Thinking long-term, you might want to wait and see if the rate remains greater than 1 per day, before you spend the surplus and run out. Of course, if the surplus is over 200 already, you could have a puzzlethon along with the next tangathon, instead of one puzzle for the whole thing like last time.

PS: Aren't those programmers back from Paris yet? Tell them we want our Tanga points before the next auction at least! :) [Edit: Tanga points received, thanks!]

PPS: It seems that old puzzles that were wider than 500x500 are no longer displayed correctly, being cut off on the right side, and in most cases this makes them impossible to solve without looking at the solution (which displays them correctly). For example, I looked at the puzzle from 9/25/06, and stared at it for a couple minutes while thinking "How the HECK did I solve THIS in 33 seconds???" Then I looked at the solution.

[1] Just for the record, mine showed up about two days after my puzzle was used, dlp. It looks like they're checking in from Paris at least every now and again. :-)

I figure it's only a good thing if the quality bar is kept high. Nothing's more frustrating than a badly put together puzzle (of which I know I submitted at least one :P). Better the majority are not used then if the floodgates were open to admit them.

I'm concered over some of these solutions with really awkward words. I thought answers were supposed to be simple words. In some cases it doesn't matter if it's easy enough. But I was in hell for yesterday's where I had to get every clue to get the ridiculous answer which now makes me question my own submission.

ha i just made one it its a pretty satisfying experience... i hope it gets used!

Every new puzzle really pushes me more and more to wonder what other people here think makes a "good puzzle". I'm probably too arrogant with regards to puzzles for my own good (I've been solving some fantastically designed puzzles from professionals for years), but I'll share my opinion anyway.

Making a difficult (or impossible) puzzle is something easy that anybody can do. The real challenge of a puzzle maker is to make a puzzle that is fun to solve, something that will make the solver think but never mislead them. Most classic puzzle formats involve knowing exactly how to solve the puzzle, but still having a fun challenge in doing so. Why do we always end up staring at puzzles without clues?

I guess in the end we'll all submit the kinds of puzzles that we like and maybe it'll balance out. For me, though, I'd really like to see fewer puzzles that have obviously not undergone testing. Seeing puzzles with outright mistakes is always a bad sign (no offense to today's puzzle, it's far from the only one and the error people mentioned here was fixed by the time I even started) and other puzzles have so many red herrings it's obvious that only people who knew the solution to begin with have even looked at it. It would also be nice to see more clever clues instead of the 'clever' omission of them.

What does everybody else think? Am I the only one that gets frustrated when yet another puzzle pops up that I have to figure out what to do before I can even start to solve it? Do other people like red herrings instead of finding them frustrating? I'd really be interested to see discussion on this topic, and this seems like a good place for it.

Random puzzle thoughts...

The proficiency of the Tangan puzzler audience here is very wide, so the definition of a "good" puzzle will be just as wide. What one puzzler thinks is "fantastic", another will label "lame". Some will call every easy one “good,” and frustrating one “bad”. Others like a challenge. Sometimes it will depend on the blood sugar level of the puzzler on that particular day. There have been many puzzle references that have been outside my frame of reference, not being into the current pop-culture. That doesn't make the puzzle bad, just sometimes impossible to do on my own.

I define a good puzzle as one that is not so frustrating that I give up on it altogether.

I don't know if a "good" puzzle doesn't have any red herrings. A good mystery has red herrings and a puzzle is just another form of a mystery.

As soon as the solver has to "think", they are likely to think of something the author didn't think of. For example in tonight's (1/14) puzzle I had 15 different possible words to fill 6 spaces - all simple interpretations of the pics - the choices I had gave me 144 different possiblities to explore. Going through the trial and error phase, I started to believe that I had misinterpreted the oh-so obvious directions, while other people were solving this in under a minute. Was that frustrating - sure, was it a "bad" puzzle, no, were they “red herrings” - intentional or otherwise, who knows?

"Traditional" puzzlers (at least my background) often take pride in not having to look anything up to complete a puzzle. So I first try to solve a puzzle on my own without looking at the blog. It has been frustrating to find errata in the blog (however none of the fixed errors would have made me solve any faster). Many of the Tanga puzzles have required web searches (especially last night 1/13/07). This is not a bad thing, just requires another mind-set. Perhaps when a puzzle will absolutely require web-work a duck-foot or spider-web could be included in the pic, or have a web-rating on the side.

I have a friend who has felt like abandoning Tanga until the regular puzzle maker comes back, finding the recent ones to be extra frustrating (especially last night). Some newspapers try to accommodate the audience range by publishing their puzzles (crossword and sudoku) easiest to hardest, Monday through Sunday. With the Tanga puzzles, it may be a little more difficult to rank because what is "easy" for one person can seem "impossible" to another. But maybe if there is a plethora (ooh good word) of puzzles-in-waiting, the Tanga guys could implement a scheme like that.

I would hate to discourage the Tanga-users from creating puzzles - I have found the Tangan generated ones to be thought provoking and frustrating, and fun, and mind stretching. Given that amateurs (myself included) are creating the puzzles, there will always be mistakes, and red herrings (intentional and un-intentional). Each time another is posted, the puzzle maker (and the potential puzzle makers) will learn from the responses of the puzzlers what worked well, and what didn't, and may remember the next time they craft a puzzle.

It is difficult to pre-test the puzzles outside a very limited audience. I have given my puzzles to my Dad, sister and brother-in-law to solve without knowing the answers - but we're all in the same family with the same background. I don't know how someone else will interpret my clues. It would be a good idea if the Tanga guys could pre-test the puzzles and give feedback to the authors, but I don’t know their workload and wouldn’t presume to tell them what to do.

Some days the dragon wins, and anything that makes my mind work a little harder staves off Alzheimer’s for just a little more time.

My two cents: any puzzle I enjoy (even if I can't solve it) is a good puzzle, in my book. So leadfoot's right: there can be no common definition of a good puzzle, since everyone has different tastes and levels of capability.

Types of puzzles I enjoy: those with a satisfying payoff (i.e. I feel clever for getting it), those that get me chatting with people in the "thinking through it" process, those that use a neat-o convention I've never seen before (but one that doesn't break "accepted" puzzling practices).

On the other hand, there's no puzzle I like less than one I can solve in a minute or less. There are a good number of these on tanga, and I know they're popular, but to me these feel like a waste of time. If there's some clever scheme or the answer makes me giggle, I'll think more highly of it, but random, easy puzzles get on my nerves, for some reason. Maybe I'm addicted to the practice of working through the puzzle every night with my husband, and easy puzzles cheat us out of that time ... dunno.

So, some days you get your type of puzzle, some days I get mine. *shrug* Way it goes.

Tanga Guys,
The "Puzzle Update" blog is now in the archives (http://www.tanga.com/blogs/293), and is more difficult to find. You may want to include the ground rules for submission (summarized in the original blog) either on this blog, or maybe better on the "Submit your Puzzle" page, so the newbie puzzle authors know what to do.

[7]

I agree with almost everything, most ecspecially the loathing for red herrings. For me, it's just a dickish thing for someone to do and it's what pissed me off about that checkerboard puzzle from around a week ago. IMO, it's the bad misstep in puzzle design when they occur, though sometimes you just don't see them when you craft the thing. To actually put them in intentionally is just !#%^ed up.

Overall, my favorites for puzzle are ones that are themed nicely. It's actually a 2 for 1 shot since if the puzzle is themed well, chances are it's also going to help you solve it. It might be a bit hard to get the ball rolling, but once you flash on the theme, it's like a snowball rolling downhill.

[8][9]

What I'm sure we've all come to realize is that 'easy' and 'hard' are 4-letter words. People tend to flash on different things and there's nothing more frustrating than having someone scream 'EASY!' when you can't figure a puzzle out or cue contempt when someone screams 'HARD' when you got the answer in 30 seconds. I dunno that we'll ever find a happy medium on that point. All you can do is accept that there will probaly be a continuum.

What I find sorta funny is that absence does make the heart grow fonder for the puzzlemaker. I've heard quite a few people waxing poetic and mistyeyed about how they wished we were using his puzzles again and not the user generated ones for quality reasons. It's easy now to forget things like butter :). There will always be hits and missed, and unfortuantely, it's always going to be highly individualistic.

I really do think it would be great if groups of us who have submitted puzzles could get togheter and pass our potential submissions around to get opinions and have people test them out more thoroughly. I've passed mine around to friends, but no one's into this sort of thing so the response (when there's any) is lackluster.

I guess I am lucky I am a relative newbie - I wasn't here for butter, but after going back and looking at it and reading the blog from that day, I think I would have been just as frustrated as the people who were there for the first go-round.

About 1/2 the puzzles I've solved are from the users. I have randomly gone back in the archive to see other puzzles, and I find I am just as befuddled with the old as with the new (my mind just doesn’t want to think outside the box).

I also agree it would be nice to 'get together' and test drive our potential submissions. I know when I was trying to come up with the text for mine, I wrote, wrote, and re-wrote thinking "too salty" and "whoa, nobody will have a clue" - and I can only hope that I've come up with a happy medium. Some people will say “WTF?” and others will get it right away. Having a group critique the puzzle would make me feel more confident that I haven't unnecessarily caused someone's blood pressure to rise from frustration and too much salt.

The trick with a testing group will be to get a group of testers who are somewhat representative of the potential whole. We have some really smart/quick people solving these puzzles, leaving everyone else in the dust. We would need some dusty people in our test-drive group to find and identify the unintentional red herrings, and to indicate when an intentional red herring (if the puzzle-maker so desires to install one) is too smelly and leads to too much gnashing of teeth and general frustration.

After a puzzle has been vetted for obvious mistakes, the subjective suggestions will be more difficult to act on. You’ll still have people who will “get it” and people who will need a ton of salt. After the mistakes are corrected, it should still be up to the puzzle maker to incorporate or reject suggestions.

One thing the test-drive group could provide is a rating of the puzzle difficulty. If I knew ahead of time that the 1/13 puzzle was a “this is supposed to be hard” puzzle, I think I would have not been quite as frustrated. I don’t look at the blog immediately. Once I did, and read the first entry, I started to cut myself a little slack.

After the fact, the puzzles end up with a “self rating” in that the Tanga guys have collected statistics on how quickly the puzzles have been solved, and have the blogs of complaints/praises. If I had all the time in the world I think it would be an interesting exercise to go back and analyze the puzzles to find their good points and bad, and look at the solve stats (once the “lurking” stats have been removed from the mix – anything under 10-15 seconds is probably a pre-solve). Another pastime for after I retire (no time soon unfortunately).

It can be really hard, sometimes, to gauge how hard a puzzle is. When I design a puzzle, I usually come up with the solution method first and then "backfill" it with the details necessary to bring people to a solution. But because I already have a solution method, it's difficult to tell just how hard it is to make it to the AHA! that's necessary to solve the puzzle. And while I do try to beta-test my puzzles on a couple of local friends (some of whom have pointed out errors to me in the process!), I will make a confession: I generally assume that Tanga members are better puzzle solvers than the people that I show them to, so I give the people I show them to a little salt when they're on the right track or say the right thing and then dismiss it.

One thing to keep in mind is that, even within Tanga, there's still a variety of preferences in puzzles. Some people like the harder ones; others like the easier ones. Some don't like the ones that are huge blocks of text; others don't like the ones where you have to guess what a picture is--even if a picture is relatively unambiguous, English is a rich enough language that a picture of an apple could just as easily be "fruit" or "red" or "sweet" or "sour" or "Rome" or "gala." Everyone is going to have puzzles that they think are amazing and puzzles that they think are stupid. And they're probably going to disagree on them. My brain just refused to pick up on "sticky marsupial" (http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/178) no matter how long I played with it. It was clever, it was stylistically consistent...and I just didn't grok it (no offense to the puzzlemaker!). On the other hand, I was all prepared to hate "Game Log Ops" (http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/181) because, just looking at it, I could tell that the solution method was going to be obscure...and yet, once I got it, I was impressed by how neatly it all fit together, even if it was insanely difficult.

