Creating a puzzle cache

[+Team Microdot]

18 minutes ago, Quirky Diva said:

Heresay is not proof. I have heard the same too about other certain people. I ignore it. The only criteria  is to find the cache, sign it and put it back, how its solved is up to the finder.

 

Who mentioned heresay?

[+fizzymagic]

"Heresay" is not a thing.

Sorry, it's just one of those things that drives me nuts.

Back on topic:  there are several local examples of puzzles explicitly put out to be "revenge" puzzles.  The hiders acknowledge it in the description.

The point here is that making an unsolvable puzzle is not a sign of superior intelligence; it's generally a sign of weakness.  When there is an unsolvable puzzle nearby, I will try to solve it at first and then perhaps look at it later in a desultory manner, but not get worked up about it.  Nobody can do them all.  Making an unsolvable puzzle is trivially easy.  Making a good puzzle is hard.

[+arisoft]

2 hours ago, LFC4eva said:

I have seen evidence of / heard of geocachers planning the kind of puzzle which could be considered a "revenge puzzle"..

I have seen a revenge puzzle.

Sometimes it happens that a CO makes every new puzzle harder to solve than previous ones until no one can solve the last puzzle. I don't think it is meant to be a revenge but a challenge.

[+colleda]

Wow, revenge puzzles. I have just sent a puzzle off for review so I hope nobody thinks its revenge. Why? We have a Mega event this weekend and there were about 75 Mystery caches published to celebrate the event. I've only been able to solve about four or five of them. There are quite few D1.5 & D2s that I can't solve. D3 and above? Forget it. I suck at puzzles. As for my Mystery awaiting review, I wasn't even sure how to D rate it. I've asked the reviewer for advice because what is a struggle for me may be solved in two seconds by others.

[+hzoi]

Manchester seems like such a friendly place to geocache.

[+Team Microdot]

16 minutes ago, hzoi said:

Manchester seems like such a friendly place to geocache.

You take your life in your hands

[+Clongo_Rongo]

On 18/03/2018 at 7:48 PM, CHEZRASCALS said:

I would be interested to know when creating a puzzle cache, do you make it so it can be found/solved or do you make impossible to solve for many people and enjoy the DNF'S,

and smile at the fact that people are spending hours bashing the keyboard to not find a solution.

I am trying to work out what the community thinks about puzzles found once or twice every couple of years and is it worth the effort or just place a normal cache for cachers to enjoy

 

 

I am ready to get a puzzle cache published, so now I have to consider if it is classed as a finders puzzle, a might get found puzzle or other type of puzzle.

one thing I would like to know is, if someone logs the cache as found on the website, but did not have a pen and not signed the log and not even tried to make a mark on the sheet by other means, would I delete the log or accept that the guideline don't exist to the forgetful cachers?.

GuildeLine 1.5

1.5. Log a geocache

Find a cache and sign the logbook

Respect the environment and keep the cache area intact. Also, make sure to be stealthy when muggles are around.

1. Find the cache.
2. Sign the logbook.
3. Trade SWAG or trackables.
4. Put the cache back exactly as you found it.

 

[+LFC4eva]

46 minutes ago, CHEZRASCALS said:

I am ready to get a puzzle cache published, so now I have to consider if it is classed as a finders puzzle, a might get found puzzle or other type of puzzle.

one thing I would like to know is, if someone logs the cache as found on the website, but did not have a pen and not signed the log and not even tried to make a mark on the sheet by other means,

 

*would I delete the log or accept that the guideline don't exist to the forgetful cachers?.*

Surely only you could answer that question. How would we know what YOU would do?

[+Team Microdot]

1 hour ago, CHEZRASCALS said:

On 3/18/2018 at 7:48 PM, CHEZRASCALS said:

I would be interested to know when creating a puzzle cache, do you make it so it can be found/solved or do you make impossible to solve for many people and enjoy the DNF'S,

and smile at the fact that people are spending hours bashing the keyboard to not find a solution.

I am trying to work out what the community thinks about puzzles found once or twice every couple of years and is it worth the effort or just place a normal cache for cachers to enjoy

 

 

I am ready to get a puzzle cache published, so now I have to consider if it is classed as a finders puzzle, a might get found puzzle or other type of puzzle.

one thing I would like to know is, if someone logs the cache as found on the website, but did not have a pen and not signed the log and not even tried to make a mark on the sheet by other means, would I delete the log or accept that the guideline don't exist to the forgetful cachers?.

