You can please the birthday boy in different ways: buy a chocolate cake, order a fashionable gadget or give him a bicycle. But any surprise will be more pleasant if the road to it turns into an intriguing adventure. And you can do this with the help of a quest!
Here we will talk about quests with a search for a gift , in which the birthday boy alone (or with a team of assistants) goes on a hunt for a prize, and along the way he will have to solve a chain of thematic tasks.
If you are interested in learning about other types of quests, pay attention to this article from our blog.
So, you decided to do a quest at home. Where to start?
Main goal of the quest:
your task is to arrange everything in such a way that the hero of the occasion finds the gift in a pre-prepared place.
What kind of quest can I do?
Compose a series of messages and riddles that will ultimately lead the hero to the treasured gift. Start from the opposite, i.e. from the place where the quest ends.
For example, you decide to give a scooter as a gift. To keep such a large gift secret, you may have to place it outside the house (in the car or on the balcony). Then this particular place will become the key to solving the quest.
And then everything depends on your imagination. Let's list just a few options:
- The simplest solution is a set of tasks , from the answers to which the final solution will be obtained. If the gift is hidden in the car, then you need to prepare 7 tasks (according to the number of letters in the phrase “in the car”), with correct answers containing the required letters “v”, “m”, “a”, “sh”, “i”, "Not".
- A little more difficult will be the chain , in which tasks are hidden throughout the apartment. Here each next leads to a new one. For example, the answer to the first riddle is “TV”, then the second riddle will be hidden behind the TV. The answer may be the word “table”, and the third riddle will be hidden under the table. And the last riddle should lead the participant to the main gift.
- And the most difficult way for a quest chain would be to use a hint map (this is exactly what we do in our ready-made quests ), which lists 40-50 possible places in the apartment. Some of them contain clues, while others contain empty spaces or special obstacles. In this version, the course of the quest is less obvious to the participants, which creates additional intrigue.
After choosing the logic of the future quest, proceed to the riddles.
Start of the quest
1. Take a cardboard box of appreciable size. 2. Insert the first task card into it. 3. Pack this box with festive paper and tie it with a large beautiful bow. 4. Next to the prepared decorated box (which contains the envelope with the assignment), place a congratulations card or a bright note “To the best colleague” or any other text of your choice. 5. Place this prepared surprise gift in the most visible place so that it can be immediately discovered by the participant. It is best to place it discreetly on the participant's desk. Also, if desired, you can additionally place balloons nearby so that the gift is noticed faster. As soon as the surprise is found, from that moment the quest to find the gift will begin. 6. Place all further tasks in envelopes of bright colors and hide them in hiding places in such a way that the participant cannot accidentally notice them. 7. We also advise you to put a pencil in the envelope with the second task for entering your answers. Because, having found the second task, the participant will immediately know what to do.
Home quest: ideas and examples of tasks
The more time you have to prepare, the more interesting tasks you can do with props. Here are just some examples:
- A set of letters from which to form words,
- Toy with a note,
- The code is inside a candy wrapper,
- Balloon with a message,
- A mark in a newspaper or on a printout,
- Puzzles from a photograph of the place where the gift lies.
If you don’t have much time and you want to do a simple quest with your own hands, create task cards. As tasks you can use:
- Crosswords,
- riddles in verses,
- number problems,
- puzzles,
- anagrams,
- labyrinths, etc.
If there is absolutely no time for preparation or you are preparing a themed holiday, then the best solution would be to order a ready-made script.
for adults , but for children we recommend choosing easier riddles. Remember: your goal is to lead your child to a gift, and not to make him bored, like in a difficult exam.
What is the secret to a successful quest to find a gift?
We advise you to choose a topic that best reflects the interests of the birthday person. For example, if a child loves movies about pirates, the best option is a pirate quest.
Having decided on the style of the holiday and the gift, decide where the quest will take place: in an apartment, in a country house, or perhaps outside the house (in a cafe or on the street). Then proceed directly to planning the chain. Follow the general recommendations:
- The game should not be tedious or too fast (6-7 tasks are enough for children under 7 years old, 10-12 tasks for children under 12 years old, 10-12 tasks for children over 12 years old and up to 15 tasks for adults).
- Place clues in any accessible place: from the oven to the mailbox.
- Be sure to draw up a preliminary layout diagram with the numbers of the clues so as not to get confused and forget their location.
- Show your imagination in choosing tasks. For example, you can start a quest with an SMS message to the birthday person’s number or record a digital message that will serve as a starting task.
- Use themed props and decor, and, if desired, think of costumes for the presenter and participants.
Quest tasks
◊ The Lost Gift is a fun task with which the quest begins. All the words of the first task are written together and the quest participant, after reading a long sentence, needs to understand where the next cache is. ◊ Office Rules - a fun task in which the quest participant, by analogy, needs to unravel the comic rules of the office. According to these rules, the next cache will be found. ◊ Changeling is a simple attentiveness task in which the participant needs to decipher the text of the task using the illustrated keyboard. ◊ Saving extension cord is a logic puzzle in which several extension cords are used and you need to correctly calculate how much equipment can be connected with them. Having found the correct answer, the participant will find out the next cache. ◊ Find a match
- a fun task in which the participant has to find a pair for each office tool.
