Going In Circles Cache Builder

Hide a picture under circles. Every touch splits one into four, and the picture comes into focus.

Free, just a username and passphrase, no email. Caches you build show up in My Caches so you can reopen and edit them without hunting for the edit link, and watch plays and wins. The same account syncs My Puzzle Texts across devices and manages your short links.

My Caches

Play your own cache before you publish it

Settings that look fair in this form can be brutal, or trivial, in the field. Finish the game yourself, start to end, on the kind of device your finders will use, and check that the difficulty, timers, hints, wording, and the final reveal all behave the way you intended. Every cache you create here comes with a play link and an edit link, so you can test it, tune it, and test it again before anyone else sees it.

I will play this game through myself and confirm the settings match what I intended before I share it with finders.

A Going In Circles cache hides a picture under a handful of big circles. Every circle a player touches splits into four smaller ones, so the picture underneath comes into focus a little more each time. Whatever you hide in the image, usually the final coordinates, is the puzzle. Upload a picture, choose how much has to be uncovered before the full-resolution version unlocks, and share one link.

Do not put sensitive, personal, or inappropriate content in a cache. Anything you create here is public to anyone with the link, and you are responsible for what you publish. Keep a copy of your edit key, it is the only way to change or delete your cache later.

1. Your picture

Upload a picture

JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP. Square pictures work best; anything else is padded with white to fit the square puzzle.

Your picture is resized in your browser, and only the two resized versions are uploaded. The original never leaves your device.

2. Your cache

Title

GC code (optional)

Adds a banner on the puzzle linking back to your cache page.

Show the Certitudes validation block Only tick this if you have set up a Certitudes entry for this cache. It needs a GC code.

Show a coordinate converter on the puzzle Players who read coordinates out of your picture get a one-tap check that they read them correctly.

Ask players to open this on a phone

3. When the full picture unlocks

Unlock at 50% uncovered

Below this, players only ever see the small blurry layer under the circles. At or above it, the server hands over the full-resolution picture and fades it in. The figure itself is kept on the server, so the page cannot be told what it needs to reach.

4. Reveal text (optional)

Most Going In Circles caches hide their answer in the picture itself and need nothing here. If you would rather the server hand over the final coordinates or a keyword when the picture unlocks, set it below.

Nothing, the picture is the answer Final coordinates Keyword

Your email (optional)

Only used to help you recover this cache if you lose the edit key.

I understand this cache is public, contains nothing sensitive or inappropriate, and I am responsible for its content. I also understand that caches which sit unused are removed automatically: one that is never played is deleted six months after it is created, and one with no plays for two years may be deleted.

Keep your cache in play to keep it live. Share the play link so people visit it; unused caches are cleaned up over time.

How well is this hidden?

The full-resolution picture is held on the server and refused until enough of the puzzle is uncovered, so it cannot be pulled straight out of the page the way it could on the old builder. The small blurry layer under the circles is still sent to the browser up front, because the page has to draw it, so treat that layer as visible to a determined solver and put the detail that matters in the full picture.

Puzzles made on the old Going In Circles builder keep working exactly as they are. They cannot be moved here, because they were never linked to an account.