I'm not aware of these puzzle classes - could you elaborate on the key properties of a finders puzzle, a might get found puzzle or other type of puzzle and also how an online log without a corresponding signature or mark in the logbook has any bearing on the puzzle type?

[+LFC4eva]

13 hours ago, CHEZRASCALS said:

I am ready to get a puzzle cache published, so now I have to consider if it is classed as a finders puzzle, a might get found puzzle or other type of puzzle.

one thing I would like to know is, if someone logs the cache as found on the website, but did not have a pen and not signed the log and not even tried to make a mark on the sheet by other means, would I delete the log or accept that the guideline don't exist to the forgetful cachers?.

 

 

 

13 hours ago, LFC4eva said:

Surely only you could answer that question. How would we know what YOU would do?

I think I've worked it out for myself... this is one of those guess what I'm thinking kinda puzzles 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

19 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

You take your life in your hands

Do you geocache there often?  

[+Team Microdot]

14 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

19 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

You take your life in your hands

Do you geocache there often?  

Infrequently - and only then in full riot gear

[+NYPaddleCacher]

20 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

24 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

20 hours ago, Team Microdot said:

You take your life in your hands

Do you geocache there often?  

Infrequently - and only then in full riot gear

That's probably someone most locals have anyway for when Arsenal comes to town.

[+Team Microdot]

23 hours ago, LFC4eva said:

I think I've worked it out for myself... this is one of those guess what I'm thinking kinda puzzles 

I guess so

[+thebruce0]

On 3/19/2018 at 10:05 AM, J Grouchy said:

Honestly, it can often be tough to really know how easy or difficult a puzzle can be when you are the one making it.  I've created several that I thought would be tough, but get solved quickly.  Others that I thought might be solved relatively quickly took people a long time to solve.  I have one puzzle that apparently drives the locals crazy, but was solved by one person relatively quickly (he never actually found the cache, though...so it's never been logged).  I've just decided that I'll never really know for sure how my puzzles will be received.  I'm terrible at solving puzzles, but I enjoy making them.  I don't create them anymore with any preconceptions...I just make them because I enjoy coming up with new ideas.  I almost always get positive feedback, though...so I guess I'll keep it up.

Likewise. I have a couple of very hard puzzles, but I hate when puzzles require the leap. I'm a pattern-recognition puzzler, so I try to make puzzles that can be solved by recognizing patterns.  As commented below though, even patterns may not be recognized without sufficient knowledge  If one has never seen a Bacon cipher, the marks of a Bacon cipher pattern aren't recognizable. So puzzle design and providing connecting dots is still an essential component.  Can't say I'm the best puzzle designer, but I do prefer designing more than solving, for the most part

 

On 3/19/2018 at 3:44 PM, The A-Team said:

A] A puzzle should be logical. That is, you should be able to deduce how to solve it from the information provided, rather than having to guess out of thin air. It can be as vague as a single word in the title or the presence of a lone attribute, but there should be some way to get from A to B. Without that logic, you have an obtuse puzzle that is really just a game of luck.

 

B] As for impossible puzzles, that shouldn't be possible anymore. You're required to describe in a note to the reviewer how to solve your puzzle when you submit it, in order to help avoid impossible puzzles. I'd be curious to hear from a reviewer how many impossible puzzles still get submitted.

Here's the relevant section from the Help Center:

A] Yep, it's that progression from unintelligible, nudged by pointers, towards intelligible. The difference between a cache page with gibberish text and nothing else (requiring say finding a pattern based on knowing some other trivia, the subject of which isn't indicated or hinted anywhere), vs say a string of A's and B's with a title hinting at bacon. Typically the latter would prompt someone to do a little 'research' if they didn't know already to learn about the nature of the puzzle, then move on to the task of solving the puzzle. That could be one step. So even if you knew the type of puzzle, you still had something to solve, and if you didn't know, you're pointed in the right direction without guesswork. The next step might be another cipher type. Point being, if you don't know something, you're not left to guess what it is.  And that goes especially for trial-and-error puzzles. Keep trying things until something clicks.

Plus the concept of 'when you've got it you'll know' - that is a form of puzzly reward. Whether it's suddenly signal popping out of the noise, or a verifier/checker bluntly saying "you're right", letting you move on to the next step.

B] Even then, the reviewer has to judge whether they think the puzzle is too hard. So if you want to design a hard puzzle, better hope the reviewer can grasp the concept of a hard puzzle, and not just think it's too hard for them so it's too hard for whatever threshold of the public they're setting the bar at.

 

On 3/19/2018 at 4:00 PM, fizzymagic said:

the puzzles I have enjoyed the most had the following in common:

• Discoverability. Everything ties together logically, and the solver can tell that they are making progress as they proceed. When the puzzle is initially seen, there is some idea about what to do; the best puzzles don't require a huge leap to get started.
• Originality.  I love finding a new puzzle type I have never done before.
• Thematic. I love puzzles that have a common theme running through the stages, and best of all is an in-theme hide.

Yes yes and yes!

Especially on originality. Once you do a lot of puzzles, you see what are 'popular' types. eg, sudoku. But the more these pop up, the less likely I'll want to sit down and and solve it for the coordinates. Over time, the chance I'll want to just drop the puzzle into a solver increases, because it'll feel more like a technicality.  But, design a sudoku-based puzzle which has some unique twist to it, that'll get my attention. But again, as long as the twist is discoverable, or obvious. Even if it's a neat combination of two types of puzzles that one their own might be easily solvable, but together provide a very different solving experience.

 

On 3/20/2018 at 7:10 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

Based on this criteria, the best puzzle I've done, by far, is "The Key to the Cryptonomicon".  It's based upon Neal Stephensons book "Key to Cryptonomicon" which includes geocaching in the plot.  The puzzle contains several plot elements from the book and has several red herrings that are not part of the solution but tie the puzzle together.  On the cache page I think there were four different fairly obvious puzzle that lead to other puzzles to be solved and in some cases there was more than one way to get a piece of information needed to progress.  It took me about three months to finish it and I know of others that spent far longer.

I'll have to look that one up.  There are a few quality 'puzzle book' style publications out there. Maze of Games is a good one. House of Leaves isn't so much puzzly as unconventional reading. Ship of Theseus (JJ Abrams) is another great example.  That Cryptonomicon cache (GCXBFC?) looks very, very cool...

 

On 3/20/2018 at 1:22 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

For those that just ask for coordinates (the solution) for a puzzle, to me, they haven't really solved the puzzle.  Yes, they got the solution needed to find the cache, but they haven't really solved the puzzle.  There are also sites which provide a bunch of different cipher solvers, and to me, using them isn't really solving the puzzle either.  Cut-n-pasting some text into a form and have it spit out a solution isn't really solving the puzzle.  Some sites will even figure out what kind of cipher has been used, apply a tool which decodes that text and returns an answer.  The puzzle "solver" doesn't even have to know what kind of cipher it is.

In the case of a puzzle such as the W3W puzzle it's difficult for someone to provide a hint without basically giving the solution away.  I suspect pretty much everyone would recognize a soduku or cross word puzzle and know immediately what to do (and there are soduko solver sites as well).  However, if someone has never seen a pigpen cipher before they'd probably have no idea what to do (because they wouldn't know to search for pigpen to see how to solve them).  Once they've encountered just one puzzle cache which uses a pigpen cipher they're easy to recognize and easy to solve.  On some puzzle help sites I've seen you'll see "I don't want an answer, I just want a hint?" but if the hint is "it's a pigpen cipher" you might as well just get the answer.

The only issue then is, do you consider someone using a vigenere decoder as not having "solved" the puzzle because they used a tool and didn't do it by hand?  At some point recognizing a puzzle method is the puzzle, and whether you go through the busywork of solving it manually or using an automated algorithm if you know you can solve it is a matter of personal enjoyment, ethic, reducing busywork. That'll entirely depend on the puzzle and the person. I don't think using a tool to reduce busywork negates the 'solving' of a puzzle. But using a tool to even identify the puzzle would be. Just like having to mind read to determine the puzzle method, using a tool to skip that part I think is more akin to not solving a puzzle. Theoretically, you could take the cache page, pump it into this tool, and come out with a solution. That's not solving a puzzle. Just like giving a puzzle to a smart friend to get the solution; not solving a puzzle (to counter, as above - if say you don't have time but you know the puzzle and know you could solve it, and you have a friend who can do the 'busywork' for you, I'd consider that like having a website crunch the numbers, as it were, for you).

