Difficulty Level and feedback *** SPOILER WARNING ***

[maisie ladybird]

I'm going to tip the scales over to the other end and say I loved Naval Treaty. I liked the different layers of this puzzle and how one step lead on to the next and the fact that there were so many of them, it gave me quite a lot of moments. I thought it was a great puzzle.

[LAT]

Urgh. That's another one I'm studiously ignoring at the moment, in case some magical inspiration strikes and I suddenly have some idea what to do.

You and me both.

but Jabberwally??

[MBH]

A few issues back LAT - in reference to "corruption of a standard".

[dramaticat]

Newbie feedback.

I have developed a few rules after tackling Sherlock. They are:

1. Read the title/intro text.
2. If you're still not sure what to do, read the title/intro text.
3. If that fails, stop being so stupid and read the title/intro text properly.
4. If there is no intro text, then decode the hint.
5. If that hint doesn't help, someone on the forum can!

As to individual puzzles, Second Stain is my bete noir - simply because I'm not good at cryptic crosswords. I got about 4 or 5 clues on my own, a few more with some hints, but LAT practically had to spoonfeed me the answers. I did not enjoy this one.

And I have just finished Speckled Band, although I haven't managed to solve the puzzle completely, and I was surprised, given that I am a great fan of that I really didn't enjoy this one either. I think there were just too many layers for me. I think I get bored quite easily - particularly when things aren't working out!

I don't mind if I'm stumped by a puzzle, and then a gentle hint puts me on the right road. Or even if I fill in the grid or whatever and need a hint to solve the final puzzle. The puzzles that aren't satisfying are the ones where you just can't see the wood for the trees - ever!

I have managed to do some entirely on my own though - Priory School, Dancing Men and Study in Scarlet.

And I can't believe that people have even asked ME for hints on some puzzles already

[giraffe]

I must admit I've ground to a halt on speckled band. I know what I've got to do. (Checked with purple rabbit to make sure), but I can't find the information I need and it rapidly wears my patience out if I have to spend half an hour or more on one clue looking at dozens of google pages to get one tiny bit of info, and then repeat for next clue.

[MBH]

Oddly enough I agree with most of dramaticat's post - I keep forgetting to translate the 'hints', but usually when I do they don't always help

I have managed to do some entirely on my own though - Priory School, Dancing Men and Study in Scarlet.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


No - seriously - glad you're enjoying it here I can see you coming in very handy on the SUMS/MUMS weeks. [Are Brisbain doing one this year? ]

[giraffe]

I didn't know Brisbane did one

[dramaticat]

What on earth is SUMS/MUMS week??? Please - no more puzzles

Yes, I don't mind internet searches, but some of the information in some of the puzzles has been extremely difficult to find. I wonder if it's a question of which browser you're using? Or is it just that you don't quite understand what you're searching for in the first place?

I know there's one thing in Hound where I couldn't find anything at all - I think LAT found one site with the answer, but then when she went back to find it for me, it had been taken down. I managed without that one

It sometimes feels as if I have spent more time searching the internet than actually trying to solve the puzzles themselves.

[Scurra]

I would certainly agree that knowing how to find information effectively on the Internet is a very useful skill. I do try to ensure that any particular "fact" can be located in several different places, to make sure that it isn't too hard to track down, but it's certainly true that if you don't know exactly what you are looking for then it can feel like an incredibly frustrating experience, and that is likely to make you feel more irritated with a puzzle than it deserves. Remember that there is a fine line a puzzle has to walk as well: if you could just look the answer up directly, then it wouldn't be much of a puzzle!

Hmmm. Perhaps we need a thread on the Puzzler's Toolkit for websites that are useful for particular types of information..?

The puzzles that aren't satisfying are the ones where you just can't see the wood for the trees - ever!

Absolutely. I often say that if you see the solution to a puzzle (or even to a stage of a puzzle) and say "well how was I supposed to guess that?" then the problem is more likely with the puzzle than with you. That's why these puzzles are always test-solved first (you think they are hard now? You should try some of the earlier versions!!)

