+Cryptosporidium-623 Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 Hi. I'm in the process of working on a Geocaching 101 workshop overview of multi caches, puzzle caches and the variations / sub-categories (e.g. offset, challenge caches) etc. I had asked a couple of cacher friends for a sanity check review and one of them asked me to mention "Bonus Challenge Caches" which he claims are different from "Challenge Caches". He indicated that while a "Bonus Challenge Cache" and a "Challenge Cache" were similar in that you could not log it until you met the other requirements (e.g. finding other challenge caches, etc.), the distinct difference in a bonus version was that each cache you found previously would get you part of the coordinates for finding the bonus cache. ok, but isn't that just a Challenge/Puzzle variant? What I'm trying to understand at this point is if this is an "officially singled-out and recognized sub variant" of "Challenge Caches" or are we possibly making up new terms here? There's nothing on gc.com that I could find that officially recognizes anything beyond the "Challenge Cache". Thank you for your help in sorting this out. Quote Link to comment
+Prime Suspect Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 What you're describing is a Bonus Cache. Not sure why your friend is inserting "Challenge" in there, but they're not really related. A Challenge Cache presents you with a defined subset of caches, and you need to find (usually) some number of them. But the finder has the option of choosing which caches within the subset to use. In a Bonus Cache, there are specific caches that have to be found, they are (almost always) owned by the same person, and each contains a clue to the final. In a Challenge Cache, the coordinates of the final is already known, but not with a Bonus Cache (though that might not be true if the info you need to collect is a combination lock code, for example, rather than coordinates). Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 Prime Suspect explained it well, but I think that if it's an intro to geocaching course I wouldn't even bother touching on bonus and challenge caches. Keep it simple. Quote Link to comment
+Cryptosporidium-623 Posted February 8, 2010 Author Share Posted February 8, 2010 In a Bonus Cache, there are specific caches that have to be found, they are (almost always) owned by the same person, and each contains a clue to the final. In a Challenge Cache, the coordinates of the final is already known, but not with a Bonus Cache (though that might not be true if the info you need to collect is a combination lock code, for example, rather than coordinates). Are "Bonus Caches" technically just "Puzzle/Mystery" caches? Quote Link to comment
+briansnat Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 In a Bonus Cache, there are specific caches that have to be found, they are (almost always) owned by the same person, and each contains a clue to the final. In a Challenge Cache, the coordinates of the final is already known, but not with a Bonus Cache (though that might not be true if the info you need to collect is a combination lock code, for example, rather than coordinates). Are "Bonus Caches" technically just "Puzzle/Mystery" caches? Yes. In most cases you need to find a series of caches to obtain the coords of the bonus cache. Because the coords of the bonus cache are not known it should be listed as s a puzzle/mystery. Quote Link to comment
knowschad Posted February 8, 2010 Share Posted February 8, 2010 It sounds to me as though you are stepping outside of the "Geocaching 101" boundaries even before your friend came up with that unusual combination. For Geocaching 101, I would strictly stick with the "official" types of Regular, Multi, Mystery, Earthcache, Event, CITO Event, Wherigo, etc. I think that is more than confusing enough to a newbie. Even going off into Challenge caches is enough to lose a good part of your audience. Keep it simple! Quote Link to comment
+Cryptosporidium-623 Posted February 8, 2010 Author Share Posted February 8, 2010 In a Bonus Cache, there are specific caches that have to be found, they are (almost always) owned by the same person, and each contains a clue to the final. In a Challenge Cache, the coordinates of the final is already known, but not with a Bonus Cache (though that might not be true if the info you need to collect is a combination lock code, for example, rather than coordinates). Are "Bonus Caches" technically just "Puzzle/Mystery" caches? Yes. In most cases you need to find a series of caches to obtain the coords of the bonus cache. Because the coords of the bonus cache are not known it should be listed as s a puzzle/mystery. Good advice. Thanks all for your input! Quote Link to comment
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