Disclaimer: all the above comments are based on my opinion =)

[+thebruce0]

On 3/25/2018 at 6:18 PM, fizzymagic said:

Back on topic:  there are several local examples of puzzles explicitly put out to be "revenge" puzzles.  The hiders acknowledge it in the description.

Yup.

Years ago Swine Flu - Bacon's Revenge was published in response to Ode to a Wonderful Magical Animal which went a while without a solution but local community had fun with it. The revenge puzzle was MANY levels higher on the difficulty scale (I have no idea the stats on how many people avctually solved it themselves), requiring very technical knowledge. Two very different types of puzzles. Both hard, for different reasons. Some might say the first is "unsolvable". But it's as unsolvable as a cache on an island is unretrievable by someone without a boat, who can't swim, hates walking on ice, and won't work to find a way there with anyone else.

[+arisoft]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

B] Even then, the reviewer has to judge whether they think the puzzle is too hard. So if you want to design a hard puzzle, better hope the reviewer can grasp the concept of a hard puzzle, and not just think it's too hard for them so it's too hard for whatever threshold of the public they're setting the bar at.

Newer seen a reviewer questioning the difficulty of the mystery puzzle but challenges will be rejected if they are too hard. When the number of hard puzzles is reasonable I don't see any problem if there are some very hard ones. Some puzzles have been waiting years for the FTF. In some cases the final solution has been brute force if no one can find the correct solution for the puzzle.

[+thebruce0]

22 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Newer seen a reviewer questioning the difficulty of the mystery puzzle but challenges will be rejected if they are too hard.

It does happen.

 

23 minutes ago, arisoft said:

In some cases the final solution has been brute force if no one can find the correct solution for the puzzle.

Likewise, I've chatted with a puzzle CO about this very thing. And there are two ways a CO can take it (both perfectly okay, imo, as the response is a personal choice with no obligation to community about future caches) - 1) decide not to publish any more puzzles and archive the one that no one's solving but just passing around the answer - or 2) learn and design better puzzles in the future that people can either solve easier or are more likely to want to solve rather than brute force or pass coordinates around.

[+Harry Dolphin]

1 hour ago, arisoft said:

Newer seen a reviewer questioning the difficulty of the mystery puzzle but challenges will be rejected if they are too hard. When the number of hard puzzles is reasonable I don't see any problem if there are some very hard ones. Some puzzles have been waiting years for the FTF. In some cases the final solution has been brute force if no one can find the correct solution for the puzzle.

I've had a few times a reviewer ask me how to solve a puzzle.  So it does happen.

[+arisoft]

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

Likewise, I've chatted with a puzzle CO about this very thing. And there are two ways a CO can take it (both perfectly okay, imo, as the response is a personal choice with no obligation to community about future caches) - 1) decide not to publish any more puzzles and archive the one that no one's solving but just passing around the answer - or 2) learn and design better puzzles in the future that people can either solve easier or are more likely to want to solve rather than brute force or pass coordinates around.

I think that this is general topic everywhere. You can not prevent passing coordinates around even by making them easier. The CO should consider this before starting to plan the cache. Sometimes the awareness comes afterwards and may be too shocking. Then the owner archives all puzzle caches in panic - needlessly.

During these years I have made puzzle caches I have learned that there are some players who are willing to solve the puzzle before trying to find it. They want to find the cache because they have solved the puzzle not because they get a find in statistics. These finders are easy to see about the contents of the logs.

[+arisoft]

17 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

I've had a few times a reviewer ask me how to solve a puzzle.  So it does happen.

They ask this question to verify that the solution needs some gps usage and comply with other regulations.

Did the reviewer say that you have to make is easier?

[+Harry Dolphin]

18 minutes ago, arisoft said:

They ask this question to verify that the solution needs some gps usage and comply with other regulations.

Did the reviewer say that you have to make is easier?

No.  He asked to make sure that it could be solved, not that it needed GPS usage.  I think one reviewer suggested that I might want to make one easier.

[+cerberus1]

19 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

No.  He asked to make sure that it could be solved, not that it needed GPS usage.  I think one reviewer suggested that I might want to make one easier.

