Not quite an ARG, but almost

July 23, 2020 2:49 PM

Help me brainstorm fun clues to hidden treasure.

I make and then subsequently hide small pieces of art for fun, and I post clues to their locations on my Instagram. Thanks to a news article on me and my hobby I've built up a sizable following. I know lots of folks hide art for fun and just leave it up to fate, but my whole thing turned into more of a game. Most of the time the photos in the post are the clues. Thing is, New Orleans is a small town and this has basically turned it into a matter of proximity and timing. And that's fine, I guess! I'm still giving away free art! But sometimes I don't want them to be found immediately, you know, just by someone who recognizes the side of that building or that particular piece of graffiti because they walk their dog there twice daily and runs two blocks over to grab it.

On occasion I have made up word jumbles and asked my followers to jump through those hoops, and that's fun. Those are generally well-received. But I'm looking to expand, and that's why I'm here asking for your help. I'd love to post something that takes people a day or two to solve, not an hour.

What I have at my disposal:
very small art, easily concealed so it won't be found by random passers-by.
a Google Voice phone number I can repurpose.
a few friends with decent graphic design skills.
a color printer.
a web site separate from my Instagram to which I can post clues or updates, or pages that aren't linked so you need to know the direct URL.

What I do not have at my disposal:
a ton of money to throw at this project

so I'd love to hear any ideas you might have. One-off hides, long complicated multi-part hides, and so on. Just whatever comes to mind. Although I should caution that if it's multi-part I'd prefer the whole thing still be accessible to every follower, so for example part one should NOT be to go pick up a rock in the woods that has a map on the bottom or whatever - if someone takes it then subsequent people can't play along.

One suggestion I was given recently, and which I plan to do soon, is to get a helium balloon and a ton of fishing line and just hide the art in the middle of a field. Someone has to spot the balloon and go wandering until they find the fishing line. It may not be complex but at least it's novel.

[and yes I realize there's a small small chance that one of my followers may find this thread and read about my plans but I don't want to ask anonymously and then not be able to respond to any questions or good suggestions]

posted by komara to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

That sounds like a ton of fun! My gut says that you need to make at least some of your posts more of a puzzle and in the world of riddles and puzzles that means making the way to the answer a little more abstract.

One really common thing done in puzzling is to put the answer in the metadata, so it doesn't really matter what the photo is at all. Someone takes a look at the exif and finds that there is a message in there that is the next piece of the puzzle, like a written riddle. Unfortunately, I believe instagram strips the metadata out of photos that are uploaded to the service. (This is probably a safety feature so followers can't find out where a photo was taken).

Another thing you could do is work with a series of photos. For example, have a series of photos from all over where the only thing they have in common is that they have one or two numbers in each. Those numbers when taken as a whole are actually the coordinates for where the you have hidden the prize. Similarly, you could have three photos from around the city and the answer is to know where those are and then triangulate the mid point between them for the hidden goody. Something similar that doesn't use coordinates would be to spell out a message by photographing signs.

If there is something in the city that there are multiples of (statues, for example) you could also do something like take a photo of all of these and compile them into a collage to share. The twist is that you left one of them out. That's where you have hidden the art.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 4:43 PM on July 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

Someone in my town once posted pictures with close up details of various buildings and locations. The city I live in is too dead to gentrify, so there are lots of old run down buildings that have beautiful architectural details. The pictures themselves were the scavenger hunt. We had to figure out where they were.

Would it be possible for you to take close up pictures of unique details of things and post those pictures as part of your clues? Examples might be graffiti, or fancy wrought iron railings, or a window of a house that is painted an unusual colour, or a close up of some gingerbread work.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:35 PM on July 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

One thing that might be fun is using Instagram's features as part of the clue. Like a location tag that gives a hint somehow, or maybe tag a bunch of other accounts and their usernames create an acrostic.
posted by babelfish at 9:58 PM on July 23, 2020

- A photo of a place, a photo of the art, a photo of another place, and the art is hidden halfway between the two places.
- The same, but with eight places, and the art being hidden at the intersection of the lines joining the halfway points of the four pairs of places.
- A photo of a bus timetable and a very specific time, the art being hidden at the place the bus would be at at that time.
- A photo of a person who has the art.
- A photo of a specialty drink or food item from a local establishment, where the art is hidden.
posted by lucidium at 4:22 PM on July 24, 2020