San Leandro man builds citywide scavenger hunt, gives car to group of teens as prize

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (KGO) -- A group of teenage boys, not even old enough to drive, have won a car in a city wide treasure hunt. A San Leandro man built the game and put up his car as the prize.

"Please get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you!" you can hear the excitement in Brandon Su's voicemail.

"He was stoked!" said Christian Williams, the man behind the Four Hidden Keys treasure hunt.

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Christian's Chrysler 300 will be parked in Brandon's driveway as the prize for winning the treasure hunt, but it'll belong to a group of six friends. They are San Leandro High School sophomores. None of them are old enough to drive yet.

"We're all going to share it. We're always together like every day, every weekend hanging out so there's not really a difference of who has the car," said Brandon.

"I played a treasure hunt when I was in high school," explained Christian. The fun has stuck with him ever since. He's wanted to build one for a while so when it came time to upgrade his car he built the game instead of selling it.

Christian produced a video and designed the Four Hidden Keys game. He opened the website to San Leandro High School students. The game went live Friday.

"The world is huge and there are so many things to do and I can't just spend all my time writing software," said Christian.

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Four puzzles were located across San Leandro. Some required players go back to the web site and use interactive tools to solve them. The teens worked together with Alex Prater at home in their "command center" helping the field crews. He wore a headset at a computer, communicating to the other boys, to help solve the puzzles.

"They were actually very difficult which is like why I don't think by ourselves we would have been able to solve it. Especially as quickly as we did," said Alex Prater, San Leandro High School student.

In the span of a weekend the group found and solved all four puzzles.

"He does random things all the time and he's always hanging out with the same boys so I was like, 'Ok just be safe,'" said Melinda Gamil, Brandon's mother.

Christian watched the online stats as people played and even parked across the street at one of the clue locations to see the team solve the puzzle.

"That was probably one of the coolest things that's happened to me in a long time just watching these guys find one of the clues. It was unbelievable," said Christian.

Christian signed over the car to Brandon's parents, but he's given the teens so much more.

"We definitely bonded a lot more than just playing video games all weekend," said Alex.

Christian says he may design another treasure hunt, but in the meantime he hopes others will share their talents to improve their communities.

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