Indiana Jones Treasure Hunt (Part I)
(An exerpt from the Quest Adventures newsletter)

Spread over the next several issues of Quest Adventures, I will detail in sections a treasure hunt that I designed ten years ago for a group of 100 college students. It was a hunt that I donated (I couldn't charge a fee for my services due to severe copyright infringement) - but I have always been so enthrawled with the Indiana Jones movies that I was just dying to design one. It was very successful (although not all decisions I would repeat. I'll explain which ones as I go along.) I hope everyone enjoys the ideas and perhaps even feels inspired to replicate it in part or in whole for a group of friends or fundraising activity!

To begin with, a decision that I don't think I would ever repeat, I wanted to see what would happen if I designed a treasure hunt where it was so difficult that probably only one or two teams would finish. At the time, I had designed several hunts where ALL teams finished at pretty much the same time and the finish
lines were always messy. As a result, only one team DID actually finish, the others were forced to give up. (I gave every team a sealed envelope with directions to the final destination. They were instructed to open the envelope by a certain time if they had not solved the hunt. The winner would be chosen among those that had unopened destination envelopes.) All that said, it was still a lot of fun, but take that into consideration as you read about the ideas, scenarios, clues and locations.

To promote the event, I created mock course syllabi from Henry Jones Jr's (Indiana Jones) Archeology 101 classroom. On those syllabi it mentioned that the final would be on a certain date, at a certain time and location. On the other side of the syllabus I photocopied the cover to one of the movies with the title of the treasure hunt, Indiana Jones and the Final Quest.

The students were instructed to meet on the college campus at an outside amphitheater where they were to 'take their archeology final.' Once all there, waiting for something to happen, I arrived (dressed as Indiana Jones) and began to explain to them the details of the final (as though they were actually going to take one.) Beside me was my lovely assistant who had an idol on a necklace that she wore around her neck. My 'speech' about the final they would never take was only an excuse to look preoccupied - for behind me, far in the distance, I had a man dressed as a ninja sneaking from tree to lightpost to wall, trying to get closer, but making himself obvious to the whole crowd. Eventually, he made his way to a tree with a branch just over my head. By this time, all attention had been taken off me and the eager participants were just waiting for the ninja to drop on me. But he didn't.....

You see, while they were eyeing him so intently, I had another gentleman dressed as Rene Beloque (the French archeologist from the first movie) come up to the amphitheater and grap my assistant from behind with a menacing knife and began walking her through the crowd. He yelled some quotes from the movie and how he was
taking the idol - and the girl for security. Just then, a car sped onto the campus from behind the crowd (there was a grass field and NO I didn't get permission from the university, I knew they would have said no....) screached to a halt. The driver yelled to the Beloque character to hurry up, that he thought they were being followed. By this time, everyone was up on their feet, helplessly watching the assistant being dragged away to the car - then watching them speed off the campus. After the car was gone, everyone clapped...not really sure what to expect next - I had them right where I wanted them.

I then explained to the crowd that the final was changing. Now, whoever could recover the assistant alive with the idol, would get an A in the class. At this time, just when everyone had forgotten all about him, the ninja dropped out of the tree, did some cool sword moves (that were heavily practiced) while I just stood there and watched - then shot him complacently like the classic scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. At this time, I explained the rules. Everyone was to get one Grail Diary and that there were different versions of them, so following someone could lead them into trouble, for they might have a different order of instructions. Additionally, the diaries were not to be read from beginning to end, but only certain pages would be actually used, as needed. They need only read the first page and their adventure would begin...

In the next installment, I'll discuss the first location (for some) - the meeting of Lao Che.

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