I a huge fan of geocaching. Lately I’ve put out a few myself with good success. I read about some multi-caches that people work on for months (This one, for example). The idea of a multi-cache is that the coordinates published lead you to a cache where the coordinates of the final cache actually is. A puzzle cache is the same idea with the twist that you’re given a clue that you solve to get the coordinates rather that just giving them to you straight out.
What I’m looking for are puzzle ideas and concepts. For example, in the above cache a clue leads you to a library book that coordinates for the next stage are printed in. I not a great puzzler myself but I know we have some clever folks here who could probably help me create a killer cache.
I’m a puzzle person, but I don’t know diddly about geocaching – what exactly are you looking for? You need puzzles where the answer is in the form of … what, numbers? letters? words?
I’m looking for ideas for puzzles themselves, no need to understand geocaching.
In the example I gave one needs coordinates, rather than just giving them out a number, general location and the hint of “Dewey Decimal System” was given. The real coordinates were written in the book.
Another example would be having to solve a math problem to get the required numbers. I was hoping someone could help me be a little more creative than that though. I’m just not up on puzzling much.
Here’s a few ideas I had for puzzle caching that I never got around to putting out:
A “Paycheck” cache (loosely based on the short story “Paycheck” by Philip K. Dick and adapted into a movie with Ben Affleck). At the first cache is an envelope with a number of trinkets. Each trinket represents something in the environment for the cachers to follow until they get to the last item, which has the coordinates for the final cache location. An example I test-drove with a friend around my house:
trinkets: GAP jeans label, USPS eagle symbol, flower, fire hydrant, handicapped symbol, Brooke Shields pic
a. Starting location- a bird house than can be opened to reveal the envelope on the street beside my house
b. fire hydrant- there’s a fire hydrant on my corner, easy to see from the starting location
c. USPS eagle symbol- there’s a neighborhood community mailbox across the street with this symbol across the side
d. GAP jeans label- a little trickier. There’s a “gap” between the fences of two houses across the street for park access. A better clue might have been called for here.
e. Brooke Shields pic- also tricky. Not far from entering the park is a stream/“brook” with a bridge. Besides the Brooke/brook thing, this may have been a challenge in Texas as brook isn’t common usage.
f. handicapped symbol- across the bridge is a small playground area and across that a parking lot, with a handicapped parking spot.
g. flower- near the handicapped parking spot is a small playhouse with a flowerbox on the side. The coordinates for the final cache location (elsewhere in the park) would have been underneath that. The issue with this clue is that flower can apply to a lot of things, like flowers at houses or in the park along the way, so a clue like this may make the puzzle too difficult for your average geocachers.
I like the idea of using actual trinkets, but you would have to check it often to make sure none of the clues have wandered off (the cachers should return the trinkets when done). It could also be done with variants like just a piece of paper with word clues to write down or a sequence of pictures of landmarks along the path, perhaps at different angles, so the cachers try to match the landmarks in the pics to what they can see.
An “I Spy” cache, which I think there are some things like this out there. Basically you go to the first location and are given a puzzle for the next coordinates like:
N 30.ABC
W 97.DEF
A. The first digit of the local speed limit
B. The second digit of the KFC street address
C. The number of stop signs in view
etc.
Basically, all related to what you can see from the location.
I hope you’ll tell us about any puzzle caches you end up creating!
I’ve solved a lot of puzzle caches, and the answer is, it varies. Sometimes it’s a full set of coordinates (latitude and longitude), with each coordinate in the form direction degrees minutes.fractional-minutes, for example: N 41 24.034 W 075 16.476. If you’re in an area where the longitude is only two digits, sometimes the leading zero is omitted. Sometimes the N/S on latitude and the E/W on longitude are also omitted. Sometimes partial coordinates are given, and the puzzle will allow you to fill in the blanks: N 41 2a.bcd W 075 1e.fgh. The digits of the coordinates can also be spelled out in words, as in “North forty one …” A simple puzzle for coordinates like that would be a cryptogram.
Start with two sets of coordinates. In the cache at location A is a picture of a building or landmark (call it X). At location B is a picture of landmark Y. The final cache is at the intersection of lines AX and BY.
I’m a big fan of geocaching. I just got into it last year. My wife had a business conference in Boston that her company was sending her to. The conference was Mon/Tues, but we got there on Fri and spend Fri/Sat/Sun touring Boston. I knew I would be stuck in a hotel by myself all day Mon and Tues, so I bought a GPSr and went caching. I still remember the first cache I pulled out - it was pretty exciting.
