Quest at home – DIY

Our post today is about the how to have some activities together with your family – conducting a quest at home. Such a quest could be timed to certain holiday – Birthday, New Year, Easter for example. And of course, you do not need any special day in the calendar to decide to run a quest just for fun.

Well, so where to start if you decided to organize a quest for your family?

The best thing to start is to define 3 simple items: quest theme, storyline and the prize. What is what your children like to do? Which characters are their heroes? Maybe you want to search for the treasure of sweets hidden by pirates? Or maybe true princesses adventure searching for the jewelry? Some would like to search for the dragon egg and see who will come from the eggs. Others would love to save the festive cake from the monsters hijacked it.

How many tasks should be in optimal quest?

Best would be from seven to twelve tasks, looking for the age of the players. For the kids in age 8 or younger 10 tasks will be optimal.
What should the tasks be like?
First of all take the player age into consideration. Tasks should be not too simple (so that the interest is not lost) and at the same time not too difficult (not to give up). So in average 1 or 2 moderate difficulty tasks will be enough. Usually tasks are presented in the form of riddles, puzzles, mazes, crosswords, ciphers and so on.

What secret places to use to hide the tips?

Better to select such places where the tips can´t be found by chance. The last secrete place should be quite spacious for the main prize to fit in.

How to make quest even more interesting?

Small motivating surprises could serve that role – like chocolate coins for the little pirates, or some glitter stones for the little princesses or some keys for the detective quest.

Another option is to hide all of the tips in relatively small place, but all additional tips will be available only while passing the small adventure like getting them with lantern in a dark room. Children usually like some mystery in the air.
In case you´d like to make quest in a modern style it would be possible to set QR code which would lead to the video with the tip.

What else to be considered?

Pay attention that children playing the quest are not tired or hungry. This influence the results a lot. In case kids can´t solve some of the riddles do not come with the ready answer at once, try to give some advises first.

Do not forget to make photos and videos from the quest, to watch it together with players, and to memorize those moments.
We will be super happy if our simple advices will inspire you to create your own quests. And if you want to try some first – you will find our free quests on our website (available in English, Russian and German languages)