Candy Cane Quest
The Great Christmas Candy Cane Quest
Santa’s Infinity Candy Canes were delivered to the wrong town. Twenty magical characters are holding on to them, and only your families can win them back.
- Ages
- 4 to 11
- Stops
- 20 characters
- Play time
- 1 to 2 hours
- You print
- 20 A4 posters
From £19.99
On the day
What families do at every stop
Step 1: Find the poster
Every character has a poster with its magic summoning words. Type them in to wake the character up.
Step 2: Beat the challenge
A quick game or a quiz question at every stop: catch the snowflakes, rebuild the reindeer, slide the puzzle.
Step 3: Meet the character
Frosty McJolly, the Caroling Mice, Krampus and friends, each with their own scene and their own nonsense.
Step 4: Win a candy cane
Every stop ends with a candy cane for the collection. Twenty to find before the sleigh can fly.
The story
What your families are walking into
Santa’s sleigh does not run on reindeer alone. It runs on Christmas cheer, stored in the Infinity Candy Canes. This year an elf with a clipboard has shipped every last one of them to the wrong place. Yours.
The candy canes have scattered across your town, and twenty magical characters have picked them up: a snowman who is very pleased with how cool he is, a grumpy Christmas tree, carol-singing mice, the Yule Cat, Krampus, La Befana, Jack Frost and a gingerbread unicorn among them.
Every character will hand their candy cane over, but only to a family who finds the magic summoning words on their poster, says hello properly, and beats their challenge. Collect all twenty and Christmas is back on.
Warm, silly and squarely aimed at primary-age children and their grown-ups. Built for a school or PTA fundraiser and run that way twice.
Meet the cast
The story opens at the North Pole. 
"Due to an administrative error…" 
Frosty McJolly, stop one. 
The Christmas Fairy. 
The Caroling Mice. 
Krampus, for the braver stops. 
One of four sliding-tile puzzles. 
The finale, once all 20 are found.
For the organiser
Four steps from here to your first family
- 1
Buy the trail
One fee covers your organisation for the season. You get the whole story, all the artwork and all the games, ready to place.
- 2
Make it yours
Tell the wizard your town and your group’s name and it writes them through the story. Then drop the twenty character stops onto your own map: the school gate, the bakery window, the park railings.
- 3
Print and put up the posters
You get a print-ready A4 poster for every stop, each carrying that character’s magic summoning words. Print them at home, at school or at a print shop, laminate them if you can, and put them up where families will find them.
- 4
Families open the link and play
They open the trail on any phone from your link, the short code, or the QR code printed on every poster. Then they follow your map and find the magic summoning words at each poster to work through the characters in whatever order they like. You watch the progress come in.
Everything in the box
20 character stops, plus an opening and a finale
22 stops in all. Each character gets an illustrated introduction, a challenge and a candy-cane reveal, wrapped in a story that opens at the North Pole and ends with the sleigh taking off.
28 riddles and questions
20 magic-summoning-word puzzles that only work if the family has actually reached the poster, and 8 Christmas quiz questions: Dickens, mistletoe, the Trafalgar Square tree, sprouts.
12 mini-games
Tap the falling snowflakes, baubles and presents; rebuild Mrs Claus, the reindeer, the gingerbread man, the Christmas robot and the Christmas monster from sliced-up pictures; and slide four picture puzzles back into shape.
20 candy-cane reveals
Every win ends in a starburst animation and a candy cane added to the family’s collection, so there is a visible score to chase all the way round.
Snow, all the way through
Falling snow, baubles and presents drift over the artwork on every screen. It looks like Christmas from the first tap.
Plays in the phone’s browser
Families open the trail from a link or a short code, the same way you would open any web page. No app store, nothing to download, no waiting in the cold while an install finishes.
What you’ll need
The honest list. Better to know now than the week before you launch.
One phone per family
Any smartphone from roughly the last six years, with a data connection to open the trail link. No AR in this trail, and nothing has to be scanned at a stop: families read the magic summoning words off the poster and type them in. Older handsets are fine.
Somewhere to put 20 posters
Front gardens, shop windows, park railings, school fences. Because the magic summoning words are printed on the posters, families have to physically reach each one, so the posters need to be visible from a pavement.
Access to a printer or a print shop
About 20 A4 colour posters. Most organisers print at home or at the school office and laminate them against December weather. A local print shop works just as well if you would rather not.
An hour, then an afternoon
About an hour in the wizard to personalise the story and place the twenty stops on your map, then an afternoon walking round with a staple gun and a flask.
An adult with each group
It is a walking trail on real streets. Children play with a grown-up, and we say so on the opening screen.
Pricing
Run Candy Cane Quest this Christmas
From £19.99
per trail, one-off
One payment for one run of the trail in your area, for as long as your season lasts. Group and multi-site rates are available. Get in touch and we will confirm your price before you launch.
Running it for several schools or sites? Ask us about group rates.
What the price covers
- The full 22-stop story, artwork and games
- Your place name written through the script
- Print-ready A4 posters for every stop, generated for you
- Live progress for your organisers
- Email support through your run
Questions
The things organisers ask first
What ages is it for?
It was built for a primary school, so roughly 4 to 11 with a grown-up. Younger children love the characters and the tapping games; older ones take over the quiz questions and the sliding puzzles.
How long does a family take?
One to two hours for all twenty stops, depending on how far apart you place them and how long everyone stands about looking at the mice. Families can stop and come back later, and their progress is kept.
Do we have to use all twenty stops?
No. Place as many as your route can carry. A ten-stop version around one park works perfectly well, and the story still opens and closes properly.
Can we change the wording?
Your place name is filled in for you. Beyond that you can edit any screen after the wizard has built the trail, so local jokes and street names are easy to add.
What if a poster goes missing or gets damaged?
It happens: wind, weather, or someone tidying up a lamp post. Every magic summoning word is also shown in your organiser dashboard, so you can read a family the answer over the phone or print a replacement poster in a minute.
Can we laminate the posters?
Please do. They print straight from your dashboard on plain A4, and lamination is the difference between a poster that survives a fortnight of December weather and one that does not.
What happens if it rains?
The trail sits on your map, not on a calendar, so families play whenever suits them across the window you set. Most organisers run theirs over a fortnight in December and let people pick a dry afternoon.
How many families can play at once?
There is no cap and no queue. Everyone plays on their own phone, at their own pace, in whatever order they like. A hundred families on the same Saturday is no different to one.
Do we need to be there while people play?
No. Families play on their own, at their own pace. You will want to walk the route now and then to check the stops are still in place, and some organisers staff a start point on the busiest days to sell codes and refreshments, but nobody needs to stand at a stop.
Is it safe for children?
Families play together under adult supervision, and we say so on the opening screen. Children never make accounts and we never ask them for names or personal details. We count anonymous, cookieless usage so we can improve the trails, and players can switch that off. Pick your stops the way you would plan any walk: pavements, daylight, and nothing that needs crossing a busy road.
Does it work with no signal?
Screens load as families reach each stop, so patchy 4G is fine but a true dead spot is not. If part of your route has no coverage, tell us when you set up and we will help you place the stops around it.
How accessible is it?
Text can be enlarged with the phone’s own settings, every screen works one-handed in portrait, and you choose the route, so you control step-free access, distance and gradient. Families can also skip a challenge and carry on rather than getting stuck.
Also this Christmas
Creature Chronicle
An augmented-reality photo safari. Twelve festive creatures appear through the phone camera at twelve spots on your map, and families have to line up the shot before they bolt.