Puzzle Elements

A puzzle element is a piece or building block that goes towards construction all aspects of a successful puzzle.

Structure Elements
Structural elements inform how things function outside of the solving process. At their core, they're basic parts of many puzzles that rarely get a second look by solvers since they're expected to be there and their presence, even when they're conspicuously missing or different, is often overlooked in favor of bolder changes and flashier elements found among the content elements.

Hunt Structure
Elements related to hunt structure help to differentiate hunts from each other via the way they play with what makes a hunt a hunt. If a hunt has a unique way of unlocking puzzles, round-exclusive gimmicks, or simply plays with the expected features of 'normal' puzzle hunt, chances are those things will be found listed under 'hunt elements'.

Puzzle Presentation
Elements related to puzzle presentation tend to inform how a puzzle looks and functions beyond the solving process. They end up covering things like accessibility aids, changes to some basic puzzle features like grids and clues, and any alternative media formats found in hunt puzzles. Since many of these elements tend to fall outside of the actual solving experience, when they do manage to have a major impact on a solve path it usually makes for an interesting puzzle.

Content Elements
Content elements deal primarily with how a puzzle looks and acts while being solved. Clever extraction methods, tried-and-true puzzle types, and all of the ways a puzzle expects you to get from start to end will be found in this category.

Puzzle Types
Puzzle types are established, replicable, and often easily-identifiable puzzle formats used again and again in hunts, newspapers, and puzzle collections the world over. Importantly, being an 'established' puzzle type doesn't require any amount of historical basis. Instead, it just requires being featured a few times in major sources and having a clear set of rules to go along with them. A new puzzle type may be created one year and become significantly well-known by the next, leaving historical precedent by the wayside.

While most puzzle types can be categorized as word, logic, or spatial puzzles, some just don't fit in. Those puzzles are instead considered miscellaneous, and are grouped together on that page.

Word Puzzles
Word puzzles are, as the name suggests, puzzles based on words and linguistics. Common word puzzles include clue-based puzzles like crosswords, word transformation puzzles like NPL-style flats, and rearrangement-based puzzles like dropquotes.

Logic Puzzles
Logic puzzles deal with logical deduction and lateral thinking, requiring solvers to solve a problem or determine a puzzle's 'final' state based on limited information. Common logic puzzles include grid-filling and path-drawing puzzles like sudoku and slitherlink puzzles, respectively, as well as looser deduction-based puzzles like zebra puzzles.

Spatial Puzzles
Spatial puzzles often involve navigation, mapping spaces, or being able to manipulate (or simulate manipulating) objects and files. Common spatial puzzles include mazes (which can be physical, virtual, or represented 2-dimensionally), jigsaw puzzles (which can be virtual or physical), and databending (a wholly virtual experience).