What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a worldwide, outdoor treasure-hunt game where players can use GPS-enabled devices to hide and seek containers, known as "geocaches" or "caches," at specific coordinates.
People love it because it transforms a simple walk into a real-world treasure hunt, allowing you to explore outdoors while playing a game. It offers a fun way to discover hidden local gems, get exercise, and feel a part of something bigger.
Experience Design
For this experience, I decided to add a series of caches in Tilgate Park. I wanted a common theme for all the caches in this series, and I chose a rainbow theme, naming each cache after a different colour. To associate the caches with the colours, other than the cache name, I put each cache near an object with its respective colour. To make the locations more interesting, I chose locations that are useful to visit or locations that the players would pass by, in any case, such as the park entrances.Caches
Red Cache
Description: Walk along the Brighton road for our red cache!❤️
Hint: Give way to your left.
Why: The first cache is close to one of the entrances to the park, next to a red 'Give Way' sign.
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Orange Cache
Description: If it's dark enough, your path to the cache will be lit!🧡
Hint: Where's the closest source of light?
Why: The orange cache is next to an orange street lamp. It's a bit more difficult for the player to find it immediately because you can notice the lamp lamp's colour more easily when it's dark is more noticeable in darkness, while it's less obvious during the daytime.
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Yellow Cache
Description: If you come at the right time of the year, you can see why it's the yellow cache.💛
Hint: Sit down and take a break.
Why: The yellow cache is located next to a bench in front of a sea of yellow flowers. You can only notice the flower colour when they bloom, though, thus the description.
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Green Cache
Description: Take a walk around the park to find our green cache!💚
Hint: Definitely a lot of green around you, but where can you see lots of it at once?
Why: Green was a little tricky as a colour, as we are in a park. That's why I chose to place the cache near a park map, since it can be argued that it includes way more green than you can see around you.
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Blue Cache
Description: Check out the zoo if you have a chance!💙
Hint: If you're lost, here you can find your way.
Why: The blue cache is behind a blue sign that shows directions to nearby attractions, like the Tilgate Zoo.
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Purple Cache
Description: What do you mix to get purple? Find the cache's point of view.💜
Hint: Check out different perspectives to see where you can see red in front of blue.
Why: It's quite difficult to find something purple in the park, so for this one, I ended up having it as a combination of 2 colours: red and blue - whose combination gives us purple. I'm not regretting it, as it makes a nice difference from the other caches, but it was definitely a lesson that I should have scouted the area before deciding on the theme.
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Restrictions / Difficulties
Let's talk about some restrictions and some issues that arose during the implementation:
- As geocaching is a global game, I had to take into account how it would be perceived by the community to have people looking for the caches at the locations I chose. For example, having the caches near playgrounds or life-saving equipment is not acceptable.
- To place the caches in specific public places, like the Tilgate Forest, I would have needed to notify the Forestry Commission. To avoid the hassle, I decided to change the location of the cache I wanted to put there.
- If you wonder why there are only 6 caches while the rainbow colours are 7, it's because I got some stickers to put on the cache logs - small pieces of paper that are placed inside the caches where players can write their name to note down they have visited that cache. Those stickers only had 6 of the colours, and since those colours cover the rainbow colour range, I decided against having an extra cache.