Tips on Making a Great Wherigo?

[harper_finding_stuff]

Hello all, I’m planning on making a Wherigo cache because my city doesn’t have any (if you know about my city, you’ll know that’s pretty surprising). I’m not experienced in Lua at all, so I’ve been using Wherigo//kit, but I feel like it’s not enough. I want to make something really interesting that cachers will love. So, do you have any advice? If you’ve built a Wherigo, what did you do to really add that “pizzazz”?

[Ranger Fox]

From my personal experience creating Wherigo cartridges in my area, I will admit I ramped up the learning curve far more than I should.  The first cartridge I placed was in a downtown area that had people looking at a picture and walking to where the picture was (always line of sight).  After that, I put out Whack-A-Lackey.  My cartridges weren't usually simple.  Then again, in my area, a mystery or more than a couple stage multi is usually a kiss of death for a cache.

 

What I can suggest beyond anything else is this: if the people in your area don't know anything about playing Wherigo, start out with something simple and would take less than twenty minutes.  They'll have to figure out how to get a player app, download a cartridge, and what's expected with Wherigo, which will add to your cartridge's difficulty.  If the player base knows of Wherigo already, that's a different story.  If not, start off with something easy for them.

 

That said, I've always found that it's fun if it's a nice story and it ties into the location.  So I'd suggest you find a location.

 

And I'll have to cut my reply short.

[+coachstahly]

My first Wherigo was built using Urwigo and it was a pain in the butt to learn initially.  I liked the idea of creating something a bit more complex but have found that most cachers don't want complex Wherigos.  I love the simplicity of the Kit and find that it rarely has issues when people go after mine.  Like RF, I suggest starting out with something easy yet interesting.  The Kit has the question and answer which works great for what I want to draw people's attention to.  Perhaps you could highlight some of the historical locations, points of interest, or unique features of your area and use them as points along a virtual tour of your city.  By providing a variety of questions, it allows you to guarantee that they actually visit the location, especially if you choose the open ended question, which requires an exact matching answer.  Don't make it too long, unless you don't mind long spells in which no one chooses to visit the Wherigo.  The 2 of mine that appear to get the most visitors are contained in a small-ish area that doesn't involve some excessive walking.  The others are a bit longer and spread out over a longer distance so they get less visitors.

[Ranger Fox]

Yes, there are all sorts of fun and creative things you can do with Wherigo.  Unless you just want to put out cartridges and don't care if anyone does them or not, you need to consider your intended audience.  And since yours is a new area to Wherigo, you'll have to build your audience from scratch.  Show people something nice, but don't take up too much of their time.  Read the logs for feedback (and hate on the people who write "found" as their entire log).  Expect to answer some questions and show people how to get started.  Have an event near the cartridge's location so people are more likely to play it.  Give people time to figure things out.

 

For your second cartridge, introduce another new concept to your audience, such as NPCs.  For your third one, do items.  With each of those, mention something on the cache page.  I do wonder, though, if the general audience might be receptive to an introduction to Wherigo cartridge, which walks the non-technical people through some Wherigo concepts.  Yes, this is pretty much what Groundspeak's demo cartridge does, but unless there's a cache associated with it, who reads the instructions?

 

What I've talked about above is pretty much Game Design 101.  Pick a good video game.  It introduces its play mechanics slowly over time.  When your character gets a new ability, you have to use that new ability to get out of the room or situation you're in.  It happens in a controlled environment and in a way that demonstrates the value of the ability.  The same with Wherigo: you don't want to come out with a cartridge that has timers, characters, items, items that can only be used with certain characters, moving zones, item puzzles, etc. as your first cartridge.  And for sanity's sake, don't put Tetris out as your area's first cartridge.  (Yes, I made Tetris with Wherigo, but, no, only the emulator does it justice.)  You're going to end up losing people, who will then ignore cartridges when you make them or just ask people for the final coordinates.

 

One of the reasons I don't put out many cartridges in my area--aside from that I'm helping people with theirs--is because I tend to follow the lowest denominator when it comes to placing caches.  If the cartridge can be done using a mystery cache, I do that.  If my mystery can be done as a multi, I use that.  If my multi would be better off as a couple unrelated traditions, I go that route.  So make sure you're using Wherigo for what it provides, not just for the icon.

 

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You can still have pizazz with a simple cartridge.  You can craft a short story (or tour) and have nice pictures or drawings.  Make sure the images you use are consistent--in the same style as each other.  If you ask players questions, make them somehow within context of and relevant to the story.  If you have to write more than a couple sentences, use separate dialogs so it doesn't feel as long.  Avoid having too many dialogs, and make sure most of them have a picture.  You can add a couple sound effects if you'd like.

