How to Create and Tips for Mystery-Solving Games for School Cultural Festivals

10 years as a kindergarten teacher / elementary school teacher / junior and senior high school teacher / childminderkepiko
Graduated from Kunitachi College of Music, Faculty of Music (now: Department of Music Culture and Education, Early Childhood Music Education major). In elementary school, my homeroom teacher was Jun Kusaba, a game researcher. After graduating from university, I worked as a kindergarten teacher for 10 years and as an after-school childcare instructor for 7 years, then took a position as a music teacher at an international school in Singapore. In addition to music education, I engaged in activities that introduced Japanese culture, traditional games, and recreational activities, working with many children. Later, through freelance writing, planning, and editing at Shogakukan, I met many delightful adults and experienced the joy of communicating and sharing. Drawing on the perspective cultivated in the field of education and my experience as an editor, I provide practical information with an emphasis on both input and output, mainly in areas related to music and children. My hobbies include instruments, singing, handicrafts, toys, drawing, traditional games, the outdoors, and books. My special skill is spinning-top tricks.
Editor-in-Chief, RAG MUSICHane Keisuke
Editor-in-chief of RAG MUSIC. JFC-certified fact-checker. After working in a music studio and handling wedding sound, joined the RAG MUSIC editorial team in 2016. Experienced with a variety of instruments: marching band in elementary school, clarinet in junior high school wind ensemble, and drums in a band from high school onward. Drawing on my own musical activities and the experience gained through my work, I produce daily articles, including various song introductions, features on music festivals around the country, and live reports. In music, I enjoy not only rock from Japan and abroad but, lately, a wide range of J-pop as well.

Puzzle solving that’s popular with everyone from kids to adults!

Events are held all over the country, and there are even TV shows that feature puzzle challenges—lots of people are hooked on their charm.

You might be thinking about incorporating puzzle solving as an attraction for a school or cultural festival.

In this article, we’ll show you how to create puzzle-solving activities that are perfect for festival booths!

We’ll also share tips for crafting problems and stories, so be sure to use them as a reference.

Let’s create a fun puzzle experience that can rival any event!

Tips for Storytelling (1–10)

Make it realistic and easy to visualize.

When deciding on a story, we recommend making your puzzle game’s setting a realistic, everyday world rather than a fantastical one.

No matter how important the story is, the heart of a puzzle game is the puzzles themselves.

If the story is too unrealistic, it can overshadow the puzzles, which should be the main focus.

Therefore, it’s preferable to create something as grounded as possible.

Use familiar places—like classrooms, trains, supermarkets, or homes—as the story’s base, and build the narrative around mysteries or incidents that occur there.

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Create it with 5W3H in mind.

To clearly convey what kind of story it is, the 5W3H framework is important.

The 5Ws are: “when” for time and date, “where” for place, “who” for people, “what” for things or events, and “why” for reasons.

The 3Hs are: “how” for method, “how many” for quantity, and “how much” for cost.

In other words, it’s crucial to clarify who did what, when, where, and why, and then specify how they did it, how many minutes or hours it took to solve the mystery, and what kind of reward awaits at the end.

When creating a story, be sure to think carefully about these elements as well.

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How to Create Puzzle Riddles (1–10)

Next, I’ll introduce how to create puzzle-solving problems.

When you look at puzzles published in real events or on TV, many people may feel that making them yourself seems difficult.

Generally, puzzle problems are created by first deciding on the answer and then working backward.

Just like the riddles we played with as children, you can create problems by starting from the answer and letting your ideas branch out in different directions.

From here, I’ll explain the mindset for making problems in more detail.

Try creating puzzles that everyone can enjoy solving.

Consider rules for solving puzzles

Once you’ve decided on the answer to the puzzle, you need to think about the rules that will be used to solve it.

Among those rules, the most common is transformation.

In other words, converting parts of the problem statement or likely key elements from hiragana to katakana, to kanji, or to English, or turning illustrations in the puzzle into text—these are all transformations.

You often see puzzles on TV quiz shows that are solved using such rules.

When creating a puzzle, by carefully considering what kind of rule you want solvers to use, you can spark insights in your audience and help them enjoy tackling the challenge.

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Create a problem statement that connects the answer with the puzzle’s underlying rule.

Once you’ve decided on the answers and the rule for solving the problems, it’s finally time to create the actual questions.

Craft the prompts so that the rule leads naturally to the correct answer.

However, as you draft questions, you may end up with ones that feel forced.

If that happens, it can cool your audience’s enthusiasm.

Take the time to refine your questions so that, when it’s time to check the answers, everyone can agree that they make sense.

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Tips for creating questions (1–10)

Next, I’ll introduce some tips for creating puzzle-solving challenges.

If you simply make problems and have people solve them, the game can become monotonous.

However, by adding a few small twists, the game becomes more enjoyable and players will feel more curiosity and excitement, wanting to keep going.

These are all easy ideas to implement, so be sure to try them after you’ve made your puzzles.

Also, if you integrate the puzzles and their presentation with the overall story, you can better honor and enhance the story’s worldbuilding!

Display it in a way that makes people want to solve the problem.

To let customers enjoy solving puzzles, the appearance of the problems matters too.

Rather than just having the questions written and placed there, many people feel more motivated to give them a try when elements like color, typography, and how the puzzles are set up are thoughtfully designed.

If the bare-bones style—just having the problem there—fits the story, that’s fine.

But if not, you’ll need a bit of ingenuity to help customers enjoy themselves more.

Let’s work together to come up with creative ways to present the puzzles.

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Make the problem feel slightly off and use that as a hint.

One useful tip for solving puzzle riddles is to notice the subtle sense of incongruity hidden within the problem.

Creating that feeling of incongruity within the puzzle is also a key technique for crafting puzzles that make hearts race with excitement.

For example, “It’s odd that this is in the picture,” “Doesn’t this phrasing feel strange in this sentence?” or “This looks like it could be converted into something else”—these are the kinds of points that create a sense of incongruity.

Build your puzzle so that using these points of incongruity as keys leads to the solution.

If the incongruity is too obvious, the puzzle is solved too quickly and isn’t interesting, so aim for that sweet spot where it takes a little thought to notice.

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