UPDATES

February 3, 2016

Munzee’s Birthday and MHQ Bash 3

Yesterday we posted about Easter and Spring events. We’ve got some pretty big events this year, too, though. Here’s some information regarding Munzee’s 5th Birthday and MHQ Bash 3.

Munzee’s 5th Birthday

It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years. We couldn’t have gotten to this point without our amazing players, and we can’t thank you enough. We want to spread the celebration, though, so we’re taking our birthday party on the road! This year, we’ll be celebrating Munzee’s 5th birthday in Denver, Colorado! We’re still finalizing details, but members of Team Munzee will be in Denver from June 30th through July 4th. We’ll be posting more information as the time draws closer, but we’ve got events on the calendar so you can let us know you’ll be there!

MHQ Bash 3

MHQ Bash kicked off an annual tradition of getting involved with our community and players on a face-to-face, personal level. We grew upon that to make MHQ Bash 2 bigger and better. We’re continuing that with MHQ Bash 3 this year! We invite everyone to come hang out with us for a weekend of Munzee fun on October 7th, 8th, and 9th here in McKinney, Texas. Events are already on the calendar, and we’ll be posting full information regarding locations and packages soon.

We’re extremely excited to meet new people and see old friends at these events! We hope to see you there! Munzee on!

January 21, 2016

Munzee Fitness FAQs (Updated)

We’ve had some questions regarding Munzee Fitness, so we wanted to answer some of the most asked ones.

How do I link a fitness tracker to Munzee?
We’ve posted a video that you can watch here.

I earned a badge (e.g. 5K Day) on Fitbit. Why haven’t I earned the equivalent Munzee badge?
Munzee needs to retrieve the data from Fitbit in order to award a Munzee badge. If you earned those steps prior to January 1st, we won’t have that data in our database.

I’ve completed the requirements for a badge already, will these be retroactive?
These are only going to be retroactive since January 1st. You probably won’t see those badges until all of your data is loaded for January which will occur on February 2nd.

We Munzee as a couple (or family). Can we use Munzee Fitness together or do we need to create a second account?
Munzee Fitness will only link to ONE Fitbit account. If you want a separate tracking of players, you’ll need 2 Munzee accounts and 2 Fitbit accounts.

Can I use Google Fit or S Health the same way as Apple Health?
Unfortunately, no. Right now, S Health is NOT supported by Fitbit.

What devices will be supported?
At this time, Apple Health (without needing to sync through Fitbit) is on our radar. Any other devices with a public web API (not a development kit) could easily be supported, but we are researching it. We will continue to update you as new devices are added.

Is there a link to buy a Fitbit through affiliation?
Yes! The banner on the Munzee Blog and Fitness Leaderboard are through Munzee’s affiliation with Fitbit. You can also follow this link.

Will there be more badges available?
We do have plans to expand the badge lines in the future.

How do I remove the Fitbit authorization for Munzee?
There is a link under the users profile (https://www.fitbit.com/user/profile/edit) called Applications. You will see Munzee listed there. Simply click the “Revoke Access” button. It will require the user to reauthorize Munzee if they want to earn badges or be visible on the leaderboard.

If you have questions or need clarification on Munzee Fitness, please contact us at support@munzee.com.

Thanks and Munzee on!

January 18, 2016

What A Weekend!

You all are amazing! This past weekend saw many great things and we couldn’t be happier! Let’s recap some of that and talk about some new ongoings:

New Capture Record: You set a new record for number of captures in a single day! This past Saturday (January 16th) saw over 700,000 captures!
Double Point Weekend: MunzPak Subscribers and Premium Members had a double point weekend and they certainly took advantage of it. It almost makes us wonder if we should extend the Daily Scoreboard line of badges…
New Store Test: There were a few hiccups with the new store soft opening, but that’s to be expected. Overall, we feel it went very well. We’ll be updating you soon with more information about when it will be fully launched.
RMH Virtuals: Your response to the RMH Virtuals was amazing. We’ll be announcing total numbers and our donation soon.
Florida Events: Rob spent some time attending events in Florida this weekend and wanted to thank the hosts and attendees! He even got in the spirit and dressed up some 😉
RMH Virtuals and Travel Collide: You may have noticed Flat Robs are on the map right now. Well, Rob couldn’t miss the “David Rings the Bell” Event in Spokane, so he flew out early this morning to get there. He’ll be out of office today and tomorrow, so that means a couple of things:
- Flat Robs will be on the map until tomorrow (Tuesday, 1/19) at 23:59 MHQ time.
- Flat Robs will also be on sale during this same time.

