Please help me plan this easter egg hunt!

[GetTheGoodLookingGuy]

Every year, I run an Easter egg hunt at work. It has teams and clues and everything! The teams each go round a loop of clues and then the final clue will take them to the last location, where their are bigger eggs, but only for the team who gets there first. I like to have something extra for this final clue to make it more complicated!

In previous years, I've had teams collect a letter at each location which they had to unscramble so it spelled out the final location; one year they collected a key at each location and then the final clue directed them to a locked box where they had to try all the keys to find the right one; and one year they collected a puzzle piece at each location and then put them together to form a picture of an egg with the last clue written on it.

However, I'm stumped about what to do for the final clue this year. I've tried googling Easter egg hunt clues but they all seem very simple and for children (as you would expect). Whatever I do, it needs to be in such a way that you can't figure out the final location until you've been to all twelve locations. With the "collect a letter" one, the letters were actually in a code which you needed to turn back into the original letters with a code breaker which you recieved at location 12.

So, oh wise people of Mumsnet, do you have any creative and cryptic ideas?

They collect a word at each station. At the final one they have to fit all the answers into a crossword style grid, and then the shaded letters spell out the new location. Or an acrostic but that's a bit similar to your letter one.

@GoldFigure

They collect a word at each station. At the final one they have to fit all the answers into a crossword style grid, and then the shaded letters spell out the new location. Or an acrostic but that's a bit similar to your letter one.

Ooh, I like this! I’ll have to look into how long it would take to put the words in the crossword because I don’t want it to take so long that people lose interest.

Have a piece of text and each clue takes you to a word in it e.g. line 3 word 4. This spells out something like 'the final clue is hidden XXX'. If it was too tricky to make the text work, you could have several sheets so it says 'P3 L3 W7' where p=page.

Have you googled escape room puzzles? You might get something you can use

@Flangeosaurus

Have you googled escape room puzzles? You might get something you can use

Thanks for the idea - I hadn't thought of that!

I've just had a little look, though, and they all seem to long/complicated/rely on them spotting something unusual in a room, which won't work as they'll be running all over the building.

Also, would anyone be willing to do my wordle and PM me a screenshot of their game (as in the actual words they tried rather than just the colour blocks). I want to have one clue be this wordle with five guesses where the only possible solution for the last guess is the actual word (if that makes any sense at all!). So I want to figure out what five words to put down so that they can use it to figure out the word with their sixth 'guess'.

Arg! Sorry! I will ask to delete @mnhq

You could maybe do something with coloured cellophane! If you get eg red cellophane it will boot out red pen underneath it, so you can write something in blue, scribbl eover it in red so it’s unreadable, but then hold the cellophane over & the blue writing will be clear.
You could maybe do something with multiple colours & sorting out a multi coloured message? Maybe they have to choose the colours in an order to get the message.
I’ll see if I can mock something up, am not explaining well.

Something with coordinates could work.

Okay, I think I'm going with GoldFigure's crossword style grid thing.

So, if anyone feels like it, could you have a go at fitting these words into the grid and PM me the final word (well, actually it's two words) - if you unscramble the letters in the yellow boxes it should make two words.

Me again! I don't know if it's better to post on here again or start a new thread, but it's that time again!

Thanks to those whole helped with last year - it was a great success and I had a lot of fun (I think everyone else did too!). My favourite part was for one clue each team had to come and sing me a nursery rhyme and then I gave them the next clue! There was also a bonus prize for the team whose performance I liked best (it went to the singers of "five little speckled frogs" who had wonderful actions including someone taking a flying leap across the room when they "jumped into the pool" - but special mentions to the team who carried the school bell around the whole time in preparation for the bell in Frere Jaques!)

So, my friend already gave me an idea for the final clue this year having something to do with a sheet of paper with holes cut in it, that reveals a hidden sentence when you put it over a page of text. How feasible does this sound:

At the start, each team is given a piece of paper with numbered boxes printed onto it. At each location they recieve a sticker with text on it which they have to carefully stick into the corresponding numbered box. At the last-but-one location, they recieve another piece of paper with holes in it, which they have to lay on top of the piece of paper with stickers on it, and the holes reveal words that make a sentence showing where the final location is. Do you think that would work, or be too complicated?

Also, any ideas for more unusual clues? I like to have 2/3 clues where they have to complete a small task to find the next location, rather than just read a clue and figure out which location it's pointing too. In the past I've had a wordle (as mentioned in a previous post), the singing a nursery rhyme, a photo cut into 10 pieces which they had to piece together to see the photo and know where to go next, a QR to the Phil Collins gorilla Cadbury's add (the next location was the drum kit), and a couple where they had to unlock a cupboard to find the next clue, and I left a note where the key was supposed to be either saying "Hmm, the key appears to be lost..." (it was in lost property) or "Where's the key? Maybe someone's pocketed it?" (it was in my pocket and I did my best to avoid them as they walked around the building! Any more ideas in this kind of vein?

I have a list of ideas I’m gathering for a future treasure hunt. It’s a bit of a cryptic list (could be a puzzle for you lol) but I’ll try to expound it later & post it.

Leave a dictionary with a cryptic clue. E.g 23,5 = page 23 word 5. To give the next clue. Make it a bit longer by having a phrase like under the red box

A clue that is written backwards without spaces maybe
esavrewolfaedisni = Inside a flower vase

A really close up picture of something e.g the kitchen plughole.

maybe something with invisible ink.

Some kind of word cloud where all of the words are linked to a place

random collection of objects where they need to identify the odd one out to work out where to go.

Ooh, I like the random collection of objects idea. Could have them in a little box with a note saying “put the odd one out away” and then the next clue is hidden where the odd object out is supposed to live.