Set design
You can start the quest game in an original way using a special postcard . It's durable and takes just a few minutes to cook (details included), with the first clue in the middle; Postcard format - A4. When finished it looks like this:
completing assignments
Surprise Me - an application for creating and completing city quests
My name is Alexander, I'm 25 years old, I'm from St. Petersburg. I’ve been in business for more than three years: I started with small online stores, and now I’m developing a store for university branded products at ITMO University - ITMO.STORE.
It's nice to see the joyful faces of people who buy our products, making themselves and their loved ones happy. Unique emotions are what excites me about my other project, Surprise Me, a service for creating and completing quests in reality.
I’m sure everyone, like me, has faced a situation where they need to make some cool, original gift that fits into a limited budget. Or you need to arrange a holiday that you and your friends will remember and won’t cost a pretty penny. Unfortunately, as a rule, unusual gifts end up being replaced with money in an envelope “for a dream,” and holidays are held in a trusted cafe or bar.
Once again I encountered a similar problem when I decided to propose marriage to my girlfriend. How to make this event unusual and memorable? Having cast aside thoughts about the engagement ring in champagne, I concentrated on what my girlfriend loves, on what, perhaps, everyone loves - mysteries, intrigue, surprises.
This got me thinking - what if I made an offer in the format of an individual quest? This is how the concept of Surprise Me was formed. I quickly assembled a team and we started working on the project.
Surprise Me consists of a quest designer, in which users create quests from any device, and a mobile application for completing quests. The mobile application works offline, allowing you to complete quests anywhere. In regular quests, one stage follows another. We went further and made it possible for the quest events to occur according to three parameters:
- The event occurs after entering the answer to the task in the previous event.
- An event occurs at a certain time.
- An event occurs at a specific location thanks to geolocation tracking.
You can create your own or choose a ready-made quest on our website or in the application available in the App Store and Google Play.
Our constructor is used for different purposes: some create tasks for themselves and their friends, others come up with mass quests for conducting gamified promotions or excursions. To create ready-made quests around the city, we involve professional scriptwriters who receive income from the sale of quests as part of an affiliate program.
So far, there are ready-made quests only for St. Petersburg. Ahead are Moscow and other cities. The constructor has already been successfully tested abroad - in Vienna, Helsinki and in those regions of Russia where it is especially difficult to find original entertainment.
Our team works on personal motivation: all funds received are invested in the development of the project. We are warmed by the idea that we help people reflect on their own interesting discoveries in different parts of the world and create gifts “with their own brains.”
Description of tasks
(key places where you can hide hints and surprises are indicated in brackets)
- Find the differences (package, bag). A fun observation task in which you need to find the differences in two seemingly identical pictures.
- Funny bugs (can, cap, shoes, your choice). To find the key letters, players will have to count how many insects are shown in each picture :)
- Camping items (pocket, path, fern, your option - possible keywords: pan, basket, sleeping bag). Quick thinking task: using only two prompted letters, you need to write the names of all the objects shown in the picture.
- Alphabetical path (sand, coal, flowers, your option - possible keywords: boat, burdock, bag, ball, hat). Players will have to remember all the letters of the Russian alphabet and find which ones are missing :)
- Search for fragments (stump, water, bread, your choice). An interesting task in which players need to find certain fragments, which is not as easy as it seems at first glance.
- Seven-flowered flower (bottle, plate, tent). Original task for making anagrams.
- Solar cipher (bush, drink, leader). Colorful solar cipher: first, using the key, you need to decipher the letters, and then form a word from them.
- Confusing clue (newspaper, sleeve, hood, your choice). To read the clue through the tangled threads, players will need concentration and composure.
- Hidden letters (stone, tree, log, your choice). An entertaining task for attentiveness: you need to find 6 cleverly hidden letters in the picture :)
- Forest labyrinth (trunk, napkins, sweets, your choice). To find out the next search location, you need to find the right path to the center of the maze by collecting key letters.
