Review: Treasure Hunt Penang 2014 (Organised by the Institute of Engineers Malaysia)

I have not been in much treasure hunt events. I was told that it is something like the Amazing race where you drive around looking for clues that will lead you to the next destination and so on. I don't see many of these kinds of events in Penang so naturally I was excited when I get to join one on June 2014. So here is my review of Treasure Hunt Penang organized by the Young Engineer's Section (YES), Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM).

The event began early 7:30am in Juru Autocity. We got our T-shirts and given stickers bearing the sponsor's logo and team number to stick onto my car. By 8am, a crowd is already forming. Think there were about 70-100 participants in this event. We got briefed on the instructions. Flag waved, and all of us rushed forward looking for our 1st clue. Here is how it went:

Part 1
We were given a piece of paper with all the questions on it. The answers were all in the 'Shop in d'Park' Autocity. It could be a shop's signboard, tiny lights, fans, or table scattered around. Spent about an hour looking answers. No one will tell us if our answer is correct. We were supposed to just submit all our answers at the end of the hunt after which they will only then tell us the correct answers and calculate the scores. After we are done we began to drive to Tayarmart and White Horse Ceramics, all around the mainland. More answers were hidden in the advertisement boards and signboards along the way.

Part 2
After handing in our answers. We were then given an IQ test to complete while we drove to the Dewan Sri Pinang. No hunting for answers, just simple IQ test which we were supposed to figure on our own. This took us 30 mins.

Part 3
After submitting our answers, we were given another set of questions. This time, we needed to look for the answers scattered along Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling. A stroll along the road yielded answers hidden in tourist information boards, signboards and so on. This took us 1 hour.

Then a lunch break in Times Square.

Part 4
After the lunch break, another set of questions with clues all hidden in the Times Square shopping mall complex. We looked for the answers, wrote them down on the questions list, then submitted our answers. This took us 1 hour. Game ends at 4pm.

 

Arggh! Why there be no gold doubloons in my treasure?!

The game although fun-ish, it had flaws. LOTS of flaws. The questions given to us during the treasure hunt was so poorly written we had trouble deciding if it was a bad poet's riddle or simply bad grammar. Because they tried to play with the questions' words but at the same time made many grammatical errors, whenever the questions did not make sense (which is most of the time) we can't tell if we should try to make sense of it  or dismiss it as bad English and that is frustrating.

The logic behind some of the answers to the questions was too abstract for my taste but you be the judge:

e.g. Ques: The youngest son can be found here.

       Ans: Mercury River

       Explanation: Son sounds like sun. Planets are related to sun. Smallest planet in our solar system is

                           mercury.

I guess I could understand the designers wanting to make the game challenging, but it should not be like this. For a puzzle to be good, the answer to the questions must make solid sense. A good puzzle is when after revealing the answer, the players thinks "Oh! I never thought of that!". A bad one is when they give you a confused look and say "What?".

My brain hurts trying to figure whether I am dumb or game is dumb.

The part were we had to look for the answers by the highway was dangerous. Because we cannot reverse in a highway to review any answers we might have missed, we had to stop by the highway and walk to retrace our steps. That felt dangerous. Even the police came and shooed us away.

Some of the questions were not fair. One requires you to know what a Random Access Memory is (which sucks if you do not know computers), and another requires you to translate "giving luck" into Hokkien (which sucks if you not Chinese or not from Penang).

We did not know any other people there, which puts us in a disadvantage to others who joined the hunt in a large group of friends so even if they are separated into multiple groups, they will help each other out. Although this happens often in many games, good games try to avoid this unfair advantage. Game time of 8am to 4pm seems unnecessarily long.

In short, the treasure hunt was bad. I understand that it is the IEM's 1st time organizing a treasure hunt and people who design this are not professionals. But if they want their future treasure hunts to be fun, changes will have to be made.

Final Verdict: It was bad but decent 1st try. Will have to do better next time. I'd give a 1/5

Would I Recommend?: No. But who knows if future hunts will be much better and thus worth joining.