Puzzle Mindset

[+dorqie]

I'm having a bad puzzle day. I can't get my head wrapped around solving any, and I'm finding myself quite disscouraged.

Is there a particular space of mind you get into before you tackle puzzles? Do you have a stratagy for solving them?

[+narcissa]

If I'm in the mood to try puzzles, I pick a few that look interesting. I'll look at one, and if I can't come up with anything, I move on to the next. I don't try to solve puzzles unless I want to - they can always wait for another day.

[+popokiiti]

I always have bad puzzle days.....only managed to solve one by left clicking and dragging the cursor around in a fit of pique! Of course, if I had just printed that cache page, the answer would have been revealed. I found that out after about half an hour of increasing frustration! Perhaps that is why I only have the one puzzle solved........

[+Chokecherry]

Sometimes I'll scan through local puzzles and see how I feel about them. I printed some off the other weekend just to noodle around with when I had some spare time. One was a logic puzzle which I love and after some work managed to solve that. I felt like no pressure (except from my mom who wanted to add it to our up coming trip).

 

They're nice for those icky days you can't go out on.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I'm having a bad puzzle day. I can't get my head wrapped around solving any, and I'm finding myself quite disscouraged.

Is there a particular space of mind you get into before you tackle puzzles? Do you have a stratagy for solving them?

 

A nice glass of red wine, a cold beer, or a tumbler of scotch helps. Since I'm working on a nice Spanish Temperanillo, perhaps I should take a stab at a couple of puzzles.

 

I know what you mean those. Some days I can stare at puzzles for hours and not see a thing. I've had other days when I've solved three pretty difficult (1 a four star) puzzles in a few hours. All three of them were written in French and I don't speak the language.

[ashnikes]

I treat puzzles like I treat women, Im all excited about them at first, then they drag on, and nag at me until i cant take it anymore, and i dump em like yesterdays Chinese restaurant trash.

 

but this weekend, im making it a point to give all my multi and puzzle caches one more go around, a bootycall of sorts for those caches most people avoid, cause even puzzle and multi caches need loving once in a while,

[GOF's Sock Puppet]

I treat puzzles like I treat women, Im all excited about them at first, then they drag on, and nag at me until i cant take it anymore, and i dump em like yesterdays Chinese restaurant trash.

 

but this weekend, im making it a point to give all my multi and puzzle caches one more go around, a bootycall of sorts for those caches most people avoid, cause even puzzle and multi caches need loving once in a while,

 

Now wait one minute! I thought you were into picking up yesterdays Chinese restaurant trash?

[ashnikes]

you must be a woman.

[+Chrysalides]

Is there a particular space of mind you get into before you tackle puzzles? Do you have a stratagy for solving them?

I have good days and bad days too. Once I experimented with trying to solve at least one 3 star and higher difficulty puzzle a day. It helped somewhat - the mind seems to be more in the "puzzle solving" mode. It also helps to have someone bounce ideas off.

 

I've tried beating my head against a puzzle non-stop, and also to shelve it and look at it some time later. The beating head only worked a few times, and I only do it if I need to solve it badly. Not as much fun. I keep notes of what I've tried so far.

[+brslk]

I treat puzzles like I treat women, Im all excited about them at first, then they drag on, and nag at me until i cant take it anymore, and i dump em like yesterdays Chinese restaurant trash.

 

but this weekend, im making it a point to give all my multi and puzzle caches one more go around, a bootycall of sorts for those caches most people avoid, cause even puzzle and multi caches need loving once in a while,

 

That was good.

[JohnX]

In my opinion, it is really hard to come up with a good puzzle cache. I did one that I was very pleased with. It was called "My Dear Watson." It hinted at "It's elementary, my dear Watson!" of the Sherlock Holmes books. It used the periodic table of elements to encode the coordinates of the cache. However, you could find the cache without a GPS if you were clever just by reading the cache page. A friend of mine who is self proclaimed hopeless at puzzle caches figured it out after a few months of annoyance. She was driving near the cache site with her kids and wondered "Why did he say that in the listing?" A U turn ensued and the cache was quickly found without a GPS. I really enjoyed that she figured out the true puzzle.