Cluedupp GeoGames Reviews

by CKGTJG

I was super excited for the Beauty and the Beast experience. Based on the advertising, I expected a set up of Beauty and the Beast pathways and characters and an interactive experience. The whole game was done through ClueduppGeoGames just in the downtown area; no decor, sets, characters, or anything. There was nothing to this other than the storyline and ClueduppGeoGames . I also thought it would be full Beauty and the Beast themed, but the game brought in several fairytale characters not in Beauty and the Beast at all. My sister in law and I wanted to see it through, but we gave up after we thought we beat the game only to find out there were additional parts of the mission. I also paid $40 for this experience, and I don't know what that's for other than possibly advertising since there's nothing besides ClueduppGeoGames . It should be advertised as an app game experience if that's what it is!

by Stankbait68

The primary reason for one star is ClueduppGeoGames does not work as intended. As another user from March 2022 stated, ClueduppGeoGames would not unlock objectives, while others using the same app had zero issues getting near the objectives to unlock them. The saving Grace today was my girlfriend did not have the same issue but we had to stop playing for an hour to let her phone recharge to continue playing. We started the game with 75% battery on her phone and went down to 10% within 45 min. (Battery hog for an app, yes I understand persistent map usage and location causes this; but cleaner coding can be done to make it better). Additionally, for $80 this should have live actors for significant events, witnesses, etc. For $20, I went to a fully cast Art Heist scenario with suspects, police and bystanders with a much smaller area and more interaction. This on top of comments others have added that the entire game could be played from a couch once inside the game zone. This could be so much more for the money and needs to be rethought as we saw no less than 20+ groups running around checking out geotags on an app map with no real need to pay attention to anything.

by KThugs3

I didn’t know what to expect with the Alice in Wonderland experience…. But I can honestly say that it was all an app.. there were no photo opportunities or prizes to win. Unless we saw other teams who dressed up, there were no characters or anything else affiliated with the actual game. Some of the riddles and clues made no sense… like the one where the answer was church. We talked to a few teams during the day, and everyone said that while it was nice to get out of the house and do some exercises (why I’m giving it one star, and not completely starless lol), but they thought there would be more involvement to some extent.

Overall, we will not be doing any more games. We’re lucky that they were doing a fall festival on market street at the same time and day as the Alice in wonderland experience, so we stopped playing the game about 30 minutes in and just ended up shopping and catching live music with the fall festival.

by Ynrethi.an

ClueduppGeoGames itself glitches and freezes constantly, requiring team members to force restart and swap leadership every few minutes in order to force it to work. The location is highly inaccurate, and often shows users at the far end of a street instead of their actual location. It often does not log team activity until forced restart. It also is a complete power drain for ClueduppGeoGames size.

As for the event? Not disability friendly at all. Many stages require walking fairly quickly, and the final stage today requires the leader to run at a dead sprint (I aggravated my arthritis to the extreme and made it with three seconds to spare, sobbing in pain…and I was the MOST capable). There are no work-arounds for these, so it’s extremely unfriendly to participants with mobility issues or children, especially in busy city centers with many crosswalk lights.

The event was advertised as if there would be some sort of decorated scenery or activities along the route. We paid $40 and others paid $80 for this. For that cost we got some people showing up in cosplay so we could wander the Cleveland business district DURING A BASEBALL GAME (good luck finding parking) and stare at construction zones and luxury apartment buildings, all while using a broken app and being unable to fully enjoy or participate due to physical ability.

It’s not worth the money at all.

by Zombieluvre

If I could choose 0 stars that’s what I would give this game. ClueduppGeoGames would freeze on half our team members phones so we would get penalized for them not participating. The places should have been put in closer proximity to each other so that we were not having to go back and forth. Would have been nice if there were props or something. Only the leader could really participate so everyone else was locked out of things and it would say “leader can unlock this” but there was no way for it to be unlocked until the leader completed the challenge…that often wasn’t even a challenge. It was stupid. We quit 1/4 way through and went out to eat. I knew another group of people who went at an earlier time and they also quit. Wish I would have talked to them before we wasted our day! Poorly done and a waste of $60 for the game and $10 to park. If I could get a refund I would!

by Chellgirl

We absolutely love the idea of this system and love most of it. My friends and I are very much into dressing up, however each year we have issues with with the program. We spend most of our time trying to figure out where we are to go to next. This last one (beauty and the Beast) we had to forfeit because it wouldn’t let us finish. We had no idea where to go next or what do do next. It was very frustrating. The year before Alice in wonderland felt the same way but was a little neater. Also Manchester NH was where we had our scavenger hunt. Next time it might be best to check the spots, we were walking around in full costume in very questionable roads. We had to walk by and threw many homeless and horrible roads. Many of our group were hit on numerous times.
We are wondering if we want to continue next year. We love to dress up and enjoy but not for 3 hours and with no real ending.

