From Where Do Your Puzzles Come?

[+sept1c_tank]

In another topic, I inquired about how puzzles are designed.

 

How, where do you get your ideas for puzzle caches? Do you design your own puzzles, or do you alter or adapt pre-existing puzzles for your cache? Or what?

 

I ask because I have recently become interested in solving puzzle caches and this type of insight might be valuable. OK, maybe I would be interested in placing one, too.

[darwinmay]

I've been annoyed about this too- I can usually solve puzzle caches, but can't think of any decent ideas for one (or don't want to steal someone's idea).

[+Iowa Tom]

I don't know if this is going to help at all but here goes.

 

I will confess that I am not totally sure when a cache sequence I design should be called a mystery cache or a puzzle cache, not that it matters I suppose. I do always make my own designs though. I make more than I find actually. When I used to play hide-n-seek as a kid I always liked to hide. I never liked to find. That's not to say that I don't like finding caches however! It seems like when I think I’m running out of ideas I come up with yet another one. The process builds upon itself. That's just the way my brain works. Ask Welch. At the beginning of the school year I tell my new students, "I'm weird, get used to it."

 

Being a teacher and wanting to make almost every cache count toward that means I almost always try to think of something that a player might learn while solving the “puzzle.” I personally don’t get off on counting letters in a sign or adding numbers and subtracting numbers to come up a coordinate unless I can think of no other way to do it. In beginning a puzzler I usually sit down with my hamburger and senior coke at Burger King, AKA my think-tank, and think about what I want to try to teach somebody. From there I try to think of a way to get the geocacher to unwittingly take part in a learning process while working toward the coordinates they need. Here is an example of one such cache. It deals with the popular misconception that crickets chirp by rubbing their legs together. THEY DON’T!

 

In a couple other puzzlers I try to introduce people to various websites that they may not already be aware of. Like my “Find Me If You Can!” cache requires people to pay careful attention to satellite photos and coordinates that go with them. When I discovered that website I thought to myself, “here is another opportunity to introduce people to a neat website!”

 

As I designed, “Big Rock”, an offshoot of "Find Me If You Can" but closer to my home, I decided that I wanted to require players to use some unique features of Black Hawk County Online, like how to measure a distance in the way that you would with a tape measure, except on a computer screen. That measured distance is used as part of the puzzle that leads to another aerial photo which in turn leads to the final coordinate. In using all kinds of different services on the Web I feel that I’m teaching things to people that accept the challenge.

 

When I put together “Hello ISS” I finally figured out how to use some old buildings in the sequence. I stewed over how to employ those places for months. I also got to tell a story about an unusual incident I had that involved an astronaut aboard the Space Station.

 

Loving to take pictures, for a geocache I figured out how to employ nice images of my community in what I called “My Waterloo.” In that cache sequence I try to introduce people to the finer aspects of my home town. Making caches have a good purpose is itself good.

 

So that’s how I do it and why I do it. To have fun and teach and learn, all at the same time! Teaching and learning, that’s what it’s all about to me! I feel like the Internet has become my extended classroom!!

 

And oh by the way, in my opinion feel free to learn from what other people do. No need to reinvent the wheel entirely. I will say this however; one guy asked me how I made a certain electronic cache where you bring the battery. I told him but asked that he give me credit for the idea. If he understood what I did and made one himself, or whether he gave me any credit, I will probably never know. I do know that he never responded with a thanks or any acknowledgement after I sent him the instructions. Ouch.

[+QDman]

The idea for Dream State, possibly my favorite puzzle cache, literally came to me in a dream. Turning that dream into a reality, however, took weeks of very hard work, both mentally and physically.

[+briansnat]

I steal good ideas. I have a background as a computer programmer so its natural. I do try to make sure that its new to my area though, so everyone around here thinks I'm smart .

[+Bear_Left]

I love creating puzzle caches (and solving them, too, for that matter) and come up with them in a few different ways.

 

Some of them I just steal. We've moved cities (Sydney, Christchurch, Perth) in the last couple of years and so have the opportunity to steal and reproduce ideas from previous haunts. I try to credit the source, either on the cachepage itself or, if that'd be a give-away, on a "winners page" that I put on our webpage with a password in the cache, so only finders can see it (and leave their own, possibly spoiler, comments.)

Some I stole from myself!

 

Some come from looking for an idea along a theme. If you're doing a spy theme cache, then famous codes and ciphers spring up all over the place.

Some are just brainwaves, real Eureka! moments. There's been a couple of those, and they're fun to experience.

Some are just hard work. Think of ways to encode some numbers, then build a story and a cache around the methods you come up with. Sometime the encryption method is trivial, but coming up with the key or base word is the subject of the puzzle. (e.g. once you've figured out the word, the coords come from some arithmetic on A=1, B=2, etc.)

 

You know how you can't walk through a park or a forest now without noticing all these little hidey-holes where a cache could go? Well, once you've done a few puzzle caches, the same thing happens with all sorts of information...

Scary, huh?

[bogleman]

Being a charter member of the MENSA organization (NOT) I developed my puzzle cache, ,(click on the smile) as a spin off of the geocaching smiley thing. You find a cache you get a smiley. One day I was sitting around bored out of my mind - I let everything go and let my mind wander and the smiley-based puzzle cache came to me. I thought, you see these dadgum smiles everywhere and where did they come from and why does everyone like them. They are copyright protected, animated - in short they almost make me want to puke so I decided to develop my smiley cache as a cynical approach - you want a smile from me you are going to EARN IT. It took me about 2-3 months to plan and find an appropriate spot to put it. So Septic Tank start working on solving it - this should keep you busy for a bit.

 

LOL - Groundspeak edited my curse word - how cool.

[+Iowa Tom]

you see these dadgum smiles everywhere and where did they come from

 

While reading about bogleman’s cache a "where were you when Kennedy was shot" moment came to me. I was driving by Payless Cashways years ago, rolling along W Ridgeway, heading due east [that’d be an azimuth of 90 degrees] listening to the perpetually scratchy Iowa Public Radio station when I heard the sad sad news; the creator of the first smiley face had died!!! [i didn’t know there was a first creator of the smiley face up that that point! I had assumed, I guess, that it had simply evolved somehow.]

 

W/o taking the time to look it up, I'll just say I remember hearing that he made the first one to cheer up his employees and it took off from there. Only in America, in the US of that is!

 

By the way, I smiled big when I looked at your cache.

 

-it

Edited November 26, 2005 by Iowa Tom

[+BalkanSabranje]

Well, I tend to invent the puzzles on long winter nights.

Puzzle/Mystery caches are much more common here in Europe; so if you need some examples for copying purposes, have a look here.

 

HTH,

BalkanSabranje

[+radioscout]

I don't own a puzzle cache but most of the puzzles I have solved were adapted from existing puzzles.

[+Kit Fox]

Some of the easiest puzzles are derived from non English alphabets. Examples include Egyptian Numbers, The Navajo Code, The resistor color code, Number Glyphs.

 

Them comes cryptography ciphers, stegonagraphy, and fiendish, hand created, puzzles.

 

The sky is the limit.

[+nfa]

I'm guilty of enjoying the creation of puzzles more than solving other peoples' puzzles...I have a couple of puzzle caches in the can and ready to go, but I don't think my area needs any more at the moment, so I'm just waiting...

 

jamie

[+CompuCash]

I have adoped and modified a few of mine but most were original ideas.

 

check out this one -

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...ae-77a3b4a3bee2

 

cc\

[H to the Bizzle!]

My first puzzle cache was published today... its right down to the basics... to find it the cacher must solve a jig saw puzzle.

[Hugh Jazz]

The best puzzle caches can't be solved by googling anything.

 

I get most of my puzzle ideas from reading scientific magazines like Science News or Scientific American. They often have articles about ancient hoaxes or cryptography or steganography.

 

Some really fun puzzle caches involve unbreakable ciphers or 15th century alphabets that haven't seen the light of day in 500 years.

 

Once the puzzle is solved though, I take it easy on the finder and just put the cache in a 1.5 1.5 diff/terrain. Park and grab basically.

