Questions? We've got answers.

Cryptic Quests turns a city, town, or trail you choose into a story-driven outdoor adventure. You generate a one-of-a-kind quest, head outside with your phone, and follow GPS-guided clues from one real-world spot to the next while a narrative unfolds.

You pick a starting location, a theme, and a few preferences. Our system builds you a quest with a custom storyline, a series of clues at real places nearby, and original artwork. You head to the starting point, follow the clues, solve a few puzzles along the way, and finish with a bonus chapter and a downloadable keepsake of your adventure.

No. Cryptic Quests runs in your phone's web browser. You can pin the site to your home screen for an app-like experience, but there is nothing to install from an app store.

All of the above. One person registers and runs the quest from their phone, but you can absolutely bring a partner, friends, or family along. Younger players love being the one to spot the next clue. Just remember the quest follows the registered phone, so stay together.

Almost anywhere with a real-world location and reasonable cellular coverage. You can generate a quest centered on your current location or pin a spot on the map for a place you are planning to visit later. Most of the U.S. and major international cities work well.

There is no clock on a quest. Start when you want, take breaks, finish another day. We do recommend playing in daylight — clues are easier to spot, GPS works better, and many locations are public spaces that feel different (and safer) when the sun is up.

You pick the starting location, the mode (walking or driving), the distance you want covered, the theme, the story tone, the difficulty, the number of clues, and the visual style of the artwork. The system handles the rest — narrative, locations, puzzles, and images.

Six themes today: Mystery, Adventure, Spy, Urban Legends, Sci-Fi, and Epic Fantasy. Each one steers the storyline, the puzzles, and the artwork in a different direction — the same neighborhood plays completely differently as a noir mystery than it does as an epic fantasy.

Tone is the emotional flavor of the writing. Pick from Comedic & Goofy, Lighthearted & Fun, Classic & Engaging, or Dark & Suspenseful. A spy theme played comedic feels like a slapstick caper; played dark and suspenseful it feels like a Cold War thriller.

Five styles for the artwork that accompanies each chapter: Illustrated, Realistic, Comic Book, Watercolor, and Pencil Drawing. The style you pick is applied consistently across every image in the quest so the whole thing reads as one piece.

Usually a couple of minutes. We are pulling real points of interest near your starting location, writing a custom story around them, and generating original artwork for every chapter. We will keep you posted on the progress page while it works.

Either works. The simplest path is to use your current GPS reading, but you can also drop a pin anywhere on the map — handy for planning a quest at a vacation destination, a downtown area you are heading to later, or a friend's neighborhood for a visit.

Walking mode attempts to keeps clue locations close together, typically within a few blocks of one another, and is best for downtowns, parks, and neighborhoods. Driving mode spreads clues out across a much larger area and is meant for road trips and exploring a town from end to end. Pick the one that matches how you want to spend the day.

We work hard to make sure they are — we filter for parks, monuments, businesses, public art, historic sites, and similar destinations, and we exclude private property and restricted zones from our pool. If a generated location ever turns out to be closed, fenced off, or otherwise unreachable, you can skip it during play and report it so we improve future generations.

Generation is final once a credit is spent. Because every quest is original and built from real costs on our side, we cannot undo a generation. That said, you can always start a new quest with different settings — many players enjoy trying the same neighborhood with a different theme or tone to see how the story shifts.

One credit equals one generated quest. You buy credits up front through the Generate page. Bundle pricing means you can buy a few at a time, which costs less per quest than buying one at a time.

Credits you buy directly never expire — use them whenever you are ready, even months later. Credits added to your account by redeeming a gift code may carry an expiration date, depending on how the code was issued. You will see the expiration date on your account dashboard, and we will email you reminders before any of them lapse.

Direct peer-to-peer gifting is on the way. In the meantime, if you want to give Cryptic Quests as a gift, get in touch through the contact page and we can arrange a gift code for you to hand over.

Sign in, go to your account dashboard, and look for the redemption box near the top. Enter the code and the credits land in your account immediately. Each code can only be redeemed once.

Once a quest has been generated, that credit is spent and is not refundable — the cost of generating it (writing the story, generating the artwork) is already incurred on our side. Unused credits and unused gift codes are also non-refundable, but unused purchased credits never expire so you have all the time you need to use them.

If something goes wrong on our end during generation, your credit is not consumed and you can try again. If you ever see a credit disappear without a quest to show for it, send a note through the contact page with what happened and we will sort it out.

