Treasure hunt (game)

A treasure hunt is one of many different types of games with one or more players who try to find hidden objects or places by following a series of clues. Treasure hunt games may be an indoor or outdoor activity. Outdoors they can be played in a garden or the treasure could be located anywhere around the world.

Treasure hunts are sometimes organised as a game to be played at children's parties. The game could include searching for items, following clues as a group or splitting into teams to race to a prize. A common game at Easter is the egg hunt, where players search for concealed chocolate eggs.

Letterboxing is an outdoor treasure hunt activity that combines elements of orienteering, art and problem-solving, and dates back to the 1850s. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly accessible places (such as parks or open moorland) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a logbook and a rubber stamp. In the United Kingdom it is particularly associated with Dartmoor.

The treasure hunt as a party game is attributed to socialite Elsa Maxwell. She said that "In the Treasure Hunt . . . intellectual men were paired off with great beauties, glamor with talent. In the course of the night's escapades anything could happen."

Treasure trails are a variation on the theme of a treasure hunt in which participants follow a set of directions and discover clues to help solve a puzzle en route. Trails may be on foot or use vehicles, including public transport. They may follow circular routes or be linear.

An "armchair treasure hunt" is an activity that requires solving puzzles or riddles in some easily portable and widely reproduced format (often an illustrated children's book), and then using clues hidden either in the story or in the graphics of the book to find a real treasure somewhere in the physical world. This type of treasure hunt may take months to solve and often has large prizes to be won. An early example of the genre is Kit Williams' 1979 book Masquerade.

In 1956, comedian Jan Murray created and hosted a variation for television, also known as Treasure Hunt. This US game show featured a pair of contestants answering questions to qualify to go on a treasure hunt that involved choosing from among thirty treasure chests that included anything from gag prizes to valuable merchandise and/or cash. The show also offered home viewers a chance of a treasure hunt, when a postcard was chosen from a large drum by a young guest who revolved the drum several times to randomise the entries. The show aired daily in the morning and once a week in the evening until 1959, when the networks began canceling game shows in the wake of the quiz show scandal.

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