Wacky Walks

Wacky Walks is like a real-​life walking board game. It’s currently available in 17 cities throughout the Southeast. This review is for the Wacky Walks game I played in Downtown Atlanta this past Sunday. My friend (and fellow Unilocaler) Vivian W found a Groupon deal: $ 20 for two people or $ 40 for four (
). The regular price is $ 20 per person so the Groupon deal cut the regular price in half.
Four of us went and we were very interested in how the game would play out because the web site and confirmation email gave very little information about specific rules or objectives. I went to the Wacky Walks web site (
) to try and find out more and even chatted with a rep in an attempt to get details. All I could surmise was that we’d be walking around Downtown Atlanta perhaps collecting clues or solving riddles while doing silly and embarrassing stuff along the way.
While the game is self-​guided, an appointment has to be made. You are on your own for the most part. However, if you need help (e.g. you’re lost or need a clue), you can message someone who works for Wacky Walks. When you’re playing the game, someone with Wacky Walks is monitoring your progress remotely.
Our starting point was the Metro Atlanta Chamber building at 235 Andrew Young International Blvd NW, Atlanta, GA 30 303. It’s right next to Centennial Olympic Park. During the game, we spent most of our time at the park. Since Viv purchased the tickets, our group used her phone to play the game. Remember to charge your phone before playing!
Viv received a text message on her phone about an hour prior to our start time. I believe it included a link to a mobile web site which is what we used the play the game. There was no app to download and install. It was all web-​based.
Without spoiling anything, the game essentially had us go on various quests in and around the park. Each quest was led by a team «captain» who was determined by the rules of the game. Captains change throughout the game per the game’s instructions, but it’s not guaranteed that everyone will be a captain or someone won’t be a captain more than once. The captain leads his/​her «pawns» on each quest and, more often than not, has the power to make the pawns do silly and embarrassing things in public. Pictures must be taken during these awkward moments and sent to Wacky Walks (this is one way they monitor your progress).
A lot of these pictures are posted on Wacky Walks’ Facebook page (
). Check them out if you’re curious about the kind of foolishness that ensues.
Using an iPhone 6, we had trouble snapping photos directly using the links from the Wacky Walks game. Instead, we would launch the iPhone camera app separately, snap photos, switch back to the game, and then upload the photos. Wacky Walks sends confirmations when your photo uploads are successful and that’s when you know you can continue on your quest.
Our game lasted about 2 hours and we walked about 2.5 to 3.0 miles total (I estimated using Google Earth). It’s somewhat of a workout so wear relaxed clothing and comfortable walking shoes.
********** BEGIN SPOILERS **********
Our «home base» was the Ivan Allen (Sr. and Jr.) monument at Centennial Park. After completing each quest, we had to backtrack to this monument and piece together clues. The game took us to the statues of Pierre de Coubertin, John Pemberton, Billy Payne, and Andrew Young. It took us to sites like the Fountain of Rings, the Thrasherville and Winecoff hotel fire historic sites (both new to me), Margaret Mitchell Square, and the Tabernacle.
At just about every stop, we had to read a plaque and either: (a) obtain numbers from that plaque or (b) identify certain letters in the plaque and then translate the letters into numbers by solving a pattern the game showed us. This got repetitive and tedious and to be honest, it wasn’t much fun. Instead of piecing together actual clues that were connected perhaps to a compelling bigger picture story or narrative, we were solving lots of little random math problems that concluded in a final formula resulting in a single anticlimactic number to end the game.
Somewhere along the way, we missed something. Unfortunately, the game did not allow us to go «back» to see what we missed.
********** END SPOILERS **********
Overall, I think we were all «meh» about the whole experience. We enjoyed hanging out together downtown, but we didn’t need a game to do it. If anything, Wacky Walks «forces» you to go to various landmarks, read plaques, and learn some history in order to solve patterns and math problems. Having lived in Atlanta for the last 15+ years, I’d already seen everything on the Wacky Walks trail except for a couple things (described in the spoiler section above). In the end, this was essentially a self-​guided walking tour of Centennial Park and the surrounding area with some silliness and math thrown in.