Espionage · MysteryRoute

Operation Shadow Code

Your aliases are on a list that will be sold tonight. One contact can still stop the handover — but someone in the network no longer works for your side and still signs with his real name. Who do you trust?

Adults · friends · teamsOn the phone

What will you experience?

What this story is about

You follow a chain of dead drops and contact posts. At every point there is a message, a pass or an order that is genuine — or not quite. Compare the signatures, decode the distress signals and put the messages in the right order. Choose wrong and you end up talking to the wrong person. At the last point you intercept the handover, or you arrive just too late.

No app to install

The playable route opens in the browser on a suitable phone. Camera and location are only used when the game asks for it and the player gives permission.

How to play a MysteryRoute

You play together as one team, on one phone. It points the way to the next spot; there a piece of the story opens with images, documents or sound to investigate. You confer, choose an answer and walk on. Nothing to install, no account.

Stuck? Every point has three hints that help you further step by step. A wrong answer doesn’t make the story grind to a halt — you still get further by a detour. Everything you find is kept in the Case file so you can read it back later.

Where you play

You choose the route. Set out the points in a city, village, park or at your campsite — wherever you like to walk. You get a proposal of spots that you can move to safe, easily accessible paths yourself. The surroundings are the setting; all puzzles are on the phone. Playable in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the rest of the EU.

The tension is in the story. Outside you simply walk calmly: no real clock starts running and no real door closes.

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