Even the non-guest Tanga puzzles have had a wide variety of solution methods (and I'm impressed by how many there have been; when you're designing them, it becomes difficult to find new methods in which to couch the information necessary for a solution). There have been some that have all but required searching for information about the subject matter (such as http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/37, http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/138, http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/99, and http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/151). There have been puzzles that have included heavy amounts of red herring (http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/147, http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/62, and http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/63). Some have been text-heavy, others have been picture-heavy. It's been an amazing variety, and not every one has been equally cherished. I know I'm rather fond of "oh c'mon it's obvious," myself. I'm betting henwy wasn't nearly so fond of that one.

I've designed a number of puzzles so far (no, McPana was far from the only one--unfortunately for you all!). I've tried to keep a wide variety in them. None of them has really used the same solution method. A couple of them have been what I'm calling my "tomfoolery" puzzles--ones that are heavily laden with red herrings but that have a very simply and straightforward answer, inspired by "oh c'mon it's obvious." I've only done a couple of those, because I _know_ they can get old fast. :-) But some of mine have been mostly pictures. Some have been all text. Many are a mixture of both. Some are easier, some are more difficult. I'm fairly proud of a couple of them that I think are on the more difficult side, because I think that the solution method is elegant. I'm sure others will disagree and will consider putting a bounty on my head if and when they get run. I may have to run for the border when the "tomfoolery" puzzles show up. :-) But, in all this, there's an important point: No puzzle is going to please everyone. In fact, the more you try to make something all things for all people, the more likely it is that no one will like it. I've been doing my best to make sure that puzzles I submit are accessible but challenging--both aspects are very important. Maybe I go a little _too_ challenging, sometimes, but I have faith in you guys! Anyway, it's worth keeping in mind that everyone's tastes will vary, and, if you don't like the puzzle you get one day...well, there's always another one coming the next day.

I am not sure where to post this, but how do I find out about tanga points auctions? Is there a notification option in the profile. I completely missed the most recent one.

A year from now, I can see a tanga puzzle compilation book coming out...

I agree with dajagr - you can't please everyone all the time. I've been creating puzzles in my spare time and I've tried to keep the solution required different (with a range of difficulty and time required). Some of them will still turn out to be duds, though, I'm sure. I have faith in the tanga puzzlesmasters to do a reasonable job of weeding through the puzzles - I've been enjoying the guest puzzles thus far.

Also, tanga auctions - just look for the tanga point auction blog entries - that's all I've ever seen.

"There will be a user-created Puzzlethon starting at 10pm on Friday 1/19/2007."

Yay... and dang. Central time, I presume. I guess I'll catch the first couple hours of it, then get 8 hours of sleep, then go to Bay Area Games Day until 2am (CST) on sunday morning. I halfway hope none of my puzzles will be used, since I won't be around to get any Tanga points for answering them unless I want to give up a whole day of games. I guess the people who complained about the last tangathons being on a weekday got their wish.

>[16] dlp (Joined Sep 20 2006, 92 posts)
>"There will be a user-created Puzzlethon starting at 10pm on Friday 1/19/2007."
>Yay... and dang. Central time, I presume.

Aren't the times they post usually Pacific?

10pm is the usual daily start time on the East Coast.
(I'm so confused)

Pity about the timing on this puzzlethon. I have my first class for the semester of grad school from 9-3:30 Saturday, plus a convention all weekend with lots of friends from out of town that I normally don't get to see. :/ Any chance that the puzzles will be open all weekend, for those of us who already had weekend plans?

I imagine this upcoming Puzzlethon will be a good way for Aaron to weed out some of the "not quite good enough/complex enough" user-submitted puzzles - I know at *least* one of mine would qualify.

