The Game's Afoot

This weekend, this Phillyist (along with my wife, co-editor Star, and her sister) had a ball running around the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a Watson Adventures scavenger hunt. Watson doesn't run traditional scavenger hunts, where you have to find and bring back certain items (the Watson people were careful to point out that we should not pick up any vases or paintings while we were in the museum). Instead, their hunts consist of a series of riddle-like questions which can only be answered by visiting specific places and examining your surroundings carefully. In this case, the theme was nudity (woo hoo!) and the stuff we were examining was pieces of fine art. Before the hunt begins, you break up into small teams and come up with a team name (which can be important, too - but more on that later). Getting a good combination of folks with different talents and areas of knowledge on your team is a good idea (hopefully you'll also have compatible personalities - being able to work together is also important!). Although you don't get extra points for being first to get done, you do lose points for being late to the finish line, so speed and ability to navigate is important. Answering the questions requires an observant eye, clever thinking, and knowledge of various types of trivia (you'd think art trivia would have been the most important for our hunt, but there was also stuff about TV shows and Christian saints). You might have to work through a bit of wordplay in your head, then crouch down to read something at the base of a statue, then run on to the next room and look for a naked man in chains.

Going on this hunt was kind of like playing a live-action puzzle video game. It was also incredibly fun. Oh, and did we mention that we won?! Our team got a perfect score, and even received a bonus point for best team name (that being "This Is Not a Team") - and we've got a picture of the T-shirt we won above to prove it! We're also wearing that T-shirt as we write this. Yeah, we're maybe a little over-excited about the whole thing.

Watson offers a number of different themed hunts in various different cities (including New York, Boston, DC, and LA) and locations within those cities, and also offers private hunts for your group or company. Check out the Philly schedule here. We're seriously considering heading out again for The Haunted Philadelphia Scavenger Hunt in October, where you search Old City for answers to questions about ghosts. And we also hear tell of an even cooler hunt that takes a half a day, wherein you get a bus pass and have to travel all across the city to answer the questions. We can't wait.

Photo by the author