How to Write a BANG Puzzle

(Work in progress... feel free to add, change, improve, etc.)

So you want to write a puzzle, eh? Simple! Create a simple substitution cipher, encode a crossword clue, and have the answer to that clue be the answer to the puzzle. Done.

Okay, so there can be a lot more to it than that. Team Snout has a page dedicated to the ins and outs of different puzzle designs from several different authors, as well as links to 8 years worth of advice from the GC Summit meetings. Included is a direct guide for writing puzzles, entitled "A Clue Design Primer." It is worth reading. Ian Tullis' talk "Advice From a Puzzle Snob" (and Larry Hosken's write-up) should be required viewing/reading before constructing any puzzle for the BANG.

Getting Started

The overall guideline of your puzzle should be to provide a fun experience for your players. Generally, you need to start with three things to make an enjoyable BANG puzzle:

1. The Answer

You'll need to know what solvers are working towards. If you don't know what the solution is going to be or what constraints the clue mechanism may place upon you, a placeholder answer works.

BANG puzzles originally solved to the location of the next puzzle ("BOWLING ALLEY ON FIFTH"). Later BANG puzzles solved to words or short phrases ("STRIKE" or "MAJOR LEAGUE UMPIRE"). This answer form acts as an access code that, when given to a hunt representative, reveals the location of the next puzzle. This format has been experimented with (long phrases, all locations available at the start, etc.), but the word or short phrase has become the gold standard.

2. Content (aka The Data)

There are many ways to extract your solution from a puzzle, but you'll need something to extract it from. Anything that players can find patterns in can work here, as recognizing patterns is generally what is needed to solve a puzzle. This gives the puzzle designer a wide range of possibilities to work with. Text, pictures, physical objects, performances, games, interaction with GC, etc. are all fair and fun content to use in your puzzle.

3. The Mental Hurdle (aka The Aha or Eurkea Moment)

In order for there to be a puzzle, there has to be something to solve. This usually means that there is an underlying pattern in the data presented. Figuring out this pattern gives players an "aha!" moment. Every puzzle has at least one aha; a BANG puzzle shouldn't have more than three. Using the pattern to convert the presented information to the answer is often called the extraction method. In other words, how do you get the answer from the seemingly random information?

Fleshing It Out

With those three things, you may have a working puzzle, but only the bare bones of one. The simple cryptogram would work as a BANG puzzle, but there are two drawbacks: a) Most players have solved many such cryptograms before; and b) it will be a quick solve, especially with most players carrying smartphone with easy access to decrypting software.

1. Make the players fill in the data

A classic way to add meat to a puzzle is to provide clues as to what the required data is, instead of actually giving it straight to the players. If teams are meant to deduce a pattern from a series of five-letter words, don't just give them the words, give them a one-removed reference to the word. A common way is to have crossword clues in a puzzle, which are fun and allows all team members to contribute. But it could also be synonyms, antonyms, word scrambles, hidden words, etc.

2. Make it physical

A piece of paper with a puzzle on it is something players can get from the newspaper or a magazine. BANGs are meant to be more interactive, more similar to a short version of The Game than to the MIT Mystery Hunt

Dos and Don'ts

Unless you are somehow using these as intricate parts of the puzzle (and you probably shouldn't), some guidelines:

• DON'T include intentional red herrings. It's frustrating enough when solving and ending up going down your own wrong path. To find out that GC intentionally put a wrong path in their puzzle is maddening.

• DO make sure players know they've solved the clue. A recognizable word or phrase works best for this; a puzzle that solves to "X(1n0f1" or "disorbilivality" will have teams going back to see where they messed up. (Of course, if your BANG is scifi-themed, is about a robot named X(1n0f1, and includes a vocabulary list that defines "disorbilivality" as "the manner in which something is unable to orbilivate", then it may work.)

• DON'T make puzzles or experiences that only GC finds funny. Making teams sludge through cold mud to get the a clue may be funny to watch, but not to experience. "The challenge is not to amuse yourselves; it's to come up with something that 100+ people can all enjoy. Know your audience." - Team Snout

• DO make your puzzles and activities fun for the players.

• DON'T require a lot of obscure knowledge. If the average team has to use a smart phone to solve your puzzle, consider retooling it. They're no longer solving; they're researching.

• DO set aside your masterpiece puzzle if it's not working. It either needs to be rewritten, incorporated differently, or culled.

• DON'T make a puzzle harder. That is, once you've constructed a puzzle, don't try and make the crossword clues more obscure, for example. Adding an extra layer may work, just be careful.

• DO make your puzzles solvable by a majority of players.

• DON'T rely on hints to overcome a puzzle's shortcomings.

• DO aim your puzzles at the average solver, not the elite teams.

• DON'T write a puzzle that's easier to solve with a spreadsheet.

Resources

There are a lot of tools out there to aid in constructing puzzles. Here's a sampler:

• OneLook

• Inkscape

• Nutrimatic