5 ways to create treasure hunts for corporate events with the clue game type

The clue game is one really cool concept that we feel is underutilized. You can build a game with this which allows you to play indoor, outdoor or even in-& outdoor games. The main idea is that players see a question list at the beginning of the game.

****There is an updated article version about the clue game type. Click here to read it!****

They can start by just answering questions opened without a code, or they can use a clue list to search locations for codes which open up questions. You can use all question types and also location specific questions in clue game types. Below and in previous blog post are also lists of questions you can use.

The player sees during the game three types of activation possibilities
1. Open right away. (envelope) Just tap the question to open.
2. Open with a special code. (key) In this case, the question is not shown but players will see the clue to find out the code.
3. Open in location. (trigger pin) This is for location specific questions. Question pre-clues are shown on the list which leads players to the correct location outdoors and the question opens.

When making a clue game, you can assign a special clue and a code to every question that is not location specific (location specific questions open in the location set to them while creating a question).

The codes in clue games work much like the QR codes or even very simple iBeacons. The idea is that you do not have to stick anything to the physical room around you (although you can do that), but the preferred way is to make the code discover-able from your surroundings.

With clues and codes, you can map the questions to
outdoors:
-go to the tallest tree in the hotel’s back yard. It will open the question
indoors interior:
-go to the second floor and find the door with the smallest number on it. Enter the door color and the question opens)
but also to people:
-find the tallest person in a room and find out her dog’s name. This opens the question.
 knowledge:
-this question opens when you find out how many employees our company has.
and even to other questions:
-you get the code when you answer correctly to the first question in a game

The cool thing is that unlike the questions answering in Loquiz, players can try to enter the codes to open questions many times, until you get the right code. So, you can be a bit vague. There can be several “correct” options for a code, but only one of them opens the question.
For the clues to work, it is worth making sure you include “where to go” and “what to look for”. Unless you want to make them really difficult to find out : )

Here are some suggestions:

Outdoors

Outdoor clues with location specific questions go right into the questions pre-clue (set while creating a question) and can be anything about the right location (Go to the tallest church or walk towards the sea, turn left at the first intersection etc.). The thing to remember is that you should make the question activation radius (question edit->location ->radius) big enough, so that it will get activated even if the person is not in the exactly right location.

-Go to Black street 5 to open the question.
-Go to the intersection on Black and Third street and your question opens.
–Find the place where black meets third to open the question.
-Darkest color collides with something between two and four. ( I assure for you it sounds easy, but it is not).
-Start south from the seminar center. Take the first street on the left, then after the 2nd intersection turn right. Continue straight until your question opens.
-Go to Tartu (Tartu is a city in Estonia and the location was city sized).

Indoor

(set the clue and code when making a game). The idea is that you will make whatever questions activate if code found out from specific place indoors is entered.

The name of the famous painter opens this question. You can find his work on the 10th floor. (there better be some paintings then).
In this seminar center there is a hotel. The number of doors on the 5th floor will open the question.
Find the fountain. The number of dolphins in the fountain will open the door.

Basically, you can use colors, numbers, writings on the wall, etc.. as codes to activate questions.

People

This is unique because you can not attach a QR code to a person (ok, you can but it is awkward). But you can use the knowledge that only he/she knows. It is a good idea to discuss it through with him/her, but I have seen the games made so that the person that had the questions “attached to them” were not informed. It is such a cool story that I have to share it with you here:

We were preparing an after meeting game for a corporate group. However, it turned out that the management team did not want to involve themselves into the game. The person who was responsible for the after meeting activities was pissed off to put it mildly. So we recommended that we will include the management anyway, without them knowing it.

So we “attached” a bunch of questions to the management team members.
Like
-find out how many years Jack Wolf has been with the company. The answer opens the question.
-What is Jane Smith’s hobby when she is not working? The hobby opens the question.
-Exactly how tall is our CFO Albert. The number opens the question.

What followed was that people playing did not feel intimidated at all to go and ask for that, because they thought that management was in on it. So they walked right up and started asking questions. Management was so baffled that they could do nothing other than answer at the beginning. Soon they realized that they were in the game as “props” rather than players. One of the most influential events I have seen.

To be 100% honest, the organizer got an “ok” from the company CEO to do this, so we were not all on our own. But rest of the management was not informed.

“Attaching” questions to people is an incredibly strong tool to make people communicate and bring somebody in the center of the stage if needed : )

General knowledge

While you can make general info open the question (like Earth is … planet from the sun. Correct number opens the question) it is not very useful. Why not ask the same question as a question? But there are really cool applications for that as well.

Other questions

Last but not least, you can build a structure so that you get the needed code from other questions. In Loquiz, there is an “after answer comment” that shows different comments for the correct and incorrect answer.

So, you can say in the correct after answer comment that “The code to open question number 4 is BLUE” and in incorrect comment that “your answer was incorrect you can find out what the question number 4 code is by going on 4th floor and looking at the wall color there“. So you get to move for not knowing.

And in question 4 you would say that ” You get the code to open this question from question 3” and the code BLUE.

It is very powerful, but unfortunately not a very easy way to build the structure.

So give the clue game a go. Sign in to Loquiz and create a new game with clue game type. It will do wonders for treasure hunt at indoor venues especially in the dark, cold and rainy season as we have right now in Estonia.