Trivia
Questions about the group
Who does what, who said that. The people watching laugh harder than the one playing.
Why it works
The gift lasts a minute. The search lasts half an hour, with an audience.
The problem with Secret Santa isn't the gift. It's that it gets opened in ten seconds in front of everyone and that's the whole event.
Put a clue hunt in front of it — built on jokes only your group would get — and the moment stretches, everyone laughs, and by the time the gift shows up nobody cares what it cost.
The whole room plays
One person solves while everybody watches. It's the closest thing to a show your Christmas lunch will get.
Inside jokes are the material
The clues run on what only your group knows. The more private the joke, the better it works.
It rescues any budget
Even on a tight limit, the search supplies the value. What the parcel cost stops being the point.
In three steps
How to build the Secret Santa hunt
Twenty minutes the night before is all it takes.
Hide the gift
In a drawer, behind the printer, on top of the kitchen cupboard. The sillier the spot, the better the final clue.
Write five or six clues
Each one points to the next corner. Build them out of group jokes so no outsider could ever solve them.
Hand over the QR, not the parcel
Print it and put it in an envelope. They scan it in front of everyone and the search begins.
Full example
A six-clue Secret Santa hunt around the office
Half an hour, all inside the building, and a gift in the last place anyone looks.
- VideoStep 1
No parcel this year
Ten seconds of the rest of the team looking apologetic. Nobody is going to help.
- TriviaStep 2
How well do you know this lot?
Three questions about the team: who's always late, who left a lunchbox in the fridge for a week.
- RiddleStep 3
The thing you always say
"Type the phrase you repeat in every single meeting." Half the office could answer this one.
- GPSStep 4
Go downstairs
The step unlocks at the door of the usual pub. Someone is waiting there with the next clue.
- PuzzleStep 5
Rebuild the photo
A photo from the last work dinner, in pieces. Reassembled, it shows the corner where the search continues.
- CodeStep 6
Four digits on the cupboard
"The code is the number of the room we use for Monday stand-up." They've walked in there for a year.
- Final screen
It's in the second drawer of your own desk
It's been there since yesterday morning. You've opened that drawer four times without seeing it.
Idea bank
Clue ideas for a Secret Santa hunt
There are 13 step types. These are the ones that play well to a room.
Riddle
Inside jokes
An answer only somebody on the inside could type. It's a perfect filter.
Puzzle
A group photo in pieces
A shot from the last dinner. Put back together, it reveals where the next clue is.
GPS
Move the whole group
From the kitchen to the street, from the street to the pub. The search gets everyone out of their chairs.
Code
The code on the hiding place
A room number, a phone extension, a year. Something they know without looking it up.
Shake
Shake for the reveal
The gesture of tearing off wrapping paper, but on the phone, with everyone watching the screen.
Variants
By setting
At the office
All inside the building, half an hour so it fits in a break. Clues around meeting rooms, drawers and coffee machines.
At the family Christmas dinner
Across the whole house with the cousins helping. Clues built on the last few Christmases.
With your friends
Around the neighbourhood with a stop at a couple of pubs. Here the search is the plan, not the warm-up.
Remote team
No GPS, all indoors. The gift arrives by post and the hunt tells them when to open the box.
Reviews
What users are saying
The office Secret Santa is usually the most generic thing in the world. This year I turned it into a treasure hunt and everyone asked who had made 'the treasure hunt'. The secret code step had them struggling for 20 minutes lol
Brilliant idea. I got muddled with the order of the steps at first, until I saw you just drag them, and after that I had it done in twenty minutes. I used it for our team building and everyone loved it. The shake step was the funniest thing we've ever done in a meeting.
I set it up for my boyfriend's birthday with 8 steps through the places where we've shared memories. It took me an afternoon, and he still talks about it. The GPS step that took him to the restaurant of our first date was the perfect ending.
Public or private. That is the whole decision.
The mechanism is identical in both: the same challenges, the same steps, the same ending. The only thing that changes is who can reach your adventure.
Identical in both
- All 13 instruments, none held back
- Unlimited steps, no expiry
- You write the ending: letter, photo or video
- Link and QR ready the moment you publish
The only thing that changes
Public
FREE
no cost · no expiry
Anyone can find it
It goes up on Explore and anyone can play it. Good if what you want is to be discovered.
- It goes up on Explore, so people find you
- Classic and pirate themes
Private
$9.99
one-time · per challenge
Only whoever has your link
It appears in no listing and no search engine. If you have not sent them the link, it does not exist for them.
- Schedule the exact date and time it opens
- Optional password, if you want another door
- Cyberpunk and romantic themes, plus the usual two
No subscription · no card to start
With the group's inside jokes in it, go private: out of the catalogue and behind a password if you want one.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Build one hunt per person, or a single hunt that gets passed around. There's no player limit.
Know who you drew yet?
That's enough to start. The clues appear as soon as you think of two or three things about the group.
Free · No card · Nothing to install