Is There a Doctor in the House (Logic Puzzle) - Walkthrough

1. The Doctor’s clue tells us that Dr. House is a victim.

2. There are three consecutive bystanders in the third row. This means that, no matter how they’re positioned, Dr. Jekyll is a bystander.

3. Thanks to Dr. Jekyll’s clue, we now know that Dr. Zoidberg is not an accomplice. He’s not a victim, either (Dr. House’s clue). And since Dr. Jekyll is not a witness, the murderer must be somewhere outside his line of sight; that is, one that doesn’t share a column, row or diagonal with him. Since Dr. Zoidberg shares a diagonal with Jekyll, he can’t be the murderer, and thus he is a bystander.

This also means that the only possible murderers are Dr. Emmett Brown, Dr. Quinn, Dr. McCoy, Dr. Mario, Dr. No, Dr. Fate, Dr. Grey and Dr. Honeydew. Remember that for later.

4. Dr. Zoidberg is adjacent to two bystanders and one accomplice. Dr. Quinn can’t be an accomplice since she’s in Row 1 (Dr. Jekyll’s clue), so she must be a bystander.

5. Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Mario are both adjacent to Dr. Zoidberg, who isn’t adjacent to any victims. Thus, the two victims adjacent to Dr. Quinn must be Dr. Cox and Dr. Seuss.

6. Dr. Seuss’s clue tells us that Dr. McCoy is an accomplice.

7. We can deduce that Dr. Manhattan is not an accomplice, since each accomplice is in a different column (Dr. Quinn’s clue), nor is he the murderer (Dr. Jekyll’s clue) or a victim (Dr. House’s clue). Thus, he is a bystander.

8. We can use the same reasoning to identify Dr. Rabbit. He is not a bystander (Dr. Manhattan’s clue), an accomplice (Dr. Quinn’s clue) or the murderer (Dr. Jekyll’s clue). Hence, he is a victim.

9. This, in turn, means that the three consecutive bystanders in Row 3 are either Dr. Robotnik, Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Dre, or Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Dre and Dr. Katz. Either way, Dr. Dre is a bystander.

10. And this, in turn, helps us reveal the murderer early on. With Dr. Cox’s clue, we can immediately rule out Dr. Emmett Brown, Dr. No and Dr. Grey as potential murderers. Now that we know that Dr. Dre is a bystander, we can also rule out Dr. Mario and Dr. Fate. And since we already found the identity of Dr. Quinn and Dr. McCoy, the only suspect remaining is Dr. Honeydew.

11. Column 4 must have a victim (Dr. Rabbit’s clue), but there are only two spaces remaining and no victims identified in that column so far. Dr. Frankenstein is either a bystander or an accomplice (Dr. Zoidberg’s clue), so Dr. Wily must be a victim.

12. Dr. Dre’s clue tells us that there are exactly two accomplices in Row 2. One of them is Dr. McCoy, and the other is either Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Mario (Dr. Zoidberg’s clue).

So Dr. Doom isn’t an accomplice, and we’ve already identified two victims in The Doctor’s diagonal, so he can’t be a victim either (The Doctor’s clue). And, of course, we’ve found the murderer. This means that Dr. Doom is a bystander.

13. This one’s a little less straightforward. There are no bystanders adjacent to Dr. Honeydew (Dr. Cox’s clue), and there’s only one murderer, so everyone adjacent to Dr. Honeydew is either an accomplice or a victim. Furthermore, we know that he’s adjacent to only one accomplice (Dr. Wily’s clue).

This means that if Dr. Nick is an accomplice, then Dr. Evil and Dr. Fate are victims.

But if Dr. Nick is not an accomplice, then neither is anyone in Column 2 (Dr. Doom’s clue). Recall that there are only four accomplices, each in a different column (Dr. Quinn’s clue). This means that there is one column without any accomplices, and the other four have exactly one.

So if there are no accomplices in Column 2, then every other column must have one, including column 3. That would mean that Dr. Evil is an accomplice, which would make Dr. Fate a victim.

IN SHORT: If Dr. Nick is an accomplice, then Dr. Evil and Dr. Fate are victims. If Dr. Nick is NOT an accomplice, then Dr. Evil is, and Dr. Fate is a victim. Either way, Dr. Fate is a victim.

14. By now, you should have found six victims; Dr. House, Dr. Cox, Dr. Seuss, Dr. Rabbit, Dr. Wily and Dr. Fate. Of the remaining two, one is in Column 2 (Dr. Rabbit’s clue) and one is either Dr. Nick or Dr. Evil (Dr. Wily’s clue, in conjunction with Dr. Cox’s clue). Every remaining space outside Column 2 and 3 is either an accomplice or a bystander.

This means that Dr. No is a bystander (Quinn’s clue) and so is Dr. Emmett Brown (Dr. Fate’s clue).

15. Dr. Emmett Brown’s clue tells us that Dr. Grey is adjacent to more bystanders than any of the corners. The Doctor is adjacent to two, so Dr. Grey must be adjacent to at least three.

Neither Dr. Nick nor Dr. Evil are bystanders (Dr. Cox’s clue), so Dr. Dolittle must be.

16. Neither of the main diagonals are composed entirely of bystanders (Dr. No’s clue), so Dr. Frankenstein cannot be a bystander – making him an accomplice (Dr. Zoidberg’s clue). This, in turn, makes Dr. Mario a bystander.

17. Also, Dr. Dolittle’s clue tells us that Dr. Katz is an accomplice. This, in turn, means that Dr. Robotnik must be a bystander (Dr. House’s clue), which means that Dr. Grey is a victim (Dr. Rabbit’s clue).

18. Finally, Dr. Grey’s clue tells us that Row 4 has more victims than Row 5, making Dr. Nick a victim and Dr. Evil an accomplice.

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ADDENDUM: If there are any names in the above quiz that you don’t recognize, here’s a guide to all of them, organized by medium. (You don’t need to know any of this to complete the puzzle; it’s just if you’re curious.)

Comic Books:

Dr. Doom – Fantastic Four (1961-Present)

Dr. Fate – Doctor Fate (1940-Present)

Film:

Dr. No – Dr. No (1962)

Dr. Emmett Brown – Back to the Future Series (1985-1990)

Dr. Evil – Austin Powers Series (1997-2002)

Literature:

Dr. Manhattan – Watchmen (1987)

Dr. Dolittle – Dr. Dolittle Series (1920-1952)

Dr. Jekyll – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

Dr. Frankenstein – Frankenstein (1818)