (despite no clues referencing her directly). She had to be guilty because of the clue saying there were 5 guilty folk on the edge of the grid and she was the only unmarked person not on the edge.


Screenshot 2025-12-23 at 3.48.36 pm.png

[uigrad]

I think the hints are working correctly.

Ideally, you should be solving the board is a completely logical manner, which means that you need to work through the clues in just about the exact order that is intended.

As far as I have seen, the next step can always be deduced from looking at just 1 or 2 clues. The hard part is determining which 2 clues work together at the exact point you are in the puzzle. But, once you know which 2 clues are the right clues, then figuring out how to use them is usually very easy.

So, all the hint needs to do, if you are solving logically, is tell you which 1 or 2 clues are needed for the next deduction.

But, what about if you haven't solved logically? If you have made a mistake (marked someone incorrectly), then the hint you get is simply to undo the ones that you marked incorrectly. This has been useful for me if I have conflicting information (ie the puzzle looks like it has no solution). The hint steps me back to the point where I went wrong, and I can continue working deductively from that point.


As far as kgf's issue, we can only guess how he or she must have interpreted the clues incorrectly.