How to play

One team hides at a venue in Oslo and locks in their location. The other teams use questions, public transport and their legs to find them. The first team to find the hiders wins.

Everything happens in the app, so every team needs at least one phone with a data connection, ideally a spare or two.

• The hiding team picks a venue, locks the location, answers questions and plays cards against the seekers.
• The seeking teams ask questions, move around the city and narrow down where the hiding team is.

The hiding team has 20 minutes to get to a venue and lock the location in the app. The seeking teams wait at the starting point until the search starts, which is when the hiding team has locked the location and made the veto choice.

The place has to be open with no entry fee, table booking or queue, and it has to be socially fine for every team to turn up there at once. The hiding team has to stay there until they’re found, and has to be somewhere in the venue the seeking teams can actually reach — not in the toilet, a private room or another locked-off area.

If a queue forms while you’re there, at least one person from the hiding team steps outside and stands somewhere visible. If a seeking team finds that person, the team is found.

Lock in late and you lose “The Golden Veto”. On top of that, every seeking team gets one free question for every 2 minutes you’re over the deadline (max 5): No cooldown for the seeking team, no card for the hiding team.

The seeking teams ask questions from the categories below. Some are answered by the app straight away, the rest by the hiding team.

• Cooldown: Once a team asks a question, they can’t ask another until the cooldown runs out. How long that is varies by question — and it’s shown on the question before you send it.
• One question, once: Each question can be asked once per team per round, and disappears from the list afterwards. Choose carefully.
• Blocked questions: If a curse blocks a question, you get no answer and the hiding team draws no cards, but the cooldown still runs. If the category is locked, you can try again later. If the question was removed, it’s gone. The thermometer can never be removed or locked.
• Overheard: When another team gets an answer to a question, there’s a small chance that you “overhear” it too. It then shows up for you marked “overheard”. Thermometer answers are never overheard.
• Position: The seeking teams’ positions are visible to the hiders on the map! Once the round ends, the hiding team’s position becomes visible to everyone.

The hiding team draws a card every time they answer a question, and can hold a maximum of 6 cards. If they already have 6 cards when they’re due to draw, they have to choose one to discard. Cards come in three kinds.

• Time penalty: Played against a seeking team, who have to stand still until the time runs out. Also used to pay for curses.
• Curses: Put a restriction on a seeking team for a while. Some have a price, which the hiding team pays by discarding time-penalty cards.
• Powerups: Help the hiding team itself, and never hit the seeking teams directly.
• One card at a time: A seeking team can only be hit by one card at a time. The next card can be played once the previous one is over at the earliest (and at least 3 min after).
• The hiding team starts with a veto card: “The Golden Veto” removes any one question from the round — for every seeking team. Once the location is locked, the hiding team chooses whether to use the card straight away or save it for later.
• When cards take effect: Unless the card says otherwise, curses and time penalties are served immediately once they hit your team. Some are enforced by the app, others rely on your team playing fair.
• Not on transport: If a curse only applies on transport and you’re not on board anything, tap “We’re not on transport”. The card is used up with no effect.

You win by physically finding the hiding team at the venue. There’s no guessing in the app — use the answers to narrow it down, then go there. If several seeking teams arrive at once, the team that touches a member of the hiding team first wins.

The hiding team ends the game from Overview: They tap “We’ve been found!” and choose the team that won. Every seeking team is then notified, and the hiding spot is shared on the map so everyone can meet there.

If nobody finds the hiding team within the round cap — 40 minutes from when the search starts, with a countdown at the top of the screen — the hiding spot is revealed on the map and it’s a race between the seeking teams to reach the hiding team first and win.

The seeking teams get around on foot and by public transport. Boats and ferries aren’t allowed.

If you play several rounds, the seeking team with the fastest winning time overall wins. Take turns hiding, for example at random among the teams that haven’t hidden yet. Since the fastest time wins, the hiding team wants to stay hidden as long as possible.