Gamified tours

A self-guided tour visitors actually finish
Because it keeps score.

A route through your site with a trail on top. Visitors scan a code at each stop, answer what is in front of them, and climb a leaderboard instead of drifting to the exit.

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Free — one trail, 10 players, no card.

  • No app, no account
  • A reason to reach the last stop
  • New tour, same mountings
  • Every visitor, all season

What a gamified tour is

A self-guided tour where finishing is worth something. The stops are the ones you would have picked anyway — the fossil hall, the walled garden, the third barn — and at each one a QR code opens a card: a question about the thing in front of them, a character to meet, treasure to bank. Points accumulate, the board ranks the teams, and the last stop is where the win is.

It is the same engine as a QR scavenger hunt, and the only real difference is where the codes go. A hunt hides them and lets people search. A tour puts them in plain sight along a route you chose, in the order you chose, so the trail walks visitors past what you wanted them to see.

The exhibit is the answer

A question that can be answered from a phone teaches nobody anything. The cards ask about what is physically there, so reading the label is the only way past.

You set the route

Cards unlock in sequence when you want them to, so a tour runs in an order rather than as a scramble. A finale can be locked until the stops before it are done.

Families stay together

One phone per team rather than one per person, so a group moves as a group. A child with no phone and no account still plays.

Tour or hunt — which you are running

Same engine, two ways to place the codes. Most sites end up doing both.

Run a tour when

You have things you want seen, in an order, and a route that already exists. Codes go in plain sight at each stop, with signage. Good for a first visit, school groups and anybody who has never been before.

Run a hunt when

The finding is the fun and the space rewards wandering. Codes are hidden. Good for repeat visitors, half-term, and the family who has already seen everything twice.

Run both when

You want a returning audience. A tour in the spring and a hunt in the summer are two seasons out of one story, on the same mountings.

Setting one up

1

Walk the route

Pick the stops and the order. Ten to twenty is a comfortable tour; more than that and people leave before the end.

2

Write it in an hour

You describe each stop and what a visitor should notice to your AI assistant; the cards are drafted while you talk.

3

Mount the codes

Print the sheet, put a code at each stop, and they stay valid all season. Frames or holders mean next season is a label change.

4

Watch the board

See how many finish, where they stop, and which codes have gone quiet — a sign that a label has come off a post.

Where these run

Museums and galleries
A route through the permanent collection that makes people read the plaques.
Gardens and arboretums
A tour that survives a season and changes when the planting does.
Parks and nature reserves
The trail you already have, with a reason to reach the far end of it.
Historic sites and campuses
An orientation route for a first visit, or for a new intake in September.

Questions about gamified tours

A self-guided tour with scoring on top. Visitors move through a route you set, scan a code at each stop, and answer or collect something there. The points and the leaderboard are what make people reach the last stop rather than the nearest exit.

No. They point a phone camera at a code and it opens in the browser. No install, no account, no email — and nothing at all is collected from a child.

No, and it does not pretend to be. Nothing is narrated for you and there is no voice track in two languages. The cards are written — a question, a character, a reward — and the reading is done on the phone while the visitor looks at the real thing. You can put a recording of your own on a stop, and visitors hear it once they have found that code, but that is one clip you record rather than a tour somebody narrates.

The engine is identical. A tour puts the codes in plain sight along a route in a set order; a hunt hides them and lets people search. You can run either from the same story, and plenty of sites alternate by season.

Yes. A card can be locked until the ones it depends on have been collected, so a tour runs as a sequence and a finale stays shut until the stops before it are done.

Starting is free — one route, ten visitors, no card. A paid subscription is for the organization and never per visitor: a small museum or garden is usually $300–1,000 a year, a larger site with several routes $1,000–3,000. It goes on a card here.

A tour runs in English or Spanish, and the story is written in whichever you choose. Running the same route in both means two trails, each with its own codes.

Fifteen stops is roughly forty-five minutes at a walking pace with reading time. You set the number of stops, so the length is yours to decide.

Put a tour on your route

Start free — one route, ten visitors, no card. Writing a story of your own comes with a season.

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