Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Snapchat hides a million Easter eggs on the Snap Map in a geocaching game

Hillary K. Grigonis
By

Cue that inner child because Snapchat just launched a grownup Easter egg hunt with more than a million eggs. Only instead of elbowing out other kids for candy-filled plastic eggs, Snapchat wants you to compete with friends to find the unlock the most World Lenses in an augmented reality geocaching game.

Snapchat has hidden eggs all over the Snap Map in the U.S. and Canada (from the home screen, pinch to zoom out to enter the map). Eggs are scattered throughout public locations. Once you are close to that egg on the Snap Map, tapping the egg will unlock a new World Lens, using the rear-facing camera and not the selfie one.

Recommended Videos

Plain eggs are worth one point, while the harder-to-find golden eggs are worth five points. And Snap Maps will be keeping track of those scores so egg hunters can try to beat out their friends or even the entire Snapchat community.

Related

The hunt launched Friday, March 30, and will continue until the end of the day on Easter, April 1, at midnight ET. Unlike a real egg hunt, however, you and your friends can go find the same egg and tapping on that egg won’t prevent other egg hunters from also “scooping” up that same egg. All the eggs will remain in place until the end of the hunt.

Of course, any Snap Map feature usually comes with privacy concerns, but Snapchatters can still play the game while in Ghost Mode. Without sharing your location with friends, you won’t share your score with friends, however. Sharing the location with friends only or publicly is required to display your score to friends.

While Snapchat is a network focused, in part, on augmented reality, the Easter egg hunt is the first time the platform has launched a holiday hunt. The game mixes augmented reality with geocaching, similar to the popular Pokémon Go app. With the app’s augmented reality features and Snap Map, a virtual scavenger hunt game could make a lot of sense for the app if users decide to participate. Who knows, maybe if enough Snapchatters find those virtual eggs, other similar games could roll out too — but that is speculation since Snapchat hasn’t released an official statement about the game yet.

Now if only there was a way to get chocolate inside a virtual egg…

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Snapchat continues to seep outside the app with Snap Map on the web
snapchat snap map for web snapmap

First comes Stories, then comes Snap Maps -- Snapchat is continuing its push for new users by opening up select options to live outside the app on the web. On Monday, February 12, Snapchat launched the Snap Map URL that allows web browsers to access a map of Snapchat Stories.

Unlike most social networks that have both an app and a dot-com access point, Snapchat was entirely app-based until the company launched Stories Everywhere in January. The feature allows Snapchat’s stream of short video clips or photos to be shared on the web through a link. Now, Snapchat is applying the same idea to the Snap Map.

Read more
Distracted ‘Pokémon Go’ players may have caused billions in damages
DT's Favorite Games of 2016

Last summer, Pokémon Go brought the Pokémon franchise a level of popularity and media attention it had not seen since its debut in the 1990s. Unfortunately, that level of popularity also had some unintended (and dangerous) consequences. A new study, titled Death by Pokémon Go, shows that the popular augmented reality game was partially responsible for an increase in traffic accidents and traffic-related deaths.

Economists at Purdue University analyzed traffic accident reports from Tippecanoe County, Indiana during the game's first 148 days and found an increase in traffic accidents related to the game. Mara Faccio and John McConnell found that during the months in which their study took place, Tippecanoe County had two-traffic related deaths and an increased number of accidents and injuries valued between $5.2 million and $25.5 million. From there, the two researchers estimated that if you apply this data to the U.S. as a whole, you'd find that the country lost between $2 billion to $7.3 billion.

Read more
Like that restaurant pic on Snapchat? Now you can book a table within the app
Snapchat context cards

Snaps are becoming useful for more than casual conversations — a new feature now allows Snapchatters to find more details about a photo, or even make a reservation right inside the app with a simple swipe. On Tuesday, October 10, Snapchat launched Context Cards, a new feature designed for learning more about a Snap.

With Context Cards, users can swipe up on a photo for easy access to a number of related tools, not unlike the phone numbers, hours, and quick links that pop up in Google ahead of the actual search results when looking for a business. For example, if the Snap has a location-based sticker for a restaurant, swiping up allows you to see the reviews, hours, or menu, book a table, or get an Uber to that location.

Read more