Case Study: Designing a Custom Scavenger Hunt in Granite Park

Our policy is “always say yes.” When a company wanted to host a virtual event in the spring of 2020, we said yes, and now virtual scavenger hunts are a huge part of our business. When a mom asked if we could come up with something special for her son’s birthday, we said yes, and gave him a unique experience and a great celebration. Create and deliver a Halloween treasure hunt inside the Rough Riders Ballpark? Yes! Design a custom virtual baby shower for a mom-to-be in Los Angeles? Yes!

One of the reasons we always say yes is that it always leads to great things. New relationships, new business, and new products! We may build something brand new for a client, but once they’re done, we get to offer it (sometimes in a slightly modified form) to you!

The latest example of how saying yes led to something cool is our hunt at the Boardwalk at Granite Park. For a while now, the Boardwalk has been a fantastic destination for dining, nightlife, and enjoying the views, and we’d often reasoned that it might make a great spot for a hunt. But until we were contacted by the good folks at Woodlake Outdoor, we hadn’t gotten around to creating it.

Woodlake Outdoor had scheduled a team meeting at the Hilton Granite Park, and they wanted an activity to entertain their group after they’d finished with business but before they met for dinner at nearby Blue Mesa. They reached out to us to see if we’d be able to offer a hunt in the neighborhood. You can guess what our response was.

To be fair, before we said “yes,” we said “probably!” because we’re careful to build our hunts in areas that are right for them, and we wanted to confirm that the Boardwalk could offer such an experience. We took a quick tour of the area, noticing the many unique signs, murals, and other surprising features of the landscape that would make for challenging and unique clues in the hunt. Convinced that we could deliver a product of our usual high quality, we finally said “yes, of course!”

Woodlake Outdoor wanted an experience that reflected their culture and business, and because they’re a landscaping company, we needed to find a theme that would fit their goals, work with a puzzle as well as the geography, and still have that DFW Scavenger Hunt twist. After all, we’ve made hunts about an art heist, cowpokes, and explorers in forbidden realms. How to create a similar experience for landscapers?

We were delighted when we hit upon our answer. Who better to inspire us than the most famous landscapers and architects of all time, the three little pigs? Thus the Landscaping and Architecture firm of Panchetta, Machaca and Boudin was established, and they were hiring!

The puzzle that the gang at Woodlake Outdoor tackled challenged them to act as consultants for Panchetta, Machaca and Boudin, in hopes of discovering some information about a mysterious new client. Along the way, the puzzle made reference to many other denizens of the Fairytale Kingdom, from Humpty Dumpty to Goldilocks, from Rapunzel to Little Miss Muffet.

Meanwhile, we designed the game to look like materials from a fancy firm. We designed a classy logo for the pigs, chose a font that recalled blueprints and landscape plans, and filled the puzzle with language that the group would recognize. We worked with the client to incorporate questions that were very specific to their field, challenging them to identify varieties of rock and species of tree.

And we tested, too. We put together a group of testers and treated them to a complimentary hunt (and drinks at Chip’s afterwards) in exchange for their feedback. To our delight, they enjoyed the hunt thoroughly, while also helping us spot a few questions that were too tricky, and a few others that were just too easy.

At the request (and with the help) of the client, we also provided the entire hunt translated into Spanish, to accommodate several members of the team for which English was not their first language.

On the day of the event, we met the group in their conference room at the Hilton and were able to lead them directly out onto the hunt course. We had just as much fun as they did watching them track down the clues, pose for funny photos, and race each other to finish first.

Creating a custom scavenger hunt is a fun prospect for us because the limitations end up kicking our creativity into high gear and end up leading to more interesting products. Not only that, but it leads us to discover cool places and highlight neighborhoods that might have previously not been on our radar.

Got a place in Texas where you’d like us to design a custom scavenger hunt? (Got a place NOT in Texas?) Want to try our hunt in Granite Park? Get in touch… we’d love to say yes!