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Re: Well this one stretched the boudaries of AQ.
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1007751 by Mama Stork
Oct 15, 2021 6:23am
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So far, I have discerned that you misspelled "peek" as "peak"

Or was it a clever homonym switcheroo as an all important part of the clue in the guise of a mistake!

(Nah, it was a mistake, thanks for the catch! But you still have 50,000 characters more to weed through!)
Re: Well this one stretched the boudaries of AQ.
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1007753 by dingus dufus
Oct 15, 2021 12:03pm
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But you still have 50,000 characters more to weed through!)

Today, I am taking my victories where I can! I'll tackle the rest.......eventually! So very intriguing!
Boo!
Board: CCCP Home
Oct 31, 2021 1:24pm
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Re: Boo!
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1008465 by dingus dufus
Nov 1, 2021 7:40am
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Fun clues!!!
Re: Boo!
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1008465 by dingus dufus
Nov 2, 2021 2:32pm
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You are the master of the video clue!

Qaplah!

Le Bug
BOTW
Board: CCCP Home
Apr 4, 2022 2:19pm
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It's nice to see Box of the Week being earned because of the clue and not just the carving.

K
numbers
Board: CCCP Home
May 2, 2022 11:33am
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Seeking ideas for disguising/coding three numbers. Thanks!
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013283 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 2, 2022 12:03pm
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Could you reference something that normally comes in the individual digit quantity?

For example 374 could be "The pigs got together to paint the gables on the house then shared a dozen donuts equally"

Or is that not at all what you are looking for?
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013284 by Mama Stork
May 2, 2022 5:50pm
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yes, if I understood how #7 is represented. ;)
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013291 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 2, 2022 6:45pm
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Maybe say Nathaniel Hawthorne’s house
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013283 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 2, 2022 8:12pm
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Write a poem and use the first letter in each line to spell out the number. 2 for example could be…

The big blue cow
Wants love, and how.
Owl will commit, but not right now.
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013283 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 3, 2022 5:16am
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You could use a substitution cipher keyed to a ten letter word that has no repeating letters, such as lumberjack. One letter for each digit 0-9.

or - write the numbers in another language (a unfamiliar one, like Finnish?)
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013298 by brandicat
May 5, 2022 4:11am
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These suggestions are all very clever - perhaps there will be a rebirth of creative clue writing inspired by you all. :-)

An easy alternative could be math - just develop an equation that will get you there, and you can make it as difficult as you wish (but remember your order of operations).

Cheers,

LB
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013283 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 5, 2022 6:43am
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I've taken treasure hunting to the next level in Minecraft with the ciphers/codes I've learned in letterboxing. I record an Amazon digital purchase code ($10) in a Minecraft book and hide it in our world/server, along with diamonds. Using items in the game, I present a clue. I think the members are getting smarter about deciphering the clues, yet always amazed at how far off the mark they can be too. For this one, I used the phone dial as suggested, converting the treasure's (3) coordinates to words: CAT IN BED. Cats love sitting on beds in the game so the clue was easy to set up. I did not give a hint that the letters needed converted to numbers, but they will figure it out, I hope; otherwise, I will offer another clue to guide them to that. How? I don't know. They have scoured our developed world for cats on beds, so now they are pushing outside the box... does CAT IN BED mean something else?

With the Amazon digital code, the winner can use it to buy an xbox card via Amazon or apply the $ to whatever they are saving for.
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013376 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 5, 2022 3:08pm
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To someone who has not played Minecraft (but knows somewhat what it's about), that sounds incredibly clever, complex, and creative!! I bow to your skills! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013382 by Wise Wanderer
May 14, 2022 3:18pm
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You can hide numbers in the numbers between words
Separate colors in a digital image and overlay a digit in each color
Give a quote from a book, the page number the quote is found on is the digit
I spy type image. Have them find the correct number of a specific item "How many books, how many cats, how many bikes"
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013638 by Maiden
May 15, 2022 6:12am
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What is meant by hide numbers in the numbers between words?