And yes, as a newbie solver, you are definitely being thrown in at the deep end. There are certain methods and tricks which other people have painstakingly learned over the last couple of years which means that I sometimes forget that not everyone is starting from the same place!

[dramaticat]

Having said what I did, I am still amazed at the way someone has managed to think these puzzles up in the first place.

So, even if I'm not impressed with the end result puzzle, I am impressed with the work involved in constructing it and having the original idea.

Of course, I like it even better when I can work out how to solve them as well

One thing that would be of help to me in particular in an internet search guide is tips on how to search for images. That is what I usually find the most difficult. I mean, with written clues like who is Doris Cripps or how many balloons were there at Buckingham Palace on 1 September 1999, you've got a starting point. If the image means nothing to you and you have no theme to go on, you're often stuck.

[giraffe]

Yes that is very true. That big lump of rock in the picture puzzle caused me problems and I was told what it was. In a way that was a shame because as soon as I knew what word I was looking for it was clear how the puzzle worked. When Fernando did that one I just told him it was ametamorphic rock type (having gone backwards from the answer) and he went off to find the different posibilities (He had come across it at school in Chemistry/ Geography, I'd never heard of it )

SUMS is Sydney University Maths Society , MUMS is Melbourne. They run a puzzle hunt each year and we enter a team. You get four or five puzzles a day for 5 days, and we use google docs to all work on the same spreadsheet. Difficult but fun.

[dramaticat]

Ah, well I have the advantage of having a geologist for a husband. But then even he didn't recognise it without Fernando's clue ...

[giraffe]

Give me a puzzle about types of electricity substations and I might be able to get my husband to help with a puzzle

[Bunnylump]

...I'd need one about air condtioning machines or Steely Dan... The really big shame of it is that my husband is actually much better at puzzles than I am (not that this is difficult). He just objects to the amount of time they take to work through. It was he who sussed out what to do with the church puzzle in Puzzletown (that should give you a clue, he is much cleverer than he looks!!) He now refuses to look...

[giraffe]

Mine helped with some of the pictures in that one that was out of focus film posters, which I think was the very first issue. But since then he's not been much help. These days if I'm stuck I ask fernando.

[Bunnylump]

I did actually manage to get my son and his friend to solve some of the puzzles out of Brush up Your Shakespeare. They did pretty well but got bored quickly.

Scurra, I think it would be really good to have a "helpful websites" bit in the Puzzler's Toolkit, and also helpful googling techniques. I never knew about that wildcard thing until you told me, and it's really useful.

[LAT]

"wildcard thing"??

I can never get anyone to help me with the puzzles. I did try colleagues at work once on one of the picture puzzles and they told me about two of them (people I think)

[Bunnylump]

I think you have to feed Scurra with sausage and mash before he tells you...

[MBH]

I didn't know Brisbane did one

LOL - it was one of the 'jokes' in the script of whatever we did last .

So, even if I'm not impressed with the end result puzzle, I am impressed with the work involved in constructing it and having the original idea.

Crawler

Seriously though - although I can't solve a puzzle, on many occasions I can look at a result and wonder "how on earth did he get that to work?". Very clever.

[Bunnylump]

I must say that quite a few people seem to have found The Speckled Band (which I wrote) quite hard, in fact much harder than I had imagined. It is actually very difficult to gauge what other people will find difficult when you are writing a puzzle - since of course YOU know how to do it and what the answers are!! Mind you, you should have seen the first puzzle I wrote for this (which didn't get used)- Scurra Gill and Wulfruna stared at it for a good long time I believe...

It does work the other way round, however, since I have sometimes sent Scurra puzzles which he's solved straight away (eg the original version of Let me not... ) - they then need to have extra layers inserted...! Of course the danger is that I'll make all my puzzles too difficult to counteract having to re write them... I'm very much a novice puzzle writer, so it's VERY difficult to gauge!