Experienced puzzle-solvers often have a number of techniques which they use to attack a puzzle as soon as they see it. Though such a list may be helpful, what is more helpful are some general strategies on how to approach a puzzle once you see it.

Familiarity with these general strategies may reduce the number of solutions you try to apply and thus reduce the time it takes to solve the puzzle. They may also help hone that all-important attribute when it comes to puzzle solving: intuition.

• Discover the Rules of the Game
• Rely Upon Teamwork
• Google into the Unknown
• Use Your Resources
• Interpret Titles and Keywords
• Understand the Meta-Puzzle: Layers upon Layers
• Investigate Puzzling Similarities
• See Games Within Games
• Trust Your Instincts
• Test your Hypotheses Thoroughly, Carefully, and Precisely
• Vary Your Approach
• Think About Different Systems of Identification
• Apply Occam's Razor

Discover the Rules of the Game

With many puzzles, the real challenge is figuring out the rules of the game. Once you have the rules, the puzzle starts to fall into place.

Rely Upon Teamwork

I know two experienced puzzlers who spent several hours pouring over a puzzle. They thought they were nearing a solution, but needed some help on one small piece of their strategy, so they called over a teammate. As they were about to explain their technique to their teammate, he leaned over, looked at the puzzle, and called out the answer.

This (true) story may seem unlikely, but it is typical with puzzles. No matter how good at solving puzzles you are, often a sounding board or a fresh pair of eyes may be what you need to find a solution. Also, your teammates may have experiences, knowledge, or ways of looking at things that allow them to arrive at a solution effortlessly when you are completely stumped.

Google into the Unknown

Puzzles often draw from all areas of human knowledge and culture: sports, literature, geography, pop culture, music, art, etc. You cannot be expected to know everything about all of these subjects. But remember, the mark of an educated man is not knowing the answer, but knowing where to find the answer. And since any type of knowledge is fair game, any kind of reference work is fair game.

Though all the standard reference books can be helpful (atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc), for most of us, looking for knowledge means looking on the Internet.

Often, this will just mean a well-crafted Google search. In fact, if you are at an impasse with a clue, it is a good idea to just Google any parts of the puzzle which you don't understand. The information you get may provide valuable direction or context.

Use Your Resources

In many cases you will need specialized references to solve a puzzle. Here are just a few useful reference works for specific kinds of knowledge. Of course there are millions of other sites that may be helpful, but these are the standards.:

• The Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB): An online database that connects movies, directors, and actors in a vast web
• Miriam-Webster.com: A very good online dictionary and thesaurus
• Babelfish: This page can translate between English and many other languages
• The CIA World Fact book: Up-to-date geographic, cultural, and political information about every country in the world
• All Music Guide: The IMDB of music. Links artists with styles, bands, songs, albums, and labels
• The Artchive: Information on painters and their paintings throughout history

Interpret Titles and Keywords

Puzzles often have titles that seem irrelevant to the puzzle or instructions that seem to tell you nothing. In these cases, look for keywords that help you identify what in the puzzle will be relevant. Often this information is conveyed through puns or double meanings

Example: a puzzle titled "Star Search" will probably involve either celebrities or celestial objects, or both.

Example: a puzzle with instructions saying, "Be sure to dot all your I's and cross all your T's," may indicate that the letters I and T hold special significance in the solution.

Understand the Meta-Puzzle: Layers upon Layers

Puzzles often present one set of answers that does not clearly identify a solution. In this case, the set of answers often represents another puzzle. The solution to this puzzle may present even another puzzle. Puzzles like this are called "iterative," "layered," or "nested" puzzles. Some Cryptic Missions may even have what is known as a "meta-puzzle," which is a puzzle based on the answers to all the other puzzles in the Mission.

Investigate Puzzling Similarities

One type of iterative puzzle involves finding the common element between a number of elements. Say you answer a group of trivia questions and end up with a list of book or movie titles. Do all the titles have a color or a number in them? Are they all by the same author, or in the same series? Any of these commonalities may lead to a final answer to the puzzle.

Example: The answer to the a number of trivia questions gives you movie titles with colors in them. All the colors of the rainbow are there except indigo. Indigo may be the solution to the puzzle.

See Games Within Games

Often, the rules or parts of rules are borrowed from other puzzles that you are already familiar with. Common sources of rules are word-ladders, word-finds, crossword puzzles, rebuses, and labyrinths. If a puzzle seems to have a similar "look and feel" to one of these types pf puzzles, try the rules to that puzzle.

Parts of a puzzle may also include the terminology, rules, and symbols from non-puzzle games such as poker, chess, go, bridge etc.

Trust Your Instincts

I often see puzzlers look at a clue and immediately, intuitively divine the rules of the puzzle...and then throw out the solution as "too weird." Puzzles are designed to be intuitive, so if you have a revelation, try it out. It will not always be right, but it is better to try something out than to throw it out, only to realize 20 minutes later that you had the right idea to begin with.

Test your Hypotheses Thoroughly, Carefully, and Precisely

If you think you have a solution, try it out as though you know that it is the solution. Do not do it half-way. Trying a solution out carelessly, incompletely, or imperfectly often leads you to conclude that your idea is wrong when you in fact had the solution right in front of you. If you throw out a solution due to carelessness, it can take a long time to come back to it.

Vary Your Approach

If you have a gut feeling that you have a solution, but your initial thorough, careful, precise attempt fails, try a variation on your original idea. If you were going across first then down, try down first then across. If you thought the maze started from the outside and worked in, try working from the inside out, etc.

Think About Different Systems of Identification

• Phone Numbers: It is easy to check if any string of 7, 10, or 11 digits identifies a person or business, especially if your cell phone has free long distance.
• Street Addresses: "1401 S 1" could mean 1401 South 1st Street
• Dates: Does a number look like a date, and if so, is that date significant?
• ISBN numbers: The number 0-67003-255-7 conclusively identifies Stephen King's Drawing of the Three.
• Email addresses: Email addresses have an @ sign in them and end with .com, .edu, .org, .gov, or a few other extensions.
• Websites: Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), follow a specific format, and can lead to more information.
• IP Addresses: a number of the form 999.999.999.999 is called a "dotted quad," and can stand for a website.

Apply Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor, also known as the Principle of Parsimony, is a rule that tells us all things being equal, choose the simplest explanation. Though this is not always going to lead to the solution of the puzzle, by starting with the simplest solutions first, you can narrow down your options relatively quickly.

Also, ruling out your simple ideas conclusively will give you greater confidence in trying out your more complex ideas. Moreover, trying out the simplest solutions can lead to a greater understanding of the relationships and mechanics of puzzle. This familiarity can help you come up with the real solution.

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