Commented somewhere else. Reply there if you have read it and I will delete it, to keep the suspense up for everyone else.
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Something to think about, riddles and jokes can be hard if they are not in one's native language. I bumped into this running a TTRPG with mixed Japanese/US players. Ended up doing one riddle/joke in each language.
I'm not going to get mad about it or anything, just something to think about.
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Something to consider about making longer puzzles... is that many won't enter that many GA's and it is only a chance to win, so the harder/longer the puzzle the more that it is needed to give a list of what's locked behind it so people can judge if its worth their time to focus on your puzzle.
personally I am not a fan of the overly complicated/longer chains of puzzles... every step you complete and find another step to do can start to become demotivating where you just stop trying, the carrot(the GA's) only goes so far.
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I think in this case having the story to go along with it is another reaon to keep going. If done well, the "puzzle" feels like another game by itself.
I remember once stumbling across a very old puzzle on SG where the GA's had long ended years ago, but it was really fun to do anyway. It was still done as a SG "train", but the evocative decriptions of each vagon and the varied mysteries you were solving along the way, where you had to take notes, and do a kind of detective work putting things together, to find secret compartments in the train, and unlocking secret doors with keypads, and so on. It felt like an adventure. The creator even gave some soundtrack you could put on in the background in YouTube for more immersive ambiance. It took me a few days to get through it all, because there were so many different parts to the puzzle.
P.S. If anyone by any chance remembers this old train, and what user made it, let me know, I'd love to find it again.
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It really was! I would love to look at it again, but I can't remember the user who made it. At the time I even made detailed notes on it all, but sadly they were on my old computer that got stolen.
I made some comments on the train, but I believe unfortunately SG does not have a feature to see your own comments history, only replies you've gotten. Also, as the GAs were so old, I couldn't enter any, so I can't find it through my own entries either.
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Does your story support branching paths? I'm not talking about choose-your-own-adventure style divergent stories, just short tangents (1 or 2 cart deep) that users can go on. I think branching can be helpful in two ways:
I took part in this story-puzzle train that had a lot of branches and loops almost two years ago. It was a neat experience, but probably too difficult judging by the number of users who were able to find all of the carts. Not sure if that's what you had in mind, but it's worth taking a look at the solution guide if you need some inspiration. I'm sure there were many other great trains in the past. The one mentioned by UnknownEAK above sound particularly good.
I also suggest disclosing the full list of games that you're giving away and maybe some rough indication of how deep into the train each game is located. Like Carenard said, many users will lose motivation if they feel like they're solving endless puzzles just for a chance to win games that they may not even care about.
Edit: I take that back. Maybe you want to keep a few of the games secret to add some suspense, but I think most should be known.
Finally, I'm sure you know about Zelgh's guide, but dropping a link just in case. You can get a lot of mileage out of the basics.
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Thank you very much, that is very helpful. I haven't read the articles yet, I will read them. 🤩
To put it simply:
The story begins, then there are built-in puzzles that make it seem like you're walking the path to the next story event. There are no branches in that sense, I would rather say short dead ends that are supposed to take you off the path for a short time. (but they are not particularly difficult). The jigidis are adapted to the story, after you've solved them, there's a little text story again until another puzzle follows. That's roughly how it works.
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Definitely read Zelgh's guide if you haven't. It's the bread and butter of SG puzzle making.
I like your approach. Simple puzzles that complement the story would be far more enjoyable to the average SG user than a bunch of abstract, difficult puzzles that rely on complicated encryption and so on. Jigidis, crosswords or quizzes would be entertaining and safe options.
PS: You just reminded me of another lovely train by dominicanoed. It combined poetry, photography and puzzles. Many of his puzzles required advanced techniques, so it's probably not the best fit for what you have in mind, but can't hurt to take a peek.
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Maybe you could scribble the code for giveaway on the back of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch, and leave the clues for museum security in early giveaways, and then users will get access to a Discord server where they will coordinate the heist of Museo del Prado, where the painting is currently exhibited.
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Better yet, hack the sites with high res images of the painting and hide the letters and how to order them among all those elements.
I have the 30k x 17k version (3 gigapixels), both entire and cut into smaller squares for useful inspection. I guess by now there are even better resolutions.
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Since I haven't been creating puzzles for that long, I just wanted to ask around/collect ideas on what you can integrate into puzzles to disguise the solutions.
To explain my plan, I would like to include a puzzle challenge in my next GA Train. This means it will be a very long puzzle, with lots of different elements that I want to incorporate to make it varied. Since most of the puzzles I've seen so far are quite short, I thought I'd do something different.
But since not everyone in the community has that much time to solve puzzles, they would have to set "save points". In other words, they would have to save the page where they last arrived so that they don't have to start again from the beginning.
So that you solve the puzzle piece by piece, if you don't get any further today because the puzzle is too long then you continue tomorrow.
At the beginning there should be a story that interacts with the puzzles. If you solve the puzzles piece by piece, the story continues. At the end, the story ends and you get a reward. I was thinking about 100+ GAs. It should be worthwhile and motivating.
I've already finished the beginning of the story, I already know what happens next... but I can't write it until I know exactly how I'm going to combine it with riddles.
The whole thing is a bit complicated for me to explain, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. That's why I'm calling for a brainstorming session. What can I include in puzzles?
The GAs would of course run for 4 weeks, so there is plenty of time to participate. Of course, perseverance is required. But is a puzzle that takes a few days to complete well received? How long it actually takes depends, of course, on how quickly you find the solutions and how much time you spend on it every day.
I would also try to involve myself and the puzzler in the story somehow.
Jigidis are also integrated to visualize the story.
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