The Ultimo Puzzle

Summer and 2 new levels!

2006-06-28T20:22:00.000-04:00

Well everyone, summer has arrived!
Unfortunately, this means Plerk, Geekazoid, and I will be away for about 1 or 2 months. Thankfully, Droach will still be here, though!
to keep you busy, We finally have created levels 41 and 42.
dont worry, you wont be getting the answers so easily now. As its the 3rd section, Its time to see what you can do! I suggest you get to work on it, as soon as you can! Have fun Puzzling!
We promise loads more puzzles after the summer is over!

Also, Droach has been promoted to the Global Moderator position. :)
Congrads!

Have fun all of you!
See you after the summer!

--Garrettrub

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The Ultimo Puzzle Team:
Garrettrub: Creator
Plerk: PR manager and assistant webmaster
Geekazoid: Co-creator and tester
Droach: Forum Global Moderator

What's New in Version 2

2006-06-08T19:36:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!

After a long wait, Version 2 of the Ultimo Puzzle Forums is finally here! We thought we'd highlight some of the new changes for you:

Banner: We have a new GORGEOUS banner right at the top of the page!
Menu: There are new, witty menu buttons along with an awesome PM bar who's text changes color when you have a PM.
Background: A new, easier-on-the-eyes background. No more distracting images-just soothing textures and gradients.
Board Listing on the Main Page: Cleaned up, so it looks great! There are now moderator listings to tell you who's running the board. New images tell you whether there's something in the board you haven't read yet. "Dividing bars" between categories are now stylish images.
Links section: It's no longer an obtrusive sidebar. Links are now positioned neatly at the bottom of the page.
Affiliates: There is now a faster marquee so you don't have to agonize as you watch the mini-banners crawl by. Also, we have our mini-banner and are ready to affiliate with anyone who wants!

The list goes on and on: new codes, ranking images, staff, etc. Thank you to the Graphic Wizzard (htt://graphicwizzard.proboards23.com) for doing the redesign. Before I bore you all to death, I just want to highlight one more change. It may be the most important one.

The Ultimo Puzzle Forums is replacing the old "enter password" for the clubs. Additionally, there will be limited access to all level help threads 21 and up. To gain entrance to these areas, you will have to PM me with the password that you got from the appropriate level checkpoint. I will then grant you access to the areas that you have merited. For example, say that you complete the level 20 checkpoint. On the "Congratulations" page for beating that checkpoint, you are given a password. You PM that password to me on the forums. I then grant you access to Club21 and the 21-40 support board. Once you complete level 40 and get and PM me the next password, I grant you access to the FourtyOne Cafe and the (soon to be created) 41-60 support board. We hope that this new system will encourage activity in the Clubs and limit access to the higher puzzle board to those who actually have earned it.

Now that we've made it to Version 2 of the forums, here's our current plans for the future:

Redoing the puzzles themselves in XHTML/CSS. We've gotten started, but are working to iron out the wrinkles in our code. (I am doing the conversion and have never done CSS positioning before, so I've been experimenting and learning along the way.)
Redesigning the "introductory" pages before the puzzle. Yup, that means making the puzzle start page better and redoing other "non-puzzle" pages.
Possibly redesigning the blog.
We may get our own domain. We'll see. :)
As always, we'll be working hard to add more puzzles and present you with the best online puzzle experience. The team is hard at work evaluating our progress, running the project, providing support and planing for the feature.

On behalf of the Ultimo Puzzle team, I hope you enjoy the updates we've made to the forums. Please come by and post! We're here to give you support on any challenges you might face while doing the puzzles. Even if you're doing fine, please make a few posts in the General area.

Have fun puzzling!

plerk
Webmaster and P.R. Director
Admin, Ultimo Puzzle Project

New Staff Member!

2006-05-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

Well, as you all know, we've been looking for another staff member for quite a while. As our forum member base differentiated, we thought of hiring one of the more active members. Lucky for us, we found a great staff member: DROACH. He has been active since nearly day 1. Therefore, we are happy to promote to official MODERATOR position. A quick quote from DROACH:

Approximately three months ago I found a list list of online puzzle games via wikipedia.org. I tried most of them but the one that i enjoyed most was this one. The first puzzle got me hooked and from there it became an obsession, which then led to the addiction that is the ultimo puzzle.
It was the one game that tested my intelligence as well as my ability to research and break codes. By furthering myself and joining the forums, i became familiar with the ultimo community. As time progressed, i tried to assist new members as i was helped in the past. Eventually my charity was recognized by the staff of ultimo and was approached about becoming a moderator of the forums, which i gladly accepted. Just recently i have reached check point #2 and am concentrating on my forum duties and awaiting the next set of puzzles. They cant come soon enough. i love this puzzle.

DROACH, we look forawrd to your continued activity and helpfullness on the forum. Welcome to the staff!

Developing Ultimo forums...Version 2

2006-05-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

In the past few weeks, we've been talking about big changes at the Forums. Well, here's the announcement: the Ultimo staff in working in conjunction with the staff at graphicwizzard.proboards23.com to create The Ultimo Forums Version 2. The redseign is already in progress! You can visit the Forum as it transforms. We'll make an announcement when it's all done.

We hope that the new design will increase the visual appeal of the site and make it easier to work on and navigate. Hopefully, after the forums are done, a redesign of the website follow quickly.

