Spy Mission

What Happens

Headquarters has gone quiet. There's a code word that will bring them back, but it was broken into five pieces and hidden around your house so the wrong people couldn't find it. Your agents are the right people.

Each piece is a dead drop: one page, one small puzzle, one letter. A number to turn into a letter. A letter hiding in a crowd of others. A number the way the Romans wrote it. A word written backwards that only reads right in a mirror. A flock of birds to count. Every letter goes in its own box on the transmission sheet, and when all five are in, they read the code word out loud to send the signal.

Made for eight year olds. Every puzzle is solved by counting or by looking, never by holding two things in your head at once. Nobody gets stuck on the first page and misses the other four.

Any order works. The drops can be found in any order, and the boxes on the transmission sheet are numbered, so nobody has to keep track. Watching the boxes fill up one at a time is what keeps them going.

You are the Escape Master. Hide five pages, read one paragraph out loud, then sit down. Your pages give you the answers and what to say when somebody stalls, gentlest nudge first.

Twelve pages to print on plain paper, and about twenty minutes of setup, most of it cutting out eight agent badges. Every agent writes their own code name, and everybody who finishes gets a certificate.

For two to eight players, eight and up. It works for a birthday party, a sleepover, or a rainy afternoon.