We’ve got a lot more planned for you, so keep an eye out! Thank you again for the amazing weekend, and Munzee on!

January 15, 2016

Munzee for Good: RMH Virtuals Return

In May 2014, we launched the RMH Virtual. This special was inspired by Derik Reed and his family. Derik’s son David was diagnosed with ALL, T-cell Lukemia in October 2012. While Munzee provided Derik with a way to relax, both of his children played with him. As a community, Munzee raised and donated $25,000 to the Ronald McDonald House of Spokane, Washington through the purchase of the RMH virtuals. We contacted Derik earlier this week to see how everything was going:

“David continues to exhibit no evidence of disease, but we have followups monthly for at least a year, and less frequently after that. He is a 4th grader, and is doing well academically. His sister joined him at school, and is kindergarten. They ride the bus, and love school. We have a larger yard, and now have 16 chickens, and a bigger garden space. David is waiting for the all clear to get ferrets (he has not been able to have that type of animal living in the house due to his compromised immunity). We hope to do David’s wish trip this summer—he wants to go see Winter the dolphin in Florida (from A Dolphin Tale).”

On January 18th, David Reed will complete his final chemotherapy treatment and ring the bell as a childhood cancer survivor. In the spirit of our 2016 theme, we are celebrating this by re-releasing the RMH virtual, both on the map and in the store.

Previously Deployed RMH Virtuals

Any RMH Virtual that was purchased during the first release will be put back on the map. You CANNOT move previously deployed RMH Virtuals. If you had one in your undeployed list, it will show up again and you will be able to deploy it. As for capture, you CANNOT recapture RMH virtuals that you have already captured.

New RMH Virtuals

The RMH Virtual Munzee is a special limited time Munzee purchase. On sale from January 15th at 14:00 until January 17th at 23:59 (MHQ time) only. Each RMH Virtual is $1, and proceeds will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House of Spokane. These are ONLY available in the new Munzee store. They can be purchased directly at this link.

The RMH Virtual points will be similar to a diamond Munzee. Players will earn 10 points for deploying the munzee. The owner and capper will split 20 points when captured, with a minimum of 5 points for either player. Example: Player A captures and receives 7 points, the owner receives 13 points. Player B captures and receives 8 points, the owner receives 12 points. The maximum for owner or capper is 15 points. The minimum is 5 points.

Four badges may be earned through your purchase and support of the RMH virtual munzee. Badges received for owning 4 RMH munzees, 8 RMH, 20 RMH, and 40 RMH munzees owned. If you have previously deployed RMH Virtuals, these will count toward previous numbers (eg if you deployed 15 RMH Virtuals during their original appearance, you only need to deploy 5 more to earn the 20 RMH Deploy Badge). There will also be a new badge for capture or deploy of a RMH virtual.

RMH Virtual munzees will remain on the map from the date of deployment until January 31, 2016 at 23:59 MHQ time (CDT). And they WILL be included in the Double Point Weekend.

January 15, 2016

Announcing the 2016 Munzee Theme…

2014: Expect The Unexpected.

For players who were around in 2014, you’ve certainly heard these words in one form or another. President Rob Vardeman chanted this mantra at many meetings, events and podcasts in Munzee’s third year of business. We were striving to keep things fresh, surprise our players and grow as a company. Often this also meant surprising the MHQ staff with quick turnaround on projects and unexpected campaigns.

2015: New Year. New Perspective.

In 2015 we aimed to flip everything on it’s side and approach our game in new ways. From retiring the MVM to transferring to hybrids apps in the long-awaited 3.0 release, we changed the way we looked at the company. 2015 saw the creation of Zee, Eventzee, Runzee and the acquisition of Wallabee- all different ways of playing mobile games.Not to mention the continued success of the Munzee Marketplace and the creation of Green Pin Produce. It was a year of big changes, but admittedly there were some growing pains.