Bring on the butter.

I hope that you'll post a schedule ahead of time that lets us know whose puzzles will be used during the puzzlethon and in what time slots. I hope one of mine makes it!

Any chance we can get a link to a list of puzzles we've submitted on the My Account page? That would be groovy. Especially when I accidentally erased a jpg I made and had to guess my submission number to find it on y'alls server.

How long until Tanga points are delivered for submitted puzzles? It would be nice to have them all available for the Auction...

I had made a comment about a possible "submission preview" page with a final accept or back to the drawing board option. However, that particular discussion thread seems to have disappeared. I'd like to re-issue my woe. I've yet to return to the submission page as I don't want a 3rd incarnation of the same puzzle floating around out there. (Heck, for all I know, this feature has been added and I just haven't had the courage to try again.) I'd echo the request for a view submissions section on the my account view.

In #1 dlp says that after a while he looked at the solution. I have asked this before since I am HEAVILY dependent upon the sodium chloride provided by the puzzle geniuses but I will ask again - is there a repository for answers to old puzzles?

There's a list at
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/140425

Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. Now to just figure out why I was so dense then when they all seem so clear now!

Just wanted to say thanks to all the puzzlemakers who contributed to the first user-created puzzlethon! It was a blast, even though I had to sandwich it in around a convention and my first grad school class of the year (thank goodness for WiFi and laptops! ;-).

And, of course, to the Tanga folks for putting this all together to puzzle, frustrate, and delight us!

I think you should have extended the deadline a bit since some of the puzzles wouldn't download correctly. I just tried to bring up today's puzzle and I'm getting the little box with the red x and a "3716-raymond_mulford_nashville" error message. Maybe you can keep the hard deadline for those competing for prizes and allow those of us just trying to get Tanga points a little leaway. Please?

Well! Phew! My first time in the barrel. And with a tough puzzle and an hour deadline. I was surprised at how much I was involved with this during the solve time.

As I sat there reading the blog (after being up for 37 hours & a margarita), trying to decide when and what to salt, I was heavily torn between wanting everyone to solve it and be happy, and not wanting to make it too easy.

The "what" to salt was hard. Sometimes I was lucky with a post that I could answer that would provide more salt (ref: keys). Other times it was hard to figure out just what to say to nudge the solvers.

I understand (boy do I understand) the frustration that the solver has - I am usually immersed in it head to toe. So I was happy when other people started salting at BGG the things I wanted to salt - and then the solves started to come in fast and furious.

Anyway. I enjoyed crafting the puzzle, and I am glad there were people who enjoyed it. My apologies to the people left frustrated by this one.

Get crafting youself and submit one - paybacks are a b4824!

It was a really good puzzle, leadfoot, and you showed admirable restraint under the peer pressure.

I think it's always going to be stressful for people to meet the final deadline, and simultaneously trying to backfill puzzles that showed up while they were sleeping or otherwise engaged in 'normal life'.

Ultimately though, this is a contest, and I guess they *have* to differentiate between the truly fanatic and the casual puzzler.

I think some people are (somewhat rightfully) annoyed at the inherent unfairness that user-submitted puzzles means up to 24 people are getting a freebie (when their own submission comes up) and by luck of the draw, one of them will happen to get it in the final mad rush.

But don't feel badly. It's all (supposedly) for fun. Unfortunately, when there's a competition, people can lose sight of that!

[33] I can understand feeling that there's a degree of unfairness in the freebies that happen in a user-created puzzlethon. I'd certainly been thinking about that in regards to the number of "byes" I got in this puzzlethon. One might suggest that this is another bonus (in addition to points for creation) for submitting good puzzles. Then again, one might not. :-) After all, I'm certainly biased in the matter.

