guide / field game and city game
You can put a field game together in one evening. All you need is an idea, a patch of ground and people who like to search. Here are all the steps — they work whether you build the game on paper or in Markerra Studio.
This guide is about games for adults. In the Markerra app, players must be 18 or older, each with their own account.
step 1
A team-building day, students on a trip, visitors at a trade fair, tourists on a trail — every group moves at its own pace. Count how many people will play, whether they go in teams or on their own, and how much time they have. For a first game, an hour to an hour and a half and a handful to a dozen or so points work well.
step 2
A park, an old town, a campus, an exhibition hall: the area suggests which puzzles make sense. Walk the route before the game. Check where it is safe, where it gets crowded and where there is cell signal. In Markerra, completing a point needs a connection, so skip spots with no signal. You choose the area: on private property or inside a venue, ask the owner or manager for permission.
step 3
A game pulls people in when it has a thread: a mystery to solve, the story of a place, or a code word built from letters collected along the way. One line of story at the start and one at the end is enough. The puzzles tell the rest.
step 4
Mix the kinds of puzzles: something to spot, a cipher, counting, a quick team huddle. For each point, pick one of four ways to complete it — we describe them below. You can combine all four in one game.
step 5
Leave a few minutes’ walk between points so players don’t crowd around the same spot. Decide whether the points go in order or in any order. In Markerra Studio you click a spot on the map and type in the puzzle — no coordinates to copy. The panel works out the game zone, where points can be completed, by itself. A published game can have up to 25 points.
step 6
A test run catches a typo in a code word, a QR code in a spot that is hard to reach, or a point behind a locked gate. Before publishing, go through the game in Studio — until then you can change points and puzzles as much as you like. After publishing, play the game on your own phone, just as your players will.
Publishing is free until 10 January 2027. A game takes up to 250 players over the whole period, and one account can have up to 3 published games at a time. After that date the game stops accepting players.
step 7
Every published game has its own six-character code. Put it on a poster or in an invitation, or just say it out loud. Players download the free Markerra app, sign in and enter the code. The app filters out repeats and wrong codes, and at the end everyone sees a completion confirmation. Where you meet after the game is up to you.
for step 4
A card with a code at the point. The easiest start: you print the cards straight from the panel.
A word or number found on site: a year on a plaque, an inscription on a monument. Nothing to hang up.
The point counts when the player actually gets there. Good for trails and large areas.
For advanced organizers: the player taps their phone on a tag. You buy a blank tag in any store and write it in the Markerra app.
city game
A city game is a field game in town: the points stand by streets, landmarks and squares. A field game can happen anywhere — in a park, a forest, on a campus or in a hall. You put them together the same way: the area, the puzzles, the points and a test run.
paper or app
You can run a classic game on paper: envelopes with puzzles, a map and someone at every point. An app takes the point-watching off your hands. It checks every code, saves each player’s progress and never counts the same point twice. That leaves you free to play along.
You can put a simple game with a few points together in one evening. Walking the area and coming up with puzzles takes the most time; setting up the points in Studio is quick.
To complete a point, yes — the server checks every code. When the signal is weak, the app lets you retry the same scan once the connection is back.
Adults, each with their own account. The organizer can be a company, a university, a museum or a municipality. Games for children and school classes are not possible in Markerra.
Building a game in Studio is free, and until 10 January 2027 publishing is free too. Taking part is always free for players.
