Treasure Hunt (game)
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A scavenger hunt is a game in which the organizers prepare a list defining specific items that need to be found, which the participants seek to gather or complete all items on the list, usually without purchasing them. Usually participants work in small teams, although the rules may allow individuals to participate. The goal is to be the first to complete the list or to complete the most items on that list. In variations of the game, players take photographs of listed items or be challenged to complete the tasks on the list in the most creative manner. A treasure hunt is another name for the game, but it may involve following a series of clues to find objects or a single prize in a particular order. According to game scholar Markus Montola, scavenger hunts evolved from ancient folk games. Gossip columnist Elsa Maxwell popularized scavenger hunts in the United States with a series of exclusive New York parties starting in the early 1930s. The scavenger-hunt craze among New York's elite was satirized in the 1936 film '' My Man Godfrey'', where one of the items socialite players are trying to collect is a "Forgotten Man", a homeless person.


Examples

Scavenger hunts are regularly held at American universities, a notable modern example being the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt, founded in 1987. Scavenger hunts have been held with increasingly large number of people around the world. In 2012, the
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title for 'most participants in a treasure hunt game' was set by Team London Ambassadors, who broke the previous record (of 308 participants) in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. 466 Participants, all London Ambassadors for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, worked in 93 teams of five, each completing a set of twelve clues hidden on either side of the
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, starting and finishing at City Hall, London. The treasure hunt in the form of a spy mission game formed part of World Record London for 2012. A separate points competition was held with one team emerging the winner of the 'treasure'. An event organized by Escape Manor Inc. in
Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...
, Canada was held with 2,732 participants in 2017. In November 2023, a scavenger hunt was organized in South Korea and it currently holds the Guinness World Record for the world's largest scavenger hunt with 3,040 participants. A form of scavenger hunt organized by
GISH ''Gish'' is the debut studio album by the American alternative rock band the Smashing Pumpkins, released on May 28, 1991, by Caroline Records. The album was produced by Butch Vig and frontman Billy Corgan, with the latter describing ''Gish'' as ...
, described by Guinness World Records as the world's largest "media scavenger hunt", was held annually between 2011 and 2022. Tasks were posted on its website for participants to complete. It had 14,580 participants in 2013, and 55,000 in 2016. The treasure hunt as a party game is attributed to socialite Elsa Maxwell. In 1944, she wrote: "In the Treasure Hunt ..intellectual men were paired off with great beauties, glamor with talent. In the course of the night's escapades anything could happen."


Easter egg hunt

A common game played on
Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...
is the
egg hunt An egg hunt is a treasure hunt played at Easter during which children look for hidden decorated eggs or Easter eggs. Real hard-boiled eggs, which are typically dyed or painted, artificial eggs made of plastic filled with chocolate or candies, ...
, where players search for concealed eggs. The custom is believed to have originated in Germany in the 16th century and brought to the US in the 18th century and England in the 19th century. The games is usually played outdoor but may also be played indoor. The eggs may be hard-boiled and decorated, chocolate eggs, or artificial eggs containing various items, and hidden for children to find. Halloween scavenger hunts have been moderately replacing
trick-or-treating Trick-or-treating is a traditional Halloween custom for children and adults in some countries. During the evening of Halloween, on October 31, people in costumes travel from house to house, asking for treats with the phrase "trick or treat". Th ...
.


Letterboxing and geocaching

Letterboxing is an outdoor treasure hunt activity that combines elements of
orienteering Orienteering is a group of sports that involve using a map and compass to navigation, navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specia ...
, art and problem-solving, and dates back to the 1850s. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly accessible places (such as parks or open moorland) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a logbook and a rubber stamp.
Geocaching Geocaching (, ) is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called ''geocaches'' or ''caches'', at sp ...
is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a global positioning system (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches").


Armchair treasure hunt

An armchair treasure hunt is an activity that requires solving
puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...
s or
riddle A riddle is a :wikt:statement, statement, question, or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or Allegory, alleg ...
s in some easily portable and widely reproduced format (often an illustrated book), and then using clues hidden either in the story or in the graphics of the book to find a real treasure somewhere in the physical world. This type of treasure hunt may take months to solve and often has large prizes to be won. An early example of the genre is Kit Williams' 1979 book '' Masquerade'' while games still in play include The Secret. An unusual example of the armchair treasure hunt is the book '' MAZE: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle'' by Christopher Mason, with the publishers awarding a prize of $10,000 USD to the reader who deciphered and solved a riddle using clues in the book's illustrations. Ultimately the prize was split among the twelve readers who came closest to the solution. The contest is now void, though ''MAZE'' remains in publication.


Television versions

In 1956, comedian Jan Murray created and hosted a variation for television, also known as '' Treasure Hunt''. This US game show featured a pair of contestants answering questions to qualify to go on a treasure hunt that involved choosing from among thirty treasure chests that included anything from gag prizes to valuable merchandise and/or cash. The show also offered home viewers a chance of a treasure hunt, when a postcard was chosen from a large drum by a young guest who revolved the drum several times to randomise the entries. The show aired daily in the morning and once a week in the evening until 1959, when the networks began canceling game shows in the wake of the quiz show scandal. In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, a show title '' Treasure Hunt'' was aired between 1982 and 1989, featuring two contestants solving a series of clues in a studio to direct a skyrunner in a helicopter looking for an object.


Internet and media scavenger hunts

Internet scavenger hunts invite participants to visit different websites to find clues and solve puzzles, occasionally for a prize. Participants can win prizes for correctly solving puzzles to win treasure hunts. The first internet hunt was developed in 1992 by Rick Gates to encourage people to explore the resources available online. Several feature films and television series have used online scavenger hunts as
viral marketing Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way th ...
, including ''
The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is “the best-selling American novel of all time.” Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel '' Angels & Demons'' ...
'' and the Sci-Fi Channel's series ''
The Lost Room ''The Lost Room'' is a 2006 supernatural television miniseries that aired on the Syfy Channel in the United States. The series revolves around the titular room and some of the everyday items from that room which possess unusual powers. The show ...
''. Actor
Misha Collins Dmitri "Misha" Collins "My mom went to Russia when she was in college, and she had a boyfriend whose name was Mitya, which she thought was the same as Misha, which it's not. And his real name was Dmitri, so my real name, actually—my birt ...
currently holds the Guinness World Record for organizing GISHWHES, the world's largest media scavenger hunt which included 14,580 participants in 972 teams from 90 countries as participants. A 2012 hunt organized by
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had prizes totaling $200,000. Many online hunts are subject to internet gaming laws that vary between jurisdictions. Simulated
treasure hunting Treasure hunting is the physical search for treasure. One of the most popular types of modern day treasure hunters are historic shipwreck salvors. These underwater treasure salvors try to find sunken Shipwreck, shipwrecks and retrieve artifacts ...
might also be considered a minor
video game genre A video game genre is an informal classification of a video game based on how it is played rather than Computer graphics, visual or narrative elements. This is independent of setting (fiction), setting, unlike works of fiction that are expressed ...
; for example ''
Colossal Cave Adventure ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the ...
'', ''
Zork ''Zork'' is a text adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson (programmer), Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company ...
'' and ''
Pimania ''Pimania'' is a text-and-graphics adventure game written by Mel Croucher and released by Automata UK in 1982 for the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, and ZX81. It was the first real-life video game Treasure hunt (game), treasure hunt to be rel ...
'' involve treasure hunts. With the explosion of mobile apps, there has also been an explosion of how Scavenger Hunts can be used within an app. Beyond the typical find and return method of a scavenger hunt, apps now allow for participants to snap photos, take videos, answer questions, GPS check-ins, scan QR codes and more directly in an app. Vastly expanding the concept of what a scavenger hunt can consist of. Some companies, such as thesecret.city, have started to run scavenger hunts through popular messaging apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram. On top of this, a new genre of game (Alternate Reality Games or ARGs for short) has popularized a real-life/internet hybrid form of scavenger hunts. In these, users all over the world collaborate to solve puzzles based both on websites and in real world locations. The games unfold in real time and can run for multiple weeks or even months.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scavenger Hunt Outdoor locating games