Rhyming Clue Adult Scavenger Hunt

**Jenmonty** · 09-09-2011,05:29 AM

On another thread, I brought up the fact that we do a scavenger hunt every year, and someone wanted more info, so I thought I'd start a new thread with the details...
Rhyming Clue Scavenger Hunt (Adults only)
I usually start planning in July....For our hunt we start with a theme...we've had many great ones..this last year it was Mental Asylum..My fiancé was the "Dr" and I was his nurse....the invites are always elaborate...one year we actually made a video using actual news footage from the Manson murders as well as other cases and dubbed over the sound with a distorted version of our own voices to make it look like some crazy man had come in and killed our entire family.(I actually posed my fiancé and kids in various stages of torture and took pics, then photoshopped blood and stuff on them to add to fake newspaper articles I made).Premise was, we were all tortured and killed and now our ghosts haunt our home....we then sent just a little piece of paper (snail mail) to their houses with a youtube link and password and username to view the private video online..within the video was subliminal clues to other online sites, which eventually lead them to Flickr for the actual invite....so we start heavily with a theme to get everyone in the mood and use the invite as a "hunt" as well..I think I still have the video on my computer somewhere if anyone would like to watch it for ideas, just let me know.
Anyway, last year was Mental asylum (which was fun cause some of the guests actually came as deranged mental patients.) In the invite it is specified that everyone must be here at exactly 8 PM. No earlier no later...2 reasons. By 8 it's dark out and they cannot see any of the Props we have set up outside, which if they could, they would be studying them in advance. If they get here any later it screws the predetermined teams up...(Everyone RSVP's) based on those, we create teams..usually 4 or 5 teams of 4 or 5 people depending on how many are coming. If anyone gets here anytime after 8, they are not allowed on the property until the hunt is over....this is specified heavily in the invite..we've never had a problem with it...They are also told on the invite that they will be required to sign a waiver of liability when they get to our house....we do some crazy stuff at our hunts...we make them climb trees, crawl into drainage sewers, dig around in stink bait, crawl around in the top of old barns, use shovels to dig holes, etc, etc...that's just the tip of the iceberg.....so yeah, we have a waiver that everyone must sign.

