As you may have read, the nice people at Groundspeak dropped by to interview me about the Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle. These were the folks who discovered afterwards that I had hidden their dinner — actually a gift certificate to a local Mexican restaurant — in one of my “elegant black” puzzle boxes.
We had a nice chat, during which they made me traipse around on camera in that field west of the Pennybacker bridge as if trying to solve one of my puzzles. Afterwards we all went out again for good old Central Texas barbecue. (We like to eat around here.) It was a fun couple of days.
When their video was finally published on Groundspeak, I was very pleased. It’s just so cute and wonderful. What do you think?
Thanks Eric and Reid! You did a great job.
Mikal
Laura Young
14 years ago
I love the idea of the Reverse Geocache puzzle box! I just discovered your project through the Neatorama website today. And yes, the video is very cute.
Like many others who have commented, I think it’s a fun gift to give to someone. It’s not just the contents of the puzzle box, but the adventure of finding it that’s a gift! It’s an experience just handing someone a present can’t replicate.
To be honest, when I first read about your gift to your friend, I thought that the puzzle box would be great to use as in an RPG or LARP (LARP being more likely). The players could get this box, and depending on how their characters approach the box (should we solve it? what manner of thing IS this? do we dare?), hijinks most certainly would ensue. And when they do solve the puzzle (because the players realize they would have to; nothing like this would be dumped in a game without a purpose), the contents could be something vital to the game, or another clue! The possibilities are staggering…
Unfortunately, the cost of your very cool device is beyond most of the low-budget LARPs I have played in, lol. However, I am glad to hear that you developed a reprogrammable model, that you take commissions and that you are working on the design for kits. I seem to recall you are trying to develop your design to possibly make it more accessible, price-wise? I know that you first said that you did not want to mass-produce the puzzle box because you didn’t want to cheapen the experience of having one. Is a limited production run your plan, or will you take commissions for the foreseeable future? (Gotta save my pennies!) I think it’s great that you are offering this to the public at large at all.
As I typed this, I thought of an idea… NESTING puzzle boxes. Wow. Would that be too much? hee.
Matt S
13 years ago
Hey, I just read the article in Make last night on this. Was that your article? I loved it, bought the magazine for that article alone-what a great idea.
So today I am working on a UAV project at school/work, and found your site through your TinyGPS package.
Small world.
Mikal
13 years ago
:) Yup, that was me.
Thanks, and good luck with that project!
Mikal