Wolf

If you played, or tried to, another of the ever growing list of online riddles, you may have noticed a huge gap between quantity and quality.
This kind of thread has been done before, but then (like the incoming riddles) why can't we make another one?

The several aspects that make or not a good riddle - post your opinions.

To me:

(This follows no order if importance)

-Being original: it's hard to near impossible, but if you can't get out of the low standard, you're screwed.

-Graphics/Pictures:
They are definitely important. If you want to build an atmosphere, pictures are the rock stand of your creation. While you need decent quality pictures, either in kilobytes or pixels, over-size is a issue you must care for. Slow loading sucks and not everyone has that jetspeed connection you might be used to.
If you thought "google images", you suck. Don't take stupid photos of your garden either.
Don't hide clues in the Exif - saving a file just to open with another program and read something is boring. Using this method once in every 30 levels is a fair rate.
Image editing is fine. Fair rate of use: 1/16 levels. Obscure methods to find the info are allowed - as far as you can hint them properly AND that they work on other programs than the one you have at home.

-Sound:
Not needed, but cool - essentialy for atmosphere. Remember sound isn't very browser-friendly. The same rule for image editing apllies to sound file riddles. Keep files inside the 1 minute long mark, why? Short download.

-Programs:
Don't make people download a program to solve your riddle if you are just going to use it once (unless it is like 900Kb and it doesn't require installing). Chances are that people doesn't have the right programs, so tell them what they will need before they start the riddle (again, I'm talking about big executables).
Ah, try to avoid using java/flash the most you can.

-Server:
I don't know about you, but if I see a riddle is in "freewebs" or "lycos", I know I'll get crap.
Lots of Ads, stupid 404s, low bandwidth... well, you know.

-Forum:
I don't know, really. People don't like to register, but if they don't need to, it'll be a mess.
They won't read the rules, they'll post spoilers, write like retards...
Well, at least they are under your leash to some degree.

-Riddles:
Again, try to be creative and not repetitive. Appealing to websearch gets boring very fast. As far as you can get what you need to solve your riddle inside your riddle, you will be Ok.
As I said before, downloads also aren't very cool if frequent.
Pre-existent ciphers are fine, but if you create your own - or at least your own twist of one - it will be finer.
Riddles should be about being clever, not being wise. Learning something while you solve a riddle, great. Having to learn a lot just to solve one, not so great.
The learning curve MUST be fair. Don't put the potentially "quit the game" levels until the players are deep and stable enough.
And finally: if your first level is "click the picture with a door in it" or "change the URL to level2.html", just kill yourself.


agree

just checked my bookmarks and riddle notes...
i started more than 70 (!) different riddles finished maybe 20-25 of them
but if people ask me about good riddles i can name a few only...

the most of riddles you can find in the net are worthless, foreseeable, too easy, boooooring... so usually i stop playing them after ~10 levels
Tynka do you have a riddle?
no, i'm not creative enough, so i prefer to be a good riddle-solver rather than a mediocre riddle-maker
as i said somewhere in the forum: creating a really good riddle is much harder than solving it


i agree with you creating is much harder than solving but if you make a riddle one day i am sure that it will be awsome
i moved a few offtopic posts somewhere else [...]

so now, the discussion can back to its topic: Creating a Riddle
Strati, do you have a riddle we can try?

Just happened to stumble upon this thread and I feel I'd say something. Your handbook's real strict Many riddles online that the riddle community considers good, particularly the "number one" Notpron, starts off with levels like, click the door (notpron), change to level2.htm (yet again, Notpron) cos they didnt have tutorials. These are the tutorials to get them on track.

IH's ruling in many areas. Sound, use of flash, graphics, level types. For once I see a riddle that doesnt really use google images (or none at all). I wholeheartedly agree with Strati; Im creating one myself. It's natural I've been hunting across the Net for more riddles similar to IH or Zest, my personal favorites.

Maybe we should all create one or something. host a competition. Besides IH, riddles are sorta dying out in some places. Just posting this post. Getting some ideas.

Just curious though, you mentioned "Ah, try to avoid using java/flash the most you can.
" So, you disapprove of IH?
Quote: Many riddles online that the riddle community considers good, particularly the "number one" Notpron, starts off with levels like, click the door (notpron), change to level2.htm (yet again, Notpron) cos they didnt have tutorials.
Well, notpron was first popular riddle so in those times it was original. But those brainless "i can make a riddle too" muppets just copied all notpron ideas ["if not pron is so cool when I do my riddle exactly the same it will be cool too"]. It's amazing when you start 80% of riddles and they are all the same.
80%? I thought it was higher
Orio's Riddle, Notpron, blahblah... the first few levels are all either clickthis!, change one to two! or something along that line. The justification they gave was that the first few levels MUST be uber easy to hook people. Apparently not.

http://ercancem.wordpress...ddles-round-up/
How many do you really approve?
GyRIdashai wrote: Strati, do you have a riddle we can try?