Attention! The set includes templates for the tasks “Funny Bugs”, “Hike Items”, “Alphabet Path”, “Search for Fragments”, “Tangled Threads”, “Hidden Letters”, “Forest Labyrinth”: if the keywords do not suit you, you can replace them.
The kit is offered in electronic form - you need to print everything you need on a printer yourself (the postcard and tasks look great on regular office paper).
How to create a good quest - useful tips
Greetings to all readers! We would like to share the thoughts that we and our colleagues in the craft had while working in the field of quests.
Just recently, we finally launched the Surprise Me quest designer, in which anyone can create quests and excursions from any device, anywhere in the world. For more than two months, the quest designer has been used for different purposes: some create quests for birthdays, others create quests as representatives of museums, foreign language schools, event agencies, and others. When communicating with users and receiving feedback, we often come across pain that does not leave us indifferent.
Most users make mistakes that prevent quest participants from reaching the end and discourage them from completing quests. We would like to share with you tips on how to avoid the most common mistakes and create a truly cool online quest or real quest:
The player is always right
Any game or quest is created primarily for the player, so the most important thing in creating games is the player. When you design, forget that you are a designer, think like a player.
Hints shouldn't be too clear
Of course, any hint or advice to the player should be veiled, but sometimes the creators hide the true meaning so much that the player cannot understand what they want from him, and he simply has a desire to finish the game. Nobody wants to feel stupid!
The participant must be able to win and reach the end without having experience in similar games
If you indicated the location of the next task without a good hint about its location and you think that the player will go there to look for it without any hints just because it is the most popular place - you are wrong. Different people go to quests - beginners, professionals, and amateurs! Take care of the participants and give everyone the opportunity to complete the quest, even those who are in this place for the first time or learn about the existence of quests.
The player cannot predict events, leave the opportunity to return
For example, if in a task you need to remember some fact from a past action, without being able to return, and here again there are problems - how to remember what happened before? Take care of the players and allow them to return to the previous level, even if it misses the most obvious things.
That's why in the Surprise Me app we save all previous events and leave the opportunity to watch them again.
Don't give the player tasks that have no chance of being completed
For example, don't force the player to ask passersby about things they may not know. There are people who find it difficult to start communicating with others, and sometimes there is no Internet at hand. If the player can solve the answer through a logical riddle, then, of course, then such a solution is more justified.
Don't force the player to do boring tasks just for the sake of doing boring tasks.
This does not mean that only dynamic quests have a place, and logic games are not the topic. The point is that each task must be followed by the next, or the task must become the key. The player can complete a large puzzle to find out the code that will need to be entered in the last event, but do not force the player to complete a large puzzle just so that he will complete this puzzle, or better yet, make the puzzle small! Sorry for the exclamation point, my heart bleeds
If the answer is a word, don’t program only one spelling option.
Often the mistake of quest creators is to create only one spelling of the guess word.
If you are creating a logic game, then add derivatives of this word to the possible answer options, as well as it in the singular and plural and in all cases. So provide all the options for entering the answer, for example, for the question 2+2, the answer could be “4” or “four”.
Don't forget about synonyms
Addition to the previous paragraph. You know that the same things are called differently? The player knows this too. So write in the answer the word, and all possible synonyms that the player can use and turn out to be right.
Let the player understand the clues
Don't share tips just for engineers or those who know football. Everyone should understand your tips. Or let players use the Internet to find out some fact from there.
We hope the tips were useful for quest fans and their creators. If you have never tried to create quests before, we recommend it, it is not at all difficult, the main thing is to give free rein to your imagination! By the way, we have also launched an affiliate program and if you feel that you are capable of creating interesting quests, the program may seem very attractive.
We are warmed and motivated by the understanding that we help people reflect on their own interesting discoveries in different parts of the world and create congratulations or gifts “with their own brains” using quests. Make your friends and loved ones happy, it's easier than it seems!
