worldpuzzle.org/championships/types-of-puzzles/wpc

It's like a battleships puzzle, but with ships that aren't 1 by x

whelp. I'm terrible at battleships - no use here either

hmmm

the 2x3 contraint is probably too limiting

maybe make it 3d

alternatively

leave out some clues

so that you have to use the 2x3 constraint to solve it

leaving out clues is standard in battleships (among logic puzzle enthusiasts at least)

never made a clouds puzzle, but you can probably do something with figuring out how a certain row or column has to decompose before actually placing the individual clouds

Ah that makes sense... I've solved them but never made them

like, if you put clues 2-5-5-2 in consecutive columns, that tells you a huge amount about the clouds in those columns

Yeah

(Also the reason they need to be 2x3 is for final cluing)

and with a few well-placed row clues, you can disambiguate that in an interesting way

braille rip

(yeah i was gonna say "hm i wonder what possible extraction method could use 2x3 blocks! i guess it will forever be a mystery")

Yeah the extraction step is not the most exciting... it

It's why I'm making the logical solving step more interesting

I also need to get better at meta design

braille is nice

game of life reverse engineering is the next on my mind

but it's very very very hard

nothing wrong with that! logic puzzles don't usually have mind-blowing extractions in puzzle hunts

I just wanted something more then "here's a list of letters in the grid"

do a word search!

...uh what

I did that before

On one of the puzzles I posted here

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/83962/untitled-for-now < this one

ah yeah, that one was very nice!

:D

I guess the word search is only the first step in solving that one?

it doesn't always have to be a first step

no, it doesn't, but word searches usually aren't super interesting in terms of aha moments

The word searches I've made for puzzle hunts so far were 1) a maze, 2) a coordinate grid, 3) a Playfair square, and 4) horseshoe shaped words

Or well I'm still working on the Playfair one... I need to get it to the point where it's not just "decode this massive playfair cipher" at the end

And I guess that one, but that was designed to be one of the easier puzzles

i've done a puzzle where you had to crack a playfair cipher by logicking out letter placements from crib text - that was fun

I'm just waiting for a word search

One of my favorite word searches was by Panda Magazine... it had four house shaped voids

where the text is a red herring

absolutely, totally, and completely red herring

that sounds annoying

and the real answer is morse code based on whether each letter is in serif or sans serif

There was also the word search that resolved into a sudoku... that was fun

@Deusovi it would be

and probably downvoted into oblivion

I did one like that but not in a word search... it was a page of obscure steps to solve a puzzle, and eventually you realized that some of the letters were missing . or -

ooh, clever

I'm almost done with the crossword I'm going to submit... I'm just terrible at making good crossword clues so I'm learning how to do that first

okay, now I have an idea for a word search that resolves into a nonogram

I HAVE TOO MANY PUZZLE IDEAS HELP ME

make them!

but homework... and college apps...

@Aranlyde oh, submit here? (also i'm not great at plain crossword clues either)

I will yes

neat, looking forward to it!

I'm even worse at making cryptics

I got better at crossword clues over time... mostly with Deus telling me where I went wrong

@bobble Dangit, now so do I! (re: nonogram/word search). Care to tag team if it's the same idea :-)

Or even if not...

You go first, I have 5 other puzzles in various states of starting-ness

Here's the word search/playfair square at the moment... I need to reduce the number of dead letters somehow

hm, that seems like it might be difficult

It's 50 at the moment, which seems like a bit much

already looks packed pretty tightly, given the constraints you have on placement and word choice

Or put a message in the dead letters - maybe a clue for the cipher?

The dead letters will be the cipher itself

The word list is the IPA

(nato phonetic alphabet, not ipa)

Ah yes sorry

but yes, i'm saying that that specific choice constrained you to the point where 50 dead squares is probably pretty good

I guess a 50-letter playfair cipher isn't bad to decode?

it's probably decently manageable? you could also pack some instructions into the start of that if you want to reduce the tedium there

oh start with like SECRETMESSAGEFOLLOWS... and then just have the decoding at the end?

yeah, something like that - or some instructions for the puzzle, too

like, PLAYFAIR (THESE) (USING CENTER) could be packed into the start if you want to burn some letters

I did make my most groanworthy meta this past week

I may just post the hunt just because since the event is now over once I clean it up a bit

oh cool, sounds good

There's one puzzle I had to emergency swap out since I'm bad at English it turns out

"Whereas a president bereft of councilors" <-- me being way too fancy in my gov homework

@bobble ah yes

also hows the npg logo coming?

I said someone else should make it - I have terrible editing skills

as do i tbh

im thinking maybe like a red pickle with "npg" overlaid in some very bold font?

What is NPG?

"no pickle gang"

No Pickle Gang

only people who hate pickles are allowed in

^^ is what started it

hows this look, @bobble?

sorry I cut off the bottom of the "g"

but there's a pickle in it

make the pickle die or put an x through it or something

uh ok

hows that then?

slightly better

make sure the pickle looks eeeevil

uh thanks i guess

@bobble how exactly should i do that?

?????? Again, I'm not a graphics designer

i guess i could just make it a darker red

how bout that?

