Frequently Asked Questions

When you create the game online, you are also customizing the game when you fill out the game form. When you submit that form, the game AI takes over, and creates the customized game adventure. The game is turned into a .pdf document, ready to download or print directly. When you play the game, the computer in not involved. These are social games where the kids must interact and share information to solve problems. From a parent's perspective it is awesome to watch.

It can work, but you will need to step in and help (organize) some in the later stages of the game. Seven year olds do well solving the clues and then go racing off to the next location to find the next clue. Eventually the table becomes cluttered with many pages of clues, and the process of translating the next page of clues slows down, because the answer is scattered among many pages. The very best solution is to write clues with just a few words, using just 3-6 words for most of the clues. It is the total number of unique words used for all the clues that you want to keep low.

The game usually takes about an hour and a half to play. If the players are older, it can go quicker. If the clues are longer, with more words each, the game can take longer.

Yes, it really does. The number of locations involved in the mystery increases with the number of players. Thus, more players makes the mystery more complex, and the game gets longer. It is a great game to play at large parties, and you have to do a lot of sleuthing around to win. For classrooms, the game works well as a cooperative exercise, and the players simply take turns asking questions of the group, yet each player still has her or his own page of clues and is independently working on the solution.