by TK Fareed

This event description was severely overdramatized and misleading, claiming that the streets of Buffalo would be “transformed” into a wonderland experience, where in reality you could accomplish this entire event from the comfort of an air conditioned brewery located anywhere in the city without ever setting foot on the actual designated course. There were no decorations, no uniting theme, no coordinators in costume (or at all present at the event to be found). This “immersive escape room” was nothing more than an app lazily ushering event goers around one city block over the course of several hours. The creators of this event made no attempt to incorporate any of the preexisting art or architecture, which would have easily fit into the Alice in Wonderland theme, into the escape room course. Additionally, there were very few patrons in costume for the event, leaving our party who fully committed to theme, feeling awkward and underwhelmed. Do not attend this event with any expectations of having an immersive themed experience.

by Lib369

ClueduppGeoGames shattered our family’s reality. My brother had an allergy attack in the middle of the street, because the construction on the road kicked up dust as we wandered aimlessly in circles, due to a lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames . My niece became so overwhelmed that she ran away from the group, had a nervous breakdown, and locked herself in my car, due to the lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames . My friend, who is suffering from a severe toothache, but still got her her teenage daughter out of bed to come with us, is no longer a friend, due to the lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames . My other niece has lost any type of confidence to lead (which she barely had in the first place), causing an immediate spiral into depression, due to a lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames . And me? Frankly, I enjoyed the game, due to a lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames . Watching them spiral was more than enough reward for me. This game was truly a Stuart-sized crap chute, and the only reason I’m giving it one star is that my family has finally agreed to get the help they need, due to the lack of instructions on ClueduppGeoGames .

by Not A Real Chef

Our entire team felt that this game was misrepresented in the previews. There was absolutely no interaction other than with our phone screens the entire time. The goal was to get our families outside and away from screen time. The kids were bored out of their skulls and complaining constantly. There was absolutely nothing for them to do or be involved in because they didn’t have phones. We had two five-year-olds with us who were looking so forward to this and it was an absolute bust. The clues made no sense and were so confusing and hard to figure out. All we did was walk around in circles trying to follow a map that kept freezing and changing direction. There was absolutely no human interaction unless we spoke to somebody on other teams to help us with the clues. from the previews, it looked as though this game was going to have props and decorations throughout the route, people from the company marketing the “adventure” dressed up as characters for us to interact as we went along, fun photo ops and all the family would be involved. It was absolutely nothing like that at all. We rolled out and ditched the game about 40 minutes in. Don’t waste your money! If I could get mine back I would love to know how.

by SunflowerStorm

This “game” is a total scam. All you do is walk around until you’re in the right location for your GPS. Then it will pop up with a story and you’ll have to do a super easy mini game or solve an obvious clue puzzle. There is nothing real world about this other than the other teams playing who are also walking around. ClueduppGeoGames took us to generally unsafe areas and had timers where you would have to cross the street and run to another spot on the map within the time limit. ClueduppGeoGames is also horrible. ClueduppGeoGames crashed during one of the puzzles so we failed because I couldn’t participate. You have a designated “team leader” who will sometimes have solo challenges on their phone. It’s not very inclusive to the whole group, PLUS anyone can take leadership at any time which is quite confusing. If the leader skips the story on their device, it goes away on all other devices and no one else can read it. My family and I really wasted 2 hours of our life doing this thing. You would be better off taking a walk around a park or going to a real life escape room. Don’t waste your money!!!

by Boom72000

We worked on this for several hours before getting to a part that we couldn’t access the Suspect even though we were RIGHT in that area! The GPS said we were standing in the middle of the street when we were several feet away. One guy told us that the area we were in was probably too crowded/populated that it wasn’t identifying us as being there when we were right on top of the arrow pointing to the suspect. We went to 3 places (Forensic Lab, Anonymous Tip, and one suspect) that didn’t recognize our location. We walked around in the same areas all with our phones up like we’re looking for a signal before we gave up cause we’d skip it with a time punishment. This took hours of walking around in circles with no open bathroom to use. While this started off fun it quickly lost the enjoyment aspect when it didn’t recognize any of our phones at the location it told us to go to. We asked several strangers who was playing if they could get it and they said maybe the tall building interfered with the gps but either way, it sucked. We all have new and updated iPhones however none of them was being acknowledged.

by Steveyboy1223444

ClueduppGeoGames is setup ok and sorta works. What is disappointing is that it is super app heavy. The game looks kid friendly but most of our time was spent with fighting children over a phone. We ended up bailing early! Not really a kid friendly atmosphere. The locations chosen were random and there wasn’t any theming with the locations chosen. The Rook castle was near a laundromat and despite there being a real hatter room the mad hatter was some random street! They might as well have just let you choose your location or auto populate a place around your block , would have saved me a trip to Dallas.

