Lunar New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 February. In Singapore, Monday 8 February is the public holiday in lieu. Malaysia gazettes the same moon; check your state.
The practical problem is timing. If you start designing in the last week of January, half your players are already on a bus home and the CBD has gone quiet. Build in the week of 12 January while people are still around, then run a short office version on Friday 5 February, a campus version the week before, or a neighbourhood version over the holiday for people who stayed.
This is reunion week: closed shops, and red packets as a motif rather than a demand for real money. Keep lanterns for September and other festivals for their own games.
The CBD and industrial parks empty out. Heartlands and some malls get louder. A GPS task pointed at a locked office tower will fail, while access codes at a community club you've booked, or indoor tasks in an office that's still open on 5 February, will work.
Set date restrictions on tasks so anything that assumes a shop is open on 6 to 8 February hides unless you've checked.
Combination lock or number tasks for playful codes (not real bank PINs).
AI-judged photos of decorations, a lo hei table you were invited to, a reunion spread. Optional, because not everyone celebrates and not everyone wants their family on a company gallery. Shared photos only with consent stated in the briefing.
Crossword or word search for festive words as a desk puzzle. Check spelling in Chinese and English separately; QuickBuild will invent characters, and a human has to look.
Check-off: "call a relative you haven't spoken to this year." Skippable.
Matching pairs: animal sign to year, checked.
For bilingual chapters, either write the Chinese properly or keep it in English. Default language plus translation is not a substitute for a native pass.
People are mentally gone. Forty-five minutes, six indoor tasks, Instant Join, watermark fine. Then let them leave. Clans by department if you like, and the friendly leaderboard on; nobody needs to be last on the last Friday.
Run it before students vanish, with QR codes on halls that stay open. Leave out "find an ang pao on the ground" unless you want a litter problem.
Family events look huge, but the phones in the hunt are fewer. The company Friday is the real spike, when everyone joins at 11. Here's how to size it.
"Chinese New Year office hunt, six tasks, bilingual English and Chinese placeholders, no real money, no locked malls, indoor, 5 February."
Then have a colleague who celebrates CNY edit it. If that isn't you, ask someone. I'm happy to read a draft at hello@playtours.app.
Hide a pantry QR after completion if you have one box of decorations and twelve teams. Hide the lo hei photo until the safety task in chapter one is done, if you include food at all.
It will invent couplets. It will send people to Chinatown on the first day, when trains are packed and shops are shut. It will ask for a photo of cash. Delete those three.
Download the results if L&D wanted a culture-week artefact. Then leave people alone.
Gong xi fa cai, and test the join QR before the office empties.
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