Marvel Civil War Scavenger Hunt

NOTE: Marvel and all characters herein are copyright and trademarks of Marvel, Inc. I hope in the spirit of imagination young and old that they understand the intended use is recreational and NOT commercial use of these characters in this party game.

For my son’s first birthday we did the Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt, essentially due to his love of the Gummy Bear Song:

An annual series of inopportune family weddings have made celebration of his birthday a smaller event for the last few years. This year my wife and I decided to plan another scavenger hunt, using elements of the Amazing Race using the world of the Marvel Civil War. We sorted our son, nephews, and their parents into two teams, Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Each team got a T-shirt as a party favor and team uniform. They were gathered to get a briefing from Agent Maria Hill (my wife) and myself, S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Director Mick Fury (Samuel L Jackson’s brother from another mother). I told them that they had to find the missing Avengers and whichever team found the most would win. There would be three missions, each mission would cause the losing team to have a time penalty on the scavenger hunt that followed each mission.

My wife’s Maria Hill was accomplished with black workout gear. As props I bought a pirate eye patch and some Halloween military insignia. Combined with black EMT pants, shirt, and a trench coat round out my Mick Fury costume. Which I wore in public. But hey the little guys were wearing luchador masks, so I blended. Each mission came in a manila folder with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the front. Each clue that Director Fury handed out came in a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblazoned envelope..

Mission #1: Escape from the Red Skull

The first mission occurred at a local park, each team member had to accomplish a task. The cumulative time giving one or the other the advantage in the scavenger hunt to follow. The tasks were:

1. Across the balance beam
2. Back across the balance beam
3. Across the monkey bars
4. Up the cliff wall
5. Down the escape slide

Back the house the teams got 25 minutes to solve their first clue:

Of all the things in the world, I am the shortest and the longest, the swiftest and the slowest. I am the thing people waste the most. Yet they need more than anything else, for without me nothing can be done.

The answer of course is “time”, which lead the teams to an alarm clock, under which their next clue lay:

Round and round I run, but nowhere do I go.

The answer for this clue was “treadmill” under which they found three figures from Cap’s side: Winter Soldier, Falcon, and Hawkeye. Of course this was misinterpreted as “fan” so they accidentally found a clue for Mission #2, which forced me to change the location of this later clue while everyone was distracted with another mission.

Mission #2: Secrets of the Submariner

My nephews and to a lesser extent my son, love fishing. The second mission was a competition between the two teams at who could catch four fish first or the most fish in 30 minutes. The fish weren’t really biting so only my father-in-law caught one, giving his team a one minute advantage. Back in the house the scavenger hunt continued with 25 minutes to solve:

Wind does not make me go, yet I spin round and round to let it blow.

The answer being “fan”. I moved the clue previously spotted in the last mission from one of our ceiling fans to one of the bathroom exhaust fans. Hilarity ensued when both teams ran to the original site and then accused each other of stealing their copy of the next clue. The clue here was:

I have eyes, but I see nothing. I have ears, but I hear nothing. I have a mouth, but i cannot speak. I always will look just as I look now. If I am young, I will stay young. If I am old, I will remain old. Nothing can change me.

The answer being “photograph” and behind one of our family photos they found three members of Iron Man’s faction: War Machine, Vision, and Black Panther. After this challenge the teams were neck and neck.

Mission #3: Action at Avengers Headquarters

The last mission utilized my son’s favorite toy, his electric Jeep, in which he raced for time in a lap around the outside of our house. This was followed by 10 baskets for time (dropped to 5 because of the aim of the players involved) and carrying an egg on a spoon around the outside of our home. The last event was the three-legged race using two members of each team. The team with the winning time got the difference as a time advantage for the next 25 minute scavenger hunt challenge. Previously, the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo bedecked envelopes they came in were without text but this time:

Inside the teams found this mysterious photograph:

Which is actually the “X” from the APEX logo on one of our television, the remainder being the bottom edge and television table. Underneath the base they found their last clue, a famous riddle from J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Hobbit:

A box without hinges, key, nor lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.

Which of course is an “egg” (or eggses per Gollum). This clue was supposed to lead our staunch Avengers in-training to the egg cartoon in the fridge, inside which the last the figures could be found: Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow.

Both sets of little boys got gift cards and to keep the figurines they had found. Everyone got to keep their T-shirts. And fun was had by all…except complaints about the last riddle as being inaccurate. Which I attribute to geek illiteracy. All in all it took about two and a half hours to complete the missions. I fell victim to incorrect answers leading to clues again this time, something that is easier to correct in a role-playing campaign than it is in real time.

The Gummy Bear Pirate Captain Treasure Hunt

Pirate Captain Gummy Bear Green designed at www.heromachine.com

I have played role-playing games for many, many years.  One of my favorite parts of role-playing games is the problem solving, typically in the form of puzzles, riddles, and other brain teasers.  So it was only natural that I suggested a treasure hunt for my son's first birthday party.  Regardless of the fact that his guests, his cousins, 2, 3, and 5, can't read.  And have the attention span of a gnat on methamphetamines.  My son's own inability to walk and lack of real interest in anything but food, sparkly lights, and sleep precluded him from actively treasure hunting in any other capacity than napping through it.

However, in the true spirit of gaming groups I figured that solving the clues would entertain the adults who could direct the boys to near the next clue which they would have fun finding.  Like entertaining the problem solvers, min-maxers, and hack-n-slashers there would be problem solving for some, loot for others, and the shared joy of discovery.  I designed the challenge to be non-competitive, each boy had their own set of clues.  I didn't count on the eldest being able to solve most of the clues himself and the middle one to be lazy to the point of turpitude.  So much so that when he found his final prize, he made his grandfather "Get it!" despite being two feet away.  The youngest just had fun running around, the goodies being transiently enjoyable.

The birthday theme was Gummy Bears.  So I designed three pathways, Blue, Red, and Green.  Each team received an envelope color coordinated with a Gummy Bear Pirate Captain logo (see above) on it with their first clue.  This sent them to their first prize, a pack of Marvel Heroes Popping Candy With Lollipop.  As each color now had an associated character, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the Hulk, respectively, the next prizes were an action figure and a vehicle.  In order to increase the difficulty, there were two clues to get to each prize.  The candy and action figure had word balloons containing the next clue.  Thus there were five clues (a total of fifteen) to find three prizes.

Some design notes:

• Do not have two clues for the same person be in the same generic classification as the other.  Two of my answers for the Red/Iron Man path was a tree (albeit different trees), which I thought did a good job of describing geographical location but instead described a tree.  Thus, the eldest cousin simply walked around looking at trees, missing the action figure and it's attendant clue, but accidentally stumbling upon the final prize, the vehicle.
• The innate familiarity with my yard made the answer to clues much more obvious to me than my victims...er...players.  Thus I wanted to have one group find the largest tree in the yard, which they had figured out, but they completely missed it, they were so busy looking for it they did not even see this tree in the front yard.  A blue rock was apparently not as blue or as obvious as I thought it was.
• Things are a lot more obvious when you hide them, than when you are looking for them.  It is hard to hide bright colors, such as yellow and red, however despite that items that I thought were ridiculously obvious were invisible to people as they searched.
• Clues that describe an object such as the green clue "I am a strong machine, but I do not smash but cut so clean" (lawn mower) or the red clue "In your teeth or where to cook that is your clue for where to look" (grill) were superior to those describing geographical locations, e.g. attempting to describe a specific tree.
• Children are easily satisfied, they were happy after finding the first prize.  So sometimes bigger is not better.

Things to consider for next year...