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Turning It Into a Scavenger Hunt

Written by Melinda Haughey

This article is about the Proxi admin app at app.proxi.co, and the experience editor released September 15, 2026. Not sure which you have? Open your experience's participation link, the one participants use. If it starts with app.proxi.co, this is the right article. If it starts with map.proxi.co, yours is a legacy experience; look for the legacy article instead.

In a scavenger hunt, each place is a mystery. People read a clue, work out where it points, get there, and check in to unlock the next one. Any experience with places can play this way; it's a switch, not a different kind of thing.

Switching It On

On your places tab, open Gameplay. Under How It Plays, choose Scavenger Hunt instead of Passport. (Templates from the Scavenger Hunts page already have this set.) Then pick How the places come out:

  • One at a time, in the order below — the next clue only appears once the one before it is found. Drag the places on your list into the order you want.

  • All the clues at once — everyone sees every clue from the start and can solve them in any order. Good for a hidden-object hunt across a whole downtown.

Writing the Clues

Back in the places list, each row now has + Add a Clue. Fill in the Clue (the riddle that leads people here), an optional Hint (an extra nudge people can ask for), and a Clue Photo if a picture helps. With a clue, the place stays a mystery until someone finds it and checks in.

A quick tip from organizers who've run these: clue difficulty is impossible to judge from your desk. Make yourself a tester and solve the first three for real. (See Testing Your Experience Before You Launch.)

Hint Cost and Giving Up

Once you've written a hint or chosen one-at-a-time, a Hunt Settings card appears:

  • Hint Cost — points it costs to peek at a hint. 0 makes hints free, which is the right call for a family hunt.

  • Giving Up — what happens when someone gives up on a clue: Skip to the next clue, or They still visit to move on. Either way the place is revealed and its points are off the table.

How Much to Reveal Before They Find It

Under Settings → Place Content, Before Someone Finds a Clue Stop controls what the card shows for an unsolved place: Just the clue — keep it a mystery, The clue and the place's name, or Everything — no mystery. Once they check in, they see the full place card with whatever you've set up below it: the story, photos, hours, a deal.

What Players See

Each unsolved place shows its clue with a magnifying glass. Players can tap Need a hint? (with the point cost next to it) or Give up on this clue; both ask them to confirm. When they check in at the right spot, the place unlocks and, in one-at-a-time mode, the next clue appears.

Good to Know

  • Switch back to Passport and your clues are kept; they come back if you switch to Scavenger Hunt again.

  • Check-in rules work the same in a hunt. A code printed on the hidden object is a nice touch: finding it is the proof. (See How People Check In.)

  • The Holiday Window Hunt, History Mystery, and Mural Hunt templates each start with the right mix of these settings.

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