I'm not complaining, but I seem to have been given 40 Tanga points for my one puzzle used during the puzzlethon. If that means someone else didn't get their credit, please fix it - otherwise, leave it as is. :)

Oh, and a suggestion: the puzzles should definitely NOT be posted under the original file names, if that gives information to solve it (like "Nashville" in the name, fer crying out loud), otherwise I might as well just "View Source" before looking at the puzzle image, when solving. Renaming the file based on the date used or sequence number should take care of the problem.

Great puzzlethon ... "normal life" definitely gave me a right hook this weekend: two dinner parties, two board meetings, two kids' birthday parties, one kids' theater class. And frantic puzzle solving in between!

Best part was on Sat night when I casually mentioned to someone at dinner party #2 that I was at that very moment missing the end of a puzzlethon. She grabbed my arm and said, "Omigod: Tanga?" Gorgeous moment.

One thing I really missed in this puzzlethon (versus Aaron's first puzzlethon) were the puzzles that had clues scattered across other puzzles. You plan to come home any time soon, Aaron? Especially considering it seems at least one puzzle we know of (cough) has cost you some traffic (see [8])?

[36] gypsychk
My friend is still tanga-ing.

----------------------------------------------------------
On another note.
Had I been a puzzle solver on the last puzzle of the tangathon, I would have been just as frustrated with the one hour deadline to get it done as many were, when it was one of the hardest in the group. (Well in truth, I had a lot of trouble and frustration with some that others got in 41 seconds (grumble)). Perhaps for the next puzzlethon the hardest puzzle could be posted early (third or fourth - so as to not scare people off at the beginning) - and puzzlers could come back and noodle it after solving the later puzzles.

I found in "mentoring" the puzzle as it ran that I was trying to "time" the salty comments so as to not disclose too much too soon. Had this been an earlier puzzle the salt would have been distributed a little bit differently (hmmm - that give me an idea for a ....)

After the fact I am finding myself second-guessing whether I should have included more information in the text of puzzle (would it have been "better", or more fair, if Ernestine had used the word "number" in text?). I really liked the suggestion above to find a way to vet the puzzles before we unlease them on the unsuspecting Tangans. Any ideas on how we could implement that?

Any thoughts on rating the puzzles for difficulty?

[36] gypsychk
I'm surprised you and the other guest didn't sneak off to find a computer to check on the latest puzzle!

----------------------------------------------------
With a little more notice I would definitely put the puzzlethon on my calendar, just like any other committment, to keep the day open, or maybe even throw a tanga puzzlethon party (Kinda like a tupperware party - only more fun!).
----------------------------------------------------

"Ultimately though, this is a contest, and I guess they *have* to differentiate between the truly fanatic and the casual puzzler."

I suppose, but I still wish the deadline for solving all of these puzzles could have been extended a wee bit. I don't consider myself a "casual puzzler" but sometimes I have a life that intrudes and I'm not able to spend every waking moment working on these. This time I was only able to get a third of these done and while it is fair to give prizes only to those who completed the puzzles in a timely matter, those of us who are doing this for the Tanga points should be given an extended deadline. I guess I should feel a bit luckier than I did during the first Puzzlethon when I was on the road coming back from vacation and didn't get to solve a single puzzle, but if this Puzzlethon had been just one day later I would have had more than enough time.

That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

Never mind. (I can see now that all previous puzzles have a solutions link included.)

>those of us who are doing this for the Tanga points should be given an extended deadline.

I had a really sour attitude for a couple days, since missing the deadline by about 60 seconds broke my previously perfect puzzle streak. It actually took me less than 60 minutes too, but I started 20 minutes late (after finally catching up on several others.)

I'll get over it. The streak had to break eventually.

I guess I'm just glad there's not a 1 hour deadline on ALL 24 of them, because a couple took more than 60 minutes of head scratching. Also, no matter how bad my OCD is, I can't be here for 24 hours straight. :)

[20] Henwy: "Bring on the butter."

*whew* Glad someone ASKED for my "loafer" puzzle... Now I don't mind that it was the one chosen.

