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Gaining momentum

By Cowpattybill | June 9, 2008

Ahh yes. Things are finally coming together once again. My brain is finally starting to spit out some puzzle ideas.

After each game it seems to be important that I take a 2 or 3 week break from it just to let it all settle in my mind. After that I can s l o w l y begin to get the tiny wheels inside spinning again. Creatively speaking things are just about up to full speed. I have finished the logic behind 2 more puzzles and have an idea for another one.

The process for me is first to come up with an idea. I then figure out the logic behind it. Once that is figured out I gather the items I need to visually create it. This process usually means scouring the internet for pictures, or background information, or just learning the information I need to put the puzzle together. Materials are gathered and a draft of the puzzle is created. I then look for way to either make the puzzle harder, or if I feel it is necessary, I look for ways and places to put a clue. After this I then pass over to my puzzle checker. She tries to figure it out while I begin to work on the next puzzle. I follow this process until the have them all but done.

The next step is to put them all on web pages, followed by two rounds of making sure the puzzles don’t have any mistakes, the flow is good, and it stays with the story line. I had to add the second round of “quality checks” because of the mistakes discovered by the players during Game 2: The Missing Mr. E.

Often I break away from creating the puzzles and I work on things like getting the Cluechaser.com website ready and I do as much promotion for it as I can.

There’s alot more involved, many more details but I’ll save that for a different post.

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Bogged down

By Cowpattybill | June 2, 2008

I’m currently stuck. The creative juices have stopped flowing. Fortunately I know this is temporary. It happens all the time to me. What I don’t know is how long it will last. I hit a roadblock in my mind and had no choice but to put ClueChaser aside for awhile. It’s still in back of my head (seems it always is) but I had to return my focus to the areas of my life that I’ve been neglecting.

My brain works in a funny way. I know that in the back recesses of my mind puzzle ideas are churning and working themselves out. At some point the back of my brain will throw an idea to the front of my brain and I’ll be back on the job, creating puzzles, working them into the storyline, etc.

Currently I have the main idea of Game 3 in my head, the video to introduce it, and the main pieces almost complete. All I really have left is to create 6 to 8 more puzzles of varying complexity. That’s where I’m stuck. So far I have created over 20 puzzles for ClueChaser and each one has been different. Continuing this trend of original puzzles is beginning to take its toll on my limited imagination. It’s not just a matter of slapping something together, you have to make it so that it can’t be solved right away, perhaps there is, or should be, a hint placed somewhere. You’ve got to make sure the answer can’t be determined by accident but only by completing the entire puzzle (done well in game 1 I think but not as well in game 2). I could go on and on but I’ll save that for another post.

Just know that I factor these down times into my forecasting so I still plan to have Game 3: Puzzle PiEces ready by late July early August.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my ramblings. Feel free to post your thoughts/reactions. Maybe we can make something good of all this verbal nonsense.

Later,
Cowpatty Bill

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