It must be more than a year ago now that I stumbled upon the concepts of Murdle and Murdoku.
I discovered the first one on Amazon, when I was researching two things on the same day: popular cozy crime books and “escape/puzzle books”. It goes to show how strong Amazon’s tracking/algorithms are that it can connect the concepts and point me towards the one thing that fits both. Murdle has absolutely nothing to do with Wordle, though. They are basic (grid) logic puzzles, but framed as a murder mystery, so you’re solving who the killer must be.
I discovered the second one as I was exploring new ideas for logic puzzles and educational puzzles for my online store. Though it was by a different name. The author has been publishing these puzzles for free on MurderMysteryPuzzles.com for years now. It’s nice if you want to try the puzzles for free and see if you like them! They’re simplified Sudokus but with logical clues about where people were standing and simple additions that allow “finding the killer” ( = usually the only one standing in the same room as the victim).
At the time, I had this gut reaction that I sometimes have. That “huh, this has potential”. The feeling that it’s just a really simple but strong concept and that I should look into it more. The feeling that this can become something big and that I should try my hand at making a similar puzzle.
So I write down the URLs to these sources and a few notes about them. I plan to create a “murder mystery sudoku” myself for an educational puzzle pack. But … that’s where it ends. My busy brain was probably distracted by something else, I focused on finishing my current project, and … you just forget.
Fast forward to now. There are countless Murdle books and they’ve been at the top of the bestselling list for ages. There are also several Murdoku books now, translated to Dutch, and they’re selling out faster than they can stock them in local stores.
And I thought … dang it :p Every single time I’ve had this gut feeling, I’ve been right. Every time I saw something and thought “so smart, that’s gonna be big”, it takes a few years but it ends up coming true. I’ve even had this with athletes. I don’t even watch that much soccer, but I’ve had this same gut feeling with the exact players that end up becoming the biggest Dutch superstars many years later.
I should have jumped on the opportunity a year ago and made my own thing. Pick some logic puzzle or challenge and put a cozy crime/murder mystery spin on it. I could be selling a million books myself! I could be rich by now! ;)
But instead I get this gut feeling, I tell myself to “look into it/explore the idea”, then forget about it and move on.
There’s this cruel irony here. I am amazing at spotting marketing trends and what will blow up, but I am terrible at actually doing marketing and using the opportunity myself. I have this amazing intuition for which ideas have great potential and a wide reach, but I usually don’t even consider using it to my advantage or getting into the market in time.
Is it too late now? No, of course not. If you’re a creative, consider this your personal service announcement: If you can find a great idea that combines a classic puzzle/game with a cozy crime theme, you might have struck gold!
What else can we do? Word searches with murder—ah dang, already done. Murd Search.
What else can we do? Cozy crime novels where every chapter has a new puzzle—of course, also already done.
What else can we do? Crosswords with crime? Mazes with murder? Novels with No Loose Ends?
As I considered the options, I mostly asked myself: why? and how?.
Why did these things become so popular? What can we learn from them?
Why They Blew Up
The puzzles inside Murdle are bog standard grid logic puzzles of the smallest variety. These things have existed for ages and there are countless books with 100 of them inside.
What’s different?
- It makes it easier to get into these puzzles. Traditional grid logic puzzles are very beginner unfriendly. Many of them offer these very terse clues and no explanation about how to solve them. Murdle simply makes it more accessible and presents it in a friendlier way.
- It has theme. The murder mystery theme gives extra flavor and variety to the puzzles, which would otherwise be abstract number crunching. It makes it “intuitive” as to why they’re solving things this way and what steps they need to take.
- It has humor. Can never underestimate this. “Cozy Crime” has endless opportunities for silly crimes, funny characters, and other spicy remarks to liven things up. It baffles me how humor and playfulness is banished from almost everything aimed at adults.
- It is easy to grow. You can let a computer generate the puzzles—it should take only a few days of programming and testing, and only a second to actually run. Then you, as the writer, simply assign meaning to the result. You invent the characters, weapons, setting, etcetera as flavor.
- It presents all this in a clean, nice package that you can easily gift someone. Most things can be acquired for free on the internet … but humans are still physical beings who like to be lazy. In other words, physical things we can hold in our hands are just worth more to use than something on a screen, and we’re not likely to scour the internet ourselves to create a collection of puzzles.
Murdoku is a slightly different story. It actually evolves the genre. It looked at Sudoku and its variants, and came up with a really clever new twist that hadn’t been done before. (It is for that reason that I would personally classify Murdle as an “okay time waster”, but Murdoku as an actual “interesting puzzle challenge”.)
- It simplifies Sudokus. Only two of its rules remain (no two people in same row/column), the others are discarded. Simplification is always great for wide reach and accessibility.
- It adds theme (and visualization). Thanks to its rules, Murdokus can actually look good and varied. It’s not just black numbers on a white grid, it’s an actual place with objects and rooms to figure out. And, again, this helps anyone understand what they’re doing and why. They have a goal beyond just “filling this grid with numbers”. Their goal is to catch a killer. This works wonders even if the theme is pasted on very thinly.
- It is easy to grow. Again, you can generate these sudokus forever with a computer. And then the creator can assign meaning: invent the different clues and names and theming of this one. Every Murdoku can be really different because all the clues and deducations you need to make are different. You need to be creative instead of just “learning the trick”.
