Oakland Explorers
June, 2014
Most people who have think it’s nothing but a myth. A fairy tale...but I know it’s true. I know it’s true because my father knew it, and his father knew it before that. I know it’s true because my great grandfather WAS one those pirates. And a very long time ago he sat me down and told me about the treasure. He told me the whole secret. But I was a boy then and I took the tale as just another one of my Pop Pop's stories (by gum, he sure could spin a yarn). And like boys do, I grew up and plum forgot about treasures and pirates...until I found something just a few years ago. A book, wrapped in leather with a bright red "X" on the cover. It was my great grandpa's journal and in it contains stories of his whole life. But the most important thing was on the book’s cover page. There in my great grandpa’s hands was a message, to me. A simple question, really, but I knew it meant something more. It was a call for adventure. A chance to solve a mystery...and now I’d like to ask the same question to you.
With that opening, kids were introduced to the Oakland Explorers, a story driven scavenger hunt set all throughout our neighborhood. We never told our own kids where the game came from or who made it, but now that they are teenagers, they've figured it out.
The game began by finding stickers put up around the neighborhood with the Oakland Explorers "X" logo and a website address that led them to the home of the Oakland Explorers.
Once on the site, kids and their parents could create an account and inscribe their names in their own copy of Pop Pop's old book.
Players were told to follow the Explorer Code:
Now I don't trust just anybody. And for me to trust you with my secrets you have to follow the Explorer Code.
First, when you're exploring you need to always have these three things:
We periodically released new chapters with new hidden locations. Each chapter had a short story written by my good friend Jason Katz about pirates, treasure and adventure. Inside each story were clues that referenced locations around the neighborhood.
If you solved the clues you would discover a small treasure chest that contained gold coins, a stamp and an inkpad.
Payton White donated his time to 3D print the stamps and I made some simple, wooden handles for each. The first kids to locate the treasure chests could take a coin with them, and everyone could stamp their map showing they had completed another adventure.
Each treasure chest also had a code word printed on the inside. Players wrote down that code and took it back with them to the website to record their visit. A leaderboard tracked which kids solved each story first, and which kids had solved the most.
Kids would revisit the treasure boxes anytime they were near by to get another hand stamp. Questions would come up like "is this real?" or "where did this come from?" but Jason and I never told and let the mystery hang in the air through our kid's childhood. Over time the treasure chests where emptied of their contents and the ultimately dissapeared from their hiding spots. But I hope this remains one of those fond childhood memories for many kids. And hopefully one day, they'll again remember tresure and pirates.