 

Puzzles I like to find rarely involve any brainwork up front. I like to get into the field and find a spice jar cache stuck 4 feet down a metal pipe. Took me a week to puzzle that one out, and a trip to Home Depot. Another one was a kite up in a tree at the zero point, cache page says don't climb the tree. What do you do then? Another one where the zero point is at a field of rocks over which is a pedestrian footbridge. Turn over every rock or examine the bridge closely? Wait a minute, that exact same bird has been roosting here in the bridge every time I've come by to search this place over the last 4 days. And it never moved. That sorta thing.

[+WeightMan]

One of mine was inspired by a book. I was reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. In that book he describes a code. At the time I thought that the code was rather inventive and used it in a cache. The problem I had was that he called it a Caesar Cypher. It was not, but then it is still a neat code.

 

These things come from strange places. Just keep your mind open and eventually something will fall in.

[+sept1c_tank]

The best puzzle caches can't be solved by googling anything....one was a kite up in a tree at the zero point, cache page says don't climb the tree.  What do you do then?

Now that one, I dreamed about, seriously. Earlier this year, I got it in my head (from a dream) that a kite in a tree was a cache. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and at the same time, I couldn't figure it into a cache.

 

I like the idea that puzzles could come from dreams.

[+Team Silver]

Think Inside the Box

 

I have not logged this one but have figured out the puzzle and am waiting to log it during Christmas. This is hands down one of the most clever use of puzzles and use of terrain to create a cache.

[cacheman22]

Edited

Edited November 28, 2005 by cacheman22

[+reveritt]

I have always been interested in codes and ciphers, and also history. Two of my puzzle caches, Behind the Lines 1 and its sequel, combine an 18th century cipher, and local 18th century history.

 

As mentioned in the cache description, I was inspired by another cache, which combined a WWII cipher and WWII history.

 

Here is another one that is based on diverse general knowledge rather than a cipher. Anyone can design a puzzle of this type.

 

The important thing to keep in mind in designing a puzzle cache is how the finder will solve it. I make sure that my puzzles are solvable using information that I provide, or that is easily found. Be prepared to provide assistance to cachers who are having trouble solving your puzzle. The feedback you receive will help you understand how difficult the puzzle is, and whether you should add hints.

 

My puzzle designs are not especially original, and you are free to use them. Imitating someone else's cache is not stealing.

[Hugh Jazz]

Earlier this year, I got it in my head (from a dream) that a kite in a tree was a cache. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and at the same time, I couldn't figure it into a cache.

You'll get some good ideas by finding this cache then:

 

Line of Sight by Team GeoDillo

[+nikcap]

I steal good ideas. I have a background as a computer programmer so its natural. I do try to make sure that its new to my area though, so everyone around here thinks I'm smart .

That pretty much sums it up.

 

I do find that the best idea come along while in the John.

[+Kit Fox]

One of the best puzzle series I have solved, but haven't had time to find is the Gauntlet series . They were by far my favorite puzzles to solve.

Edited November 27, 2005 by Kit Fox

[bogleman]

Are you also looking for a puzzle type container - something that is hard to open (GeoCola)? Like the numbers are in this tube on a ball, the tube is 4' tall and no way to grab it with your hand? Or a container that requires slight manipulation to open? Or the numbers are hidden on a ball that is in a maze that you cant see, the only way you get the ball out is by tipping it back & forth? A cipher lock with 6 buttons and a 3 number code to open (may take some time but is easy enough to crack in the field)? Based on a board game or a hardy boys story? A puzzle based on the treasure the honey dipper found in your septic tank last month?

Just throwing some ideas out there.

[+sept1c_tank]

...A puzzle based on the treasure the honey dipper found in your septic tank last month?

[+reveritt]

Are you also looking for a puzzle type container - something that is hard to open (GeoCola)? Like the numbers are in this tube on a ball, the tube is 4' tall and no way to grab it with your hand? Or a container that requires slight manipulation to open? Or the numbers are hidden on a ball that is in a maze that you cant see, the only way you get the ball out is by tipping it back & forth? A cipher lock with 6 buttons and a 3 number code to open (may take some time but is easy enough to crack in the field)? Based on a board game or a hardy boys story? A puzzle based on the treasure the honey dipper found in your septic tank last month?

