Artifacts, Collectibles & Alliances

Power-up artifacts and their effects, facilitator-applied effects, collectibles that reward and gate challenges, and alliances for aggregate team scoring.

Three optional layers add competition and collection mechanics on top of challenges: artifacts (power-ups with effects), collectibles (items earned by completing challenges), and alliances (team groupings with combined scores).

Artifacts

An artifact is a power-up a team can acquire and use. There are seven types across three categories:

Type	Category	Default duration	What it does
Scramble	Offensive	1 min	Sabotage — garbles the target team's clue text
Freeze	Offensive	1 min	Target team cannot submit answers while the effect is live
Blackout	Offensive	1 min	Sabotage — obscures the target team's screen
Misdirect	Offensive	1 min	Sabotage — misleads the target team
Steal	Offensive	No timer	A silent pending theft: the victim is never notified; it resolves when the victim next earns a net-positive award, transferring those points to the thief
Shield	Defensive	10 min	Blocks incoming offensive effects while live
Double Down	Wildcard	10 min	Doubles (2×) all points the team scores while live; auto-activates the moment it's picked up on the map

Timed effects expire on their own; Steal has no timer — it sits armed until the victim's next scoring event resolves it (single-shot).

Distribution modes

Map discovery — the classic GPS treasure: the artifact sits at a map location. Teams within the detection radius (default 100 m) get an alert; within the claim radius (default 10 m) they can claim it; once claimed it's in their arsenal to use (Double Down being the exception — it fires on pickup).
Pre-loaded gadgets — no map location. Every non-staff team is automatically granted the artifact when the event starts (default 3 per team), and fires them manually from the arsenal whenever they choose.

Claim modes

All Teams lets every team claim its own copy of a map artifact; First Claim Only gives it to the first team to reach it and locks everyone else out.

The Artifact form

Creating or editing an artifact (library or event) shows these cards:

Artifact Details — Name (required), Type (required; the seven types above), Category (required; Offensive / Defensive / Wildcard — auto-derived from the type), Description.
Discovery & Effect — Detection Radius (m) ("Distance when teams get an alert"), Claim Radius (m) ("Distance when teams can claim"), Effect Duration (min) ("Leave empty for non-timed effects"), Effect Value ("Points for steal, multiplier value, etc."), Target Count ("Number of teams to target (0 = all teams)"), Claim Mode (required; All Teams / First Claim Only).
Gate Challenge — checkbox "Require answering a question before claiming"; when checked, set the Gate Clue and Gate Answer (required). Teams must answer correctly at the artifact's location before it's theirs.
Media — Artifact Image (4:3).

Facilitator & Game Master effects

You don't need an artifact on the map to apply an effect — organizers can fire one directly:

From the admin portal: the Apply Effect button on the event's Teams tab applies any effect as the "Game Master". Leaving the target selection empty applies it to all non-staff teams. Duration is capped at 1440 minutes (one day). A Game Master steal has no beneficiary — the stolen points are forfeited, not gifted to another team.
From the field: members of a staff team can apply effects from the mobile app via Facilitator Tools (Settings → Facilitator Tools), choosing category, duration presets, and targets.

Active effects can also be edited afterward — an admin can shorten or extend an effect's remaining time.

Collectibles

Collectibles are items ("Lobster", "Golden Ticket") teams accumulate by completing challenges. They have no combat effect — they exist to be collected and to gate content.

Awarding: attach a collectible reward to a challenge (in the editor's Rewards section); the team receives it on their first correct completion of that challenge. Players get an award animation, and teammates see it too.
Gating: a challenge can require a quantity of a collectible before it unlocks — players see "Collect 3 Lobsters to unlock" on the locked card.

The Collectible form has two cards: Collectible Details — Name (required, e.g. "Lobster"), Description, and Default Stock with the helper "0 = unlimited. Display-only in v1; not enforced as a hard cap." — and Media — Icon (1:1, used as the badge) and Image (4:3, shown in the award modal).

Alliances

Alliances are event-scoped groupings of teams — useful for corporate events where departments field several teams each. Manage them on the event's Alliances tab: each alliance has a name, color, and icon, and teams are assigned to at most one.

When alliances exist, the player leaderboard gains a Teams | Alliances toggle showing aggregate alliance standings — an alliance's score is the sum of its member teams' awarded points (minus hint costs, plus adjustments). See the mobile leaderboard for the player view.