Suggestion for the next Tanga Puzzlethon: only use 20 puzzles, so the last one allows 5 hours to solve, and more people have an equal chance to get a perfect score. Or else only give points for solving each puzzle within an hour, to reward people for staying with Tanga (and the products offered). As it was, only the people who were available during THAT hour, the last one, could solve all 24 puzzles, and they had a shot at all of them (with full doses of salt). I had fun on the first 16 despite losing a lot of sleep on it, but then I had other plans and had no hope of getting whatever prize there is, or the extra Tanga points, and that's kinda annoying.

[deleted - sent my points request to the service address]

I'm also missing Tanga points for my submitted Jan 12th puzzle.

Hi puzzle makers. I have a word puzzle which needs a crossword-type grid with the colored blocks for the letters to use in the answer. I also have an old computer [dial up, too :-(] with not a lot of programs. Could someone steer me in a direction to create this puzzle according to the specifications?

And leadfoot, I would love to come to your Tangathon party. Fun idea. Anyone in Colorado?

[49] Annie
The only thing I can think of for your crossword grid may be excel - or any spreadsheet program. It can be formatted to fill in the squares with just about any color, and numbers in the corners.....
If you need help, you could describe the grid and send it to me in an email - I could create it for you and send it back.... Let me know.

Re the puzzlethon party: I'm in Maryland - maybe we should meet in Hawaii....

Thanks for your offer, leadfoot (anything to do with speeding tickets? Maybe I should have taken that name... My sons and I all have a heavy foot). I have sent it to a co-worker in another office of my compnay who is very much better at computer graphics than I am. She will take a stab at it. If she can't figure it out, I may get back to you. Actually, with the margueritas mentioned the other night, how about Mexico?

-Nope, no speeding tickets - my initials are PB (from the table of the elements - Latin: plumbum for lead). My BGG username is pbleadfoot - as leadfoot was already taken. Maybe I should change my tanga username to match...

Hmmm - Mexico - I'd have to get a passport now.... How're the margaritas in New Mexico?

What's odd about the Nashville gaffe is that the file I uploaded had a completely different name with no hint of the answer, and the Tanga folk renamed it and put the answer into the filename!

Ceremonial? If you mean you won't create any more puzzles, say it ain't so! While some of the user puzzles are great, some of yours were great too, and we would miss you.

I'm a pseudo newbie, and I just submitted my first puzzle. I hope it gets used, because I think it's good (and should take no more than 10 minutes - I hope - but be not too easy) and it's not another one of those damn puzzles with anagrammed words or something like it where you have to pick out letters and piece them together for the final answer.

I was thinking about what makes a GREAT puzzle. There's plenty of ways to make good ones, and lot's of ideas for techniques, methods, etc. for GOOD puzzles (like you've all pointed out), but for me, the best puzzles always consist of the following:

1)Fairly clear in the method you have to go through to solve it (maybe it takes some time to figure out, but it's not a frustrating process to uncover it);
2)Not require a lot of puzzle experience to understand what to do and how to solve it (the more Tanga puzzles I do, the easier they become)
3)Not require someone of above average intelligence to look things up or see something they just WON'T recognize
and
4)Be doable by anyone with a brain given enough time, without much frustration. Just a lot of thought.

Granted, these are bit of high standards, but puzzles that violate this in one way or another have been: game log ops, optic, and butter. One that fits this, for example, is the one from the other day that had "domestic" as the answer and the Nashville puzzle all fit these criteria, and may have been of varying difficulties, but ultimately I think they were great puzzles.

So I hope all my puzzles will be great ones (and likely not include anagramming or crosswords puzzles or something like that - there's too many of those) and actually given to you puzzleheads.

And I thoroughly enjoy the puzzles. It's just awesome.

Hi Tanga,

I noticed you'll be using my puzzle on 1/31. Can you please correct the spelling of my last name to Yoskowitz on the Daily Fun page? Thanks a lot ... and thanks for choosing it!

Dave Yoskowitz

How about a day's notice before a Tanga-thon starts?

Oops wrong blog...

Nothing to see here...

... pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!...

[36]

Were we at the same dinner party?