Yo-kai Watch Scavenger Hunt Party

For the past few years, I have designed and created an elaborate scavenger hunt for my daughter’s birthday. As I started this year’s, I realized I never documented last year’s Yo-Kai Watch Scavenger Hunt!

The Set Up

My girlfriend’s sister is an amazing cake artist, so I know what I wanted to do – a Yo-kai hunt that would unlock a legendary Yo-kai (i.e. her cake). I had recently invested in a new craft printer and I was excited to use it!

I bought a “mystery kit” and some red-film decoders. I dressed the decoders up to look like the Yo-kai Watch and made a bunch of kids codes and hid them behind the red/yellow/blue noise that red-film sees through. I even made special Photoshop brushes for each Yo-kai type, so the noise was made up of the different Yo-kai Watch symbols.

It was difficult to get the printing just right so the red film worked well. It would often look totally see through on screen but then impossible to see though when printed or vice-versa. It took quite a bit of trial and error to get it just right.

I used the ring decoders from the kit to make a few puzzles and made a few others myself. Using classic kids ciphers like skip-letter code, morse code, grids, and the “tilted letters” puzzle, I had quite a few codes.

The Final Hunt

Hidden through out the house were little bags with the following:

Red-filmed version of the Yo-kai (looks easy to see here, but in print is harder to discern)
A red-filmed code for the next location
Code-breaking tools as needed

After the Yo-kai was correctly identified, I handed over a Medallion version of each Yo-kai (with a sticky back) for entry into the Legendary Medallium. Once the Medallion was filled, the Legendary Yo-kai would appear!

STEP 1

The hunt started with some Yo-kai coloring pages and sets of water colors I had set out for the kids. I had written a single letter on a few of the coloring pages in white crayon. As the kids competed their pages, a code was revealed. They quickly worked together to sort out the first clue – CLEAN.

STEP 2

Washogun is hiding under the kitchen counter in the cleaning supplies!

Along with his medallion, was 2-part red-film code (there were lots of kids and I wanted to divide up the work) and a cipher disk.
When decoded –
I LIKE TO BE ALONE
AND PARTY AT HOME.

Step 3

Hidabat was in my daughter’s closet! His medallion was accompanied by a red-filmed grid code.

When decoded:
ZREE IN A TREE (this is a bit of an inside joke about Yotsuba)

STEP 4

To the back yard! Cadin was hiding in a tree!

With his medallion obtained, another code needed to be solved. This was a simple “skip every other letter” code which revealed –
LET’S STAY UP LATE AND PLAY VIDEO GAMES

STEP 5

Hidden among the video game systems was Wydeawake! Such a bad influence.

His medallion was accompanied by a book cipher. My daughter was obsessed with the number 42, so The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the book she needed for the code –
ME WHERE YOU PEE