All good things - 12/2/24

What were you doing 14 years ago?  In December of 2010 I had been geocaching for less than a year, but had gotten absolutely hooked on geocaching puzzles.  In an effort to understand the minds of my local puzzlers better, I had started working on puzzles I found by poking around through the geocaching.com search.  I searched random places and assorted key words and kept track of my work in a notebook and wondered if I could solve a puzzle every day.  

I quickly found that there were enough simple straightforward puzzles that I could certainly solve one every day, so I decided to see if I could find and solve a fun, clever puzzle on average at least once a day.  I was thoroughly enjoying the process and felt that there had to be other people out there who would have fun seeing more puzzles than were in their own area, and perhaps inspire them to create new puzzles themselves.  A bonus would be giving a wider audience and paying thanks to puzzlers whose work I had enjoyed. So on 1/1/2011, the Geocaching Puzzle of the Day was launched.  

I never would have anticipated keeping it going for 14 years, and I am incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful people I have come to know through this hobby, but the time has come for me to stop curating the blog on a daily basis.  I still enjoy puzzling and have gotten into a lot of puzzling arenas outside of geocaching (I will post some links below).  

I am keeping things going daily until the end of the year, and I will undoubtedly pop up from time to time with new content after that (it will be hard to give it up cold turkey!)  I have another thing I'm working on so that visitors to the website should easily be able to find something they've not seen to enjoy.  More on that later.

For now, let's just say that my intention is to avoid anyone thinking that:

This is all going to end badly

Tomorrow we'll ...

A few links to the wider puzzle world:

Puzzle Hunt Calendar - this site keeps track of online and in-person hunts throughout the year.  These can be in-person or online, and some require a small fee or subscription.  Among the ones I see there right now I can recommend:

Puzzled Pint - if you're lucky enough to be close enough to play in person, you can do so.  But the puzzles are posted after the event each month and you can play at your own pace for free.

P&A Magazine and Puzzle Boat - The magazine is a (roughly) bi-monthly offering with stand-alone puzzles and a group of puzzles connected to a larger "meta" puzzle.  Puzzle Boat is a longer, annual event best solved with a team.  These require a fee, but provide hours of entertainment.

MIT Mystery Hunt - Imagine the Olympics of puzzling, where you are not just watching some of the best puzzlers in the world at their craft, but you get to compete right alongside them.  There are opportunities to solve in person in Boston or join a team remotely.  I'll share more about some of the puzzles I wrote for last year's hunt in January.

Lots of other hunts pop up on the calendar throughout the year, and they have varying lengths and difficulty levels. If you're ever curious about whether I've tried one, feel free to give me a shout.  

Want to get better at cryptic crosswords?  Here's a free site where you can practice daily:  Lovatt's Cryptic Crosswords

Other subscription based ones I've tried include:

Matt Gaffney's crossword contest (I'm still working on the learning curve for these, but they're a fun challenge)

Puzzlesnacks - Eric Berlin inspired many of the recent word-based California puzzles I've shared.  He's recently switched from a weekly subscription model to a downloadable puzzle collections.  They're generally very accessible and fun.