Myst style Geocaches

[linkerjpatrick]

I found out about Geocaching from someone on a message board run by the company who made Myst and is now making who is to beleived to be the most cutting edge online multiplayer game which is supposed to come out sometime in 2003. From what I understand the new game will continue the exploring/puzzle solving goals of Myst, Riven and Exile except on a much grander scale and it will be ongoing as the developers will be adding and constantly making changes to the ages. Well, we have had some discussions and are trying to come up with some puzzles or Myst-style themed caches. Of course you won't be able to find strange books that can transport you to other diminsions but we would like to maybe devise mutiple caches that have different puzzle pieces and/or interesting ways to access the cache itself. Like only the clues will be posted but the actual cache cordinates will be accessed by putting together clues or maybe have something in one cache that is need to open something in the next one, etc. Also I would like to stay away from the typical tupperware container and find something that looks a bit more "mystish" any ideas?

[+regoarrarr]

Mario's Tower has some of that

[Dinoprophet]

There are a lot of puzzle-oriented caches out there. No good way to search for them, but if your search the message boards, you'll find a lot of discussion about them.

 

I've only played Myst of the series, and it was a while ago (I was disappointed in the game itself, but the setting and mood were great). A good starting place for designing something like this would be the different ages. A single multicache with each step relating to an age, or even a series of individual caches, each corresponding to an age.

 

Someone has done a series of Star Wars themed caches that might give you some ideas. Again, search the message boards.

 

[+mattb5]

Wow! This just inspired a great idea. I remembered back to high school when we played the text-based games from Infocom. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Zork etc.

And I remembered the books that were out at the time where you had to make a decision. Something like "Open the door? Yes, go to page 238; No, go to page 129" How about a HUGE multi-cache like that. Put small chapters in each cache and a multiple choice answer. "Yes, go to 42 xx.xxx -71 xx.xxx; no, go to 42 yy.yyy -72 yy.yyy"

I've been trying to think of something really cool for my first hide, and I think this may be it!

[tatoeba]

I played that too!

I think it's a great idea Go for it but it needs a lot of preparation.

 

Good luck!

 

Legendeo game is still in Beta!

[+parkrrrr]

Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles was designed to be Myst-like. It consists of a series of three puzzles, none of which require any sort of directions to solve. Each puzzle, if solved correctly, gives the coordinates of the next stage. One puzzle in the series requires information that you had to have the foresight to write down when you solved a previous puzzle. None of the puzzles is of the same type, so knowing how to solve puzzle 2 won't help a bit with puzzle 3. They all use the same six colors (I should have used five, for the Riven feel, but one of the pieces really needed to be white) and the same kind of container, to give a "themed" feel to the cache, and even the location hints are somewhat connected.

 

[tatoeba]

Hello Fuzzy!

 

I checked your Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles cache and it looks great. From the log book I understand geocachers feel like having done a big accomplishment and you should be praised for that. Too bad it's too far from California!!

 

Are you preparing a new one? and how much work to create Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles?

 

Thanks,

JP

 

Legendeo game is still in Beta!

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by tatoeba:

Are you preparing a new one? and how much work to create Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles?

---

 

I am preparing a new one, but it won't be at all like Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles except that it'll be - sort of - a multicache. Our goal is for the new one to be a 5/1. It's going to be more of an "all is not what it seems" sort of thing rather than a puzzle thing: you find a card in a local cache, and it claims to contain the coordinates of my new cache, but they're not obvious at first glance. It does, of course, contain the coordinates, but in a non-obvious way that has nothing to do with solving puzzles and everything to do with how you look at the card.

 

I do still have some puzzles I want to base caches around, but most of them are not the sort that don't need instructions, so they don't fall under the "Myst-like" category.

