It's back to school season yet many countries are experiencing their second lockdown. The PlayThru team wants to help you keep things fun and active during your remote learning sessions. As part of our #zoomgameideas #virtualgameideas series, here is our guide on "How to facilitate a virtual treasure hunt".
Step 1: Decide To Play In Teams Or Individually
You can take votes from players through a poll or decide this yourself as the game master. Depending on how many people on your Zoom call, we usually recommend playing in teams. If you choose to play in teams, allow players to pick their own team names for a bit of fun and creativity.
Step 2: Explain The Rules
In any remote class, clear communication is key. Ensure all players are on the same page before the game starts. The rules are:
Players can play individually or in teams (facilitators needs to help organise this)
Each round an item description will flash on the screen (use our free template below
Each round is timed. Players need to find objects that match the description before the timer runs out.
When the timer is up players need to be back in front of their cameras or they would be disqualified from that round.
Players are awarded points for every item that matches the description.
Read on for more details...
Step 3: Have A List Of Treasures Ready
As this game is designed to be played remotely, it's a little different to the traditional treasure hunt where you might hide actual objects and give players hints/clues to finding them. In our virtual treasure hunt, we provide descriptive adjectives for objects and ask players to run around their homes to find something that matches. We know many of you reading this would like to add fun to your remote learning sessions without extra fuss. Time is money so we got you covered :) Here is a template we created, just download it and screen share during the session. CLICK TO DOWNLOAD
Step 4: Time Each Round
If you are using the template we provided, you will find that we have already added a video timer of 30 seconds per round to screen share. The template is editable and the timer can be adjusted to your schedule and players. The shorter the time the faster players have to scatter about to find items which makes for a very active and exciting game.
Step 5: Award Points
Of course as huge advocates of gamification and fun, we recommend awarding points and keeping score for competition. Allow participants to grab as many items that meet the description as they can. Your job as game master and facilitator is to decide if the objects meet the description and award points if they do. Try to award rounded number to keep things simple and easy to calculate (like 5 points or 10 points per object). Update the scoreboard when you are waiting for players to collect items and display it at the end. You could also add a prize for more excitement. It doesn't have to cost money, it can be a digital certificate or something you have free copies of like an e-book. If the prizes don't seem fit, from our experience bragging rights make most players happy :D Have fun and stay tuned for more #zoomgameideas on this blog.