How a Treasure Hunt Runs, Step by Step

From the first call to the winners' announcement, here's the full day of a corporate Treasure Hunt, step by step, including who runs what and what happens when it rains.

A Treasure Hunt as a corporate program has its own dramaturgy. There’s a straight line from the message you send us to the moment we announce the winning team. We’ll walk it step by step. Not so you can build the game yourself, but so you know what happens before the event, during it, and after, who’s responsible for what, and how much of it lands on you. The answer is short: almost none. Downtown Brno or out by a reservoir, the day runs to the same rhythm; only the scenery changes.

The Day in a Nutshell

Before we get into the details, here’s the whole day in a few points. So you have a picture right away, and only then dive into the individual steps.

• you reach out with a date, a headcount, and a city
• we pick the right game (if the location has more than one) and prep the tech
• on the day, you gather and split into teams
• teams head out for treasures and compete both in the field and on the tablet or phone screen
• at the finish, the app tallies the points and we announce the winners

Before You Set Out

It all starts with one message or a phone call. You tell us the date, a rough headcount, and the city where you want to play. From that we build a customized program, pick the format, recommend the best game for that location, and for story games we lay out the route. In the meantime, you only handle what you’d handle for any corporate event: who to invite and where to meet.

Right at the start, you choose between two ways to run the day. In the full-service version, we bring the tablets and our instructors run the whole event for you. In the self-service version, people play on their own phones and just scan a code to load the game. The first is more convenient, the second comes out cheaper, and the two play identically.

We pick the format based on what you expect from the day. Treasure Hunt sends teams into the field after treasures, and each team decides which treasures to visit and in what order. Challenge Tour has a clearly laid-out route that you know from the start because it’s shown on the map: the treasures are numbered and visited in order from start to finish. Its lighter version is the Photo Tour, focused purely on photography. Mystery Trail leads the group point by point, but the players don’t know the route in advance: the screen shows only one treasure at a time, and the next one appears only after a correct answer. Mystery Trail also adds penalty treasures, where the app sends a team after a wrong answer, so with larger groups the field of teams spreads out naturally. Games routinely come in both Czech and English versions, so an international team needs no special prep.

• the date and a rough headcount
• the city or place where you want to play
• whether the game should be in Czech, English, or both
• the full-service version with instructors, or self-service

Meetup and Start

At the agreed time, you gather at the spot you settled on. It could be a square, a company parking lot, or a space you’ve already booked. When we run the program, the instructor welcomes everyone and takes over the organization from the first minute.

A short intro follows. The instructor explains the rules, shows how to use the app, how points are collected, and where to come back after the game. Nobody has to install anything or study a manual in advance. A few sentences are enough to get even a group that has never played together up and running.

Who Runs What

Splitting up the roles is simple. In the full-service version, you have instructors on site who launch the game, watch how it unfolds, and are on hand in case something comes up. You can happily join one of the teams and play with everyone else.

In the self-service version, one of you takes on the event manager role. The app guides the players on its own, so even then you just launch the game and then watch the teams chase around the map. Either way, we supply the tech and the script.

Splitting Into Teams

Before the start, people split into teams. It plays best in smaller groups, where everyone gets a say and nobody hides in the back. Who ends up with whom you can leave to chance, or deliberately mix teams across departments.

That mixing is exactly what makes a Treasure Hunt more than an outing. People from accounting and from the warehouse suddenly work one task and have to talk it out. Each team gets its own device with the game and is ready to head out.

The Game Is On

The engine of the program is the game itself. Teams navigate the terrain with tablets or phones running our GPS app, hunt for treasures, and at each one a question or task waits. Correct answers earn points, and then it’s on to the next treasure.

What the treasures look like depends on the game you chose. In “city” games such as Treasure Hunt Prague or Treasure Hunt Krakow, the questions are always tied to the place where they appeared on your device via GPS. In story games, they’re ciphers, riddles, puzzles, or quiz-style questions. In one spot a team photographs something, in another they count, measure, or find something nearby. Alternating brains and legs keeps the pace and won’t let the day turn into an ordinary walk with a phone.

Even someone who otherwise only makes calls on their phone can handle the game. The controls are simple, the map shows where to go, and the treasure opens on its own the moment the team arrives. Nobody gets stuck because they didn’t know what to press.

In a Treasure Hunt, teams pick the order of treasures themselves. Some go for the closest ones, others save the most valuable for last. Those small decisions show how people talk to each other and split up roles, far better than any training session. In Challenge Tour and Mystery Trail the order is set by the route, so the decisions happen elsewhere: how fast the team finds the right answer and how they divide the work at each treasure.

The Battle on the Map

What turns a calm route into a race is the map on the phone or tablet screen. Every team sees the others in real time, so it’s clear who’s headed where and where there’s still something to grab. The last treasure ahead of a rival tastes different from the first.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks the same for everyone. In a Treasure Hunt, groups choose between the safety of nearby points and the risk of far-off ones, track their rivals, and recalculate. This simple mechanic creates tension that holds up to the final minutes.

When It Rains

You don’t deal with the weather, we do. In bad weather, the same game switches to indoor mode and is played inside. Questions pop up on the screen one after another, the team sits together in a hall, meeting room, or restaurant, and keeps playing.

It’s not a backup program or a surcharge. The rain plan is part of every booking and means a 100% guarantee it happens. The event runs on the original date no matter whether the sun’s out or it’s pouring.

The Finish and the Awards

The game has a sharp ending. Teams meet at the finish at the agreed time, the app tallies the points, and the score is done. No counting by hand, no arguing over who had how much.

Then come the awards. The winning team gets the applause, everyone else walks away with a story they’ll be retelling over dinner. Because everything ran through one app, you have the results right there on the spot, not the next day in an email.

How a Treasure Hunt works in depth and why companies reach for it, we break down in a separate guide for companies. Here we were after one thing only: to show the day minute by minute.

Planning a corporate day is like building a budget; it works when you go through every item in advance with someone who does it daily. Write to us, or better yet call, and we’ll go through the date, the headcount, and the city together. After the first call you’ll know which format fits you, how long the day will run, and how we handle the weather. We bring the tech, send the instructors, and run the game from start to awards. One thing stays with you: spending that day with your team.

Want to try it out?

Treasure Hunt Brno

Our instructors run the game with tablets, or you start it yourselves on your phones. Tell us the number of people and the date, we will get back to you the same day.

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