Puzzle Blog
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Thursday, August 14th, 2008I am in the process of reorganizing the website a little bit. I have taken the puzzles from Game 1: Puzzle Master and posted them individually as sample puzzles. I was able to reuse 7 of the original 10 puzzles. I had to do some modifications and change some of the answers. There is a message board link for each sample and it is unlocked and ready to receive comments. Go check it out.
By the end of the week Game 1 will no longer be available to play as a whole game. You will only be able to see the individual puzzles. Games 2 and 3 are being renumbered as 1 and 2. There may be dead links because of this so if you find any please let me know.
The purpose of all this is so visitors to the site can get a taste of what kind of puzzles we have here. Now they can try seven puzzles instead of just the first one from game 2 (now game 1). This will hopefully encourage more people to become registered players thereby increasing the competition of future games.
Thoughts on the Puzzle PiEces game
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008Well, the game went much quicker than I had hoped. Just over 4 days. I was figuring it to take around 2-3 weeks. So far 3 people have finished the game (two of them worked together on it) and the rest of the group is scattered between puzzles 3 and 5. Just about where I figured they would be at this time. I don’t know what Southwest, Plumbum and Klaatu do for a living but they should be hired by the governement to solve the Darfur puzzle, or the global warming puzzle, or maybe the middle East puzzle. They sure are some pretty smart folks. I congratulate them on a job VERY well done.
At least it lasted longer than the previous game. One unfortunate thing is that the number of players was far less than previous games. I blame most of it on Google’s warning they posted about the site. I removed all the “malware” that was unknowingly hidden on the site and asked them to check again, and they did. They found the site clean and removed the warnings but it took about 4 days. This all happened the day before the game started so I think that scared off alot of players. Hopefully they’ll be back for the next game, Chasing Shadows.
I would very much like to hear your feedback on Puzzle Pieces. Did you like it? Hate it? Which puzzle was your favorite? Least favorite? What do you think of the storyline? Etc. I use the feedback to make the next game better. For those of you still playing, continued good luck.
Nervous Excitement
Monday, August 4th, 2008Tomorrow it begins. The third ClueChaser game. The second part of the story. I keep going over and over it all in my mind to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I still have some last minute things to do to actually launch the game and then some web pages to update. I just hope the game delivers some challenging puzzles and alot of fun.
I overslept this morning and was late for work (my real job). I hope I don’t do that tomorrow or I will have some pretty upset Clue Club members. I better set two alarms! Not to worry, I rarely oversleep. And with the anxiety I’m currently going through I doubt I will get much sleep.
Good luck everyone. Happy Clue Chasing!
Back from camp
Monday, July 28th, 2008I’m back. My family and I were away at Family Camp which is a camp hosted by the Diabetic Youth Foundation (www.dyf.org). My oldest son (8 years old) was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes 2 years ago. The camp is great because all the kids there have diabetes so they get to hang out together and be the same. They all check their blood sugar levels at the same time, they all administer insulin to themselves at the same time. It’s great. They play lots of games and other activities and just have a blast. The parents get together and share the difficulties of diabetes management, learn about new technology, and learn about other things they can do.
It really was a great time and I can’t wait to do it again next year.
If you would like more information about Type 1 Diabetes or would like to donate to the DYF please visit their website at www.dyf.org.
What a nuisance
Thursday, July 17th, 2008Why me? I’m just a little ol’ puzzle game website owner trying to make his way through a cyber world crowded with big techno-giants. Regardless of the reason, it happened. Cluechaser.com was vandalized but an irritating perpetrator. A Spammer!
Just a minor hack. Someone caused the site to redirect elsewhere but the link was no good. It just errored out. The problem though was that my friend who helps with the website was on vacation and although I’ve been called alot of things, Programmer is not one of them if you catch my meaning. I can do some basic coding and stuff but I leave the heavy duty stuff to him. With him gone I was forced to figure out how to fix it.
As you can see, the very fact that you’re reading this post means that I was successful. ClueChaser continues (mass applause).
Feedback requested
Monday, July 14th, 2008After much internal deliberation I finally decided to post this. The trouble with asking for feedback is you may not like what you hear. An important rule for requestng feedback is this:
However, if I don’t know where the problems are, I can’t fix them. With that in mind, here’s my request:
I would like your feedback on the layout of the website. Specifically, what areas of the site do you not like, which do you like, what suggestions do you have to make it better, etc. I would like your thoughts about the visual appeal of it, the navigation, the colors, the layout, basically all aspects of the website.
I would like visitors and regular players to enjoy their time here at ClueChaser. If the site is ugly or unappealing, or the navigation through it is terrible, you may not come back regardless of how good the games might be. I sense there are areas that could be improved but I’m not sure how. With you feedback I hope to accomplish that. So here’s your chance to be directly involved with ClueChaser’s success.
I’m not asking for feedback on the games or the puzzles within the games. Just the website itself. Not that I don’t want to hear you thoughts on the games, I would love to actually. Just not here in this post.
So feel free to post your comments/suggestions here or email them to me to admin@cluechaser.com.
Thanks.
Cowpattybill
My thoughts on the puzzle games
Thursday, July 10th, 2008One of the best Clue Chaser players, mrsmathteacher, commented on the previous games. She said the puzzles in game 1 were much harder than those in game 2. I was going to reply to her but instead I decided to write a post.
