How to solve puzzle caches?

[DannyCaffeine]

I'm normally good with puzzles but most geopuzzles confuse me. They don't seem to have good instructions. Even when I think I have it the geochecker isn't happy.

[+The Blorenges]

Sometimes there are no instructions. Sometimes finding out what you have to do to actually knit together the co-ordinates is half (or more) of the battle. I think those geocachers who are good at puzzle caches are good because over the years they've worked on a lot of them and they've built up their techniques. I only solve the easier puzzles - A few times, when more complicated puzzles have been explained to me, my reaction has been, "Wow! That's clever, I'd never have thought of that." (But an experienced puzzler would have done.)

 

Good luck.

 

MrsB

[+PinkFox5]

Yeah, there's one that I haven't a CLUE how to even start on it. (GC10HQV)

[+WRASTRO]

Yeah, there's one that I haven't a CLUE how to even start on it. (GC10HQV)

That is actually a fairly simple cipher. I won't spoil the fun by giving you any hints though. Sorry.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Yeah, there's one that I haven't a CLUE how to even start on it. (GC10HQV)

 

That's a good example of where having previous experience solving puzzle will help a lot. I recognized the cipher right away and could even solve it without resorting to looking up anything on the net. I liked the way they provided a hint on this one though.

 

One of the general approaches that often works for figuring out how to get started on a puzzle is to "google everything". Quite often there will be something in the description or title, that if you search for it on the net, you'll find the key you need to solving the puzzle.

[+coggins]

One of the general approaches that often works for figuring out how to get started on a puzzle is to "google everything".

When I did that I got

 

"About 528,000,000 results (0.30 seconds) "

[+geodarts]

There are many types of puzzles. Some require obscure codes or ciphers that have nothing to do with the page description. Some involve higher math ("this would be easy if you expand your range to include trigonometry") or programming skills. Some require leaps of faith that would have you put aside all logic or pay minute attention to a kids movie that you might not have any interest in seeing.

 

While I am not a big puzzle person (I don't solve puzzles just to solve puzzles), I sometimes scan mystery caches to see if it looks like it might be something that I could solve. If so, I will see if anything pops out at me. If nothing pops out after a few minutes, I might let it sit for awhile. But I will look at its title; read the description or hint carefully; check the page source for hidden text; look at any graphics, including if there is any exif information or the graphic size leaps out; read past logs (in some puzzles, the CO has put the necessary information into a sock puppet log entry, others might trigger the light bulb above your head); google if it uses ciphers; google it if there might be an online tool that would help with particular forumlas, decrypting, or extracting things that are embedded into the graphics; look at its structure if its a logic puzzle.... Anything that might relate to cache coordinates; structures of 6, 10, or 15 might lead you to something; something unusual on the page itself or even the owner's profile can be interesting.

 

If it feels too much like work or might take more time than I want to spend on it, I'll move on. If I get stuck I may ask the owner for a nudge. There are some puzzles I am not meant to solve - at least without an enigma code machine - so learning to separate those from the rest is the first step. And if all else fails I might ask myself if it could be found using the brute force method.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Erickson

[+niraD]

A while back, The Rat offered a puzzle-solving class as an event cache. His slides are available here:

http://thegba.net/resources/general_information.php

 

Among the tips he offered:

 

Identify the theme. Check the cache title, the hint, the HTML source, the graphics (including names/URLs), any links (including URLs), whatever is at the posted coordinates, etc. If you can figure out the theme, then you should look for numbering systems that are associated with that theme (zip codes, area codes, telephone keypads, episode numbers, etc.).

 

Around here, coordinates will have 15 digits, and will look like "N 37° xx.xxx W 122° xx.xxx". So when I'm solving a nearby puzzle, I look for a group of 15 things, and then I look for ways to get the digits 37xxxxx122xxxxx from them. In general, I look for ways to get the number 37 (or the digits 3 and 7) from something near the beginning of the puzzle, and the number 122 (or the digits 1, 2, and 2) from something near the middle of the puzzle. (Of course, you'll need to adjust this for the coordinates near you.)

 

Other useful resources include the Puzzle Solving 101 Series

http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...ef-901807ba9c98

and this "Solving Puzzle Caches" article

http://bcaching.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/puzzles-part-1/