Finally, there was a real safety concern. There was a protest downtown with several ar15 armed ANTIFA people. This made our exploration less as we were scared to be around armed people who could fire off a gun any minute!

Your better off playing Pokémon go or just geocaching in your local area.

by What The Whaaa!

This is an overpriced scavenger hunt appt. The best I can explain ClueduppGeoGames is like Pokémon Go except that app is free.

TICKETS: Automatically priced at $40 for 6 people (NOT SOLD PER TICKET)
DATE: A date is assigned to you. If you cannot attend that date, you forfeit your money and game.
LOCATION: Public park AND in front of neighborhood home.
APP: All 6 players download ClueduppGeoGames . You open ClueduppGeoGames and it has a map of the location you’re at. There will be a photo of a unknown cards on the map that you’re supposed to walk to. When you click on the card, there will be a riddle or game. You continue walking around the park and neighborhood until you are all done unlocking the cards.

*This is the whole process of everything. There are NO WORKERS OR NO DECORATIONS. I would say the most awkward thing is that you will be in front of a strangers house for a good 5 mins or so looking at ClueduppGeoGames , trying to figure out the riddle or play the game. It is unnecessary for the tickets to be sold for 6 people. ClueduppGeoGames only allows for 1 person if anything. Walking around figuring out the scavenger hunt will probably talk you anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours long more or less.

by Sblueyez

We were “over it” after an hour and a half. We ended up advancing past all of the verbiage in the clues so had no idea “whodunnit” and earned ourselves a 2 hour penalty incorrectly guessing at the end.

One very specific irritating part was standing in front of a bookstore that had bookstore in the name but the only acceptable answers were book shop or bookshop. Bookstore or book store should have also been acceptable. We earned a 12 minute time penalty there. If not for that penalty (and the 2 hours earned incorrectly guessing the murderer) we would have been first to finish today. So this semantics issue would have lost us the game.

I am glad I did not pay money for this and it was gifted. The actual app and the spells you have to use etc are good but the storyline are just copious amounts of reading and are irritatingly long.

by Tamgboy5000

Instructions are nonexistent. The GPS doesn’t work well in a tall building environment like downtowns, so you can’t get clues or witnesses to activate, and end up just taking the time penalty to activate it. Speaking of time penalties, there are a lot of them and little to no warning. Our team leader logged in while we were still at home, and we got a 20 minute penalty for not being in the play area. I thought the riddles were all pretty childish. The “clues” are more like statements of fact, and it was ridiculously obvious who the killer and weapon were after visiting just a few of the spots. I’m glad someone else paid for this, because I would be demanding a refund. The only reason it’s not 1 star, is because I did enjoy seeing the other teams running around in their costumes, but other than that, it’s a total waste of time and money.

by Cody1255

The game overall wasn’t great. It’s a very neat concept, but wasn’t well executed. ClueduppGeoGames is very glitchy, and if you press the buttons too fast, then ClueduppGeoGames freezes up, and you have to quit and restart it. The basis of the game is that you go around town and put your “dot” within a witness circle, (and it’s hard to get your GPS positioned in the right place) and you solve a riddle, that sometimes makes sense and sometimes doesn’t, then it will open a statement that you read, you can ask a set of questions (doesn’t really give you any info). Once you read enough witness statements, then it’s clear who the suspect is and what the weapon was. It was neat to see others dressed up, but unfortunately it was pouring down rain most of the day. A lot of people got in their vehicles and drove around, which turned out to save a lot of time, as we found out towards the end. It was just okay, and I probably wouldn’t do it again.

by Zfsgdhdfhdedx

I was expecting a whole themed experience based on the ads. There was no “experience.” No decor, no actors—just lots of lost and confused players wandering downtown and nearly losing babies while staring at their phones. Some of the locations were really questionable and definitely poorly chosen (one of the tweedles was by an abandoned storage container outside a derelict building, for example). The clues to be solved were either way too easy or impossibly confusing. (There was one word puzzle at the beginning no one around us understood, even when we forfeited and got the answer.) we ended up taking a break for lunch and solving most of the puzzles there (taking the time penalties for not actually navigating to the places), and then completed it on the way home. It was, overall, disappointing.

by Nf207

ClueduppGeoGames does not stand alone - you’ll use it in conjunction with a game ticket that is purchased through the CluedUpp company. I played for the first time in May 2022 and felt that ClueduppGeoGames lacked sufficient instructions for first time users. My team lost many valuable minutes (at a cost to the game outcome) just trying to figure out what ClueduppGeoGames wanted us to do. Our request for real time help was not acknowledged. So we were left to wander somewhat aimlessly, getting progressively more frustrated that we could have had a better game experience if we just had a little more context for ClueduppGeoGames . Nothing a pint couldn’t fix, but still, we were there to play!!!

