PuzzleCat

Puzzle Elements

Taxonomy of presentation, solve paths, and hunt structure for hunt-style puzzles.

Puzzle Elements name how hunt-style puzzles present clues, how solvers progress, and how events are structured—shared vocabulary for constructors, testsolvers, and writers. Concepts align with the English community's Puzzle Elements taxonomy.

Use `/wiki/element/name` on PuzzleCat to list articles referencing an element.

Presentation

How information is delivered:

  • Text — prose, layout, PDF/HTML
  • Images — still art, comics, infographics
  • Audio — listening, spectrograms, Morse, songs
  • Video — footage, animation, caption hides
  • Physical — objects, onsite checkpoints

Solve path

How solvers advance:

  • Logic — deduction and grids
  • Wordplay — homophones, anagrams, letterplay
  • Association — grouping and matching
  • Knowledge — trivia and culture (fairness matters)
  • Search — explicit research steps
  • Extraction — derive answer strings
  • Indexing — pick letters by numbers/coords
  • Transformation — ciphers, rotations, geometry

Hunt structure

  • Hunt — full event
  • Round — chapter
  • Feeder — support puzzle
  • Meta — capstone
  • Hint system — costs and unlock rules

Craft & community

Using this index

  • Reference elements in puzzle tags or infoboxes
  • Split elements into dedicated articles over time
  • Contribute via the creator guide
Puzzle Elements - PuzzleCat