Treasure Hunt By Photos

What is Treasure Hunt by Photos app?

Treasure Hunt by Photo has two parts to it. First, a treasure hunt needs to be created, and then players must follow the clues.

Setting Up

As the creator of a photo-based treasure hunt you first choose a theme. Three themes are quite specific, with one ideal for a birthday party, another for Easter, and the third, for Halloween. The fourth uses coins, making it a neutral option for any other event or lesson you want to enhance with this app.

You’ll need to take photos of each location in the treasure hunt or have them already in your device’s photo app. Once you’ve added them, you can quickly delete or reorder them.

The app automatically allocates a clue code to each photograph which is convenient and time-saving. However, you can enter a different code, which might be an option that teachers can put to use for numeracy work.

You have the choice of using image matching to let players unlock clues by pointing their device's camera at a location to match the original photo.  If you don’t use this option, you’ll need to place a piece of paper with the code that the app allocates to the photo. 

Once you have entered all of the locations you want, you are done, if you have been using written clue codes.  If you are using image matching, the app needs to process the photos. You do this at the tap of a button and wait up to a few minutes, depending on how many photos you have and your device.  Newer, more powerful devices are quicker than older ones. This is a one time process for each game unless you make any changes, in which case, you’ll have to rerun it.

The treasure hunts you create are not trapped on your device. You can share each created game with friends via iCloud by inviting them from your contacts.  There are three game slots available for you to create treasure hunts. When these are full, you’ll need to clear one to make another.

Playing

When players find one of the clues, they must let the app know through the clue code you have left in the location or by using their device’s camera to match the image.

Once players have entered the clue code or achieved a positive match for the image, the app shows them the next photo clue and players begin searching again.

The overall purpose and structure of the treasure hunt are up to the creator.  You can let players know when the treasure hunt is complete in whatever way you choose with a reward or message at the final location. The app also tells the player that they have found the treasure when they reach the end.

What we love about Treasure Hunt by Photos app.

Adults worry that apps keep kids inactive and glued to their screens, even when the apps are educational.  Treasure Hunt by Photos redresses the balance a little by helping teachers and parents create a physical activity that kids can enjoy.

Treasure Hunt by Photo has got the level of sophistication and the price just right for this app. Parents and teachers probably won’t be creating treasure hunts every day, so it would be onerous to learn if the app had a steep learning curve with too many options.  If it were too expensive with ongoing costs, it would be hard to justify the purchase.

As it is, Treasure Hunt by Photo is a self-contained purchase at a low price that genuinely adds a new dimension to treasure hunts. 

What skills does it improve?

Treasure Hunt by Photos does not directly address any skills or knowledge; however, imaginative teachers and parents could put it to many uses both for fun and learning. 

What age is it appropriate for?

As Treasure Hunt by Photos is for creating and playing a treasure-hunt game, it could be used by any age group.  Even adults on staff training sometimes enjoy a little bit of fun!

Is Treasure Hunt by Photos app easy to use?

Treasure Hunt by Photos includes a detailed user guide. 

The app mostly uses typical navigating methods and uses speech bubbles as instructional overlays.  Its use of a $ sign to signify a start button is a little unintuitive, particularly as it sits next to text saying ‘Play Game’, which would have made an ideal start button.  However, you soon get used to this idiosyncrasy.

How will students benefit?

Kids who struggle with reading will love that this app lets them join a treasure hunt.  Its visual assistance for this activity opens it up for younger kids, those with literacy difficulties, and anyone else who might struggle with text. 

How will teachers benefit?

It can be very time consuming to plan and create one-off activities.  A treasure hunt is a lot of fun for kids and can be used to support different lessons, but it can take a lot of preparation.  Treasure Hunt by Photos makes this preparation much easier and quicker.

How will parents benefit?

Treasure Hunt by Photos could enhance Halloween, Easter and birthday celebrations with fun treasure hunts.  Purchase of this app will save a lot of time and organisation for very little cost making it a good value tool for parents.

Linking an app to physical activity is a good way of getting kids active when they’d prefer to be playing on a screen.  Having a couple of treasure hunts pre-prepared will give kids something active to do during long school holidays or rainy days.

What can Treasure Hunt by Photos app improve on?

Open-ended and flexible apps like Treasure Hunt by Photos benefit from a good supporting website.  Unfortunately, Treasure Hunt by Photos has only a simple, single-page website.

Expanding this to give lesson examples, topical ideas, and every other way the developer envisioned this app being played would help parents and teachers make the most of it.  At the moment, it is a bit too much of a blank slate, especially for parents who aren’t used to creating activities for kids.  Expanding the existing tips into a fuller guide would be very helpful.

The app could make more of the custom clue numbers by giving game creators ideas for using them in a numeracy activity.

If the app created a printable list of numbers used in each game, that would make setting up the treasure hunt easier.  The creator could cut each one out and place them alongside the items.

Good to know

Image matching, such as that used in this app, is not flawless.  You need to pick images that meet certain criteria so that the app can pick up on common and distinguishing features to match or reject.  During this review of Treasure Hunt by Photos, accuracy was good, but you should be prepared for occasions where a match is incorrectly made, or a correct match is not detected. 

The app does have options to deal with this detailed in its user guide.

Remember that players or teams will each need access to a compatible device to use the games you create.

How much does Treasure Hunt by Photos app cost?

Treasure Hunt by Photos does not have a free trial mode or cut-down play experience for trial, but this is understandable.  The app’s straightforward approach and design don’t leave much room to pare it down while still leaving an incentive to upgrade. 

What is included with the free version vs. paid?

Treasure Hunt by Photos is available as a single purchase.  There are no further in-app purchases.

Is Treasure Hunt by Photos app safe to use?

Treasure Hunt by Photos does not display advertisements, has no external links, and does not ask for any user data.

You will need to grant the app permission to use the device’s camera and photos.  You can share games you have prepared using iCloud, but only with people you have invited.  The app’s privacy policy states that this is the only external save of any game you create and that you can stop sharing it at any time.

Parents and teachers will need to ensure that the treasure hunt does not lead kids to any unsafe or unsupervised areas and that kids have a safe space to complete it.

Overall rating of the app

Treasure Hunt by Photo won’t be an app you start up every day, but this doesn’t matter at its low price.  Creating a photo-based treasure hunt without this app would be a lot of work and lack the image-matching feature, so it isn’t just a case of taking a physical activity and putting it on a computer—Treasure Hunt by Photo enhances the activity.

The app has a few style quirks and could use some extra supporting information for users, but if you think an activity like a treasure hunt could enhance an occasional lesson or activity with your kids, Treasure Hunt by Photo won’t disappoint you.

You can download Treasure Hunt By Photos on your iOS devices from the Apple App Store.