Treasure Hunt

Hide tokens across your website's pages and send visitors hunting for them. Each token is a small icon (or a picture) that players click when they spot it. Give them clues, let them find the tokens in any order or one after another, and reward everyone who finds them all with a prize message and, if you like, a prize code. Treasure Hunt is a Pro Tool, and can be gifted to a site.

What it does

• 2 to 30 tokens per hunt. Each one has a label (only you see it), an optional clue for players ("Look where we talk about our team") and its own shortcode to paste into the page where it should hide.
• The editor shows where every token is. Under each token it lists the pages (and blocks) its shortcode is on, and warns you about tokens that are on no published page - players could never finish.
• Any order or in order. In any order players see every clue. In order they see one clue at a time; each token they find reveals the next, and a token found too early says "Not yet!" and is not collected.
• A progress chip follows players from page to page: a small card in the corner showing "3/8" and their next clue. They can hide it. Nobody who is not playing ever sees it.
• Prizes. A message shown only to finishers, an optional link (a page on your site or another website), and a prize code: none, the same code for everyone, or a different code each from a list you paste in. Codes are handed out one at a time and never twice. You are told when they are running low and when they run out.
• A leaderboard of finishers, ranked by who finished first or by who was fastest from start to finish.
• Players type a name (and an email if you ask for one). The server keeps the clock and checks every token; which tokens a hunt has, and the prize, never reach a player's browser before they should.

Getting started

1. Switch Treasure Hunt on in Tools.
2. Open Tools > Games > Treasure Hunt and choose New hunt.
3. Give it a title. Three empty tokens are ready; give each a label and a clue, and add more with Add a token.
4. Save.
5. For each token press Copy beside its shortcode and paste it into the page where it should hide, for example:

Meet the team [treasure-token hunt="summer-trail" token="k7f3q9xa2m" /]

6. Make a page where the hunt starts and put the hunt's own shortcode on it:

[treasure-hunt hunt="summer-trail" /]

7. Back in the editor, press Check the pages: every token should say where it is. Put the start page's address in Where the hunt starts (the editor offers it when it finds the shortcode).
8. Press Test and play it yourself (see below).
9. Set the status to Open and save.

Every setting

The hunt

• Title, Introduction (shown with the Start button).
• Short name - part of every shortcode of the hunt. If you change it after pasting token shortcodes, paste them again.
• Status - Draft (not shown; Test still works), Open (can be played; tokens show on your pages), Closed (the leaderboard stays, the tokens disappear).
• Order - Any order, or In order.
• Opens and Closes - optional times.
• Where the hunt starts - the page with the hunt's shortcode. A visitor who clicks a token before starting is offered a link to it, and the progress chip links to it.

Tokens - label, clue, the shortcode with Copy, where it is now, and buttons to move it up or down (the order matters for an In order hunt) or remove it. Check the pages looks through your pages again.

The prize

• Message for finishers - a blank line starts a new paragraph.
• Prize link and its Link text - an optional button on the finish screen.
• Prize code - No code; The same code for everyone (type it); or A different code each, from a list (paste one code per line). The editor shows how many are waiting and how many have been given. Codes already given never go back on the list, even if you save an older copy of it.

The tokens' look - an icon (star, gift, key, gem, coins, crown, heart, compass, sparkles or map pin) or a picture from Media, and the size (small or medium). Tokens follow your site's theme colours.

Players and leaderboard

• Ask for an email - No, Optional or Required. Emails are only ever shown to you, on the Plays screen.
• Prizes - One prize per person (someone finishing again under the same name, or the same email, sees the message but no new code), or a prize for every finish.
• Goes each (per name) - 0 for as many as they like.
• Leaderboard ranks - First to finish, or Fastest from start to finish.
• Leaderboard size, Leaderboard opens on (today, this week, this month or all time), Show a leaderboard.
• Animations - tokens pulse when found and shake when it is not their turn yet. Visitors who asked for less motion never see them.

Settings for the whole Tool

The cog in the Treasure Hunt banner opens the settings that apply to every hunt:

• A new hunt starts with - order, token icon and size, asking for an email, prizes per person, how the leaderboard ranks, and whether it shows.
• Tell me when this many codes are left - when a hunt's list of codes gets down to this number you get a notification (and a note on the sidebar badge); you are told again when they run out.
• The progress chip - on or off, and which bottom corner it sits in.
• The line under the email box - say what the email is for.

Testing a hunt

Test (in the editor, on each hunt in the list, and on its Plays screen) opens the hunt in the admin exactly as players see it.

• Press Start the test. Then either visit your site in the same browser and click the tokens on their pages - the test carries on there, with the progress chip - or press Collect beside each token in the list on the Test screen to try the finish screen quickly.
• It works whatever the status, so you can try a draft before anyone can see it.
• A test go is never on the leaderboard, never counted, never takes a prize code and never sends a notification. The finish screen tells you where you would have come.
• Each new test clears away the one before.

Plays and prize codes

Plays (on each hunt's menu) lists every go: the name, the email if given, how many tokens were found, when they finished, and the prize code they were given. Hide takes a play off the leaderboard without deleting it; Finishers (CSV) downloads everyone who finished with their codes, for sending prizes. Reset the leaderboard deletes every play (codes already given stay given).

Shortcodes

[treasure-hunt hunt="summer-trail" /]
[treasure-hunt hunt="summer-trail" board="hide" /]
[treasure-hunt hunt="summer-trail" board="only" /]
[treasure-token hunt="summer-trail" token="k7f3q9xa2m" /]
[treasure-hunt-leaderboard hunt="summer-trail" period="week" limit="10" title="This week's finishers" /]

• board="hide" leaves the leaderboard out of the hunt; board="only" shows the leaderboard alone.
• A token's shortcode shows nothing while its hunt is a draft or closed (except to you during a test).
• period is today, week, month or all; without it the hunt's own Leaderboard opens on setting is used.

Moving hunts between sites

Export a hunt from its menu, or Export all at the top of the list. Import… adds the hunts in such a file to a site, as drafts.

• The file keeps each token's id, so when a hunt comes back to the site it came from (after deleting it, say), the token shortcodes already on the pages work again. If a hunt with the same short name is still there, the import gets a short name of its own (summer-trail-2) - change it back, or paste the tokens again.
• Prize codes, who was given them, and plays never go in the file.
• Make a copy (on a hunt's menu) gives the copy new tokens, so its shortcodes are its own.

Notifications

• Treasure Hunt finishers - someone found every token.
• Treasure Hunt prize codes running low - a hunt's list of codes is nearly out, or has run out.

Switch either off in your notification settings.

Gifting

Treasure Hunt can be gifted to a site for good or for a number of days from the Manager, like every Game.