There is a certain art to creating a treasure hunt for someone. A certain sense for how things will turn out. A certain... je ne se quois. Don't get me wrong, there's more to the process than just following your whims, but while you read over the nuts and bolts that follow keep in mind that painting by numbers can only get you so far. If you feel like ignoring or embellishing on the suggestions I outline... well, you should do so. See where it takes you. There's no reason that setting up a treasure hunt shouldn't be an adventure in itself.



1. Hey Graham, Can You Tell Me About Treasure Hunts?

You are waiting for your friend in the park when a strange man comes up to you, asks for directions, and upon hearing your reply, handcuffs a briefcase to your arm. Not your typical beginning to a treasure hunt, but this is how we kicked off one of our adventures before my business, Whim: Custom Adventures, had even been created. The important lesson here is that you shouldn't worry about what a treasure hunt should be- as is true of many, many things on this blue-green morsel of a planet, treasure hunts are whatever you make them. Why should your clues be limited to rhyming couplets written on paper? Why should you make it so that it can be solved in an afternoon? Why even have puzzles at all (although most of the treasure hunts Whim creates do have a string of puzzles, we have made several that are simply a series of encounters and messages)?

2. Golden Rule of Treasure Hunts- Set Up a Hunt That You Yourself Would Like to Solve

This is both your greatest tool in setting up a treasure hunt and your most deceptively difficult problem. The good news is that you can tell almost immediately whether a clue in the hunt will be enjoyable by putting yourself in the huntee's shoes. The challenge is not getting caught up in your own preferences at the expense of what others will enjoy (as a correlate, you have to realize that once you know the solution to a puzzle, it seems much easier than it actually is). Make sure that your grandparents know what the internet is before you put one of their clues in hexadecimal code.

3. The Three Parts of a Clue

1-MESSAGE: An image, piece of text, or whatever else you can come up with to direct them to their next location.

ex: ?look under the toaster,? a picture of a toaster, an actual piece of toast, etc.

2-CODING:A code, cipher, or puzzle to conceal your direct intention

ex: reversed text, rip up the photograph, invert the colors of an image, put the piece of toast in a safe

3-PRESENTATION: How you...well... present your clue... in ways that have little bearing on how they interpret it. This is where you get to have some fun and impress the people.

ex: written on aged paper, given in an e-mail autoresponder, written on a skull and mailed to them, ironed on to a t-shirt which you give to a stranger to wear, written on toast.

?Location? could be added to this list I suppose, as in ?where the clue is placed,? but I lump it in with presentation, and debating which is the correct method would take us into the dangerous realm of metaphysics. That said, it should also be mentioned that these three things are not mutually exclusive- using binary code on a weird website will have a different effect than having it spray painted on the side of a trashcan. Writing a poem about cooking and putting it on a piece of toast will imply that the huntee should check out the toaster, while it would otherwise lead them to the stove. Anyway, the parts tie into one another, so keep an eye on that.

And there you have it, the basic tools you need to set up an adventure of your own.