Cabin Fever Kit

The premise

Day three at the cabin. The road is snowed in, the power flickers, and somebody finds a box under the stairs labelled "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE THAW." Naturally, you open it. Inside are letters from the cabin's first owner, a hand-drawn map of the property, and a set of puzzles that lead to whatever she hid before the winter of 1954.

Teams of two to four work through the same set of puzzles in a light race, then come together for a final puzzle that needs every team's answer. The envelope you sealed at the start is the ending. Nobody opens it early. (Somebody always tries.)

What is in the PDF

• 2 pages of host notes: setup in 20 minutes, a script you can read or ignore, and answers.
• 1 page of team cards, cut into strips.
• 16 pages of puzzles across five rounds, with the map printed twice so two teams can mark it up.
• 3 pages of hint cards, three per round, which the host hands out on request.
• 1 page for the sealed envelope, plus a "final answer" sheet.
• 1 page of printable badges for the winning team and the team that used the fewest hints.

Print single-sided on letter paper. Two pages need cutting (about ten minutes with kitchen scissors) and one page goes into a standard envelope that you lick, seal and put somewhere visible.

Running it

1. Request the kit

   Use the contact form and choose the Cabin Fever Kit. We reply from a real inbox within one business day, Pacific time, with the PDF attached.

2. Print and cut

   24 pages, black and white is fine. Cut the team strips and the hint cards. Seal the envelope. Twenty minutes, tops.

3. Host the night

   Read the two-minute opener, set a phone timer for 90 minutes, and hand out round one. The host answers questions and doles out hint cards.

4. Open the envelope

   When every team has its final answer, someone opens the envelope. Badges, photos, second helpings.

Who it suits

Adults and teens from about twelve up. Ten is the honest maximum; beyond that, the map gets crowded and the quiet people stop getting a turn. Four players make two teams of two, which is fast and friendly. Eight make a proper party.

It has been run at a Whistler cabin with no Wi-Fi, at a Thanksgiving table in Surrey between the turkey and the pie, and in an office kitchen on a Friday in February. It does not need a screen at any point, which is the point.