COMPASS
LARGE-SCALE CUSTOM CHARITY PUZZLE HUNT FOR GOOD SHEPHERD SERVICES
THE CHALLENGE \\\
Raise over a million dollars for charity by designing New York’s most legendary and competitive puzzle hunt: COMPASS (fka “Midnight Madness”).
OUR APPROACH \\\
It was important that our work integrate seamlessly with the long-standing tradition and culture first created through the Midnight Madness puzzle hunt in 2001. Working side by side with members of Good Shepherd Services’ board of directors, our team drew on our experience creating The Great Gotham Challenge, an immersive puzzle hunt, and developed a 14-hour adventure for Compass 2021. In it, we debuted never-before-seen technology, secured exclusive access to landmark NYC institutions, and presented some of the genre's most challenging and mind-bending puzzles.
Our Broadway-themed murder mystery plot put participants at the center of an unfolding drama that had them racing around the Great White Way, finishing unexpectedly on a real Broadway theater stage where the only way out was to perform. The fundraiser was covered in the New York Post and raised over one million dollars for Good Shepherd Services.
We reprised our role as co-creators in 2023, creating an epic adventure about “The Lost Cosmonauts” that combined conspiracy theories, a secret society, and an epic finale to tell the story of rescuing Russians lost in space.
Starting in 2025, GIL has taken over complete control of COMPASS and will be working in this capacity for the foreseeable future.