Once everyone is here, we assemble them all in one place. We then place them on their teams..(Team selection is vital and you must really spend some time putting them together...Most of the time our hunters are repeat guests, but sometimes we get new people that we don't know (the new BF or GF of an invited guest.) We know who the "thinkers" in the group are...Some people just have more common sense than others..also, some people will crawl into a sewer drain and through stink bait and others won’t, so the idea of the team is to try and have key players for each one...Every team should have that "smart" person on it..the analytical thinker, if you will....you'll want someone with common sense on each team, as well as that do or die adventure person that'll do anything for a thrill..also good to add that "have to win" person for ambition purposes..they are the one on the team that keeps pushing the other players cause they can't stand to lose..So make sure you consider that when making teams..if you don't know certain people who are coming, it's always good to pair them with who they are coming with..if no one knows them, and they are not the assertive type, they may not get alot of "play" time on a team with strangers..
So everyone is assembled and given their team-mates. They break into their teams and each team is given a bag with baby wipes and a flashlight. (Depending on the clues for the night, other necessities may be put in the bag as well...) Sometimes they will need to collect things (the bag) other times..stink bait..they will need the wipes, etc....And each team gets only 1 flashlight.. We now do 2 hunts at once to cut down on everyone gathering in certain areas at one time or following eachother around, but it took us a few years to do this..best to stay with 1 until you get the gist of it..(But you can always tell your guests that 2 hunts are going on with different clues so they are less likely to "follow" other teams) All hidden clues are numbered 1-13. If you have 2 hunts going on, make sure each team knows which hunt they are doing (Hunt 1 or Hnt 2) and make sure it's typed on the clue..so A typical clue (I do small typed clues to lessen the use of paper) would have a heading of "HUNT 1- CLUE 1", and then the clue typed out. They must find their clues in order..if they come to me and say "We won! We found our 13th clue," I audit their clues to make sure they have 13..if they don't, their team is disqualified. After we give them their bag, we then hand each team their 1st clue. They can't read it until all the lights in the house have been turned off....We have a large broken up property so we break up our clues indoors and out..We also make it so they have to go back and forth..if there is a clue, say in the mailbox, the next one will be in the basement...you know..make them work and walk from one to the next instead of having them close together..Lights go out and we say go and they start reading their clues. Each team is different. some will get the clue quick and others wont so there's not always a mad dash at one time....Don't make clues too easy or you will have this problem...some of my clues are fairly simple (just a few) and some are ridiculously hard..some of them are in illustrated sign language, some in spanish, haha, but I have a sign language book and a spanish book (and even gaelic) book on my bookshelf, so if they come across one of these clues, they know they have to go to the book for interpretation and translation....One clue leads to another clue...All are rhyming stories that have something to do with the theme. My computer crashed so I don't have the clues available anymore, but as an example, the first clue was something like:
"Crazy old John with his bathrobe on went out for a stroll at the break of dawn, no shirt no pants, no gloves upon his hands, just a simple walk, but the walk was long. Middle of december and the snow was deep, John got tired and then he fell asleep. He lay right down and froze to death, now go find John and his clue will tell the rest..."
Something like that..This was one of the easiest clues last year, and it was the 1st one, just to get them going...that's a very condensed version of a very long clue but I can't remember the rest...ANyway, they have to go out somewhere and find "john" (skeleton in a bathrobe somewhere in the yard) and get the next clue which is in his pocket. The next long drawn out rhyming clue would have talked about the torture room and experiments that the Dr and nurse did on patients, etc...THey could find the room fast, but it could take them up to 20 minutes to find the clue inside the room....But that's the general idea..One clue to the next to the next...13 in all....Sometimes we do clues within clues...A clue will lead to somewhere or someone (usually me) and they have to "do something" to get their next clue. One year the clue talked about Michael Myers, and the gist was they had to find me (the old gypsy by the barn) and sing me the song that scared Laurie so (Mr. Sandman) if they did it right, they got their clue. (I had a drink tray set up with shots on it. If they sang the chorus of the song correctly, they got to pick their shots, and when they lifted their glasses, the clue was underneith their cups on the tray)...If they sang the wrong song, they had to go back to where they found their last clue (while they were singing to me my fiance would run back and put a new clue where they had been.) So they would go back to that spot, find the new clue, which would detour them to an added clue, and then on to the rest of the hunt..a penalty for being wrong...So if you have help, you can really be interactive which is cool..You can also have clues that require the team to pick 1 person on their team to do an exersise. One of our clues sent the team to the basement and the cellar door (Which was the "haunted asylum room".) THere was a number on the door which matched the one in the clue so they knew they were in the right place. I was waiting in the basement in the corner with a prerecorded CD. WHen they got to the door I pressed play (They didn't see me) and a voice told them to pick one "patient" from their team to go into the room, That person had 1 minute to find the clue and exit throught the other door (which led to the yard, typical cellar door set-up.) After they pick their person, you come out of the corner with some kind of handcuffs and blindfold. Hands behind the back and blindfold on, they go into the room (Which is really just a concrete set of stairs leading out to the yard between the basement door and the cellar door.) There is a small cd player in there with creepy noises playing, and we put goo and gunk on the walls, and put cotton balls in water and goo and suspended them from the ceiling so as they were walking through, "things were touching them" and they were running into them...the clue was suspended by a string and they had to grab it with their teeth. Haha..Was a blast, these people are in there screaming "Somethings touching me!!" It was awesome... It's a long process and you really have to use all cool available spots in and out of your home. I put 5 copies of the clue at each location in case one gets knocked to the ground or lost or whatever to guarantee that each team gets one when they get there...Sometimes they just can't figure it out, which in that case, you can choose to help them...Anyway, first team to collect all 13 clues wins...my hunt usually lasts 1 1/2 to 2 hours..Winning team gets gift cards or gift baskets or whatever..it's not the prize they want, just the bragging rights for a year..

Ummm..anyway, I think that's about it..I've left alot of info out, but this post would have been ridiculously long (er). Let me know if you have any questions..I love my hunt and thoroughly sharing ideas and help on how to incorporate it! Happy hunting!!