When I first started authoring puzzles I mostly used images on the internet that were already pixelated. These were mostly from patterns for making items out of Perler or Hama Beads. See this Pinterest page for more examples. Most of these patterns are smaller and use only a few colors. It is fairly easy to transfer these patterns to a Griddler puzzle. From Hama beads I moved on to cross stitch patterns that are easily found on the internet. These were more intricate and allowed me to make larger puzzles. While it was very time comsuming copying these patterns box by box into the Griddler puzzle workshop app, I was able to find so many patterns that were fun and cute. Most of the Christmas puzzles I have authored so far came from cross stitch patterns. Many late nights were spent down the Pinterest rabbit hole looking for patterns that would make good puzzles. Due to the source of the images being easily accessible to anyone with the internet and ease of making Griddler puzzles with this type of image some of my earlier puzzles were similar to other previously published puzzles. I have never notified by the Griddlers.net site managers that a puzzle has been a duplicate. But solvers have notified me of this in the comments section. Today I received such a comment. Comment I received today on puzzle 148397: Your blog looks interesting, I was going to check out more of your puzzles....but speaking of authoring puzzles...Another author made a puzzle exactly like this before you. Well, not exactly, their puzzle has 2 more lines of dark brown above the head. Aside from that, it is an exact copy. My reply (in comments and sent directly to Otis) Otis. Thanks for the comment. Yes. When I first started making puzzles I used images that I found on the internet that were already pixelated like this one. For this reason some of my earlier puzzles are extremely close to other authors who used the same source for images. Another puzzle that this happened with is 148396 (Wolf). When I was notified that Wolf was a duplicate puzzle I asked the site managers to take the puzzle down and I was told that as long as it is slightly different they will leave a puzzle up. Any puzzles I have made in 2015 should be original. I don't use pixelated images or cross stitch patterns any more. Instead I find interesting images and take them down to 8 colors and then make them so they pixelate well enough to make a solvable puzzle. Thanks again. |
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A lot of my puzzles are pictures that use negative and positive space or have words built into the pictures. The images I use to make these Griddlers could be considered "puzzles" themselves and maybe that is why I like them so much. Some are very easy puzzles and some are very hard but they all have something in common; they attracted my very spatially aware eye.
*Spoiler Alert* the images may give away some puzzle solving secrets. You can click on any picture to go to the puzzle on griddlers.net. The last two puzzles have been submitted but not yet published. It would be great to find out exactly why a solver thinks a puzzle should be rated as 0%. As a solver myself, I would never spend so much time solving a puzzle and then rate it 0%. In fact I never give any puzzle a 0% vote because I know what goes into authoring a puzzle. While I may have voted lower before beginning to author puzzles, since then I have not voted below 50%. Puzzle authors can only learn to make better puzzles if they receive constructive criticism on puzzles that don't meet the solvers expectations. Please leave comments to help authors know what you think, good or bad. Trust me, we read them! I even translate the non-English comments using Google so I know how everyone feels about my puzzles.
I loved playing Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe when I was a kid in the late 70' and early 80's. This game and Lemonade Stand were my favorites. You could "die" in the game from many different things but dysentery was the best and it has since become sort of a meme around the internet.
When I created and submitted the puzzle it had the words "You have died of dysentery. " below the wagon. See the picture below. Unfortunately the Griddlers people cut the coolest part off before publishing it. I should have know it might happen when they had to contact me to ask me what Theme the puzzle should be listed under. Oh well... If I had know I probably would have named the puzzle "You have died of dysentery!" I was very please to see my first comment for the puzzle included the dysentery so I feel like I got through to at least one person. Thank you PAX! |
Kendra SongI have loved solving griddlers for many years and I have recently begun authoring puzzles myself. This blog is a documentation of this new hobby. Archives
January 2016
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