Between the chaos that march usually is for me, deciding last minute to put a team together for the cryptex hunt, and how bad my executive dysfunction sometimes gets, I knew I needed to do some prep for Enigmarch. The prompts aren’t known yet*, so I couldn’t exactly plan ahead like I’ve done in the past for inktober. That raises the question; What can I do?
Step one is to make sharing easy. It’s something I can easily get stuck on. I usually spent far too long making something look good (or at least decent). A template is the answer for that.
Step two is a list of puzzles I find easy to make. What can I fall back on if I have no inspiration?
- bridges/hashi
- Sudoku
- Maze
- Logic grid
- Code word
- Wordsearch
- Quiz (arguably not a puzzle, but I like my quizzes)
(I’m sure I’ve forgotten some, but a partial list is better than no list)
Step three is to have a plan for brainstorming. For me it’s the coming up with ideas that I find hard. Once I have that figured out, it’s generally pretty simple.
Here’s the steps I plan to take on the I-don’t-know days:
Word cloud/mindmap
What related words come to mind? What does it mean? What kind of puzzl-y things come to mind? A thesaurus and dictionary are useful for this too
Searching around the internet
A google search with the word + puzzle might bring up something interesting. I do a lot of puzzles here. Maybe there are puzzles that fit the word? What about the MIT mystery hunt archive? Just put the word in the search bar and see what comes up. (the puzzled pint archive too maybe, although that’s not as easy to search) The EnigMarch resources page is another place that would be helpful to browse on an uninspired day. This all feeds back into the word cloud.
Leave it for a couple of hours
Inspiration usually strikes me when I’m doing other things. It’s a good idea to check the prompt as soon as you can to maximise thinking time. In the meantime, get on work, do the dishes, clean that thing you’ve been putting off. Give the cat some attention. Go for a walk. Listen to Escape this Podcast.
Talk to someone about the prompt.
A discord chat, the EnigMarch subreddit, your partner, the cat, the dog, a rubber duck.
Step four is remembering it’s okay to skip a day. Life can get in the way. Ideas may not turn up at all. There’s nothing wrong with skipping a day. Remember not to beat yourself up over it. Maybe you’ll come up with an idea of it in a couple of days, maybe you won’t. It’s okay either way.
* Because I’m helping behind the scenes I know the prompts but I’m not thinking ahead on purpose
I cannot believe that they’ve not done an ikea room yet
Me at what must’ve been around 3 am on a night I couldn’t sleep
You can listen to my episode called flatpack misfortune here (or on your podcast medium of choice).
At the beginning of this year I stumbled across Escape This Podcast while looking for a way to make a tabletop homebrew more puzzl-y. It felt like everything just fell into place. I binged the whole podcast in about two months and started writing my first room almost immediately after listening to the Making a room bonus episode.
I knew I wanted to be on a guest GM season while I was still writing my first room. Immediately I felt like I found my groove and I wanted more. I was writing my second room when the idea of being lost in IKEA popped up in my head and the idea immediately felt right.
But… I wasn’t all that sure I could do it. Making the room, sure. I’d run my first room by then and felt confident that I could make a room that wasn’t terrible. I felt like I could run something decently enough too. But going on an actual podcast felt like several lightyears out of my comfort zone. I knew it would bring a lot of anxiety and I wasn’t all that sure if I could handle it. There was a lot of stuff about it that absolutely terrified me. At the same time, I don’t like not doing things just because they give me anxiety. I spent most of my life outside of my comfort zone anyway, this would just be a little farther than anything I’d done in years.
Nevertheless, I went for it anyway. The people around me were encouraging and the community around the podcast is so lovely. Not to mention Bill and Dani have been super helpful as well.
I had so much fun with the whole process. Especially playtesting. Admittedly there were a LOT of errors I had to fix. I had mistakes in puzzles and mistakes in the flow of the room, but with the help of my playtesters I think I managed to fix them all.
I really enjoyed recording it too. I knew I would be anxious, and I was, but the moment we started the anxiety was gone. It caught me off guard how much it felt like I was performing, which I hadn’t done in a long time.
I’m already working on a next room, which promises to be very different. Not to mention the puzzles I’m designing and the skills I’m learning to make them better.
Finally, I gotta say a quick thank you to: Bill and Dani for having me on. Georgie, Tom and Alex for playtesting. Lisa for helping me come up with the plot twist. And finally my partner for encouraging me and helping me get through the anxious parts.
Recently someone asked me why I’m kind of ‘in your face’ about being autistic and it really made me stop and think about why I actually do it.
The easy answer, and the answer I tend to give when asked, is that it’s a shortcut that works well for me. There’s plenty of people out there who have preconceptions about autistic people of what it’s like to be autistic. A subset of those people are assholes about it. Having the latter group immediately make themselves known saves me a lot of energy and anxiety.
(If you’re still reading this, you probably don’t belong to that group).
But there’s more behind it. For me, my kind of autism and my mental health issues around it mean that it’s something I always need to take into account. My energy levels are ridiculously low a lot of the time and everything is exhausting. That means that it’s on my mind a lot, which in turn means I talk about it a lot. *
It can be helpful too. Because I’m so open about being autistic, and because I have the language to talk about what it means, I’m able to help others understand autism. Whether it’s their own autism or that of someone they’re close to. If you’re polite and willing to learn, I’m willing to put in the energy to answer your questions.
There’s stigma too. Everyone seems to have that óne family member with an autsitic kid. I’m not like that. My autism isn’t pretty either. I’m not the stereotypical quirky smart guy who suddenly can do stuff when it’s practical for the story (I am, admittedly, kinda quirky and at least a little smart). I’ve got meltdowns and panic attacks. I’m stubborn and often accidentally rude.** I don’t deal well with change, I find social interaction difficult and confusing.
And that’s okay. I’m not going to apologise for who I am.
So, yeah, it works well for me. It allows me to be more myself without feeling the need to apologize constantly because of the stuff I might not be able to do or the stuff I do differently. There’s a lot of stuff I do like about being autistic as well, but that’s something for another post another time.
*This is often referred to as spoon theory or being a spoonie. Here‘s a link to read more about that.
** note the use of accidentally. I never mean to be rude, but it does happen
A towel, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.
Most years I forget towel day until I see someone post about it, but this year I’ve been more organised and made a little (kind of big) back-of-the-cereal-box style puzzle to celebrate.
See if you can find out who stole Arthur’s towel.
(the print friendly version is on the second slide or you can download it below)
EDIT: this puzzle is rough and will eventually be back in a better form, but I’m keeping it up anyway. Try at your own risk
I’ve recently gotten interested in making quiz questions and doing the research for them. I couldn’t help myself but write a bunch and then the logical thing seemed to be to put them in a crossword puzzle. Crosswordlabs seemed to be the most practical place to make it and be able to embed it. If you’d prefer the pdf, you can find it in the embed or download the pfd version I made.
Enjoy!
Crossword Puzzle MakerIve done my very best to make sure everything is accurate and that there are no spelling/grammar errors in it, but if you catch one, do let me know.