Mobile games that are used by museum educators could be categorized into two types. One type is scavenger hunt games where players look for exhibits following clues or try to answer questions or quizzes correctly for the game to continue. Examples include the Ghosts of a Chance (2008–10) at Smithsonian American Art Museum and Tate Trumps (2010) in MoMA.

Figure 1: Ghosts of a Chance (2008–10) at Smithsonian American Art Museum, collecting list

Figure 2: The Tate Trump at MoMA, card game page

The other type contextualizes the scavenger hunt idea in role-play mobile games and/or in playful narratives (i.e. stories to be enacted in a specific site according to the scavenger hunt concept.)(Yiannout- sou & Avouris, 2012).

Mystery stories are often used for the contextualized scavenger hunt games. Murder at the Met (2012), for example, asks learners to solve the mysterious murder case of Madam X by finding a crime scene, weapon, and suspect in the museum with close-looking. Mystery at the Museum (Klopfer et al., 2005) is another example, a collaborative role-play game that sets up the story as a band of thieves had stolen a priceless object from the museum and replaced it with a replica. Each player took on one of three possible roles – a technologist, a biologist, and a detective – each with special capabilities -- to retrieve the artifact.

Figure 3: Murder at the Met

Figure 4: Murder at the Met, How to Play page

Figure 5: Murder at the Met game page

Ruyi Linlang Tuji (《如意琳琅图籍》) designed by The ForbiddenPalace Museum in China also belongs to this category, while with an innovative format that sets it apart from all the other examples. The user will be playing a painting apprentice Ben in the Forbidden Palace back in the Qing dynasty; Ben found a notebook that records treasure in the palace and he wants to uncover where the treasure is. The story unfolds in the digital mobile app while users are asked to look for clues inside the book along with the tools provided. There are also hidden clues for users to explore in the museum.