Treasure hunt (game)

The game

[
thumb|right|200px|A_puzzlehunt is a type of treasure hunt game.] There are many different types of treasure hunt games which can have one or more players who try to find hidden articles, locations or places by using a series of clues. This is a fictional activity; treasure hunting can also be a real life activity. Treasure hunt games may be an indoor or outdoor activity. Outdoors they can be played in a garden or the treasure could be located anywhere around the world.

Children's games

A puzzlehunt is a typical treasure hunt game involving clues. Sometimes though a hunt may not have clues because of the age of the children. An Easter egg hunt that is performed on a day near Easter Sunday. Young children just search for as many eggs as they can find whilst older children may have clues to one egg.

Treasure hunt are sometimes organised by parents as a game to be played at children's parties. This could be in a range of formats; just searching for items, following clues as a group or splitting into teams to race to a prize.

An armchair treasure hunt is any activity that requires solving puzzles or riddles in some easily portable and widely reproduced format (often an illustrated children's book), and then using clues hidden either in the story or the graphics of the book to find a real treasure somewhere in the physical world. However, although these may seem to be for children, this genre is aimed at dedicated adults.

Adult games

The use of a treasure hunt as a party game is attributed to socialite Elsa Maxwell. She said that::"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." [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,796902-2,00.html Time article "Elsa at War"] retrieved April 10, 2007]

Adult treasure hunts are becoming increasingly popular (different types are listed below), as are many other forms of organized adult entertainment like trivia nights, video game tournaments and adult sports leagues. Some theorize this is due to the extended adolescence. Others cite the difficulty in meeting new people with the breakdown of traditional community organizations. Regardless, more adult find themselves participating in enormous city wide treasure and scavenger hunts like those of Treasure War Network in New Jersey.

Geocaching 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") anywhere in the world.

An armchair treasure hunt uses a book or a puzzle as basis, in which clues are hidden. This type of Treasure Hunt normally takes months to solve and has immense prizes to be won.

Letterboxing is another treasure hunt game. It is played outdoors and combines elements of orienteering, art and problem-solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites (see below), or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a logbook and a rubber stamp.

More recently, the treasure hunt game has been used for corporate entertainment and team building. Organisations may use treasure hunt games where managers perceive that inter-departmental relationships need to be improved. Alternatively it could just be a morale booster.

References

External links

* [http://www.racela.com Race/LA] and [http://www.racela.com/cityrace.html CityRace Urban Adventures] , both in the Los Angeles area.
* [http://www.notimeforcoldfeet.com Documentary about the Saint Paul Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt (Saint Paul, Minnesota)]