Thank you!
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013650 by aMAZEing adventure frog
May 15, 2022 3:56pm
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Should have said hide the numbers in the spaces between words. if you space your words so the blank spaces are the numbers and then pdf or jpg it so it doesn't reformat on different screens, it works beautifully.
Re: numbers
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1013283 by aMAZEing adventure frog
Jun 5, 2022 7:08am
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Depending what your numbers are, you could identify something significant about the date (i.e. 315 would be March 15, which is the Ides of March, so you could use “RIP Julius” in your clue, or something along that line of thinking).
Re: online coder
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #969994 by Oberon_Kenobi
Jun 5, 2022 7:22am
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Great list of resources, and all links still active 3-1/2 years later! Thanks!
Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Jun 5, 2022 11:41am
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In geocaching it’s a multi-level cache. It’s the premise of the popular puzzle hunts (i.e. MIT). I’m referring to having to solve one set of clues/puzzles/boxes to get the info/clues needed for the next level. Not a new concept and I’m sure letterboxers are doing it. Would appreciate links to clues/creative ways this has been implemented in letterboxing. Thanks!
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014249 by SpringChick
Jun 5, 2022 1:26pm
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One I found in VA that was fun and frustrating: Box #202585

You find the first box by solving the puzzle in the clue, the stamp itself in the first box is a clue that can be solved with an Abacus calculator and that give you want you need for the second box.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014249 by SpringChick
Jun 5, 2022 2:29pm
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Working on one of these now. The basic idea is that there’s a group of however many initial boxes - this particular one I’m working on has 4 - whose stamps combine to form an image or puzzle. The second-level box’s clue will be publicly listed, but some critical pieces of information will be left unfilled, and you will have no hope of getting them right if you haven’t got all 4 of the images and solved the puzzle first.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014249 by SpringChick
Jun 5, 2022 3:00pm
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I've hosted a few letterboxing events structured as puzzle hunts:

ENCOD3D back in 2013 was the first puzzle hunt I ever wrote.

I ran a walkaround puzzle hunt in San Francisco in 2017 with a meta component, both in the puzzles and how the stamp images came together.

And now I'm a full-time puzzle designer! Lots of letterboxing influences in my puzzle projects, though I haven't designed many puzzly letterboxes in the past few years.

~µ[sic]
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014251 by 5LeafClover
Jun 5, 2022 7:35pm
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You find the first box by solving the puzzle in the clue, the stamp itself in the first box is a clue that can be solved with an Abacus calculator and that give you want you need for the second box.

This one sounds fun! So you did not know ahead that this one was multiple levels? Was there something in the box that indicated the image was the clue to another box?
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014252 by NYCZ
Jun 5, 2022 7:58pm
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this particular one I’m working on has 4 - whose stamps combine to form an image or puzzle

This is along the lines of where I had been thinking. Will the clues to the initial 4 boxes be pretty straightforward or are these more challenging than your average clue (puzzle, riddle, code, etc)? I was a little concerned about the possibility of any of the level 1 boxes going missing, making the level 2 box unattainable… you’d really have to stay on top of it. Will be interested to see the clues in your completed project.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014256 by SpringChick
Jun 6, 2022 3:33am
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The initial 4 would probably be straightforward, although knowing me I’ll probably put some thematic wrinkle on it to avoid something clear cut as “go to this street corner, look in this spot”. I’m not sure if I would do them as a series or not - the extra flexibility from not doing a series (in an urban environment where I need to think carefully about long lasting hiding spots) would be beneficial, but at the same time it would probably exclude most out-of-towners to have them possibly make multiple trips into the city just to find the initial boxes, and I don’t really want that either.

If a box is confirmed missing, and I either can’t or don’t want to replace it, I can add its chunk of the puzzle to the clue of the final box. In the case where the first 4 have all disappeared but the final one is still kicking, then you’re just starting out with the whole puzzle, I guess.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014249 by SpringChick
Jun 6, 2022 5:48am
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I did this 2 summers ago for Maine boxers - it was a version of Clue - with 5 sets of clues that piggybacked onto each other. The clues are not online and some of the boxes are now missing - but it was fun during a Covid summer when our trails were over run by people who thought they were hikers.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014255 by SpringChick
Jun 6, 2022 8:35am
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Didn’t have a clue that there was a 2nd box. When you found the first box, the log gave you a number to a different AQ box to record under. In that box’s description it gave the hint on how to solve the stamp image for the follow on box.
Re: Multi-Level Letterbox
Board: CCCP Home
Reply to: #1014253 by Mu
Jun 7, 2022 3:11am
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ENCOD3D back in 2013 was the first puzzle hunt I ever wrote.

I’m still looking through this, it is super interesting and is giving me tons of ideas and inspiration! Thanks for the links! I’m also intrigued by your transition to full time puzzle writer - very cool!