Treasure Hunt 2021 (Part 1)

This is the first of two treasure hunts I created in 2021. This one we played on Christmas Day. (You can read about previous treasure hunts here.)

Constraints

We were staying at my in-laws for Christmas, and we would have seven hunters. I wanted each hunter to find their own treasure (rather than in a single location). 

I was recycling an old treasure hunt idea that I’d not used in a long time. To make it a little harder, the hunters would have to work out which clue was theirs.

The overall structure looked like this:

1. I gave the hunters their first clue.
2. The hunters work out which is theirs.
3. They then follow the trail to the final clue.
4. The final clue was a slide-keyboard puzzle that gave them the final location of their treasure.

Which is my clue?

I used a simple number puzzle to identify the clues. So I gave each letter a number (a=1, b=2 and so on) and then added the letters in that person’s name.

So John = 10 + 15 + 8 + 14 = 47

(The hunters found this hard, so I had to explain the code on the day. In hindsight, I should have given them a clue, such as A=1.)

The clue trail - stations

Stations is the name we give to a particular type of hunt. In Stations, clues are placed all over the house as slips of paper. Here’s a typical set of clues for stations (there will be one for each hunter).

I printed these out on a single sheet of A4, and then cut them up with a guillotine into six slips of paper. (So with seven hunters, this would end up with 42 slips.)

The first row is the one the hunter starts with. (47 = John. I could have made it easier but just putting “John” in that row.)

The other five rows are scattered randomly around the house—in halls and in rooms. (Be careful to spread them out and not put all of one hunter’s clues in one location.)

The last clue leads to the treasure. As these were photographs of things in the house, I could have put the treasure in the last location (in the drawers). But I added a final puzzle.

The final puzzle

The final puzzle was inspired by the sliding keyboard I use on my smartphone. 

So everyone received a squiggle:

I also gave them a sheet of paper with a keyboard printed out (at the correct scale):

Putting one over the other (and holding them up to the light) reveals this:

And following the clue reveals A L C O V E—this hunter's treasure was in the alcove.