Discussion: brainstormig a creative scavenger hunt

This just came up, an interesting event in Pittsburgh called City Spree

I thought of a game where participants each has a smartphone. They would go to the checkpoints using maps displayed on smartphone and once in the vicinity, be asked a question like "to whom is the dedicated tree?", and upon reading the plaque, one selection would be made among four multiple-choice answer list.

The points attributed to the CP would be determined dynamically, so that less-visited CP acquire more points as the game unfolds, and the more-visited CP lose points as game unfolds.

Also, and this is unique to smartphones, one could see and located other participants, click on the participant icon displayed on the map, and send a message communicating that you're interested in a "swap" transaction. Rendez-vous arrangements minutes later, and once the two participants are physically within reach, they can have their smartphones touch each other to exchange CP so that one acquires the other's CP and vice versa. (lets call that "mating").

At the end of the 3-hour period, all participants converge to a meeting point, download all the CP data, and a winner is determined.
---
ABOUT THE CITY SPREE:

The City Spree is a city-wide race...without a course. Runners and walkers
create their own path through the city to discover its secret places and
hidden gems. Racers compete on speed, distance, and cleverness - as long as
they make it back in time.

HOW IT WORKS

Unlike a normal road run, racers in The City Spree start in the middle of
the race course, surrounded by checkpoints on all sides. Racers choose
their own path from checkpoint to checkpoint, winding their way through the
city's neighborhoods and discovering the hidden connections between them.

Every checkpoint they visit increases the runners score (but the more
people who visit a particular checkpoint, the less valuable that checkpoint
becomes). Racers compete to travel the furthest from their starting point,
visit checkpoints in the fastest time, and to make the most unique route
through the city in order to get the highest overall score - but everyone
must make it back before time runs out.

REGISTER TO RACE:

The City Spree is $25 ($40 after May 10). To register for the 5k walk, 5k
run, or 10k run, head to City Spree and click the "Register"
button.

The City Spree is open to runners and walkers of all abilities, age 18 and
over. More questions? Check out the FAQ

VOLUNTEER:

Don't want to race, but want to help? The City Spree needs a bunch of
volunteers to help make the race happen! All volunteers receive a free race
registration for a friend or family member. Anyone age 18 and over is
welcome to volunteer, and we’re especially interested in people who’d like
to live-tweet the race as it happens, from points all over the city!

CONTRIBUTE A CHECKPOINT:


The idea behind the City Spree is to give people an excuse to run to some
of the coolest spots in the city. Do you know a place where racers should
go? Email us and tell us about it - the best spots
will become checkpoints in the race!

SCVNGR app on Android and iPhone has been there for years. You could easily create your own event, checkpoints and multiple answer questions.

I've created a few 'Hood Hunts within the SCVNGR app. There are a few limitations with SCVNGR, though, and I've since switched to Maplets for the smartphone option (but it's not perfect, either).

Here's a recap of all of the location-based gaming platforms that I was aware about last year. There could be more now.

The perfect app for orienteering would have both a scoring system and a way to upload customized maps. None of the apps I'm aware of do that... yet.

I wish them good attendance and indeed being able to hit results within one hour as they hope. I've heard that people aren't particularly happy to wait even 45 minutes for results, and we try to get the results announcement and awards ceremony going within 30 minutes of the finish at Street Scramble.

Our cellphone scoring system probably wouldn't preclude dynamic scoring in the City Spree concept, but it's just slightly too weird. (We certainly can't handle Sherpes's expanded mating version.) As in, if there were thousands of people attending Street Scramble-like events in all major metro areas, and some of them were getting bored with rogaine-style preassigned CP values, I could see how the City Spree concept would catch on... and if people would furthermore get bored with it, then introduce mating and whatnot.

But, with Street Scramble-like activities being beyond obscure in most jurisdictions, I can't see why making them even less intuitive would be somehow desired. Where we are, RRS has some trouble getting to reasonable (>200) attendance with free and exceedingly simple events. They are also consistently having issues staffing/sponsoring the 12 checkpoints. Pittsburgh may be different—it mostly depends on what else there is going on that competes for people's time and dedication.