Scavenger hunt

[magid]

When I was little, I always wanted either a treasure hunt or a scavenger hunt for my birthday. I never had one, because I'd've had to have organized it enough that I couldn't be a participant, which is what I most wanted.

I think about this every so often, how fun it could be, but never found a way around this difficulty, until a couple of weeks ago. If each scavenger hunt participant came with n things to be found/photographed (written on individual pieces of paper) and those things were randomly divided between teams, it might work, especially if each team is allowed one or two things to not get (to balance out different levels of difficulty in item acquisition).

Does this sound like it would work?

Comments

[cnoocy]

That could work. (The other way to do it would be to ask for someone to make you one as a birthday gift.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ooh, from a puzzle-meister, that means a lot.
(And I have a hard time asking for things, especially ones that aren't really necessary. Plus, I'd like all my friends to play :-)

[zzbottom.livejournal.com]

I'd be up for it. Maybe make it a day-long thing, like on a Sunday, and require that everyone use the T to make it fair.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Cool. Definitely a Sunday, and T-based sounds right, especially if there were a lot of people with T passes (enough to take the other people as guests). I was thinking that making sure each team had at least one person with a digital camera, and a low money limit ($10/team? if that) in case there were things that required some kind of purchase (but with the emphasis on free/creative).

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

You know, I think it might. Cool idea. :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks :-).

I'm thinking good weather is definitely preferable; maybe sometime this spring.

[library-sexy.livejournal.com]

I'm in.

[magid.livejournal.com]

*grin*

Excellent. Though, as I said to JB, I don't think there's time to fit this in before spring. I should look into when the spring Jewish holidays are (Purim and Passover).

[library-sexy.livejournal.com]

I agree that Spring is the best time for this.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

How about everyone writes a list of N items and then we combine all the lists into one giant list 'o doom. In order to make people be creative about it you offer bonus points for each original scavenger hunt item, no bonus points for items that more than one person suggest.

I suppose you'd also have to say that you can't collect point for acquiring things on the list you yourself wrote (or perhaps that you absolutely have to have those things or they're worth negative points). That would balance it a bit as typically (if someone were running the game) harder items would be assigned more or less points.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

I think you'd also want to make a decision as to how things are collected, either everything has to be physically acquired (even those that require some creativity as to how to make them a physical reality - also this forces teams to make time management decisions like should we go after N small items or attempt to deliver that giant fridge. In this case the fridge would be worth a lot of points and the small items only one each.)

The other option is, collect everything by digital camera (in which case some of the items could be more along the lines of illustrating something - for example I played a game like that in San Francisco a few years ago and one of the things we had to do was illustrate the stages of a drug in 5 photos The creativity angle was really fun and when the game was scored there were points for collecting things and bonus points for creativity which were awarded by a vote of all the players. Hmm, in which case we'd want a projector and a laptop at the last stop so that we could do a slide show of all the entries.)

Um, yeah. I'd like to play.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I was thinking people could choose whether it was a thing or a (series of) photo(s).

Basically, I was thinking this would be more like a game of Apples to Apples or party Quiddler, where the fun is in the doing and the acclaim for 'good ones', rather than a weighted point system. I can see doing that, but for a more formal hunt (Everyone would wear white gloves and top hats for that one :-).

And, color me not surprised :-).

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'd rather hoped that no one would be running the game, though, plus I'd like to minimize the time spent administratively, so if each person came up with the same number of items, each written on a piece of paper, then each team would choose however many out of a hat. There could be ones left over, and if each team could choose one or two to not find and still be complete, then I think it balances out how people might end up with ones they thought impossible.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't imagine anyone was running it - i was thinking everyone makes their list and N photocopies so every team gets a copy of all the lists and then in order to balance it so people don't come prepared with their own stuff and get easy points you don't get points for your own stuff or get negative points for not having your own stuff (which means that the stuff on the lists will be realistic as far as acquireability).Offering the bonus for originality when writing the lists encourages creativity since you don't have people running it to make sure the lists are crative.

[cellio]

That sounds like a good solution.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'll report back if I try it this spring.