 

How long did Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles take? Well, writing the program to generate a puzzle with a unique solution for the final stage took me several hours. Designing the other two puzzles took only an hour or so of brainstorming, because they aren't so much puzzles as things you have to look at and just have that "Aha!" moment where you suddenly realize what you're supposed to do with it. (The first one isn't even that; most people seem to put it back in the cache already solved. You can't do that with the other two puzzles; they won't fit in the box in their solved state.)

 

After I had the puzzles on paper, I gave them to Warm for playtesting, and she gave the really hard one to a bunch of middle-school students to see how bad it really was. A handful of them solved it in a day's time, so we decided the difficulty level was just about perfect.

 

After that, I spent about 10-12 hours making somewhat more durable versions of all of the puzzles to put in the actual caches, scouting for locations for the intermediate stages, and painting and otherwise preparing cache containers for each stage. So, all told, there's probably somewhere around 20 hours of total work involved.

 

That, of course, doesn't count the hours the computer spent generating every uniquely solvable puzzle of the form I used for the last cache (There are hundreds of thousands of them.)

 

[tatoeba]

Thanks a lot for your detailed explanations! Lot of work and testing.

 

I am myself preparing a little game for Angelinos geocachers. Since I cannot go to your cache in order to understand how your puzzle works would it be possible for you to share one with me in private so I could inspire myself from you? If you prefer not I would completely understand.

 

Thank you!

 

Legendeo game is still in Beta!

[+Rygel]

I'd be willing to work with people on doing something like this in the NJ/NYC area.

 

The great question...which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" --Freud

[Enos Shenk]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by tatoeba:

Are you preparing a new one? and how much work to create Perfectly Perplexing Puzzles?

---

she gave the really hard one to a bunch of middle-school students to see how bad it really was. A handful of them solved it in a day's time, so we decided the difficulty level was just about perfect.

---

 

Hahaha...And i spent 2 weeks on stage 2. Boy dont i feel smart now.

 

[Episkipos Enos Shenk, KSC]

[403forbidden.urbanexploration.org]

[Lefty Skywalker]

I briefly consiedered one based on the Choose Your Own Adventure format, but that's not really a puzzle, the results of your choices are sort of arbitrary, etc. Not to mention it would take months to hide all the waypoints...

 

What Would Yoda Do?

[StrongBad Cacher]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lefty Skywalker:

I briefly consiedered one based on the Choose Your Own Adventure format, but that's not really a puzzle, the results of your choices are sort of arbitrary, etc. Not to mention it would take months to hide all the waypoints...

---

 

I was thinking of doing the same thing, but I thought better of it when I realized the legwork involved.

 

...On a scale from one to awsome, I'm super great!

[+martinp13]

Actually, there's no need for THAT much waypoint-hiding. Instead of using something provided by YOU at each point, use something in the indigenous terrain. "If the plaque was dedicated in an even year, go to N xxx W xxx. If an odd year, go to N yyy W yyy." And so forth. You could even use the same waypoint early and late in the path, based on if they're on the right or wrong path. Finding the final cache would involve collecting info along the path, so you will only have the correct final coordinates if you followed the correct path.

 

_____________________________________________________

> Martin (Magellan 330)

Don't have time to program and record your shows while geocaching? Get a TiVo!

[ty_dolney]

Check out GCED9A. This is my attempt to create a little bit of adventure with a myst twist(i.e. puzzle-solving). I'm just using a ammo can for the prize box.

[Vacman]

Here is my puzzle cache - Around the Hill in 30 Miles or less

 

If you drop your keys into molten lava just let 'em go 'cause, man, they're gone.

[+Draegon]

Just my .02.

 

But regoarrarr's "Mario's Tower" (linked above) is a fantastic cache.

 

This cache is nearly impossible to complete in one day. Involving logic puzzles, quadratic equations, even having to find and read part of a book (thankfully he includes directions to the nearest library).

 

Draegon, Cache Care-taker of the OKIC

Team Draegon

Cincinnati, Ohio USA

 

"To conquer without risk is to succeed without glory"