You ever make your puzzles easier, I'm in ! 

[+arisoft]

15 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

He asked to make sure that it could be solved, not that it needed GPS usage.

If the solution is coordinates it means that it may need gps usage For example, if the solution is "Behind the red box" it does not need gps usage.

Sometimes a reviewer have not accepted my solution because this kind of reasons but never because the puzzle difficulty is above D5.

[+Team Microdot]

29 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

I've had a few times a reviewer ask me how to solve a puzzle.  So it does happen.

I've had a reviewer ask for further clarification on how a puzzle was solved and then pass it up to the reviewer community for further checks.

[+arisoft]

15 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

I've had a reviewer ask for further clarification on how a puzzle was solved and then pass it up to the reviewer community for further checks.

Sometimes I've run into unexpected problems because of secret rules. For example, I have been told that it is not acceptable to use a steganographic method which is not available from two different online sources.

[+Team Microdot]

18 minutes ago, arisoft said:

23 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

I've had a reviewer ask for further clarification on how a puzzle was solved and then pass it up to the reviewer community for further checks.

Sometimes I've run into unexpected problems because of secret rules. For example, I have been told that it is not acceptable to use a steganographic method which is not available from two different online sources.

I don't think on this occasion there were any 'secret rules' involved - it was just a complex puzzle.

[+arisoft]

18 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

I don't think on this occasion there were any 'secret rules' involved - it was just a complex puzzle.

Yes, asking clarification means that your explanation was not sufficient to understand the puzzle. Years ago I made a puzzle which seems to be solvable only by guessing the solution. Mainly because the description introduced only that solution method. The reviewer did not accept it for that reason in the first run, but when I gave a scientific explanation with references, how this puzzle can be solved without guessing the solution, it was accepted.

[+thebruce0]

48 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Did the reviewer say that you have to make is easier?

Yes

 

26 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

I don't think on this occasion there were any 'secret rules' involved - it was just a complex puzzle.

Yep.

[+arisoft]

14 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

50 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Did the reviewer say that you have to make is easier?

Yes

Would you like to disclose what kind of puzzle that was? I have made some very hard puzzles but these puzzles contains a well defind task like this.

[+thebruce0]

26 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Yes, asking clarification means that your explanation was not sufficient to understand the puzzle.

No, speaking for myself, it's not a matter of "clarification" to understand the puzzle, it was as I said - make it easier. .. there was concern about whether they felt there was leaping involved. Despite a clear layout of how one step leads to the next, how each step is logically solvable, without needing any leap.
Part of their concern may well be pre-emptively recommending against certain design principles that could lead people to complaining about being "unsolvable" or "not wanting a cache to be found" (of course neither of which are true).  Merely because it was too difficult for them.  So the reviewer would recommend making it easier. Providing more hints. More tips. More connections. Or less work.

 

21 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Would you like to disclose what kind of puzzle that was?

Original and unique.

[+Team Microdot]

20 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

39 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Yes, asking clarification means that your explanation was not sufficient to understand the puzzle.

No, speaking for myself, it's not a matter of "clarification" to understand the puzzle, it was as I said - make it easier

In my case it was more to do with the reviewer not being a big puzzle fan and passing it up to another reviewer who was more of a puzzle fan and thus more able to judge.

I will point out at this stage, so as to avoid a moderator warning, that the above statement is fact, and is not disrespectful of the reviewer - it was he who told me what was happening and why.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Team Microdot
typo

[+arisoft]

17 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Merely because it was too difficult for them.  So the reviewer would recommend making it easier. Providing more hints. More tips. More connections. Or less work.

Never happened for me. I think that different reviewers have different view in this matter. Your reviewer tries to understand how to solve the puzzle. Most reviewers here are not willing to verify that the puzzle is solvable. Frankly, it is not their job anyway.

[+Team Microdot]

19 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Frankly, it is not their job anyway.

Perhaps it's become a necessary evil to stop people from publishing broken or silly or even deliverately unsolvable puzzles?

[+arisoft]

17 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Perhaps it's become a necessary evil to stop people from publishing broken or silly or even deliverately unsolvable puzzles?

For what reason? I can not imagine a good reason, maybe there is some good reason you know.

