I'm glad you like them! I have done more Seeking Syren puzzles, right here on this blog! Puzzles 14, 16, 34, and 48 are Seeking Syren puzzles; I don't have them individually tagged yet, but I do have a "puzzles" tag to narrow down the search space. It was actually considered at first to not put the instructions in with the Hunt puzzle and instead let people find the four-year-old original rules on my blog, but we decided against that. At first, the instructions I wrote for the Hunt were a cross between my "concise" instructions and the numbered list I have with Puzzle 14; they were being misinterpreted to the point that one of the editors actually removed a rule, apparently thinking it just a grammatical touch-up, before giving the testsolvers the result - which led to this post. Of course, I had made a silly lettering error (where it now reads 'TAXI COGITO' in Treyarch's Big, it used to read 'HEYY ABBOTT', which breaks the final grid), so it was hopeless at the time anyhow, but the whole affair led to the way I presented the rules in the Hunt. The specific issue was that solvers were thinking that only routes that used all nodes had to be considered to determine uniqueness, which of course led to seven solutions for Skywalkers' Callsign (which was designed to showcase that one omitted rule...).
The sample has the spirit cell adjacent to a node. Somehow, someway, HQ still got a call from someone claiming the puzzles had no solutions until told the spirit cell could be adjacent to a node. Which justifies this post, come to think of it.
I would love to be able to put out a book of these, if anyone's offering (especially given my current state of unemployment...); if I had such an opportunity, I would likely do what Thomas Snyder did in Battleship Sudoku and present path-only puzzles and island-only puzzles for starters to make sure the rules are clear for each half, along with solving hints between difficulty levels for the main attraction. One thing I definitely would NOT do is say each node is adjacent to anything, as you suggest, especially given the rule that nodes CAN'T be adjacent to each other! I know, you were referring to nodes connected to one another by the path, but I hope you see why it is that I worded the instructions VERY carefully. Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most difficult to rigorously put into words; people go into most anything with a certain set of assumptions, and the job of a puzzlesmith (or at least a good one) is to dispel all the false ones, but at just the right pace.
I also wrote "A Letter to the Prince of Kong", and made the underlying logical element for Bowen's "Mystery Hunt Puzzle 3000". I also ended up re-scripting and hosting Mike's "The Cash Corridor", which despite the immense soreness it gave me for days afterward (and the continued numbness in my left foot) was by far my favorite part of running the Hunt. - ZM
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The sample has the spirit cell adjacent to a node. Somehow, someway, HQ still got a call from someone claiming the puzzles had no solutions until told the spirit cell could be adjacent to a node. Which justifies this post, come to think of it.
I would love to be able to put out a book of these, if anyone's offering (especially given my current state of unemployment...); if I had such an opportunity, I would likely do what Thomas Snyder did in Battleship Sudoku and present path-only puzzles and island-only puzzles for starters to make sure the rules are clear for each half, along with solving hints between difficulty levels for the main attraction. One thing I definitely would NOT do is say each node is adjacent to anything, as you suggest, especially given the rule that nodes CAN'T be adjacent to each other! I know, you were referring to nodes connected to one another by the path, but I hope you see why it is that I worded the instructions VERY carefully. Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most difficult to rigorously put into words; people go into most anything with a certain set of assumptions, and the job of a puzzlesmith (or at least a good one) is to dispel all the false ones, but at just the right pace.
I also wrote "A Letter to the Prince of Kong", and made the underlying logical element for Bowen's "Mystery Hunt Puzzle 3000". I also ended up re-scripting and hosting Mike's "The Cash Corridor", which despite the immense soreness it gave me for days afterward (and the continued numbness in my left foot) was by far my favorite part of running the Hunt. - ZM