Summer is here! At Actionbound, we're celebrating the warm season with a special promotion! Throughout August and September, we're offering our premium feature, the Bound Styler, free for one month with every purchase of player licenses. Use the quiet time in the office to prepare an entertaining experience for your team or visitors!

What is the Bound Styler?

The Bound Styler is a versatile feature that allows you to customize your Bounds. Whether it's a team event, a hike, or a fun pub quiz, with the Bound Styler you can:

• Create personalized designs to adjust colors and fonts to design your Bounds according to your preferences.
• Design individual layouts to customize the layout of your Bounds to incorporate your own corporate design.

Inspiration for your summer Bounds

Get inspired by our ideas and create Bounds that are perfect for the season. Here are a few suggestions:

• City discovery scavenger hunts to lead your players through the most beautiful spots in your city or region and tell an exciting story along the way.
• Nature trails and hikes to create interactive nature experiences where players can solve tasks and explore the outdoors.
• Seasonal team events with interactive games for onboarding, summer festivals, or other team events.

How the Summer promotion works

In August, you'll get access to the Bound Styler when purchasing a player license. Whether you buy a new product or renew an existing license, we'll activate the Bound Styler for you at no additional cost for one month.

Why the Bound Styler is the cherry on top

The Bound Styler allows you to set your creativity free and bring your Bounds to life. Here are some reasons why you should try out our premium feature:

• Enhance the player experience – With individually designed Bounds, your game will be more appealing and stand out.
• Boost user motivation – Visually appealing Bounds are more memorable and motivate your players.
• Increase your flexibility – With the Bound Styler, you can adjust and update your Bounds to perfectly match your target audience.

Make your summer more colorful with Actionbound and take the opportunity to try out the Bound Styler. We look forward to hearing from you here!

The summer holidays are already starting in some federal states and the weather is also slowly getting ready for summer. High time for your Bound in nature, right? In an increasingly digital world, it's not easy to find ways to utilise the benefits of technology without losing touch with nature. Actionbound can help you and show you how to create exciting experiences for adults and/or children.

The advantages of learning in nature

Learning in nature has many benefits: It promotes physical activity, increases well-being and strengthens understanding and appreciation of the environment. These benefits can be further enhanced by combining digital learning with nature experiences. Gamification increases the motivation to learn in nature. Can tree leaves be correctly categorised? What does a birch tree look like? Can you spot one and take a photo of it? Your players can collect points for correctly answering questions. At the end of the Bound, you can see who has collected the most points. Who ends up in 1st place?

Scientific experiments & creative tasks

Integrate simple scientific experiments into your Bounds that can be carried out on site. This makes learning hands-on and practical. Or encourage creativity through tasks that encourage participants to look at and interpret their surroundings in new ways. Have the participants take and analyse soil samples or carry out simple weather observations. With the "creative task" element, the things collected can be photographed and recorded for the future.

Learning stations in nature (GPS and code scanning)

You can organise exciting nature explorations with Actionbound. Children and adults can navigate through the forest, parks or nature reserves while solving tasks that develop their observation skills and knowledge of nature. One task could be to identify different tree species by their leaves or to find certain bird species and record their calls.

With the help of GPS coordinates, your players won't get lost either. It's best to create several sections where your players can check their location. Maybe you can also work together with the city or town nearby and hide permanently installed QR codes. You can also check the locations by scanning the QR codes. Here is a small example: In a botanical garden, stations could provide information about different plant families and their characteristics, with tasks to identify and describe the plants.

Curious now? Why not give it a try and create your next Bound in nature right now?

You probably know about “escape rooms” where you are locked in a room and have about an hour time to puzzle your way out together. With Actionbound, you can also create location-independent escape games for teams or yourself. Whether it is a corporate event or for educational use – everything is possible 💪.

Here are our tips on how to create customised escape games for your friends, family, colleagues, and whoever you would like to entertain!

Let's start with the story

It is all about exciting storytelling which is the basis for the whole game. There are almost no limits to your creativity but examples like a secret agent mission, a mysterious treasure hunt or a space station that needs to be evacuated could be an inspiration! You can find your escape game theme almost anywhere, e.g. in board games, cities, books - just keep your eyes and ears open but remember that less is more when it comes to the goal of the game. Think of a specific major obstacle that the players have to overcome!

Play your way from level to level

Escape games consist of several levels. For this example here, we will create three levels, an introduction and a conclusion. Players progress by collecting keys that open doors to enter the next level. Tip: Work with section elements in the Bound Creator - preferably one section per level. This will help you to structure your game (for you as the creator and the players).

Intro

Introduce your players to the game by welcoming them in a way that fits the story. What is the aim of the game, what is it about and how does it work? Does the end of the world need to be prevented or is the group locked up somewhere and needs to find the keys to free themselves? We suggest having a maximum of five elements for the Intro. Let your players introduce themselves, for example with a photo or a funny video. Also explain the rules of the game and give initial hints on how to find the keys, for example. Then start with the first level.

Level 1

Once the basics have all been explained, the team has introduced itself and the rules are clear, you can get started with the first level. Create a new section in the Bound Creator and name it Level 1 so that you, as the creator, can keep a better overview. The puzzles and tasks in the first level shouldn't be that difficult yet. Start simple and give your players the chance to gain motivation. You may have to find one key in the first level and several in the following levels. Complete the first level with an information element and explain to your players that the first level is now complete and another one is about to begin

Level 2

Your tasks can get a little more difficult in this part. A certain information from the first level might be needed to solve a puzzle (this could be the first team-task). But keep in mind to create a more simple story if you just start with Actionbound. The more games you create the more challenging they get for sure!

Level 3

Now it gets tricky and the story reaches its climax. Here you can add puzzles that can be a bit more difficult than in the first two levels. Start a new section in the Bound Creator and name it Level 3, after which it's best to add an information element. Explain exactly what the upcoming level is about and what needs to be achieved. If we stick with our example from above, you could have them find the matching doors for the collected keys and arrange them in the correct order. To increase the motivation of the players, it is a good idea to put a “time switch” on the element. For example, they only have one minute to put all the keys into the right locks in the right order. Can you solve the puzzle? Will the final "door" open?

Outro

Of course, every story and every escape game needs an ending. Answer the puzzle and thank your players for taking part - e.g. they contributed to preventing the end of the world and so on. You can also suggest taking a souvenir photo at the end or give the players direct access to their results and media which would happen through the Bound challenge.

Combining knowledge with fun

Of course, you can create a Bound without imparting any specific knowledge and simply for fun. However, escape games can also be used to present content of all kinds in a fun and exciting way. EduBreakouts are particularly popular in the classroom nowadays - e.g. puzzles that have to be solved within one lesson - regardless of whether a lock has to be picked or an object has to be found. The players collect the necessary keys or clues, for example, by answering questions on specific topics correctly.

But such games are not only very popular in the education sector. Escape games can also be used to get to know your company better - e.g. as an onboarding game for new employees. You hide the keys and clues in certain places in the company building. At the end, the password in the Bound can be used to unlock your own computer in the office - including a welcome gift, of course.

Motivation increases with excitement

Why don't you try it out yourself and tell us about your experiences? You don't have an account yet, but fancy giving it a try? Actionbound is free of charge for private users. You can simply create an account and create your Bound straight away. If your Bound is for the education or business sector, you will need a corresponding licence. Please contact our sales team directly (sales@actionbound.de).

We are very excited to see your Bound ideas!

Note: These are all tips and tricks. Of course you can also build an escape game with many more levels, decisions and switches. There are no limits to your imagination.

Get your inspiration by playing the following Bound: