From Puzzle to Adventure - How to write a Children’s Quest

When you break it down, a children’s quest is simply a series of puzzles or activities that need to be solved or completed in order to progress.

To turn the puzzles into an adventure you have to add a story that creates suspense, that allows for  imagination and that ultimately has a success story at the end.

Whilst a puzzle or two can be fun, it is the narrative giving your questers a purpose that spurs them on to solve and complete each activity.

As a simple starter, I usually use the following activity/ puzzle concepts to start building the quest around, I don’t use all of the concepts in every quest:

1. A scavenger hunt - having the kids simply run around to find things

2. A jigsaw type puzzle - which can be made harder or easier

3. A trail of clues - clue 1 leads to clue 2, clue 2 to clue 3 and so on.

4. Movement - a simple moving activity

5. Obstacle course

6. Letter sort

7. Crafts - making something for the quest

Other things to consider;

1. Change in location - during the quest will you have room to change location or does everything need to be in one room

2. How many questers are attending - for smaller numbers the quest could be more personal

3. Does the quest lend itself to the questers collecting ‘memorabilia’ - I.e. with the pirate quest during the stages of the quest, different parts of a pirates outfit can be collected.

Now you have your activity/ puzzle concepts and other things to consider, you need to get to know your theme. If it is a child who has chosen the theme it might be worth asking them lots of questions about it, watching the TV show or doing research online.

With what you have learned it’s then time to write the story - the story is what ties everything together, makes all the activities make sense and creates a quest!

Due to the vast number of themes you could have, my suggestions for the story is only this… have the quest begin by following a ‘classic’ story line if you can. Even with the more obscure themes there is probably a recurring idea that you can use.

Take your time on the story and then slowly tie in the puzzles and activities, keeping them in mind as you go along. I’d also recommend only using one of each type of activity/ puzzle in one quest.

Once you have your story and now your activities, it’s time to write some cue cards to read during the quest and create all the puzzles and props you’ll need!

I hope you enjoy writing your children’s quest as much as I have enjoyed writing all the ones I have!