This usually arrives after the clues are already printed.
“We are running a hunt in the centre. Reception is patchy. Do players need internet the whole time?”
They need a connection when they open the web app, when they change tasks, and when they submit. If they walk into a dead zone mid-clue, the screen they already loaded will sit there. A photo they take will not reach us until they have a bar of signal again. They continue where they left off. Nothing uploads from a basement with no radio.
The player app caches a shell. On some browsers we can restore a game from IndexedDB so the lobby is not lost when a tram dips. That is not the same as promising that 200 judged photos will queue perfectly underground.
If the whole design is GPS check-in on the lowest floor of a mall, change the task types, not the venue hope.
Location tasks. They ask the phone for a point. Basements, granite streets, and festival crowds all lie. You can get “not close enough” on the correct doorstep.
Live leaderboard and live location. Those are live. No radio, no update. People can still play without staring at rank.
AI judging (judged-image-ai, text-ai, object-recognition). The model runs after upload. No upload, no verdict. It can look frozen. It is waiting for a network.
Instant Join. The first QR scan needs to load the game. Put join at the door, in the lobby, or anywhere with wifi. Keep it out of the underground car park if that is the only poster.
QR and barcodes. Tape them where people already pause: ticket desk, museum caption, café counter. Scanning a code is a local camera action. Submitting the result still needs a hop of data, so place the code a few metres from known-good signal if you can.
Access codes on a task (typed or QR) are the same idea. We use them when GPS is unreliable.
Direction tasks (“mark as arrived”) are a little more forgiving than a tight radius, still not magic.
No-answer tasks. “Read this plaque, discuss, mark as completed.” The tap is small. It still needs a submit. Keep them for areas that usually have a bar of 4G.
Photos the facilitator judges later. judged-image (human) can sit in the validation portal until you have signal and a chair. Tell players “if it spins, walk toward the square and it will go through.” Set that in the chapter briefing so you are not staffing a complaints desk.
Puzzles on the screen (word-search, multiple-choice, scrambled-phrase, combination-lock). The interaction is on-device. Submitting the answer is the network bit. If they solve it in a tunnel, they submit when they exit.
Chapter 1, in the lobby or at the park edge, in order: join, safety, one easy multiple-choice so everyone confirms they can submit.
Chapter 2, outdoors or in the gallery: mix of QR and photo. Hide next challenge if you do not want them skipping ahead while still underground.
Chapter 3, back in coverage: AI photo or a share-to-gallery image so you get the pretty shots when the pipe works.
Turn complete challenges in order on for this pattern. Free roam in a dead zone is how two teams disappear into a service corridor.
Prevent bunching still helps above ground. It will not invent cell towers.
US downtown steel. European old town. Singapore mall basement. Malaysian convention centre. Same physics.
If the event has to stay in a basement, put staff check-in as no-answer plus a printed access code at a manned table. That is allowed, and it is honest.
There is a separate post on GPS alternatives. This article is the reception version of that choice.
You can paste this into the chapter briefing:
“You do not need perfect internet the whole time. You do need a signal to open the game, to load the next task, and to submit. If a photo hangs, walk toward the entrance or the square and wait ten seconds. There is nothing to delete. It is the browser, not an app.”
The last two sentences save a lot of confused mail.
Before the event, walk the route on the phone network your guests will use. Not office wifi. Submit a judged-image-ai on the worst corner. If it never returns, that corner should be a QR or a skip.
The facilitator dashboard will look quiet when people are underground. That is not a crash.
Related: GPS alternatives for task choice, this page for radio. Concurrent devices if the dead zone is also a crowd.
If you want a second look, send hello@playtours.app the floor plan and mark the dead zones. We can suggest which task types to keep.
Email us at hello@playtours.app
