Frequently asked questions

Hide & Pic is a real-world treasure hunt game that turns home or park into a trail of hidden clues. One player hides, the rest seek. The Hider hides the clue cards and snaps a photo, a "Pic", of each hiding spot. Seekers find each card, scan it and answer a trivia question to unlock the Pic of the next hiding spot, all the way to the treasure.

See How to Play for the steps with pictures.

Any time you have treats or gifts to hand out, or whenever the kids ask for another hunt 😄 Instead of just handing out treats or gifts, make them the treasure at the end of the hunt:

• 🎂 Birthday parties: the goodie bags
• 🎃 Halloween: small treats
• 🎄 Christmas and other holidays: small gifts
• 🐣 Easter: chocolate eggs
• etc.

It also works well on a rainy day at home or at a sleepover. And it's great off the grid: camping trips ⛺ and cabins in the woods are perfect, because the game plays with no signal at all.

A treasure hunt on one topic, ready-made for you. We write the questions and fun facts, so all you do is print the clue cards and hide them. Pick one, like Bird Myths and Truths, on the Quizzles page.

Yes. Every clue card comes with a question on the Quizzle's topic, so Seekers have to think, not just run. In addition, right after the answer, most questions show a fun fact, so Seekers learn something new along the way.

Not right now. Quizzles are written by our team. We might add this in the future if enough people ask for it.

Yes. Play anywhere you can hide a card: at home, in the yard, at a park, at the office or at a campsite. The game doesn't use GPS. Seekers find each spot from the Hider's Pic.

Yes, it's free to download and play, with no in-app ads. Hide & Pic is freemium: there's always a big set of free Quizzles for all ages to choose from, and extra Quizzles, marked with a crown, are for subscribers.

Not yet, but it's in the works and coming soon. Right now Hide & Pic is available for Android on Google Play.

Not for your first game. You can play one game as a Guest, without signing in, and you choose which one. To play more, sign in with your email (we send you a one-time code) or with your Google account.

No. Every Quizzle in your list is already saved on your phone, so the whole hunt works fully offline. That makes it perfect for camping, cabins, road trips, or anywhere with poor or no reception.

Heading off the grid? Print the clue cards while you're still online, or just write their short codes on paper (see Do I need a printer?).

Yes, for now. The Hider sets up the game on a phone, then hands the same phone to the Seekers.

On our roadmap is a separate, simpler Seeker app. Seekers would get a hunt the Hider has already set up and play it on their own phones, but couldn't set up games themselves.

About 5 minutes to set up, and most Seekers finish in 15–25 minutes. Play time depends on how many clue cards you hide, how tricky the hiding spots are, and how well the Quizzle's difficulty level matches your Seekers. You can tune each spot too: blur its Pic to make it harder to recognize, or add a hint to help Seekers find it (see How can I make a hiding spot easier or harder to find?).

A printer is optional. Printed clue cards are the nicest way to play, but every card also has a short code (like VD23). Write the codes on plain paper and hide those instead. Seekers type the code in the app instead of scanning the card.

No, skip as many as you like. If a question is too hard, too easy or just not a good fit for your Seekers, skip that card. Every card in the setup has a skip button.

Yes. While setting up, the Hider sees every question in the app, along with its answer and fun fact. Each Quizzle's page on this website lists its questions too, but keeps most answers hidden, so they don't spoil the game.

Safety comes first. Pick spots Seekers can reach safely, without climbing, and away from anything hot, sharp or breakable. The exact spot matters less than you'd think, because you can make each spot easier or harder to find.

Use blur and hints. You can add both to any hiding spot:

• Blur makes a Pic harder to recognize when the spot is too easy. By default, the blur fades out gradually, and you can change how long that takes.
• A hint is a short message you type to point Seekers toward the spot. It becomes available after a wait you choose, so Seekers who are stuck can tap to read it.

Together they let you make each spot as easy or as hard to find as your Seekers need.

Take every Pic from inside the app. When you set up a clue card, tap the camera button and the app opens your phone's camera for you. You can't upload photos from your gallery, and the Pics you take aren't added to it either.

Not if you set a passcode. The Hider can protect each game with a passcode (a PIN). It's optional but highly recommended: without it, Seekers can open the setup and see the questions, answers and Pics.

Anything you like: treats, a small gift or pocket money. The treasure is optional but highly recommended: it makes finishing the hunt sweeter and gets Seekers excited for the next hunt, and for learning more along the way. Hide it like a clue card and Pic its spot too.

1 to 8 Seekers works best. With 2 or more, pick a Navigator: the Seeker who holds the phone, reads each question out loud and shows everyone the next Pic.

Help shows up on its own. If the Hider blurred the Pic, the blur fades out over time. If the Hider wrote a hint, Seekers can open it after a wait the Hider picks from a list of preset times during setup.

The Hider can look it up, even mid-game:

• Passcode set: tap the 👁️ eye button in the top right corner of the screen, enter the passcode, and the right answer shows.
• No passcode set: navigate back to the game setup and find the answer there.

Yes. After the game, tap Assess for a detailed report:

• A score for each question and an overall score for the game (see How is the score calculated?)
• Every answer the Seekers gave, wrong ones included
• How long they spent finding the cards and answering each question

Each question gets a score from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) that shows how well the Seekers handled it. The score depends on:

• How quickly they gave the right answer
• How many wrong answers they gave
• How hard the question is
• Whether the keyboard hint kicked in: if the Hider turned it on, after a while only the keys needed for the answer stay active

The overall score is the average of all the question scores.

Yes. Reset the game in the app, then hide the cards in new spots and take new Pics. Resetting starts the game from scratch, so it clears the old Pics, settings and results. Want to keep the results? Save them first.

Yes, export them as a PDF. On the Assess screen, tap the share button to save the report or send it the usual way from your phone: email, a messaging app, cloud storage and so on.

The report might show where your Seekers struggled: which answers they misspelled, which ones they didn't know, and which questions took them the longest. So it could be worth keeping as a starting point for what to go over with them next.