You land on a page with your starting location and the first chapter of your story. When you are ready, head out to the starting spot, open your quest from the account dashboard, and follow the clues from there. The first chapter sets up the story; from there each clue leads to the next location.

You will not get a passive ping from your pocket. When you think you are at or near the spot, you open the Clue Scanner — it confirms whether you are in range and unlocks the next chapter. Until you open it, the system is not actively scanning. That is by design: pulling out the Scanner and sweeping the area is half the fun.

It is the heart of how you actually pinpoint and unlock each location. Pop it open and it lights up a live GPS proximity scan: a directional arrow that points toward the clue, a distance readout that ticks down as you close in, and a lock-in sequence that fires once you cross into range. Think of it as a treasure-hunt scanner you sweep around the area until it picks up the signal — a tool you use, not a sensor that does the work for you. You can leave it open as you walk, or close it and reopen it whenever you want to take another reading.

Some clues are protected by a small puzzle. You might find a combination lock that needs a code hidden in the previous chapter's text, a lock-pick game that takes a steady hand, or a tap-sequence pattern to repeat. They take 30 seconds or so each and add a little bit of texture between locations.

Yes. Every clue has an "I give up" option. You can either skip the puzzle (if you have arrived at the location but cannot crack the lock) or skip the location entirely (if the place is closed, blocked off, or you cannot get to it). Skipped clues show a small badge in your quest history so you know which ones got bypassed.

Skip it using the "I give up" option, then use the "Report this clue" link on the chapter to let us know what was wrong. We review every report and add bad locations to our blocklist so they are not used again in future quests. You are helping the next player too.

Yes. Your progress is saved automatically. Close the page, go home, come back next weekend — your quest will be right where you left it on your account dashboard.

Once a quest is complete it stays in your account as a record of the adventure (with its keepsake), but you cannot replay the same quest. Generate a new one with a different theme or starting point — the story will be entirely new even if the locations overlap.

A reasonably modern Android or iOS phone (or tablet) with cellular data, GPS turned on, and a charged battery. That is it — no special hardware, no extra app.

Yes. The whole quest depends on knowing where you are relative to the next clue. Make sure location services are enabled for your browser before you start, and set GPS accuracy to its highest setting in your phone's settings.

The arrow points "as the crow flies" — straight at the clue location, not along streets or sidewalks. Walk around the obstacle and the bearing will update as you go. If the arrow itself feels miscalibrated, your phone's compass may need recalibration; a quick figure-8 motion with the phone usually does it.

Both, probably. Civilian GPS is accurate to within about 15 to 30 feet on a good day, and that variance is normal between two phones standing next to each other. Trust the average and move toward the location — the system gives both phones the same generous detection radius so you will both unlock at roughly the same spot.

Continuous GPS plus a screen-on map is one of the more battery-hungry things a phone does. Start with a charge of at least 50%, lower your screen brightness if you can read it comfortably, and bring a small portable battery for longer driving quests.

A bonus closing chapter wraps up the story, and the quest is marked complete on your account. You will get an option right then to download your keepsake — a designed PDF mini-book of the entire adventure with the cover, every chapter, the artwork, your stats, and a dated completion certificate.

A polished PDF you can save, print, or share. It is the whole story of your quest in book form — cover, foreword, every chapter with its image, a stats spread, and a certificate at the back. Printed at home it makes a nice memento; saved on your phone it is a record of where you went and what you found.

The keepsake is generated on demand and held briefly on our server. You can re-trigger it at any time from your completed quests list and we will rebuild it from your quest data — so even if some time has passed, the download is always available.

Please do. About a day after you finish, we will email you a link to share what you thought. Reviews help us improve the system and help future players know what to expect. You can also leave one any time from the completed quest in your account.

Yes. Generating, playing, and saving your keepsake all require a free account. Browsing the homepage and the help pages does not.

We send important things by email — purchase receipts, gift code redemptions, expiring-credit reminders, password resets, and security notices. Verifying your address makes sure those reach you, and it protects your account from someone else trying to use it. The verification link is good for one hour; we can resend it any time.

On your account update page, enter the new address and save. We send a confirmation link to the new inbox; clicking it finishes the swap. Until then your old address keeps working, and your old address gets a security notice so you know the change was requested.

Use the forgot password link on the sign-in page. We will email you a reset link that works for one hour. After five failed sign-in attempts in a short window your account will lock for a few minutes — that is intentional, and waiting it out then using the reset link is the right move.

Head to the contact page and send us a note. Account closures, billing questions, refund discussions, bug reports, and partnership inquiries all go through the same channel and we respond within a day.