◊ Turn it on and get the answer - a fun task in which only office equipment knows the secret of the next secret place. To recognize it, the participant needs to turn it on correctly. ◊ Password - an observation task in which the participant has to understand the relationship between time and letters. ◊ The extra will tell you what you need - a fun task in which the participant, based on everyday experience, needs to know what items are superfluous in the office. ◊ Game of Colors is a logic puzzle in which the participant needs to select the correct decoding algorithm based on the image of stationery items of a certain color. ◊ Decoding is an easy task in which the participant, using the available letters, needs to determine its correspondence to a specific object.
You can read reviews about our quests here “Reviews”.
How to write a script?
Drawing up a quest script for your mother’s birthday begins with an idea and determining the location of it. If the game is invented for the home, then this will be one scenario, if in a cafe or in the office - another, with elements of adventure, you can do it when the game is started on the street.
At home, the birthday girl is usually not given a gift, but given a postcard containing tips. One after another, they must lead the hero of the occasion to her cherished goal.
Instead of a scenario plan, you can draw yourself a map where you indicate all the hiding places with notes - this way you can clearly assess the situation and see what needs to be corrected before starting the game.
Quest at work
Every year we do a quest at work. This year it was called “Collect Emotions.”
And you don’t need a lot of space to hold it! We played on 3 floors of the Administration building 
Notified in all available ways: corporate portal, VKontakte group, announcements:
According to the idea of emotions (and stations, respectively), we had 8: joy, tenderness, fear, curiosity, sadness, surprise, anger, delight. Here is a card from one of the teams with collected emoticons:
We spent a week preparing. The hardest part was coming up with questions about the plant. What did you think? After all, not only our employees were invited, but also representatives of the Nevsky Mechanical Engineering College and students of the Polytechnic University.
Well, for example, do you believe that:
1) The territory of the plant is 68 hectares?
2) Are there 100 furnaces in the foundry of the plant?
3) Should the plant smelt 20 tons of aluminum per month?
4) Are there permanent certification and qualification commissions at the plant?
5) During installation, did the tank move onto the pedestal by itself?
There were 50 questions...
There were five animators:
To get to the station they had to complete a pre-task. And they were also very different. For example, calculate the office number by adding the numbers of the correct answers:
Or solve the puzzle:
Or call the phone number, the number of which was built from guesses on a factory theme. We also divided them into teams randomly: we loaded smiley stickers into the lottery machine and everyone pulled out a smiley for themselves. The tasks have been announced, the rules are clear, the time has been set, go ahead!
Unfortunately, there are no photos from the station where they guessed 3D pictures and looked for words in the club seats, guessing the number of the row and seat, solving examples.
And here is the station where they guessed films for a while:
Here you need to put 20 vegetables in 5 beds, 4 in each:
At this station they filmed a video about emotion and then added 10 new ones from this word. There weren’t enough letters, so they answered riddles about the plant again:
At the Wrath station, you had to write down 5 of the most unnerving situations and then hit them all with an arrow from a real sports bow:
The inquisitive emoticon was given to those who found small emoticons with questions along the way. And those who collected the most were given an emoticon:
An additional task to collect puzzles in which the territory of the plant:
And I'm already bringing out the prizes. The packages are the same:
And the prizes are very different! There are chocolates with fortunes, corporate pens, and then there are luxury books:
The winning team was the first to choose the number of the package with prizes, then second, third, and so on. Everyone is happy:
And at the end of the quest - tea for everyone:
There were different emotions at the stations. In the end, everyone has the same happiness!
And I'm very pleased:
Recommendations
On average, it is recommended to use up to 10 tips - if a person is active, then more is possible, but in order not to tire you, 6-7 will be enough. The tasks should be simple so as not to cause any difficulties for the mother. After all, the point is to entertain the birthday girl, not test her IQ level.
When choosing a gift, as well as when drawing up a scenario for presenting it in a game, you need to take into account the preferences of the hero of the occasion. With a quest to find a gift, you can play up some funny situations that happened to the birthday girl or her beloved household members over the past year.
You can cheer up your mother with small gifts on the way to the most important surprise. Attach the next notes with tasks to a chocolate bar, a postcard made with your own hand, to a box with her favorite perfume, to a trinket that she has dreamed of for a long time. After all, your task is to cheer up on this day and give as much joy as possible to the dearest person in your life.
To learn how to make a quest for your mother for her birthday, watch the video below.
Where to hide the notes?
The places where notes are hidden must first of all be safe. Therefore, exclude the option with the outside of the window, and do not hide it behind large objects that could fall on a person. And it should also be pleasant for the player to look there.
Again, we exclude the trash can, dirty laundry basket and other unpleasant things. Traditional places - on the closet, under an armchair or sofa - should first be inspected and, if necessary, tidied up. Not every woman will be pleased to see the flaws in her cleaning at such a moment, but if her mother discovers perfect cleanliness, this will add to her optimism.
Hints should not immediately catch your eye and become available ahead of time, otherwise interest in the game will disappear. For example, a mother should not put a note in her robe pocket; she will still get up before everyone else and can easily find it - the intrigue will disappear.
But if she is asked to eat the holiday breakfast you prepared, with a hint underneath, this will cause a storm of emotions and a desire to continue the game. The note can be hidden in a bottle and placed in a bathtub of water, or you can tuck it into your mother’s favorite pillow.
Inflated balloons, boxes with your favorite candies, and interior items can serve as hiding places.
If the final stage of receiving a gift is going down to the mailbox, then the birthday girl will gladly grab the key and run to the first floor to quickly open it and receive her gift.
