A close friend who loves programming and cybersecurity is getting married, and I'm planning his bucks night even though I'm not very familiar with hacking. I'd like to include a scavenger hunt where he unlocks each clue by solving a small, fake hacking challenge. I realize anything I build will probably be easy for him, but I'm looking for advice on where to start and whether anyone has tried something similar.
3 Answers
I’d avoid making every clue depend on technical skills. Give him a quick, satisfying challenge at the start, then use the unlocked clue to send the whole group to the next location. That way he gets the fun of solving something related to programming without the party turning into an hour of watching one person debug code.
You could start with an existing open-source beginner hacking puzzle and customize the clues, passwords, and theme for the groom. That would be much easier than building a complete challenge from scratch. If you want something more polished, hiring a developer to create a small custom game could also work.
Keep the hacking part simple and make it just one stage of the larger scavenger hunt. Watching someone work through a technical puzzle can take a while and tends to become a one-person activity, especially during a social event. A single webpage with a password box would be enough: the next clue could be hidden in the page’s basic JavaScript, so he has to inspect the source and solve a small puzzle. You can make the challenge easier or harder after testing it with someone else.
That sounds like the best balance. You can always add a backup hint or skip button so the schedule doesn’t get derailed if the puzzle takes longer than expected.