RPG mode

Most scavenger hunts end with a tally. This one ends with a boss.

A duel on every enemy, a chase, a shop, and a boss locked behind the cards you find first. It runs on a mini-game engine. The fight below is real.

Build a trail for free Fight one now

Your first 5 players are free, no card. Then $1 a player.

  • 9 card kinds
  • 3 skill games
  • A boss behind a lock
  • Balance checked before you print
Two adventurers with a sword, shield and lantern face an emerald dragon in a forest ruin.

Find your gear. Face the boss.

Every mechanic 11 chapters

One mini-game engine, three games

RPG mode runs a mini-game engine. Every enemy fights a duel. The story builder chooses which discoveries use catching, an optional timing bonus, or immediate collection; item types supply starting suggestions. These arenas run the same code as cards at the venue.

The duel

Default use
Every enemy card
Stakes
Real. Vitality and coins.
Play it

The chase

Default use
Animal and Creature cards
Stakes
None. Retry as often as you like.
Play it

The timing bar

Default use
Weapon cards
Stakes
One optional bonus attempt. The ordinary rewards are guaranteed.
Play it

You write the card; its type supplies any game selected for it. A collectable can have no game selected. An enemy type with no game selected still fights the duel.

Fight one now

A pointer sweeps around the enemy. There is a gap in its guard. Tap when the pointer crosses the gap and you land a hit; tap anywhere else and you lose a blow of your own guard. Your equipped attack faces its defense: a stronger sword can slow the starting spin and reduce its lives. Each landed hit speeds it up again, and the boss still enters rage.

The same duel a player gets at the venue, with the numbers the engine deals a real team. Nothing here is scored or saved.

Pick your enemy

Choreography, never arithmetic — the same stats deal the same four numbers whatever the tier. What differs between these three enemies is their stats; what differs between the patterns is what you are watching. A patient tap lands in every one of them.

Your team

  • Coins 30
  • Vitality 4
  • Attack 3
  • Defense 2

The gear two allies and a weapon hand over, and the coins a story pays out before its boss.

Boss Vitality 2 Attack 6 Defense 3

Lose this fight and it knocks you out — 4 vitality and 8 coins.

Boss is guarding. Strike through the gap!

Boss, your opponent in the demo duel.
Hits to win
3 of 2 to 5
Guard you carry
2 of 2 to 5
The gap
52° of 26° to 70°
Sweep
1.4s of 0.75s to 2.1s

What the four numbers are made of, and what losing costs

The boss does not wait

On a GPS trail a card can run. Give a monster, a boss, an ally or a runaway animal a few more spots and a clock, and its pin moves between them while the hunt runs. The boss a team walked to has moved on by the time it gets there.

Drawn and sped up. In play, a boss waits 30 seconds or more at each spot — miss it and catch it at the next. Its ring turns green when you are in reach.

  • A hiding spot and up to 12 more

    Tap each spot on the map, or stand on it and add where you are. Every spot carries its own clue, so the hint points at where the card is now.

  • A clock on the pin

    You pick how long it stays at each spot — 30 seconds or more in order, 60 or more at random. The pin counts down and hops when the clock runs out, and every team sees it in the same place at the same moment.

  • Learn the loop, or chase the dice

    In order, it walks its spots and loops home, so a team that learns the loop can wait at the next one. At random, its next spot never reaches a phone early.

  • You have to be where it is

    A card that stands still checks a team's position once. A moving card checks again every time a team fights or catches it, against where it stands now.

Moving cards run on GPS trails, on any account. They are off until the host turns them on in setup, and turning them on means the host answers for their players' ages and for every spot a card moves to. Every stop needs internet, location permission and a usable outdoor position.

How moving cards work

Every mechanic, one chapter each

Ten things a storyteller can put on a venue. Each opens the chapter that documents it — what the player sees, the exact rule, what you decide, and a real card from the library.