Anyway, I really like your intersecting lines idea. What kind of a scale were you thinking? Would the lines be 100’ long? A mile? Could you see A from B? Would you tell the cach hunters what was going on, or just have a picture at each site and see if anyone could figure it out?
FWIW, there’s really no rules as to what can be done with a puzzle cache. The only real rule is that you want all the caches to either be on public grounds or have the owners permission.
What kind of experience do you want the seekers of your cache to have? Do you want them to be able to be able to solve the puzzles in the field and potentially finish the cache in one trip (even if it takes hours)? That would require puzzles that you don’t need to do internet research to solve. Or do you want it to be more like one of those killer multi-puzzle caches where you need a brain trust of people to solve a puzzle (such as a tough cipher), then go out into the field, then solve the next puzzle, etc.?
For the second type of cache, there are many encryption techniques you could use, or you could write out the coordinates or a message using a different character set (see Omniglot.com). One thought for either kind of cache is that a difficult-to-reach container (maybe for one of the intermediate stages) can be a puzzle all on its own.
I’ve tackled a couple of killer caches* as part of a team, and they were great fun. Good luck with yours, and thanks for the caches!
*At Geocaching.com, see:
GC73C2 Blood and Guts in Virginia (aka Iron and Stone)
GCNME9 Choreographed Chaos
I was thinking of a pretty large scale; the given coordinates would be out in the boonies, and the landmarks would be in the city (something completely recognizable, like the Chrysler Building (or, in Boston, Trinity Church)). Once you plot the four locations on a map, it should be a perfect X. “X marks the spot,” of course.
Ideally, the landmarks should have published coordinates. I went geocaching once, and even when I got to right place, according to my GPS, it still took 10 minutes of poking around. Trinity Church doesn’t exist at a point. Any uncertainty in the endpoints means uncertainty in the intersection, and extra burrowing around.
All of this will be hard to do in one puzzle. You’d need two landmarks, easily recognizable, but far enough apart to make a large X on a map. For Boston, maybe it would be Trinity Church and Plymouth Rock, that’s about 30 miles. The given coordinates would be somewhere near Woonsocket and Fall River, Rhode Island.
But hey, however anyone wants to do it is cool with me. You could do one that takes a team (or someone with a strong travel budget) to solve; somewhere in Miami you hide a picture of the Space Needle, etc.
Ooh, another idea; if you can find enough help here on the boards.
The initial coordinates point to a cache in Tampa. Inside that cache are the coordinates of another cache in Houston, and the first part of the solution, like “N 3”. You’d have to contact cachers in each city to find all the clues. Every cache will have to be found to get the ultimate solution. (And the first letters of each city would spell out “the Straight Dope”.
I’m thinking more of the second type. I can come up with the ‘solve in the field’ type well enough.
I like puzzle caches but they tend to be heavily swayed to a particular type. So if you are not a geek in that field you are at a disadvantage. I was hoping to get enough different ideas so that everyone would be on the same playing field. Plus there are plenty of straight math puzzle caches already.
The guys in my area are coming up with some tough hides and I need a puzzle that will stump them…The final cooordinate will be North 35 06.454 West 092 46.495…It can be numbers or the words …but I am stuck ,please help me out …thank you …:dubious:
One of my favorite puzzles involved arriving at a cache to find the final clue written out in some kind of runes. Returning home and searching the internets revealed that the “runes” was actually the Shavian Alphabet.
The favorite set of caches I put out in a multi-cache …
Cache 1: “The Detonator” - cache is concealed inside a box which can only be opened by connecting a battery across two terminals.
Cache 2: “The vault” - originally it had a time lock, only open for some of the day. This was unreliable, so instead it has a spring lock which can be “picked” with enough dexterity.
Cache 3: “Bugs Kill a Cheat” - co-ordinates of the next cache are written in invisible ink on the message inside the cache. (“Bugs Kill a Cheat” is an anagram of “use a blacklight”).
Wow. Are we really going to cross this beam as well? I thought the forums over at Geocaching would be enough.
I had one Multicache once.
Starting coordinates took you a retail hardware shop.
The next took you to the Number 2 Burger fast food name in the US.
The third took you to the inventor of the Blizzard.
The fourth took you to a local Tire shop.
The fifth puzzle cache [I had a quiz you had to take, correct answers gave you part of the co-ordinates.] took you to a different tire shop.
Ace Hardware
Burger King
Dairy Queen
Jack’s Tire
Big 10 Tires
:dubious: