Hello, and welcome to The Great Oppo Hunt, the first ever Oppositelock coast-to-coast scavenger hunt. The goal of this game is to give people an opportunity to go exploring and find fascinating things in their area that they may have never known about, while still (hopefully) allowing people to be safe and maintain social distance (in other words expect everything I send you to find to be outside). This game is open to anyone and everyone across the United States. To those in other countries, I apologize. You are welcome to participate as well if you so desire, but you will likely find it very difficult to find many of the items on the scavenger list.
HOW TO JOIN: First off, you will need an Instagram account. If you already have one but don’t want to inundate your followers with scavenger hunt photos or don’t want to doxx yourself then you are welcome and encouraged to make a new account for the game.
Before the game starts you need to choose a team mascot. This is some portable object that you can bring with you on the scavenger hunt and photograph at the hunt location. This is to ensure no one uses old photos/someone else’s photos from the internet. Your mascot can be anything so long as it isn’t lewd/offensive (as determined by me. My game, my rules). Do keep in mind you’ll be walking around in public with this mascot, so keep your life size Fred Durst cardboard cutout at home if you won’t feel comfortable being seen in public with it. On the other hand, I might give bonus points for a mascot absurd enough to make me actually laugh out loud…
To sign up for the game you need to send a direct message to the @oppo_rally Instagram account. Include a photo of your mascot, the name of your mascot, and the name of your team as you want it to show up on any scoring/standings/game posts. This will allow me to follow you so I can track your submissions, as well as check for duplicate mascots. Make sure your team name is something that, when made into a hashtag, won’t be something that’s used constantly on Instagram. As an example: #TheLlootLlamas is good. #TeamBlessed is bad.
HOW TO PLAY: On Tuesday, August 4, at 2 PM Eastern a list of checkpoint items will be posted in Oppositelock, as well as on the Oppo Rally Instagram. These items are odd and offbeat enough to be interesting, but can still be found in pretty much every state. For example, it could be something like “highway sign with ‘69' on it (nice),” or “artillery gun that’s been turned into a monument/memorial,” or “dinosaur statue.” You will have until 3 AM Eastern on August 24 to locate and visit as many of these checkpoints as possible. To score a scavenger item you will need to take a photo of your mascot with the item/location and post it to your Instagram. Be sure to include the town and state the item is in, the item’s name if it has one (like “Mt Baker” or “Tacoma Narrows Bridge,”) and all the game hashtags, which will be listed at the top of the scavenger post when it goes up on August 4.
On occasion during the game period I will post 24/48 hour challenges for bonus points. These are things that can typically be done in/near your own home, or be done using things you have in your home, but you’ll only have one or two days to do them. These bonus items will be posted on the Oppo Rally Instagram.
COST TO PARTICIPATE: Nah. We good.
SCORING/WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT/PRIZES: This event is primarily for fun and bragging rights. While I’ve attempted to fill the scavenger list with things that can be found across the country I realize that there’s no way to ensure distribution of the items on the list is even for everyone. Some people will have more items in their vicinity than others and there’s nothing I can do about that, which is why there won’t be the bevy of fabulous valuable prizes that usually greet the winner of an Oppo Rally. That said, resident artist Arch Duke Maxyenko has offered up one of his automotive art prints to the winner.
There will be a publicly viewable spreadsheet for competitor standings throughout the game. Depending on the number of participants, as well as how much of my time work/life takes up I may at times fall a few days behind on scoring. Please be patient if that happens at any point. (If one or two others want to volunteer to help maintain the sheet that would be appreciated). Similarly it may take me a few days/a week to compile results at the end of the event (particularly as I’ll be traveling August 26-30 for a stage rally).
F.A.Q.: I’ll post any questions about the game up here for easy viewing so people don’t have to check the comments to see if something’s already been asked. Be sure to check back on occasion.
Q: Why is the game duration so long?
A: I created the large game window as a way to insure everyone should be able to at least have one or two available days where they can go hunting. While, in theory, this does give an advantage to those with more free time, I expect most people will be restricted by distance and item proximity before they’re restricted by time.
Thank you, everyone, for your interest and support during the development of this game. I look forward to bringing it to you in a couple weeks!