Just throwing some ideas out there.

I did a cache like that recently. It was hidden in one of these.

[+NotThePainter]

I like making puzzle hides and this question got me thinking, just where do my ideas comes from? And when I thought about it, there was no one answer

 

My first puzzle, 80 Feet of Waterline Nicely Making Way stemmed from a bit of trivia I knew about the MIT campus. So in that regard, I had the site in mind (not the cache location, the site) and I built a puzzle around it.

 

The next puzzle, Cube Root of 39.304, started with a cache container. I read about it here in the forums. I then knew just where I had to place it and I worked backwards to create the puzzle. Working out 80 Feet certainly helped me there. This cache was easy to design and set up but the research for the cache page was tremendously time consuming. That took forever it seemed. (I even had to consult an historical economist to help with the FTF prize!)

 

My most recent hide, The Mystery of Susan Walker, has been about a year in the making. I got just the very basic germ of an evil idea here in the forums, but I coupled this with a very special person and location just outside of Boston. I discovered this special person via a news item followed with some research on that person. Then I moved 50 miles north and the plan was ruined but I persevered and was able to ressurect it. This cache was designed to be hard, I pulled out all the stops on it. Actually, I could have made it a wee bit harder but my wife convinced me not to do it!

 

So, where do my ideas come from? They come from all over. Basically when I think about caching I'm thinking about hides, not finds. My mind wanders, connections are made. Ideas are put on the shelf and abandoned and they I come back to them. I've been trying to work a a Thoreu cache into the Manchester area ever since I found out about his boat trip from Sudbury MA, to Hooksett, NH. Is there a cache there yet? Nope, but I hope so someday. I've driven around and examined locations and so on.

 

What are my goals in a puzzle? I want to make you think. I was so overjoyed when I read on log on 80 Feet which said "Think more, hike less." If anything, that's become my caching motto. All, and I mean ALL, my hides are in plain sight. You can touch the cache container without turning anything over or picking anything up. I want you to think and observe.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Paul

[+DocDiTTo]

Think Inside the Box

 

I have not logged this one but have figured out the puzzle and am waiting to log it during Christmas.  This is hands down one of the most clever use of puzzles and use of terrain to create a cache.

 

That's known as a sudoku puzzle, we have a new cache here that uses the same thing. All ya need is the right software and they're cake.

[Mustcache]

In another topic, I inquired about how puzzles are designed.

 

How, where do you get your ideas for puzzle caches?

I was driving home from work when the idea for this puzzle cache popped into my head. Frog Talk is my personal favorite of all my puzzle caches.

[+Mule Ears]

From Where Do Your Puzzles Come?, Are you a genius, or what?

 

The prolific puzzle-placers are geniuses. Just ask them

 

(That was uncalled-for and will bring down terrible retribution, but I couldn't resist.)

 

The few puzzle ideas I've put into practice have originated with unsuccessful effort to solve others' puzzles. I'll look at a puzzle and figure, "OK it must work like this." Of course it doesn't, but sometimes that wrong approach has its own merit.

 

One puzzle involved a grid of colored blocks. I had myself convinced that a message was encoded in the colors. It was a dead end, but I liked the concept and used something similar in a puzzle of my own.

[+Tharagleb]

Here is how I came up with my puzzle caches:

 

Candelabra Entry - Based on a weird number system that is seldom used. I read about it years ago in Knuth's Art of Computer Programming. The dominoes are just a cryptogram that tells you how to solve the main puzzle. Most finders bypassed the domino puzzle by just anagramming the cache name (which also points to the key to the puzzle.)

 

Each Chord Went Thud - This is a tricky little Vigenere code. Basically NFA's Rupert's Cash Cache gave me an idea on a way to hide the key to the code in the cache itself. It has nothing to do with the solution of Rupert's. Can't say more here but email me if you want to know the secret.

 

Beer Hall Gal is an anagram of "Algebra Hell". This is a unique puzzle in that you won't find the math used anywhere else. Many years ago I was doing some recreational math on the sum of powers of integers. I was able to develop very interesting relationships for any power, I used these results in my puzzle. The trick is that if you expand the equations then the "X" term drops out.

