Beaver Games · United Kingdom
Race against the clock in nature.
Fancy a walk with points on it? Two of you or a group split into teams, racing across real countryside on a live map, scoring checkpoints, side quests and mystery items against the clock. Games start a short walk from the station, so there’s no long drive into the middle of nowhere first.
What we’re about
Games that put
people back out
in nature
We’re a small UK company and we want two things. People back out in nature, actually looking at it. And people back in each other’s company for a few hours, properly, well away from the sofa. So we’re building the best outdoor game there is.
Give a group a map, a clock and something worth competing over and you find things out about them. The quiet one turns out to read contours better than anyone. Someone sprints half a mile uphill for a five-pointer nobody else fancied. Two of them fall out over a shortcut and are still bringing it up at Christmas. What they’re competing over is points: the most at the end wins, and when it’s done you can put your total up against every team that’s played the same route.
All of that needs somewhere to happen, and the somewhere matters. A ridge, a beech wood, a village with the fields behind it. Ground most of us walk past without ever really looking at. Give people a reason to get to the far corner of a country park and they start noticing where they are.
Two of you or twenty. The scoreboard doesn’t care.
How a game works
The hiking game
to rediscover
nature
Each game is built for a particular place and runs to a clock. The first two are around Oxted and Sevenoaks, both starting a short walk from the station.
- 01
Everyone gets the map
Play as a pair, or bring a group and split it into teams. You pick the date, and everyone starts on the same live map of the same patch of country. A stretch of hills, a country park, a village and the fields behind it. The clock starts for all of you at once.
- 02
Bank the checkpoints
Checkpoints are real landmarks and places worth finding. A trig point, a lychgate, a bench somebody carried up a hill. Each is worth one to five points, and the fives always sit further out. There’s never quite enough time for all of them, so you sweep the cheap ones near the start and then argue about whether the long climb is worth it. Each one shows a photo of the exact spot, so you know what you’re looking for when you get there.
- 03
Work the side quests
Not everything has a location. Side quests can be done anywhere in the game area, so there’s always something to score while you walk: quizzes about the local area, riddles, and photo challenges. They score the second you submit them, so you find out straight away whether the answer was worth the argument. A few points land on their own as well, small achievements the app hands out as you go.
- 04
Find a mystery item
Mystery items are hidden around the game area, and you find them the same way you find a checkpoint. Each one does something. The Brass Compass doubles your points for a stretch of the game. The Cracked Whistle takes a checkpoint off the board for everybody else. They can be dropped as well as picked up, so they change hands mid-game, usually at the worst possible moment for somebody.
Inside the app
One app, the whole game
Map, checkpoints, side quests, scoreboard and team chat all sit in the same place, so nobody is juggling apps halfway up a hill. Here’s roughly what a team sees while a game is running.
It works with no signal
Woods and valleys eat mobile data, so the app doesn’t lean on it. The map is on the phone before you set off, and photos and answers queue up and sync the moment a bar comes back.
Scoring is instant
Nobody is sitting in a hut with a clipboard. The app checks the answer or the photo and the points land straight away, which saves the argument at the end about what counted.
The scoreboard never sits still
Points land the second they’re earned, so the table reorders itself all afternoon. Playing as a pair, you’re chasing the scores other teams have already posted on the same route. Either way you know exactly how badly you’re losing.
Who it suits
Anyone with an
afternoon and
someone to beat
- Just the two of youfriend, partner, or enemy of choice
- Company away daysnowhere near a hotel
- Family days outwhere the teenagers join in
- Stag and hen dosthat start before the pub
- Schools and scoutsand youth groups
- Festivals and heritage siteswith ground to cover
The name
Why a
beaver
Beavers were hunted out of Britain around four hundred years ago, for their fur and their meat, and the country quietly got used to rivers without them. They are back. A trial population was released in Argyll in 2009, another turned up on the River Otter in Devon, and in 2022 they became a legally protected species in England.
They earn it. A beaver builds dams because it wants deeper water to hide in, and the side effects are the useful part: the dams hold water back in wet weather so less of it arrives downstream all at once, they trap silt, and the ponds behind them turn into some of the richest wildlife habitat you can find. Nobody designed that. An animal did it while getting on with its own business.
That is the sort of thing you only notice if you are out there looking, which is more or less the whole idea behind the game. So the beaver got the job.
Our people
Your beaver
team
Beaver Games is a small UK company. We build the games ourselves: walking the ground, choosing every checkpoint, and writing the questions for the place they belong to.
The first one started as a long walk with friends that turned competitive somewhere around lunchtime. It has been getting more organised ever since.
FAQs
The things
people ask
- What is Beaver Games?
- Beaver Games makes The Outdoors Game: an outdoor team game you play on your phone across real countryside. Teams score points by reaching checkpoints, finishing side quests and finding mystery items before the clock runs out.
- What actually happens on the day?
- A pair plays as one team, and a bigger group splits into several. Everyone gets the same live map. Checkpoints are real landmarks worth one to five points, and you have to walk to them. Side quests are quizzes about the local area, riddles and photo challenges you can do anywhere in the game area. Mystery items are hidden objects with powers, like doubling your points or taking a checkpoint off the board for everyone else.
- Where can you play?
- Each game is built for a particular place, so the map, the checkpoints and the questions all belong to it. The first games are around Oxted and Sevenoaks, both starting a short walk from the station. We are adding more across the UK, and we take requests for a specific area.
- How many people do you need?
- Two is enough. A pair plays as a single team and races the clock and the scores other teams have already posted on the same route. From there it scales up: a bigger crowd usually means more teams rather than bigger ones. Tell us your numbers and we will say what suits.
- Does someone need to run it?
- No. The app scores everything as you go, so there is no organiser standing in a car park with a clipboard and nobody has to sit out to run it. You start the game and play it.
- How long does a game last?
- A game runs to a set clock, usually a few hours, with a live countdown in the app. The length is set when the game is built, so it can be cut short for a family afternoon or stretched for a full day out.
- Do you need a phone signal to play?
- No. The map is on the phone before you set off, and woods and valleys eat mobile data, so photos and answers queue up and sync as soon as a bar comes back.
- Can I book a game yet?
- Not yet. The app is in testing and the first games are being built. Register your interest and we will come back to you as soon as we can put a date on it.
Get in touch
Tell us who
you’re bringing
Booking isn’t open yet, but we’re lining up the first games now and it helps to know who’s out there waiting. Tell us how many of you there are, when you’d want to play, and where — including any patch of country you’d love a game to exist in, even if we haven’t built one there yet. The places people ask for most are the ones we build next. We’ll come back to you the moment we can put a date on it.
Prefer email? will@beavergames.co.uk