If you mean one of my own, no. I once had a project with 30-40 riddles done, but archived and probably lost/deleted it.

Quote:
Just happened to stumble upon this thread and I feel I'd say something. Your handbook's real strict Many riddles online that the riddle community considers good, particularly the "number one" Notpron, starts off with levels like, click the door (notpron), change to level2.htm (yet again, Notpron) cos they didnt have tutorials. These are the tutorials to get them on track.

These aren't much of "requirements for riddles I might play" but rather a list to what should be learned from the mistakes of these same riddles. just the fact that people treat Notpron as the "number one" is a great cause of bad riddles.
Just look at their main page, you feel like inside of those cheap TV ads.

If you can defeat this riddle then I'm sure you'll do well when playing online poker. If you don't know how to play poker and like to play more blackjack like games, then you can also play at an online casino.

"You don't have to be a computer nerd to get through the levels. [...]"

Then this:

"I find it challenging and I finally have put my random computer-geek skills to use. I was previously only using them to lose money playing online poker!"

Way to counter-advertise, genius!

Ahem...going back

Quote:
IH's ruling in many areas. Sound, use of flash, graphics, level types. For once I see a riddle that doesnt really use google images (or none at all). I wholeheartedly agree with Strati; Im creating one myself. It's natural I've been hunting across the Net for more riddles similar to IH or Zest, my personal favorites.

Maybe we should all create one or something. host a competition. Besides IH, riddles are sorta dying out in some places. Just posting this post. Getting some ideas.

Agreed.
A "creative group" is not a bad idea either.

Quote:
Just curious though, you mentioned "Ah, try to avoid using java/flash the most you can.
" So, you disapprove of IH?

I like the chapter intermissions, but not much about the idea of a main menu in flash.
About using it to play music, I can't really tell, I'm rarely patient enough to wait the music load with my hella slow internet.
Lol
Strati wrote:
IH's ruling in many areas. Sound, use of flash, graphics, level types. For once I see a riddle that doesnt really use google images (or none at all). I wholeheartedly agree with Strati; Im creating one myself. It's natural I've been hunting across the Net for more riddles similar to IH or Zest, my personal favorites.

Maybe we should all create one or something. host a competition. Besides IH, riddles are sorta dying out in some places. Just posting this post. Getting some ideas.

Agreed.
A "creative group" is not a bad idea either.

So when does it start
When there's people enough.
I and a friend are working on something, we're working on completion of the first chapter and if it's ok with the admins we would like you guys to test it out and give us some comments.
i cannot solve riddles
Beezqp wrote: i cannot solve riddles
What. Creator of level 14 should be able to solve other riddles.
creating =/= solving

two totally different ways of thinking required
Beezqp wrote: Quote: Many riddles online that the riddle community considers good, particularly the "number one" Notpron, starts off with levels like, click the door (notpron), change to level2.htm (yet again, Notpron) cos they didnt have tutorials.
Well, notpron was first popular riddle so in those times it was original. But those brainless "i can make a riddle too" muppets just copied all notpron ideas ["if not pron is so cool when I do my riddle exactly the same it will be cool too"]. It's amazing when you start 80% of riddles and they are all the same.

Absolutely.
What makes matter worse is some riddle-makers only play some riddle with no quality at all and build another riddle of no quality.

There are tons of example but I ain't going to show many of them.

For me, a good riddle should involve:
a) Good riddle element
Good riddle element accounts to high quality of riddle and it is its main attraction.
You cannot use a silly maths question for a level since it lacks "riddling".
A very bad example:
http://www.arthurluk.net/.../wingdings.html
Ignore any foreign characters since this riddle is in purely Chinese.

A good riddle should involve:

1. Cryptography

Without this a riddle is not a riddle. Bad to intermediate riddles usually only involves the use of commonly-known ciphers, e.g. Morse code, ASCII.
Only few riddles can cover them to depth and even fewer can establish new cipher system.
(However, establishing new cipher system may put your riddle at risk if it's too hard)
IH surely has its cipher system I guess. (CIRCLES? )

2. Multimedia understanding/editing skills

With good use of this one can surely add theme to his riddle(s).
Poor ones can only involve extension changing like .JPG to .GIF (not even knowing .PNG) and image/audio editing is nearly none.
Surely IH shows an excellent use in multimedia: flash, image, sound... everything is quite perfect

3. Information searching skills

A phenomenon is that poor riddle usually involves a lot of Googling or wiki-ing since the makers aren't very creative so external elements have to be introduced.

For the better riddles, I dunno if they're too keen on cryptography.
The use of search engine is few but this does not matter too much if the cipher is always different and creative.

4. Fairness

For some googling stuffs, there exists a range of unfairness, e.g. reference to a game or a book .etc. If the riddle isn't VERY unfair, it's okay in my opinion.
  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • ptsite.xlx.pl