Quickstart: Your First Hunt

Sign in to the admin portal

The Destination Hunts admin portal is where your organization builds and runs events. Sign in with your organization account. The sidebar is organized into three groups: Management (Dashboard, Challenge Library, Artifact Library, Collectible Library, Game Templates, Greater Areas), Operations (Events), and Organization (Team). See Roles & Access for who can do what.

Create an event

Go to Events and create a new event. The Create Event form covers the basics: Name (required), Description, Cover Image, Intro Video, a Schedule card (Start Time, End Time, Timezone), and Visibility. New events start in Draft status.

Alternatively, start from existing content: open Game Templates, pick a template, and use Clone to copy it — including all its challenges and groups — into your organization, then build from there. See Game Templates and Creating & Configuring Events.

Add challenges and groups

Open the event's Challenges tab. Use Add Challenges to pull challenges in from your Challenge Library, New Challenge to author one from scratch, and Add Group to organize challenges into unlockable groups (a starter group named Main is created automatically). Groups can unlock All at Once or Sequential, triggered at start or after another challenge or group completes.

Challenges come in fifteen types — riddles, photo and video missions, puzzles, roadblocks, and five minigames. See Challenges & Groups and the Challenge Types reference.

Create teams

On the Teams tab, click Add Team and give each team a Team Name (and an optional Team Emoji). Every team gets a unique 6-character join code minted automatically — you never choose or type codes yourself. See Teams & Join Codes.

Print or share the team QR codes

Open a team's detail page — its join-code QR is the hero image, alongside the code itself. From the QR block you can download a PNG or open a full-screen poster view for printing. Players scan the QR (or type the code) in the mobile app — no accounts needed. See Joining a Hunt.

Publish

On the event page, click Publish. Publishing runs a readiness pre-flight: the event must have challenges, starter content that unlocks at the beginning, answers on every text-answer challenge, coordinates on GPS-gated challenges, and valid minigame configuration. If anything blocks, a dialog titled "This hunt isn't ready yet" lists exactly what to fix. Publishing moves the event from Draft to Scheduled.

Start the event

When it's game time, click Start Event. Starting re-runs the readiness checks and additionally requires at least one team — someone must play. The event moves to Active and players can begin submitting.

Run it live

While the event is active, the Live tab becomes the first tab — the live command center. It combines the status bar (elapsed/remaining clock, team count, lifecycle buttons), the Scoreboard, the Activity feed, the Photo & video reviews queue (when Review Before Points is on), and a Live settings card with real-time toggles for the leaderboard, team chat, help channel, quiz mode, and AI photo verdicts. You can Pause and Resume at any time. See Running an Event.

End the event

When the hunt is over, click End Event. The event moves to Completed; player sessions stay valid for 24 hours after the end time so teams can review results, and you can Archive the event when you're done with it.