- It presents all this in a clean, nice package that you can easily gift someone.
I also think we shouldn’t underestimate the names and presentation. Murdle and Murdoku are great names. Memorable. Look good on a cover. Communicate what they intend to be/do very well. Their presentation is clean and professional. Detailed without overdoing it on said details.
Remember how I browsed Amazon a year ago, looking at puzzle/escape books? Most of them looked awful. Clearly made by a puzzle enthusiast who no doubt creates great puzzles, but otherwise made a book cover with Paint (or Word Art) and never heard about lay-out formatting. That’s never going to blow up and reach a wide audience, no matter how great the content.
Conversely, the ones that looked professional were usually also the ones without great content. They were clearly made by someone who had the skills/budget to get a nice book cover and marketing blurb. But inside of them were your completely standard puzzles that you could find anywhere, so there was no innovation and no reason to buy (or make) this book.
Murdle and Murdoku blew up because they had that balance. They took what was already working, and twisted it into something new that would appeal to a large audience. They took grid logic puzzles, but made them smaller, friendlier, funnier, and presented with style. They took Sudoku, but simplified it, allowed it to have nice graphics, and gave you a reason to solve it.
I truly believe you can say this of almost any “hit” or “success”. Take what already works, but apply one twist and make it more accessible.
We’re currently living in the age of cozy crime and murder mysteries. There’s no end in sight. Thrillers/detectives have been some of the bestselling books and most popular shows for a decade now. But who knows, maybe one day this will end and everyone will be hyped by aliens or fantasy or sports, and we’ll twist everything in that direction.
In any case, it just makes sense to say …
HIT = POPULAR THEME (“murder mystery”) + CLASSIC PROVEN THING (“sudoku”) + ACCESSIBILITY (“nice graphics, gentle introduction, simplified rules”)
The Best Type Of Marketing
Which brings me to my second point. There’s this weird phenomenon, almost like a living thing, that makes ideas snowball into hits. That spreads the news of some cool thing between friends, communities, and eventually large parts of the world.
It’s the most organic and effective type of marketing there is: people naturally telling you about stuff or making you join in. Not because they saw advertisments. Not because they’re forced, scammed, or manipulated into it. But simply because there’s energy around this one thing, and people are feeding on that and giving it to anyone they meet with in real life.
A year ago, I noticed a small little website creating murder mystery sudokus. I might have said something about it to those around me, I don’t even remember. But a year later it suddenly comes back with a vengeance, and people start telling me about these things and asking if I “heard of it”.
It’s like this wave of energy or excitement about something that starts with a few, travels around, and eventually reaches most corners of the world.
This is the only type of marketing I would talk about positively. The most “sincere” or “authentic” type of marketing. And over the years I’ve heard more and more experts confirm this. There is really only one type of marketing that works, and it even works in an explosive unpredictable way, and that’s word of mouth advertising. All other types of marketing are just about throwing sand against the wall and seeing what sticks. About annoying everyone everywhere all the time with excessive ads and hoping you see some type of return. But word of mouth? Even in this digital somewhat isolated age, it travels like crazy and reaches much further.
I’m not sure how much traditional marketing these people did. They probably did some, but not a lot. Especially when you get translated and sold in foreign markets—such as Murdoku books being published in Dutch here—you’ll have the advertising and networking clout of a publisher behind you.
But the kind of growth I’ve seen on these things the past year suggests it was quite natural. And I can know, because I’ve seen it with every dang thing my gut feeling was saying had potential :p
I’ve seen the same thing happen in video games. People keep saying “make a good game”, and others respond with “but without marketing nobody will find it, that’s a fact!” And, well, both can be right. History shows that good video games will eventually become hits. Without marketing, without visibility, they might be invisible at launch. But high quality work will have the benefit of word of mouth advertising, which will make it come out on top in the long run.
I’ve seen the same with my own work, though to a lesser extent. I honestly would not say I’ve created anything that is “super high quality”. The disadvantage of a busy brain is that I can’t stay interested in the same thing for longer than a week or two, and that’s simply too short a timespan to write a bestseller or create a truly groundbreaking game. But I have seen my “best projects” get a long tail. I’ve seen them still being bought or visited years after creating them, while my lesser projects—for which I perhaps did way more marketing—do not.
Conclusion
Okay, so, what’s the conclusion?
I think this is a great example of what good marketing actually looks like. It’s not about showing ads or having the perfect one-liner or whatever. It’s about “market research”: see what people already like and provide a new accessible twist on it. At this moment, the answer seems to be “twist the thing into a murder mystery”. Use that information as you will. I’ve tried to find something good for a day or so, but did not find something yet. Then again, I’m easily distracted :p
If you’re able to do this, then you will get the benefit of word of mouth marketing. Your thing will be accessible enough that anyone can talk about it to anyone. Murdoku or Murdle are not so complicated that only a select number of puzzle lovers would receive those books are birthday gifts. Your thing will be familiar, thus easy to talk about, while being innovative, thus worthy of a purchase. And if you’re able to get that going, then I’m pretty sure your work will outperform anything else in the long run.
Now … if only I could apply this wisdom to myself and actually use such an opportunity the moment my gut tells me to …
Tiamo