 

As you get better at creating cartridges, you'll find that the area and experience comes first, not the cartridge.  What I mean is, don't make a cartridge fit an area.  Instead, find an area and let the area dictate what type of cartridge you make, story you tell, and features you add to the cartridge.  I find cartridges that fit an area to be the best type. 

 

I once found a park in Nevada that was a small loop, perhaps two hundred-fifty feet in distance.  Branching off were small paths no more than twenty feet long to a picnic table, seven tables in all.  A gazebo was in the center of all this.  I thought about how I could make this a cartridge, got the coordinates and photos I needed, and hid a cache.  I immediately had the idea of using each picnic table as a stop to answer a question.  This turned into using Trivial Pursuit as a base, which is how I came up with my Cacher Pursuit cartridge.

 

At another park in North Carolina, I created a cartridge where you could find characters in different areas.  Each character was doing something that fit the location.  The story was you were helping a kid find her iPod.  The location was randomly chosen and the characters would say different things depending on where the iPod was during that playthrough.

 

If anything, if you'd like more ideas, download some cartridges and try playing them in an emulator.  Look at cache pages and some log entries.

 

Oh, and don't forget one other resource you have: the forum community.  If you need help creating a cartridge, we're there for you.  And if you come up with a really stellar idea that would require custom code (such as a ton of it), bring it to the forum.  I love a challenge and have been known to make full cartridges based on interesting ideas given to me.  I have what I call my "arcade" type of cartridges that can be played anywhere or put anywhere, and are based on a game: Whack-A-Lackey (based on Whack-A-Mole), Battleship, Fox-Chicken-Feed, Tetris, and Cacher Pursuit (Trivial Pursuit).  If anyone can think of other games to adapt to Wherigo, I'm always open to making another arcade cartridge.  All but Tetris are open source.

 

And there are other cartridges out there, such as the Reverse Wherigo, Hangman, Constellations, Flags, States, etc.  Those are fairly popular.  There's even a series in Tennessee based on Name That Tune.

[harper_finding_stuff]

Thanks for all the advice! I think I'm gonna start simple and then make more complex ones as I go. I could also do some 'focus group' testing with my friends - I made a Wherigo a while ago (it's not posted on the website) just to test some basic things out, and Rob wanted to test it out with me. He loved it! So yeah, thanks.

 

 

 

also it took me until just now to realize that ranger fox was the 'rangerfox' that made Wherigo\\kit. wow i feel so dumb ??

Edited February 15, 2019 by harper_finding_stuff

[Ranger Fox]

You're about six or so hours away.  Otherwise, I'd drive down there and FTF "Land Shark II".  (There used to be a time, years ago, when I'd be silly and drive a couple hundred miles just to do one cache, then turn around and drive back that same day.  Now, I think I'm either lazy or more sane.  It's probably the latter, but I'm still silly, so I'll claim it's the former.)

 

Let everyone know how it goes.  And if you get a really fun idea for an arcade cartridge, definitely let me know.

[harper_finding_stuff]

Land Shark II got FTF'd on the sixteenth, and STF'd just today! Thanks for all the advice. This was probably the most fun I've ever had making a geocache.

 

 

 

 

Ranger Fox:

Definitely the latter, although driving across the country to FTF sounds fun, haha. The funny thing is I used to live in Durham. I assume you know where that is? North Carolina is a pretty important state for our family, because the business my dad works for has its HQ there. It wouldn't be out of the question for me to vacation/trip there soon. If I do I'll be sure to visit some of your Wherigos. Also, on the subject of game cartridge ideas, how about America Says?

Edited February 18, 2019 by harper_finding_stuff

[+sgerbs]

I know you've hidden your first Wherigo already, but I thought I'd chime in as well for your future hides. I would definitely echo what the others have said, the more simple the Wherigo, the higher chance it will be played and found. I have a really simple trivia Wherigo where cachers can park near an intersection and then they start answering questions. It is really easy, but it has a theme that ties it all together with the final cache. It has has 52 finds, and its only been out 1.5 years. Because of its ease of play and location, it gets found fairly often. I put out another one that had one zone and a simple question (it was placed for the icon). It was placed for a winter only series, and it was found 23 times in 3 months.

 

The more involved the Wherigo, the less likely it is to be found, but people who like adventure and Wherigos will still seek it out. I'm working on a cartridge right now that will be a detective type hunt at a historical location. It is based on a true story. I know that when it is finally hidden, it will be found primarily by the hardcore Wherigo players, cacher who like my caches, and cachers who like adventure. I'm more than okay with that because this is the kind of cache I would like to find. Knowing your audience, goes a long way in setting the tone for what you're doing and what you expect out of cache.

 

Wherigos are a lot of fun, and if you can bring your local caching community along, Wherigos will only strengthen that community.