u/AbenteuerBayern

Hi! Love this concept, and your puzzles are already great!

Here are some ideas to tie it together and add non-paper puzzles:

I would keep it simple with a “Baby’s First 24 Hours” theme. Your hungry baby and “start at birth” map already fit. Each team is the parent on duty for a different half of the day (feed, change, nap, play). Or you could go with a stork who lost a delivery, and the teams must unlock the birth certificate.

Connecting the two teams:

Split code: each team finds half of the final code (maybe 3 digits each) and has to call or video chat the other team to combine them.

The final box has two locks, one key per team, and both must be opened at the same time. Walkie-talkies would make this fun.

The last clue from each team is a transparent sheet. Stacked together, they reveal the final message (like your puzzle 1).

One team has the symbols, the other has the key to decode them, so they must communicate.

Non-paper puzzles (pick your favorites):

-UV flashlight: hidden messages in UV marker on onesies, blankets or diapers (cheap on Temu).

-Touch box: hide baby items (pacifier, rattle, spoon) in a box and have players identify them by feel. Each item stands for a letter or digit.

-Baby clothesline: pin tiny clothes in order of size or color to spell a code.

-Alphabet blocks: arrange them on a shelf in the right order to form a word.

-Lullaby puzzle: play a music box melody. The song title is the password.

-Baby photo match: match the parents’ baby photos to their current photos. Nostalgic and funny for the families.

-Balloons: only the balloons of a certain color hold the digits.

-Mirror puzzle: a message written in reverse that can only be read in a mirror.

-Cipher decoding: a message written in a code they will deduct (alphabet mirroring, Caesar cipher, Vigenere on a specific key).

Reveal ideas: the final code opens a box that releases confetti or balloons in the color, or a cake that’s colored inside.

The challenge would be to keep both teams' puzzles at similar difficulty, so they finish at the same time, and maybe include emergency hint envelopes in case one team falls behind.

Good luck, and congratulations! 🎉

PS: Let me know if you need guidance on any puzzle mentioned above.

Thanks for the appreciation! Let me know how it went please, if you decide to ever use it.

I get where you're coming from and if your comment is solely based on the fact the images are AI generated, I understand up to a point. However, this post isn't about those images, and I wonder if you have spent more than a few seconds on the post itself (reading the mechanics and the set-up etc).

The post is about a real-world game that people could set-up in 30 min max in their own garden, on a nearby playground and have fun with kids and families outdoor on Halloween.

I have explained in another comment the thought process that went behind creating the game and I think that clarifies that the posters are just supporting materials in an experience design, hence only got 1% of the effort.

I thought a bit if I should even reply to your comment (and others that are similar). I get where you're coming from and if your comment is solely based on the fact the images are AI generated, I understand up to a point. However, this post isn't about those images, and I wonder if you have spent more than a few seconds on the post itself (reading the mechanics and the set-up etc).

The post is about a real-world game that people could set-up in 30 min max in their own garden, on a nearby playground and have fun with kids and families outdoor on Halloween.

This would be possible because I spent a few hours thinking it through, designing it and sharing it with others that have kids or are interested in creating something fun for other kids. On top, I have also brainstormed it with my kids who are in the age range. So here you have it, a few human minds thinking on how to set-up a game that is both challenging and simple.

Yes, the picture and the posters are generated with AI and I have spent less than 1% of my time focusing on them. This is because I spent the other 99% of the time focusing on actually designing the experience. Not to mention the time of preparing the post itself, which comes on top.

Hence, I do find your labelling it as 'trash' a bit offensive, to say the least. Before AI, I would have probably searched for those images on the internet, toss them on a slide and getting a worse looking 'poster' that would still have done its job regardless.

What matters more than the supporting materials (the posters in this case) when you designing a game / experience of any kind for kids (or adults for that matter) is the thinking process you need to go through:

- where the game is going to be played (we went on the playground and looked around what we can use from the environment before even thinking further)

- how many kids are going to come at the same time (in this case we have no clue; we might get 2-3 kids at a time, we might get 2-3 groups of 7-10 at a time)

- what will be the ages of those kids (we expect kids of all ages, the younger ones having an adult with them, who can help them read the instructions. The answers will still be theirs because they are only required to count a few objects).

- the answer above informs the decision on the complexity and if the kids will interact with the clues set in the environment (in this case the answer was no, because I could get 15-20 kids at a time and we are a family of 4). Therefore, minimum interaction with the clues is required.

- how much time do we expect the kids to spend playing the game with us (we are not sure because of the nature of the event itself, which rewards them for just walking around). For this and for the other reasons stated above, we decided to make it simple, so that it can be done in about 5-10 min. However, we also needed it to be balanced for the age of the kids playing it, which is why the clues have different complexity that is age appropriate, even if they are on the same poster.

Having said all the above (which is the bare minimum as this is just a very simple game), I hope you understand that creating the supporting materials is just a small piece in a bigger puzzle. Not to say it is not important (I wanted to make it fit the Halloween theme, obviously), but I would not spend much time on this part for a one-time game.

This is not to dismiss the importance of graphic design in general. Should I have created a board game, that would have been quite a different story. For that, I would partner up with a designer. Who, by the way, they also need to use AI to speed up their process, I would imagine. But they will still get 1000 better outputs compared to the rest of the world because they have the required creativity (a different kind than mine).

Finally, let's not forget the LLM's behind AI were trained on the internet...

Totally agree and well aware that the smaller kids will need help. But we figured they are not out wondering on their own in the evening anyhow and playing along with the kids is an experience we adults tend to overlook well too often. Hence, collaboration with parents and/ or siblings is encouraged :) And yes, we are using German for our game, but sharing those in an English thread would not have been too helpful. The more kids enjoy it, the better :)

I totally agree with the suggestion and thanks, and the answer is I wasn't aiming for a math focus, more for simplicity and speed. I wanted kids of different ages to get the same result at the end and therefore quickly accomplish their goal (I only have 1 lock to unlock, so the final code is identical regardless the age. The thing is they don't know it...) Even so, I am a bit nervous about the willingness to participate in the game because there are so many other places where they get a free, sweet prize just for showing up... We'll see how it goes.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!

I also decided to do something Halloween-related for kids, but as an outdoor event for our small community. It will be much smaller version, played at a playground by the kids that are passing by hunting for sweets. I will do a post with the details this weekend, as I think it can be implemented anywhere, very easy, but I am not sure kids who go out hunting for candies will have the patience to stop to play, even if it should only take them under 10 min.

Für die jenige, die interessiert sind, diese Schatysuche selbst zu vorbereiten, hier sind alle Vorlagen zum Herunterladen: Poster (bunt und tintensparend), Laufzettel und Anleitung. Viel Spass am Halloween! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/154H-9LBwo5g_tmvHHZ2V50OrWhs4UC-d?usp=sharing

This is so cool! I just moved to Germany last year and we were taken by surprise by the amount of effort some people have put into decorating for Halloween. They also deserve a contest :)