See you on the forums!
Plerk

P.S. We're also really excited about our feature spot on gamershood.com. We'd like to thank you for the interest you have in our project. Your support made us dedicate ourselves. It has paid off. We are on a major gaming website!
Plerk

Restructuring the puzzle part of the forums

2006-05-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone!

as the puzzle board was getting cluttered, I have moved puzzles between checkpoint 1 and 2 (21-40) into their own sub board. we're now going to continue in this manner, making a new subboard for the puzzles 41-60 and then another for the set after, and so on.

this keeps each board down to one page, making it easier to find the thread for the puzzle you want to comment on.

so thats where the threads went.

have fun!

--garrettrub

36-40 now open!

2006-05-13T20:24:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone!

Guess what? puzzles 36, 37, 38, 38 and 40 are now open!

after the checkpoint at 40, you guys will be in for a nice surprise, but right now I cant say what it is... i can just tell you geekazoid999 has something special planned...

anyway, have fun with these new 5 levels.

then get ready for the 3rd set of levels!

I dont know about you, but I can't wait!

well, have fun everyone. Happy puzzling!

--Garrettrub

Rebuilding Ultimo

2006-05-10T17:06:00.000-04:00

Great News!
The Ultimo Team is rebuilding the entire Ultimo Puzzle-into clean XHTML/CSS. If this is gibberish to you, it means that the Ultimo Puzzle will be compatible with the newsest borwser features. Also, it means that the Ultimo Team will be able to fix problematic web pages and layouts very quickly, and change all of the puzzles with the push of a button. As the conversion progresses, the status of the undertaking will be posted on the home page.

In the long term, our hope is to include a new feature: theme/skin switching. Say that the current look of the site hurts your eyes. With one click of a button, you would be able to change the look of the page (much like changing your skin on the forums)

To technology oriented people: If you notice bugs in our new coding, feel free to post in the website feedback sub-board on the forum. There's obviously going to be some bugs in our CSS at first, so don't hesistate to tell us. We also welcome suggestions for improvement.

Keep puzzling!

Restructuring at the Forums

2006-04-18T15:55:00.000-04:00

During the past two weeks, the Ultimo team reorganized much of the forums. Major changes included the creation of an "Ultimo Project" category, including boards and sub-boards for discussing the puzzles, blog and forums, applying for team membership and affiliatiing. These changes are part of an effort by the team to make the entire "Ultimo Project" more user friendly and aesthetically pleasing. Hopefully, future improvements will include a new, cohesive design for the forum, website and blog and new organization for the website.

However, the team needs your help! Invite friends to try the puzzle and be active members on the forums. Add the blog's atom feed to your favorite aggregator. If you have a proboard or puzzle, go apply for affiliation on the forum. If you review games on your blog or site, give us a spot! The team cannot really thank you enough. The team hopes that you will continue to puzzle over the puzzle :-) and support the project.
Links to the places mentioned above may be found in the sidebar.

Levels 31-35

2006-04-06T20:29:00.000-04:00

Great News! The migration is complete. The Ultimo Puzzle, in its entirety, can now be found at ultimopuzzle.googlepages.com. Levels, 31-34, previously hosted only on geocities, have been copied onto googlepages. (A hearty thanks to garrettrub!) Aditionally, the team is proud to announce the realease of Level 35. It is available both on geocities and googlepages. (As always, we recommend googlepages.)

On a seperate note, we would like to issue a call for Staff Members and Affiliates. More details concerning staffing may be found Here. You may also email us Here. Affiliation means we post your minibanner on our site, you post ours on your site. Once, again email us. Links concerning affiliation and recruitement may be found in the sidebar of this blog, the sidebar of the forums and on the main page of the googlepages site.

Have fun puzzling!

The Puzzle Maker's Guide to Puzzles

2006-04-04T15:06:00.000-04:00

The Ultimo Puzzle was inspired by the highly acclaimed Enigma Puzzle. In this spirit, I would like to share a really cool guide written by Energythief, Enigma's creator. In the guide, he relates how he actually makes his puzzles. You should note that the Ulitmo Puzzle team (Garrettrub in particular) uses the same technique.

Quote:

Most of the puzzles I've created in one of four methods: "Top-Down", "Bottom-Up", "Deliberately Instructive" or "Combination". I'll share an example of each, using only the first few levels as examples so as not to give anything major away.

Status

2006-04-03T17:42:00.000-04:00

The basics of the blog have been set up.
Here's some status information on the Ultimo Puzzle:

We started out at geocities.com/garrettrub/start.html. (Levels 1-34 are available here)
Due to bandwith constaints, we moved our base of operations to ultimopuzzle.googlepages.com (Currently, Levels 1-30 are available.)
The forums are available at theultimopuzzle.proboards67.com
We have a blog set up. (You're reading it now.)

Just some of our goals:

Be featured on gaming blogs and sites.
Get to checkpoint two (Level 40).
Make our blog, forum and website better. This includes better graphics, codes, etc.

We're looking for:

Coders, graphics designers and moderators. Apply here!
Level ideas. Got a good one? Email us.
Any suggestions whatsoever! Post your idea on the suggestions board at the forums.
Affiliates. Once again, Email us.

That's all for now. Suscribe to our atom feed to have updates delivered to whatever feed aggregator you use.

The Ultimo Puzzle Blog is here!

2006-04-02T20:48:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Ultimo Puzzle Blog! We're currently setting up a blog to give you reports about the Ultimo Puzzle and the world of online riddles in general. More info later.