I agree with her. The ease of the puzzles in game 2 happened because of 2 things. One good, one bad.
The bad reason is because in game 1, puzzle 3 caused a lot of problems. It seems I made it too difficult. Getting to the parts needed for the answer was fine but taking the letters to form the puzzle’s answer is where the problem was.
What to me seemed like a reasonable leap of logic apparently wasn’t so with all the players. Even after the answer was figured out (after MUCH hinting by me) it still didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to others. I felt like it might have left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. I decided not to make the puzzles that difficult again.
The good reason is, I feel like I have a really good story to tell. I would like to share it with as many people as possible. My experience from game 1 told me that there is only a small group of people who are willing to push their way through all the puzzles. Especially when it starts out with a cypher puzzle (Evidently the majority of people don’t like cyphers). Lots of potential players saw the first puzzle and left, never to return. In order to get as many people involved as possible I decided to make the puzzles easier. Especially the first one. Unfortunately I underestimated the brain power of my faithful players and you busted it out in less than 4 days. Big sock to my ego.
Side note- Puzzle 3, once again seemed to be the most difficult. Most players didn’t understand the clues and once they got the answer they didn’t seem to understand how they got there. Seems there’s a pattern of the third puzzle being the most difficult. I wonder if that will repeat in game 3? Hmmm…..
Back to what I was saying, once again I learned a lot. Game 3, I feel, is a good mix of puzzles. It will definetly be harder than game 2 but probably not as difficult as game 1. Much of the storyline will be revealed in game 3. It is much different than game 2 and is alot more like how I originally planned the games to be.
Puzzle PiEces video released today
Monday, July 7th, 2008I’m filled with nervous excitement. I’ve had the video done for over a month now but I wasn’t far enough along in the game creation process to release it. I am fairly confident now that I can be done in time, plus I need the pressure, so I’m releasing it today.
The release itself requires alot of work. I have to send out a bunch of emails to the registered players. My email provider allows mail to be sent to only so many email addresses or it is considered spam so I have to send out about 10 email addresses at a time and after about 50 or so I have to wait an hour to send more. I know there’s better ways out there. I just haven’t bothered to look for them yet.
Then I have to notifiy the owners of the sites that I link to so they can put the word out to their visitors. Once the puzzle in the video is solved I have to repost the video with the actual date. Then I have to put the countdown timer up. Then I have to work on marketing. Meanwhile, I have to finish the game by putting the puzzles on actual web pages, etc.
I hope I gave myself enough time. We’ll see (he says with fingers crossed).
Setback
Monday, June 30th, 2008Frustration sets in once again. I’m not sure how to say this without giving anything away…hmmm. Let’s try it this way:
I had all the work done for what is basically the main puzzle of the game. It requires the use of, uh… extraneous “materials” that I have no control over. I wasn’t sure if these materials would ever change so I took a chance. I found out Friday that in fact the do, and did, change. So now I basically have to redo the entire thing. Not the whole game, just the main puzzle. No easy task considering it took me more than 2 weeks to create it initially. It is the largest and most complex puzzle I’ve ever craeted. Now about 80% of it has to be redone.
The game revolves around this puzzle and it’s too late (and too much work) to change it. I would have to redo just about every puzzle. There’s NO WAY I’m doing THAT! The worst part is that the materials could change again though probably not for awhile. But when it does, the game will be rendered virtually useless. But I’ll deal with that later.
The good news is that I was rechecking one of the hardest puzzles and I found (and fixed) an error. There’s not much worse than having the players, racing against time and other players, get stuck because of some mistake I overlooked (think Game 2, Puzzle 9).
Other than that, all is well.
Game 1: Puzzle Master to be removed
Friday, June 20th, 2008I have been toying with this idea for awhile now and I think I’ve finally made the decision to take Game 1: Puzzle Master down. Here’s why:
Games 2 thru 4 follow a story line. Game 1 doesn’t. It is independant. I think there are some good puzzles in there but few people get to see them because they are very hard and most give up before they get past the 2nd puzzle.
So after Game 3 or maybe Game 4 I will take Game 1 down and clean up the puzzles, changing them if necessary, so that they are independent of each other and post them individually. By doing this, it allows the other games to be a nice happy family without being distracted by the orphan Game 1. Additionally, visitors to the site will have the opportunity to view and solve multiple puzzles just for fun without having to solve one to get to the next.
I will leave the information regarding the winner in the Hall of Fame but I may take down the message board comments for it.
By doing this I think the website will be more fun for visitors as well as have a nice series of games that follow the same story line for the more adventurous players.
Let me know what you think.
There is light ahead.
Monday, June 16th, 2008Another puzzle complete. Feels good. This leaves me with only 2, maybe 3 puzzles left to create and then I have a whole mess of internet work to do like creating the webpages and stuff like that. I think after I finish one more puzzle I will release the Game 3 video. I decided to add a little puzzle to it as well and the first person to figure it out will win a free membership to the clue club. Excitement is starting to build.
Introducing…. Clue Club
Thursday, June 12th, 2008I am proud to announce the creation of the Clue Club. For a small membership fee of $5 (half off the regular price) you gain access to exciting benefits like a two hour headstart on the games and double the prize money if the member is the winner. Get more information about it here. Join by clicking on the coffee cup on the left.
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