Hi!

Last week I asked you about the difficulty. Thank you for replying!
The question was: "What did you think of last week's difficulty?"
The results were as follows:
62.4% - It was perfect!
30.5% - It was too easy!
7% - It was too hard!

I wonder if a slightly harder week would result in more "perfect" votes? Nevertheless, I was very pleased with this result. Also I received so many supportive comments. Thank you so much for those!!

I also received many suggestions for how to offer an easy puzzle for beginners, without making the daily puzzle easier (which is not the plan, so don't worry!). For example, I could rotate older easy puzzles as daily easy puzzles for newjoiners to practice with. I could also introduce an easy pack, or a series of tutorials. All great suggestions! I'm sure I'll try out some of these suggestions before long.

Anyway, let's have a look at last week's stats. Was it any harder than the previous one? Overall, they were harder, but weekend puzzles were still not pushing the limits of human capabilities. Next week I think I'll try something much harder for Sunday... Maybe. We'll see.

Top 1% / 10% / 50% times, % of perfect solves and % of solves without hints.

Mon 2026-05-25 (Easy): 1m 24s / 2m 4s / 3m 48s / 38% / 83%
Tue 2026-05-26 (Medium): 1m 32s / 2m 14s / 4m 1s / 54% / 85%
Wed 2026-05-27 (Medium): 1m 53s / 2m 53s / 5m 24s / 38% / 81%
Thu 2026-05-28 (Tricky): 2m 29s / 4m 9s / 8m 23s / 34% / 64%
Fri 2026-05-29 (Tricky): 2m 45s / 4m 23s / 8m 14s / 43% / 67%
Sat 2026-05-30 (Hard): 3m 33s / 5m 56s / 11m 30s / 20% / 47%
Sun 2026-05-31 (Hard): 3m 0s / 5m 6s / 9m 46s / 27% / 62%

And here are the bonus puzzles of the week:
#1 Easy - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/758ad458ca70
#2 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/700f0ef5b7e7
#3 Tricky - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/f5b5f9141a03
#4 Hard - https://cluesbysam.com/archive/006ec6ad1812

And as mentioned last time, the community puzzle archive will be delayed. I've been traveling around Europe since March, while doing remote freelancing and working on some other projects (in addition to Clues). My available working hours have been sparse and unpredictable. But in a few days I'll be returning home, and will finally have more time to take things forward.

So, until next time!

-Sam