Treasure Hunt Questions inspirations

November 9, 2021 2:27 PM

I've been tasked at work with creating a fun staff activity for our staff holiday party. Previously folks enjoyed my chain-of-clues style* treasure hunts. I was looking to crib some ideas off of the old Dropbox Annual Quiz from years ago where answering questions got you more free storage, but it (and its walkthroughs) seem to have disappeared.

I liked that the Dropbox thing included some interesting web-based clues & techniques. Can anyone point me to a resource that discusses some of these (barely-recalled) puzzles and/or suggest similar techniques or wheezes for creating a not-particularly-difficult puzzle for my coworkers' teams to solve?

* ie the answer to one puzzle is usually the code or even gives access to a literal key that gets you access to the next question, and so on.

I have a number of ideas in mind already but would like to collect more options.

posted by aesop to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

Dropquest is gone from the web but there are some discussions of the puzzles online, e.g. here: http://www.forumvancouver.com/threads/dropbox-dropquest-answer-key.707/ and here http://www.forumvancouver.com/threads/dropbox-dropquest-ii-2-answer-key-2012.2537/ and here
https://www.jackcola.org/2011/01/get-1gb-free-dropbox-space-with-dropbox-quest-2011-walkthrough/

Dropquest was explicitly based on the MIT Mystery Hunt, which is well documented online -- obviously the Dropquest questions were much easier.
posted by phoenixy at 4:02 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

look at the archives for DASH and puzzled pint. many many great ideas at varying skill levels.

also, i've run a puzzle race at a company party once and i would give you this advice: keep it very short. with spouses and SOs involved, you have to plan for some people thinking the whole exercise is silly. many folks will be expecting to relax with drinks.
posted by bruceo at 4:52 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]