 

My other puzzle cache, Pied Cabriolet is a simple substitution cipher. If you anagram the name of the cache you get the "key" to the puzzle. This one was meant to be fairly easy.

Edited November 28, 2005 by Tharagleb

[+Team Teebow]

This puzzle cache popped up a week or so ago and I thought it was great. I too would like to know how all you smart people come up with these ideas.....

 

Here is the cache: GCR4BB A Real Puzzle Cache by LaughingTerry.

[+Loch Cache]

If you want to see some truly tough puzzles check out this series: TNC Series

 

This one Back on Bunker Hill was a cipher inspired by my love of history. The catch is it is not what everyone assumes. While reading about this code I discovered that the original was different from the current and therefore I used that.

 

My favorite "brain blast" occurred while commuting to work one day. I saw a cliff along the interstate and said to myself, "Wouldn't be cool to put a cache up there where I could see it everyday as I drove to work?" So I put a five-gallon bucket where I can see it ever day. The puzzle is A- What stretch of road is it on, B- How do you get to the bucket, C- From the bucket you have to add or subtract from North and West coords to get to the final. Here is a link to the page.

 

This one Pulse Point requires a WiFi device. Then you can find encoded coordinates on a public server.

 

Keep on caching,

 

Loch Cache

 

PS, I am not above copying a good idea.

[Cruising_Adventuring]

I dont have any puzzle caches yet but i make up many of my own problems, for example a while back i posted "It's all physics Baby!" those were original problems.

[+carleenp]

I have one puzzle cache that I know is truly original. I came up with it when brainstorming unique ways things can contain or convert to numbers and I had a lot of fun making it. I also like that it appears to be something that is actually a red hearing. I think it deserves its 5 star difficulty. I really can't say more though without giving away the cache. All I can say is brainstorm.

 

My other puzzle cache is rather straight forward. I didn't specifically copy it from anywhere, but imagine that there are likely similar puzzles out there. It just requires some thought to see how words/letters convert to numbers.

[+Team Maccabee]

I am relatively new to the game, but am finding that I am getting ideas for new and different puzzles from unsuccessful attempts at figuring out other puzzle caches. It's amazing just where your mind can go when you overthink a puzzle cache.

 

Team Maccabee

[+sept1c_tank]

I am relatively new to the game, but am finding that I am getting ideas for new and different puzzles from unsuccessful attempts at figuring out other puzzle caches.  It's amazing just where your mind can go when you overthink a puzzle cache.

 

Team Maccabee

That's exactly from where I am coming!

[+Confucius' Cat]

I have recently published my first and am still awaiting a find on it, although an out of towner has already emailed me the solution.

 

I intend to place a few more when I can find places to hide the actual caches that won't mess up a good site for regular caches (500 foot rule thing)

 

My ideas are my own, I think. (Has anyone ever had an original thought?)

 

I am very obscure (the kids would say "random") in my thinking. I like Monty Python if that tells you anything.

 

My puzzles will be based on looking at things quite differently than we ordinarily do.

 

I am very interested in finding out just how people are attacking my puzzle(s) and I wonder if NORMAL people can think randomly enough to get inside my twisted mind.

 

I also wonder if there are any NORMAL people who geocache.

 

I ? whether I should imbed more clues in the text, but I really want to see if others can get there by themselves.

[sporkboy]

All of my puzzles come out of my head. Usually I'll want to design something and look around to see what I have lying around and think about its properties. I had a bunch of pennies laying around and I put some letters on them and came up with a puzzle, painted a set up and came up with a different puzzle. I started to think about paper and I made an origami based puzzle. Another yet unpublished cache will use some of papers other properties (will be available for all to solve online so I won't give that one away).

 

Basically I see what kind of junk I have handy, identify its properties and then figure out if there is a way to use those properties to convey coordinates somehow. I'm working on collecting enough bottle caps for an upcoming cache and that's taking a while. Another in the works requires a plank of wood, a 3 inch diameter ABS pipe and a length of rope ("hard, round and flexible" is the working cache name).

Edited January 4, 2006 by sporkboy