[+Team Microdot]

16 minutes ago, arisoft said:

23 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Perhaps it's become a necessary evil to stop people from publishing broken or silly or even deliverately unsolvable puzzles?

For what reason? I can not imagine a good reason, maybe there is some good reason you know.

I refer you back to my original statement.

[+arisoft]

16 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

I refer you back to my original statement.

I don't like recursive puzzles

[+dprovan]

On 3/25/2018 at 1:43 PM, baer2006 said:

Just to refute the "no one" in the last sentence: I know perfectly well, what a "revenge puzzle" is, and could name an example, but won't do so for the same reasons that Team Microdot has indicated.

So there are two classes of people reading this thread: those that already know what a revenge puzzle so don't need to be told about them, and those of us that have never seen such a thing and wanted an example so we could understand. When Microdot refuses to provide an example, I'm wondering why he brought it up to begin with since the informations of no use to either class.

On 3/25/2018 at 3:46 PM, arisoft said:

I have seen a revenge puzzle.

I see that it's called "revenge". but as far as I can see, it's just a moderately hard puzzle. I didn't bother to solve it, but it looks like it would be difficult but still relatively straightforward to track down the clues, find the key, and solve the code. So if that's all Microdot's talking about, then I'd like to see some in my area. In my area, such get-even puzzles which are as hard or harder than some other puzzle but still solvable are normally called "who's to blame" puzzles since the title or description blames another puzzle cache for making someone think of this harder puzzle to use in a puzzle cache.

In my experience, it's much more common for the problem being that a CO thinks he knows how to create puzzle caches but doesn't, and carpet bombs an area with caches he doesn't realize are unsolvable or likes them being unsolvable because people have to come to him for answers. I've never seen anyone post a puzzle that's intentionally impossible to get even for some other hard puzzle. The closest I've seen is puzzles that are impossible to solve just because the CO's mean and doesn't get the concept of finding geocaches, not because they've had a bad experience with other hard puzzle caches. Most people I've noticed that don't like hard puzzle caches know full well why that don't want to inflict the same feelings on someone else.

[+dprovan]

18 minutes ago, arisoft said:

I don't like recursive puzzles

Oh, geeze, don't look in my area then. Recursive puzzles were very popular for a while around here. Hmmmm.... as I recall, one of the biggest "offenders" is participating in this discussion as we speak. :-)

[+Team Microdot]

19 minutes ago, dprovan said:

When Microdot refuses to provide an example, I'm wondering why he brought it up to begin with since the informations of no use to either class.

IIRC I never mentioned revenge puzzles - only revenge setters. A small but important distinction.

19 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I've never seen anyone post a puzzle that's intentionally impossible to get

I have - and proved it by handing sufficient forensic evidence to the reviewer which even demonstrated how the setter tried and failed to modify the puzzle along the way to cover their tracks.

 

Edited March 28, 2018 by Team Microdot
typo

[+thebruce0]

36 minutes ago, arisoft said:

Never happened for me. I think that different reviewers have different view in this matter. Your reviewer tries to understand how to solve the puzzle. Most reviewers here are not willing to verify that the puzzle is solvable.

Yes, very much the reviewers' opinion may differ from region to region. We weren't saying every reviewer makes a judgement as to whether a puzzle is "too hard", only that it happens.

Additionally, again, it's not about a reviewer trying to understand the puzzle. They might, full well, but still feel it's too hard, requesting - recommending - finding some way to make it 'easier'.

[+fizzymagic]

3 hours ago, dprovan said:

Oh, geeze, don't look in my area then. Recursive puzzles were very popular for a while around here. Hmmmm.... as I recall, one of the biggest "offenders" is participating in this discussion as we speak. :-)

I have no idea what you are talking about.

In those cases, by the way, the recursive nature of the puzzle was clearly spelled out in the title.  I'm not sure why anybody would not like recursive puzzles, unless by "recursive" they mean something different from what I mean by "recursive."

Here is an example.

This brings up another feature of the best puzzles. 

• It is apparent that the puzzle took far more effort to create than to solve.

I love puzzles where I can't imagine how the creator did that!  They have to be good by all my other criteria, of course, but recognizing that the creator put real effort into the creation of a puzzle makes me appreciate it more.  Sadly, the vast majority of new puzzles I have seen have exactly the opposite balance:  the creator spent little or no effort on the creation of the puzzle and expects the solver to expend a great deal more on the solution.