At the end of 2015 we as a staff thought hard about the successes and missteps of our four years in business. We analyzed what worked, what didn’t, and what we would have to do in 2016 to continue the success of our brand. No matter our expectations, no matter which way we looked at it, the success of Munzee all came down to one thing: You, our community.

2016: Growing Innovative Communities Rooted In Fun.

More than a theme, 2016’s mantra is a combination of a goal, a mission and a vision. It’s time for us to get back to our roots, which is our strong and devoted community of players. Although our community spans the globe and grows every day, we want to ensure that our relationship and our communication is maintained with players of all Munzee Inc. games. Of course there will always be branches that break and sometimes the weather may rustle a few leaves, but like the mighty oak tree, we will continue to grow as long as we maintain strong roots.

As all branches of our company grow our communities grow as well. Because without the roots of our community we cannot grow, innovate and evolve as a business. Thank you on behalf of all Team MHQ- we’re excited for what 2016 has to bring.

January 6, 2016

New Website Features!

We’ve added a few new features to the website map to help your Munzee adventures!

Plan For Group
Do you like to cap as a group but have a hard time finding areas where you all haven’t capped yet? Check out the new “Plan For Group” feature on the website map. Together with the “Exclude Captured Munzees” filter, you’ll only see munzees that all of you can cap!

Addtional “Route” Features
When using the “Route” feature on the website map, you can change the mode of travel. Your options now include: driving, walking, bicycling, and transit!

January 4, 2016

To All of Our Players

We would like to discuss the issues that have occurred over the past few days.

On Christmas Day, our hosting provider, Linode, came under a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack from unknown assailants. This attack was aimed at their hosting facilities around the world, including Atlanta, Georgia, where Munzee Inc’s servers are hosted. This attacked lasted 10 days, the worst of which were this weekend. They finally came to a stop yesterday when Linode was able to mitigate them. Though there was intermitant uptime, our services, including apps, websites, and stores, were down the majority of the weekend. There was little (read:nothing) our team could do but wait for Linode to restore service. We tried to keep our communities up to date as best we could, but our fate was in the hands of Linode at that point.

Though the down time was the result of a cyber attack, we realize that it is not fair or acceptable to you to not be able to play. We are currently researching changes to ensure that downtimes like those that occured never happen again. These changes include, but are not limited to, hosting servers at multiple data centers, hosting servers with multiple companies, or changing hosting providers. When we decide what the best action to take is, we will inform you before these changes take place and keep you up to date on the progress.

As for gameplay that was missed the past few days:

Capture and Deploy Streaks will not be affected. January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are now “Black Out Dates” in our databases. This means that when Capture and Deploy Streaks are calculated, these days will be skipped (i.e. if December 31st was Day 10 of your capture or deploy streak, January 4th will be Day 11). If you have any question regarding the number of days in your streak, check the badge on the app or website.
Any points or badges that were earned during the Black Out Dates WILL still count.
Clan Wars will begin on January 6th. Some of the requirements and rewards have been updated, so please check the blog post to see what’s changed.

We’ve altered some of our plans for this month, so please take note of the following events:

MunzPak Double Point Weekend
- The Double Point Weekend will take place January 15th-17th and will include the following:
  - MunzPak Subscribers from December 2015,
  - MunzPak Subscribers from January 1st-January 14th, 2016 (If you didn’t subscribe in December, you still have a chance to subscribe.),
  - AND ALL CURRENT Premium Members.
- These users will receive an email next week with more information as we finalize the plans and check them 10 times. 😉
Double Point Weekend for Everyone
- A Double Point Weekend for EVERY Munzee player will take place January 29th-31st. We will post more information about that weekend on the blog as we get closer.

We again apologize for these issues and can’t thank you enough for your support through them. There’s a lot going on this month, so stay tuned and check the blog and our social media regularly to make sure you’re up to date.

Once again, thank you, and Grow the Map!

December 17, 2015

Make Us A Munzee Competition Finalists!

The Munzee team was overwhelmed with the response to the “Make Us A Munzee” competition! We had over 600 entries, and it was tough to narrow them down to five finalists. Below are the descriptions of the finalists and a link to vote for your favorite. Voting will close on Wednesday, December 30th at 17:00 MHQ time. The winner will be contacted shortly following then to make their idea become reality! Also, please remember that details of these Munzees is subject to change, but the overall idea will remain intact. The text below is what was submitted by the player. Team Munzee will work with the winner to determine exact logistics after it is chosen.