  1. Combat A pointer, a gap, a tap. Every enemy is fought, never calculated. Combat
  2. Nine kinds of card The kind decides what a scan does. The name and the art are yours. The nine kinds of card
  3. The boss's lock A card names the cards it needs first. That is the plot. Behind the boss
  4. Moving cards On a GPS trail, a card runs between spots on a clock. The host turns it on and answers for every spot. Moving cards
  5. Team roles How much gear a team carries, and which kind pays in full. Team roles and gear
  6. Coins and the merchant Spend coins on gear. Keep your earned points. Coins and the shop
  7. Dice, traps, questions Three cards that ask a team to decide before it pays. Coins and the shop
  8. The marketplace Teams sell captured cards to each other. Coins move, never appear. The marketplace
  9. The prize A host can open a board on a pot of Gold Eggs. It is paid to the top finishers. The prize
  10. The playtest Every fight fought and every purse counted before a code is printed. The playtest
  11. Running it Race or self-paced, the nightly clear, badges, no app. At the venue

Questions about the engine

No. A phone camera opens the code in the browser. No install, no account, and a player can join with nothing but a team name.

Yes — the duel above, and the chase and the timing bar on the combat chapter, are the real ones, run by the same code a card runs at the venue, with the numbers the engine deals a real team. Nothing you do here is scored or saved.

No. RPG mode has a mini-game engine with three games: duel, chase and timing bar. The story builder chooses challenges per collectable card. Enemies always duel. You write the card and hide the code; the games are already built.

It is the same setup — write the cards, create the trail, print the sheet, hide the codes. What it adds is decisions while you are writing: what the merchant sells, what the boss is locked behind. Describing that out loud to an AI assistant is usually faster than filling in the forms.

Yes, and the library's five-year-old story is a full RPG ending on a boss. A duel is tapped out on a phone rather than calculated, so young players fight fine. What age changes is how hard an ungated enemy may hit, and the playtest checks it.

On a GPS trail, yes. A monster, a boss, an ally or a runaway animal can run between spots the host picks, on a clock — in order, so the loop can be learned, or at random, so it cannot. It is off until the host turns it on in setup, and turning it on means the host answers for their players' ages and for every spot. GPS trails run on any account, at no extra cost.

Yes, on a story written with the marketplace on — it is off by default, and every trail built from such a story opens with one. A team lists a treasure or an ally it captured at a price it names, and any other team can buy it. Coins only move between teams, never appear, and points never move at all — a sale changes nobody's score. Quest items are the exception and never sell: the card that unlocks the boss stays with the team that found it.

Yes. A shelf is worth something only while there is somebody there to sell to, and where the board clears each night the market is that day's. It earns its place on a busy Saturday and does nothing for two families walking the same trail a week apart.

On a board with a pot, the winners each take a slice of it, in Gold Eggs. The host's organization pays the pot in when the board opens, and it is paid out to the top finishers when the board ends. The coins collected on the trail are play money and stay there; the slice lands in the team's Gold Egg wallet, which carries to the next trail. A team without an account keeps it by adding a grown-up's email before the board clears.

Yes. Eighteen ship across the nine kinds, and a type you add keeps its kind's rules — a custom enemy still fights through the duel, so the retired stat-check combat cannot come back through the side door.

A phone needs to reach the site to open a card, so a signal is needed. Nothing else is: the stylesheets, the scanner and the games are all served by us rather than from a CDN, because a trail can run in a museum basement.

Run one this month.

  • Free includes every ready-made story, printable codes, the leaderboard and 5 Gold Eggs — one board for 5 players. No card, and Gold Eggs never expire.
  • Each player you expect costs $1 — 1 Gold Egg — and that runs the board. 25 players: $25. The prize is your call: Gold Eggs in the board's pot for its top finishers, or one of your own. A player is one phone, any number of people — and your own phone takes no place.
  • Play it again on the same codes: a reset opens a new board at the same price, every card back in play.
  • Writing your own story? Each card is $1 — 1 Gold Egg, with 2 tries at its picture. GPS costs nothing extra. Gold Eggs come in packs, 20 for $20, paid once — there is no subscription.
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