5/18/05 | 3:44 pm | A Real Scavenger Hunt?
Hey, so I was just thinking about a suggestion that Mike Z had made in the comments, and I started to get excited about it. He suggests that we try a “real” Scavenger Hunt where the clues you are given are just things to find somehow through google maps. I had thought about something similar in the past, but not about a list of multiple things.
For instance:
Lake shaped like a fish
Plane with 2 Shadows
A Red Letter “G”
I dunno, it would probably take a lot of time for me to collate everyone’s answers at the end, but I bet it might be pretty fun. Plus, you could play all day long (or at least any time of the day) because we could just release a list of clues at the beginning of the week and have it go for at least a few days. Maybe we could do one every month or so… I’d call it “Scavengeroogle Hunt No. 1″ or something. I could try turn off comment moderation temporarily (it’s only on to prevent accidental posting of solutions before the bell) so everyone could talk about it as it’s going on. I suspect I wouldn’t need to do many “sanity” checks… people would probably get creative on what to submit and that’d be fun.
So before I get excited, is this something that anyone would want to play? I’d still do the old method of posting clues as well. But I am willing to try this at least once, no matter how crazy it might be on my end. =)
Please leave a comment if you might be interested or if you have any other ideas regarding this…
May 18th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
I’ve got a couple extra ideas. Whether something like this does well or not is very much dependent on the clues. It all goes back to good clues, doesn’t it? Really, there should be a good mix of easy and hard clues and it’s always good to throw in a few tricky ones. You say, “How do you know the difference? We haven’t tried it yet!”
First, the more specific the clue, the harder it will be. A clue like “Red G” would be harder than “G”. The clue “A fish” will be easier than “A lake shaped like a fish.” The clue “Baseball field” will be easier than “4 baseball fields in a single complex.” So, you need some from each category — some easy and some hard. And the most fun are ones that can be interpreted different ways. Say you have the clue “A big apple.” For that I could just send a picture of New York City.
Or lets say the clue was “a dog.” I wouldn’t necessarily have to find the outline of a dog. Instead I could maybe find the word “dog” on the ground, like if there were a football team that had a bulldog as a mascot and the word bulldog was emblazoned across the end zone.
And I believe that it’d be okay to include a specific clue or two. What I mean by that is that clue wouldn’t necessarily be about a land feature as such. How about “Find the land of giants.” I could then send you a picture of the San Franciso Giants baseball stadium or the N.Y. Giants football stadium.
No matter the case, I have a feeling that the clues themselves will be the hardest thing to come up with, but since there will be potentially many clues, one clue being extremely hard and another being extremely easy won’t make that much difference in the long run. It’s not like people will just get stuck on something they can’t solve… just move on to another set of clues.
I’m up for trying it at least once. Anyone else?
May 19th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Sounds fun. I’d be interested
May 19th, 2005 at 11:19 am
I am ALL for it. I’m an east coaster and still in school, so most of the Scavengergoogle competitions are over before they start, for me. A multiple day hunt would give those of us in different time zones a better chance.
However, if we’re going to do this I agree with Mike Z: there will be more than one answer per clue, most likely. I think points should be awarded as such.
Particularly hard clues, especially those which would be hard to find by internet search - such as “Red letter G” - should be worth more points than “The land of the giants” - a pretty broad clue.
Perhaps bonus points for particularly creative/humorous answers to a clue? I can’t think of anything off the bat, but I’m sure you would get a few entries you weren’t expecting.
Just my thoughts. I’m game.
May 20th, 2005 at 11:43 am
Sounds fun. But it’d have to be in the evening. Anymore time spent on Google hunting will cost me my job :^)
May 20th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Here’s an idea. And please tell me if I’m really off the wall with it or not. Because we don’t know what will be hard or easy when it starts, it’s hard to assign appropriate point values up front. What if point values were assigned based on the number of people who submitted an acceptable answer for a given clue?
Let’s say that clues were on a five point scale. And let’s say that total number of entries is N. If we divide out the number of correct answers by the total number of participants, we can then set the point value accordingly.
If 0% - 20% solve the clue -> 5 points
If 21% - 40% solve the clue -> 4 points
If 41% - 60% solve the clue -> 3 points
If 61% - 80% solve the clue -> 2 points
If 81% - 100% solve the clue -> 1 points
While this does make things more complex, you’ll have greater incentive to find those clues you think that everyone else will find hard. This way someone who spends the time to find some really difficult clues will be rewarded accordingly. Of course, we can first try things out with a one point per clue system and see how that works, although I would be really interested to see the numbers and how they fall. Can anyone tell that I picked up a math minor in college just for fun.
May 20th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
I think it’s an awesome idea. I need something to fill extra time during the day. Go with it.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:20 am
I’m in, but I second the request for somewhat different timing. In fact, if you’re considering doing it once a month, I would suggest that you plan for a week — I don’t know how many clues that would be, but you can figure that out with some fine-tuning.
I like the scoring ideas, although making the score dependent on how many people find an answer is tricky — after all, if only four people submit entries, it throws your scoring system way out of whack. I don’t have a solution, just pointing out the problems. (What can I say, I’m trained as a lawyer….)
June 1st, 2005 at 1:43 pm
What about making these real hunts a weekend long thing? Start Friday evening and end Sunday evening or maybe Monday morning. Just an idea.