Finalists

The Joker (Rubik80) – “A physical munzee that rewards the capper with 100 points or penalises them with minus 50 points. Limited to one per premium member per membership, like a Premium Munzee. The trick is when they lose the 50 points, they go to the munzee owner.”
The Pioneer (d-n) – “Can be only deployed in areas with no other munzees in certain radius (for example 1/2 mile). Cap on points residual into 50. Advantages -Support for starting the game in areas with no munzees.”
The Prankster (Rosemark) – “This will be a virtual Munzee. It will have 5 location Pins on the Map, but only 1 will be real. To deploy The owner will pick a location and deploy just like a regular Virtual, and the computer will create 4 more locations on the map within a 1 mile radius of the deployed location. Only one of these pins will be the real location of the Munzee. When a player attempts to cap the Munzee, they will not know which pin is real. If they pick the wrong one it will tell them “No Joy” and they will have to go to one of the 4 other locations until they find the correct one. Once they find the real one, they will receive the points earned, and a Badge for successfully capturing a Prankster Munzee. The scoring should reduce for each miss. Perhaps 50 points if they get it right the 1st time, 40 if 2nd, 30 if 3rd , 20 if 4th and 10 if last. Cap on points to owner could be like 10. Each time the Prankster is captured, a new correct location is randomly selected by the computer, so the correct pin is different each time capped.”
The Wormhole (kulbago) – “This Munzee will randomly tunnel to another munzee that is over 100 miles from its deployed location. Upon capturing this munzee, you get points just as though you were at the location at the other end f the wormhole. Once captured it will re-tunnel to another randomly selected munzee somewhere else in the world. Each wormhole munzee can only be captured once per day per player. (ie. you can’t stand there and keep capturing Munzees that are far away) If you wanted to make it more interesting you could make different “size” wormhole munzees. Small would tunnel to 100 miles away, medium say 250 miles, and large would have to find a munzee more than 500 miles away to connect to.”
The Rock-Paper-Scissors (2dld26) – “On deploy, the deployer picks it to be Rock, Paper or Scissors. The icon shows RPS so as not to identify what it is. When capture, the capturer has to choose Rock, Paper or Scissors. If they beat the deployer, then capturer gets 20 points and the deployer gets 10 points. If the capturer loses, then the capturer gets 10 points and the deployer gets 20 points. If they choose the same, then they each get 15 points. Potential badges: -Badges for winning 1, 25, 50 matches (bronze, silver, gold) -Badge for winning once against all three types: rock, paper and scissors Clarification: rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock.”

Ready to vote? Go here!

December 15, 2015

Christmas Parties Are In Full Swing!

We’re halfway through the month of December, and the Munzee Christmas Parties are in full swing! Rob, Matt, Louise, Daniel Hammock, and Daniel Fischer have all attended events already this month! Matt will also be attending the Metro Vancouver Post Holiday Cap’ing event on December 27th, and he’s excited!

In less than two weeks, 1140 players have capped the Father Christmas special, and we have another 17 events happening worldwide in the next 7 days! We can’t wait to see the outcome of them! Also, if you haven’t checked it out yet, the Dodgy Jumper gallery is live! We’re adding more images as we get them, so check it out!

These events have given us some crazy capture numbers, too! Matt stopped by the office around 3PM MHQ time on Saturday, and there were over 103,000 captures! We want to thank everyone who has hosted and/or attended an event for growing the game!

October 22, 2015

The Future Is Now!

Well October 21st has come and gone. Still no self lacing shoes (yet!), no flying cars, and the Cubs won’t be winning the world series… But, we did have hover boards! For one gleaming day, hover boards were a reality in the Munzee world, and you guys went out and got them! During the 48 hours in which it was October 21st throughout the world, players captured 87,116 hover board icons!

We’d also like to take this opportunity to recognize Rob Steer and the Back to the Future Day event he hosted in Shepparton, Australia. The badge for capturing the hover board icons was a variation on the badge our designers created for his event.

To everyone who participated in Back to the Future Day events over the past few days, thank you! We hope you all enjoyed the special. We’ve got more exciting things coming!