Munich: “Unboxed Tactics” offers virtual scavenger hunts – Munich
“I have always found entrepreneurship rather unsympathetic,” says Jonas Schmidt. He is more of the creative type, and has never dreamed of his own start-up like so many others. Now he’s a founder, doing things like attractive marketing and website optimization – and sounds quite enthusiastic when he talks about it. He and Adrian Traganis, Schmidt’s business partner and former school colleague, went on virtual scavenger hunts through Munich. Whoever takes part is out and about, he or she solves the puzzles on the mobile phone.
The two want to combine two things with “Unboxed Tactics”. Gamers should learn something about the place where they are traveling – and they should solve a criminal case. Logic is important, says Schmidt: “We don’t just want to string together senseless puzzles.” The two address very different people with their idea. This year there were many larger groups, says Schmidt, school classes, for example, or companies. “Some want to use it to upgrade their Sunday stroll.” Sometimes people want to replace the classic city tour with the tours, but the basic tendency was shown by a survey by the two of them: People come mainly because of the puzzles.
How dying looks is very different. Whoever tries the tour “Tatort Olympiapark”, the most popular tour of the two, has to look for a number on a surveillance camera at the subway station, another time examine a criminal’s letter displayed on the cell phone and find a logic to uncover the information hidden in it recognize. The players enter the answers into their mobile phones, and those who can’t figure it out can get tips. If a puzzle is solved, information is displayed: Sometimes only that. The current location of Riem as the main airfield of the city of war.
Without the lockdown, the project would probably never have come about
Schmidt and Traganis started the tours during the first corona lockdown in March 2020. Both were 17 at the time and were in eleventh grade. Homeschooling was the name of the game, “otherwise you couldn’t do anything anyway,” says Schmidt. So there was time to gradually build up the project. The technology and the basic idea did not come from the two of them themselves. The team from “City Quest”, which comes from the escape room industry, asked them whether they, as two of several creators, would not even try such tours want. Later the two built the website, the tours they all made up themselves. Today, “City Quest” is said to be “really proud” of both of them.
Schmidt is now studying philosophy, and Traganis will soon be starting dual business studies. They are developing the tours on the side, there are four in total for Munich. When taking a new tour, you always ask yourself what the place has to offer: How can you get in touch with the “real world”? Then they write texts, create cards. For the respective scavenger hunts, they need to analyze data: How long do people die, at what point do they stop? They now also offer gift boxes. How to build a website, where to best place what information, how to find it more easily on Google: You have acquired the knowledge yourself, through YouTube videos and blog articles. In monetary terms, they both come to a few hundred euros a month after deducting the expenses, says Schmidt: “The idea wasn’t how to earn as much money as possible, but when the first 50 euros came in, it was really cool.”
“How many small mini internships in different areas”
Today Schmidt has even made friends with the start-up mentality. “It’s like a lot of small mini-internships in different areas”, that’s how he sees it. Above all, it’s fun to think about the tours and to research the various locations. In the summer of 2021, graduating from high school, the two were on the road for a few weeks and drove to other cities. Because: They are now also offering tours there. In Vienna, for example, in Hamburg and Bremen. Friends and acquaintances are then called in to determine which locations would be suitable, and they also take on the test games.
Did you ever have doubts about the project, or did the whole thing become too much for you? Schmidt believes that there was no financial pressure to put in, investing time and ideas above all else – and one would have had enough of that in lockdown anyway. “In principle, we had nothing to lose.”
Those interested can find the tours at www.unboxedtactics.de. For those who play games, the information that you sometimes have to make do with a mobile phone flashlight in the dark – and that ski gloves are certainly not out of place on the two-hour tours, should be relevant.