For the developer: I would suggest adding a few prompts/help bubbles for the first few actions one must take in the game to be successful. This doesn’t need to give anything away, just hold the user’s hand for say the first 15-30 minutes. While a workflow design would also be advantageous, it may take the challenge completely out of the game. So perhaps the user could opt for an easy vs hard experience, with a small time penalty charged for the easy choice.

by Grace And Stars

We had a great time…fun concept. BUT…several technical issues with the game app. When attempting to submit evidence to labs and interviewing witnesses, ClueduppGeoGames would not recognize our geotracking location and so we couldn’t engage with the game. It was affecting all members of our team and many other teams in similar spots. In order to interact with those locations we had to circumvent the problem and “buy” the interviews or lab results with having time docked against us. This caused a loss of 40 MINUTES! Very frustrating. Other times it would take several attempts for ClueduppGeoGames to recognize our location, we attempted to come back through the area and check in again. Lots of walking around to navigate glitches.

The concept is great, but with these technical issues and glitches, it makes for a long day and unfair disadvantages.

by Em(rocks)

Went to this Saturday as a belated bday present. Had 4 adults and a 5 year old. We dressed up, which was fun.

This was pretty disappointing. I love Alice in Wonderland, and for some reason I thought there would be props or maybe photo ops along the path. Nothing. All in ClueduppGeoGames . Not even signs at each location, or anywhere. It was incredibly boring for my 5 year old, no matter how much I tried to include her in the games/puzzles/reading. We ended up having to pause about halfway through to give her something to do that would entertain her, losing out on being even in the top 100.

The quest itself is cute, and the puzzles are fairly easy. I was a little disappointed by the lack of “Alice” trivia. One of the locations was nearly impossible to get to because the area was blocked off with fencing (construction). I really did expect this event to be MORE than it was.

Loved seeing everybody’s costumes, but credit goes to the other players for that and definitely not the company. It would have been nice to at least have some pictures at each location if it’s too much to hire actors to play roles. Maybe have a couple photo ops in areas with less traffic… will not buy again.

by Top Invesigator

It was a fun game and got us out of the house. It let you see places in town that you may have not visited. It would be a great game for people visiting that may not know the area. It was a lot of walking so wear comfy shoes. The only thing I didn’t like was after we visited some people other things/locations in the map appeared making us back track our steps to a place we were already at. I understand why they did it but they could have put it in a closer location. Also it was hard to get started. I had to ask players that had already started playing what to do. Even then the steps were not clear. Maybe a tutorial with the instructions would have been better in helping us see what we would be doing.

by AmyZing USA

Overall fun time. Played in safe NH small city setting with good gps location tracking signals. The set up is similar to pokemon go (all virtual) but timed there’s no staff or physical signs or hard evidence. Had 9am-5pm to play. Walking around to find clues and witnesses within 1 mile radius while collecting random things to help decrease total time. While solving trick questions and puzzles at most locations (about 20-30 spots) (more spots would pop up after). Some of the trick questions were difficult so we cheated a little lol. The culprit is somewhat easy but tricky to figure out. I would say easy to moderate level difficulty. We got it in 2 hours. Definitely take notes in notepad and use up the witness questions option! The hints weren’t that helpful. Also you can have more people on your team but can only use up to 6 devices to read clues so share devices! Bring battery backup and drinks! Downfall you had to read tiny print clues I wish there was more sounds and voiceovers and sometimes had to go to exact location (like specific side of street) within a few yards to get clues.

by DebitCard4444

Really love the concept of this game. ClueduppGeoGames provided a great mix of traditional clues, riddles to solve, making us look around and notice something in the area, and character stories. You’re basically on a GPS map and trying to move to a large number of clues (like 40 some) in a several block radius. The only reason I didn’t give this 5 stars was because sometimes the map was finicky and didn’t stay oriented the way you wanted it or the GPS would be a little off or not register, so it slowed us down in getting some of the clues, you’d have to stand on a clue for a while before the clue would open sometimes. But it’s a great way to spend a few hours and overall ClueduppGeoGames was very user friendly.

by Yankeebrat

My mom bought a ticket for myself, husband, my mom and a couple friends to spend the day catching the ripper! We had such a blast and loved the real time clues as we walked the area! (Make sure your cell service is on the best tower and most up to date for the fastest results) instructions on penalties could have been explained a bit better up front but overall this was a fun experience and we made incredible memories! We loved also winning best team photo! The laughs we shared and time spent together will forever be one of my favorite birthdays ever!! 🥰🥳