Edited March 28, 2018 by fizzymagic

[+niraD]

58 minutes ago, fizzymagic said:

I love puzzles where I can't imagine how the creator did that!

Yep. One of my Favorites is like that. When I finally solved it, I was stunned by what the solution implied about how the owner must have created it.

[+thebruce0]

4 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

This brings up another feature of the best puzzles. 

• It is apparent that the puzzle took far more effort to create than to solve.

I love puzzles where I can't imagine how the creator did that!  They have to be good by all my other criteria, of course, but recognizing that the creator put real effort into the creation of a puzzle makes me appreciate it more.  Sadly, the vast majority of new puzzles I have seen have exactly the opposite balance:  the creator spent little or no effort on the creation of the puzzle and expects the solver to expend a great deal more on the solution.

Yep, like wise here too. To me it's a kind of inspiration. Perhaps the engineer in me; if I don't get how someone made the puzzle, I kinda want to figure out or understand how.  That plays into the originality thing. If I don't recognize a puzzle, because it's custom design and built, that gets a lot more respect from me than just populating a puzzle with a solution you can pull the needed info from.  Some examples of custom-coded puzzles I've made, which tend to get very positive feedback - GC2ZG24, GC6RXHC, GC2P887, GC6EPH8.  Unconventional.  Those are the kinds of puzzles I love to explore and respect (maybe because I know how much work goes into making them:). Taking more time to create knowing that it'll take much less time to solve, means you're likely putting more work into providing a better experience, not just trying to get a puzzle cache out there.

ETA: Nice job on the speckled square!  Thankfully I have a tool that makes part of the task much easier (but, it is a tool I created so I have no qualms with saying I 'solved' it despite some steps taking only a couple of clicks

Edited March 29, 2018 by thebruce0

[+Team Microdot]

On 29/03/2018 at 2:20 AM, thebruce0 said:

Some examples of custom-coded puzzles I've made, which tend to get very positive feedback

I consider feedback an essential part of the puzzle setting / solving relationship.

When I've set puzzles in the past there's always a moment of relief when someone solves it for the first time - with zero assistance. That person's feedback is worth its weight in gold.

Feedback from anyone who has been steered toward the solution is less useful.

[+Clongo_Rongo]

Once my puzzle has been published, can I move the container after it has been found, even if the solution to the final is the same ?

[+thebruce0]

7 minutes ago, CHEZRASCALS said:

Once my puzzle has been published, can I move the container after it has been found, even if the solution to the final is the same ?

While there's nothing saying you can't move the container after it's been published, moving the container would be just like moving a traditional cache. The final coordinate waypoint that's attached to your listing must be updated, and the new location must also be in an allowable spot (standard physical placement rules apply - permission, proximity, etc).  Before you make any changes, it would be best to ask your local or publishing reviewer for recommendations and a check on the new location.

[+Clongo_Rongo]

Just now, thebruce0 said:

While there's nothing saying you can't move the container after it's been published, moving the container would be just like moving a traditional cache. The final coordinate waypoint that's attached to your listing must be updated, and the new location must also be in an allowable spot (standard physical placement rules apply - permission, proximity, etc).  Before you make any changes, it would be best to ask your local or publishing reviewer for recommendations and a check on the new location.

thanks, my limited understanding was that you could move it, so to stop the next person passing on the final location and the reviewer does not need to know as the solution is the same,

so say it is moved up or down by plus or minus 5 meters and as no hint, could be anyway in a woodland area

[+thebruce0]

6 minutes ago, CHEZRASCALS said:

thanks, my limited understanding was that you could move it, so to stop the next person passing on the final location and the reviewer does not need to know as the solution is the same,

so say it is moved up or down by plus or minus 5 meters and as no hint, could be anyway in a woodland area

Yeah, that may not seem like a lot, but there could still be proximity issues.  Most likely it'll be fine, but it's always always better to communicate with a reviewer beforehand. if there's a problem and the reviewer finds out afterwards, that may not go over very well at all......

[Keystone]

Traveling/Moving caches are not allowed under the listing guidelines, and accurate coordinates are required under the listing guidelines.  A cache is subject to being archived if it doesn't follow the listing guidelines.