Looks good. @NorthLæraðr, opinions?

markdown is stupid sometimes

I didn't see you message before it was deleted, if that makes you feel any better

uh good

is the pickle

> eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil

enough?

I don't know how to make it more eeeevil without anthropomorphizing it.

and i am terrible at anthropomorphizing things

it is an eeeevil pickle

my pickle almost looks like it's bleeding

@bobble Hmm, looks too red....

It looks like a sausage

Maybe make it look bleeding

Also that font is kind of gross, ngl

i can only make it either that red or the red above it

Is that Arial?

the chrome os version of it

"arimo"

No I like the red

which red

the latter

Pick a different font though

Please

ok the how bout this, idk?

That looks no different

Hm

You're using sans serif type fonts rn, right?

yes

want a serif?

Serif looks bad in logos in general though

yeahhh

Maybe pick a less formal font in general

as does monospace

Not comic sans

Hold on let me look through some fonts

i personally like Rubik and Noto Sans

I'm a serif guy, which makes logos really bad

Hmm try a lighter sans font

Actually Helvetica Bold might

work

@matt Oh, got it

ok which of these looks best

Try the IM Fell series on Google docs

top is rubik

middle is noto

bottom is helvetica

Consider making the "NPG" larger, so that it is over the pickle instead of on it. (Might make placement of the caption underneath more difficult, though.)

Rubik looks the best, maybe drop the border on the text. Try the IM series, it has a bit grittier feel

ok will do @gareth

IM Fell DW Pica might work.

Or, y'know, you could lose the initials altogether and "cross out" the pickle or something.

Yeah

(I have no particular objection to pickles myself, but good design is a good thing.)

The color on the text is kind of meh

how bout BRIGHT NEON GREEN?

Ew

no i think it looks kinda nice on the red actually

font: im fell dw pica

The font is good

The color is

... not?

Weird. It's like the pickle and the font decided switch

what do you think would look good?

Maybe just no font

w-

Put a like that circle with a slash through it

Oh I got it

You can do a shade of dark green or brown

ok i'll try that

the brown kinda blended in and all the dark greens looked terrible to me :/

Put the NPG over the pickle and the “No Pick Gang” under the pickle, with the pickle having a circle with the slash going through it

Hm

no *pickle gang

I can't spell

hmm

this is a design challenge Puzzle™

I'll try to make one myself

later

what if i made the pickle look like it was on fire?

ooh

seconded

beware: this may look too ridiculous

i just upped the contrast

wait... this might work......

Anti-matter pickle distributors D:

Hm

@Avi no its just the logo

@NorthLæraðr hm what?

just get a pitchfork

with pickle on top

that implies eating

or flaming pickles

thats what that ^ is meant to be

drawception.com/panel/drawing/OPlL6336/pickle-rick-on-fire

this is what i found on the internet

Pitchforks: Timeless. Elegant. Triple-stabby.

ah yes, PTET

(from The Good Place, a show that YOU, yes YOU should watch. and also don't get spoiled for the season-1 twist)

hmm

I made that in a design discussion with people yesterday. I apologize for it

WHY COMIC SANS

what do you think of the npg logo?

That's not Comic Sans

It's Comic Papyrus!

@GarethMcCaughan, I've been reading some of the essays on your website. They're quite interesting.

Also rather old :-).

Nice keming @Aranlyde.

I've written exactly one guest article for a medium-ish blog (under my real name), and I die with embarrassment at the though of anyone I know reading it. Kudos to you for keeping your essays up.

Except, again, I really haven't kept it up. Last update there was years ago.

I mean keeping them findable and readable

stupid English and its words with too many meanings

Ah, I see. Well, it's not like it's expensive to keep a simple website around.

@GarethMcCaughan It pained my soul to manually move the kerning slider in the wrong direction

@Aranlyde Soul pains could be a sign of a more serious issue. Have you checked for any other distressing symptoms?

The bevel tool also caused them

But there's my submission to the pickle logo contest

That's a super rough version I mocked up in a minute

ooh nice!

i think we even used the same exact pickle image too

The public domain one from Wikipedia?

yep

Then yes

I should use a thinner pickle if I want the sign to correspond to ISO standards though

i should do a "google translated nonsense" where i get the wikipedia article for pickles and send it through google translate a bunch of times until it makes no sense at all

@Aranlyde what iso standards?

There used to be a website that automated that for you (it used Bing I think) but I can't seem to find it any more

The ISO standards for the "no" sign

i see

Another puzzle question: I'm curious how unique Morse code strings are with the spacing between letters removed

"common" by what measure? A random word -> another word?

i think so

Yeah... I could probably just write a quick script to check it actually

Googling "ambiguous Morse Code" led me to an SO question about such a script

all from .--....-....-.-..-----.

> Canned cucumber (pickled cucumber in the US and Canada and Gerkin in Britain, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) is a pickle that is harvested with bran, vinegar or other fruits. Another and left to melt for a while, by soaking the pumpkins in acid solution or lactose-yeast. Carried pumpkins are part of integrated checks.

@bobble A BLUE DOG

Which language chain did you use, @matt?

hawaiian - amharic a few times