The Waterfall Effect

The Waterfall Effect, or "Sequential Puzzles", is a structure puzzle element relating to puzzle formatting and presentation. It describes puzzles in which each solution provides information required to solve the next, with the process continuing until a final puzzle is solved. While this element can be utilized in combination with many puzzle types, it is often used in logic puzzles, particularly those that are grid-based. This allows for information to be transferred between identically-shaped grids, as long as particular elements, like numbers or shaded squares, are used in both.

Other uses of this element include:

• Missing words in crossword clues being filled by the answers to prior clues.
• Mathematical variables in equations being defined by their presence in other equations.
• Cryptic clues being formed entirely from the solutions to previous clues (cryptic or otherwise).

Sequential Puzzles as an element requires multiple puzzle layers to be present, with one leading into the next. If only one layer is present, particularly if it leads directly to an extraction mechanism, it may be defined as any of the following elements:

• Piecemeal Answers
• Note-By-Note Music
• Mechanic Repetition

This element is also not to be confused with Recursion, in which an element of a puzzle is repeated within itself multiple times without drastic changes in between.

Puzzle Application

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Strategy

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Notable Examples

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See Also

• Puzzles involving The Waterfall Effect