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Starting a hunt

Tap Create a Hunt to pick a board and start one, or Join a Hunt and enter the code somebody shared with you. A hunt’s creator can share its join code at any time while the hunt is still running.

Playing without signal

This is the part Scavengo is built around, because the best places to play often have the worst reception. Your card, marking a square, taking a photo, your score and the win check all work with no connection at all. Everything you did is sent up the moment you’re back on signal, and nothing waits for it.

You can also download a hunt from its detail screen before you set off, which fetches the whole board and everyone’s finds so far.

A few things do need a connection, and the app says so before you start rather than after: creating or joining a hunt, leaving one, and anything that changes your account.

Photos and finds

A find is a photo and, if you’ve allowed location access, the place you took it. Photos are yours; the other players in that hunt can see them, and nobody else can. Location is never used to check or challenge a find — you decide when you’ve found something.

You can play the whole game without granting location access. The find map is simply emptier.

Leaving a hunt

Swipe a hunt on the Home list, or open it and choose Leave hunt. It needs a connection, and you’ll be asked to confirm.

Leaving is not deleting. Your finds and photos are kept, they still count towards your level, and the other players can still see your score on that hunt’s leaderboard — the game they played stays as it was.

The honest other half: you won’t be able to see those finds again, because the find map only shows the hunt you’re currently in. The hunt disappears from your list on every device you sign in on. If somebody shares the code with you again, you can rejoin and pick up exactly where you left off.

If you made the hunt, leaving means nobody can end it early any more — it runs until it expires, and everyone else can keep playing.

Ending a hunt is not the same thing

Leaving stops your own participation. Ending stops the game for everyone in it, immediately, and only the person who made the hunt can do it. Both live on a hunt’s detail screen, and both ask you to confirm — the confirmations say which is which.

Friends, blocking and safety

You can send a friend request to somebody you’ve played a hunt with. Sharing a game is what makes an account reachable at all — there is no search by name, no directory, and no way to find a stranger.

Removing a friend ends the friendship. Blocking goes further: they can’t send you friend requests and won’t see you in their friends list, and they aren’t told. We’d rather be plain about the limit than let it surprise you — blocking someone does not remove them from a hunt. If somebody shares a code with them they can still join a game you’re in, and you’ll both be in that game’s chat.

If something needs a person to look at it, please tell us. Reports about another player are the ones we read first.

Notifications

Scavengo sends three, and only these three: a friend has invited you to a hunt, a hunt you’re in has been won, and a hunt is about to end. No adverts, and nothing about anyone’s location.

We ask once, after you’ve joined your first hunt, because before that there’s nothing to tell you about. If you said no and change your mind, open Settings → Notification settings in the app, which takes you to your phone’s own settings for Scavengo.

Your account

Settings holds it all: change your email or password, add another way to sign in, see every device signed into your account and sign any of them out, and check when the app last reached us.

Deleting your account is in the same place, and on this site. It is also the way to have your finds and photos actually removed — leaving a hunt keeps them, deleting your account does not.

When something looks wrong

• “Couldn’t reach Scavengo.” The app couldn’t get through. Anything you did offline is safe on your phone and will go up on its own. Settings → Sync status shows when it last succeeded and how much is still waiting.
• A screen looks empty. The app tells “nothing here” apart from “couldn’t load”, so if it says it couldn’t load, nothing has been lost.
• “You were signed out.” The session ended while the app was closed, so the downloaded hunt data on that device was cleared. Sign in again and it comes back — nothing you did is gone.
• A mark hasn’t reached the others. It’s queued. It sends on the next connection; you don’t need to mark it again.

For parents

Scavengo is a general-audience game rather than a children's app, and accounts are 13+. Accounts are only reachable through shared play — no search, no directory — and notifications are limited to the three above. Adverts are limited to creatives rated for general audiences; where the law requires consent before adverts can be personalised you'll be asked, and you can change your answer any time from Settings → Ad privacy choices.

What we collect and why is in the privacy policy, and the rules of use are in the terms.

Still stuck?

Send us a message or email hello@scavengo.app. Telling us your phone, the app version from Settings → About, and what you were doing gets you a useful answer faster than anything else.