🕵️♂️ By Mike Holford |
✍️ 31st Mar, 2020
Our self-guided city adventures may be temporarily suspended, but staying at home doesn't have to mean missing out. Whether you've found yourself working from home with your housemates or are suddenly tasked with home-schooling the kids, we've been working hard to bring the social fun and exploration at the heart of our trails to you and your home - and the best part is until the end of April it's completely FREE!
In response to venue closures and social distancing guidelines that have put our usual offering on hold, we're making a simplified version of the trail creator interface we've been building publicly available, so you can now create and host your very own free scavenger hunt or quiz game at home with Urban Hunt!
See yourself as a cryptic genius? Maybe you're searching for an engaging educational activity? Or perhaps you're just looking for unique things to do at home (who doesn't love free fun, right)? You're in control, creating your own content and deciding on the style, length and any theme to your game - the only limit is your imagination.
If being a quarantine creator feels daunting or you just don't know where to start, here's some ideas to get you off the mark.
Personalised Quiz
Remember the Friends episode where Ross creates a quiz that loses Monica and Rachel their apartment? Challenge your housemates or family to see who knows who best with a personalised, 21st-century twist on the test that included categories such as 'Ancient History' (think childhood stories and past relationships), 'It's All Relative' (questions about their family and friends) and 'The Lightning Round' (where teams try to answer the most questions first).
Home-schooling
Been searching for original home-schooling ideas? Create a free educational quiz game for your kids or enjoy some unique family fun on a scavenger hunt that involves interactive learning. Once you've covered a topic, consolidate knowledge in subject-themed quizzes such as world geography, space and the solar system or Roman history. For added creativity, try and tie in objects already in your home such as a globe, torch or lego. Short on time? Give our example Under The Sea quiz a try!
Cryptic scavenger hunt
Want to step up your home quarantine game? Set up a cryptic scavenger hunt around your house and garden as a quirky quarantine date night, perhaps reminscing on past experiences using old photos or souvenirs. You could even theme your trail so that the first letter of each answer spells out the final challenge or a surprise gift like a voucher to play one of our city trails once things return to normal. We love to use emojis and wordplay in our cryptic clues and recommend you get inventive with synonyms, anagrams, rhymes, coded-words and subverting well-known expressions or idioms. Just be sure to offer your players hints in case they're not quite on your wavelength!
Prepare for an egg-cellent Easter
Alternatively, you could consider making an epic Easter-themed hunt and hide eggs or other treats along the way! Why not draw animals on eggs, paint them different colours or write words on them to act as answers? Whatever your chosen theme, it's always fun to include little challenges such as deciphering a Pictionary-style drawing, guessing the song you hum or personalised 'what or who is this?' photo, GIF or video clues.
I'm in! What do I need to do?
Sign up to our community if you haven't already and visit our build your own scavenger hunt page to get started. Games are free to create and play until the end of April, players just need Facebook Messenger downloaded on their device. We've rushed this out given current circumstances, so would love to hear your feedback to keep on improving the service. If you enjoy your experience, please consider purchasing a gift voucher to play one of our city trails - you have 12 months to use it and would be helping our small business survive this uncertain time. Enjoy!
