ABOUT NEBOLUS

This is how Nebolus works.

Organise a health-related scavenger hunt and invite people of different age groups on a health journey.

Designed with your browser,
discovered on your smartphone.

With two pillars to your own health-related scavenger hunt

Nebolus is an innovative cross-thematic and cross-setting intervention platform for the low-threshold promotion of health literacy. Nebolus consists of an online planning tool that you can use to creatively design health-related scavenger hunts and a mobile app that people of different age groups can use to explore your scavenger hunt.

Nebolus planning tool

Nebolus smartphone app

The Nebolus planning tool

Create your own health scavenger hunt in just a few steps.

Every setting is unique. Contrary to “one-size-fits-all” interventions, Nebolus aims to ensure that health promotion and prevention measures are geared towards the specific needs of the setting. Nebolus is therefore designed for stakeholders in the health, education and social sectors. You can create your own Nebolus scavenger hunts using our browser-based planning tool. No special technical knowledge is required for this – all that counts is your creativity and a little planning. A gamified intervention requires an overarching story. Should it be a crime story or a science fiction story? You decide! Add all the necessary information such as texts and voice messages to the planning tool and define a duration for your Nebolus scavenger hunt. You can also create stations (e.g. local health-related services to be visited in your city/disctrict/setting) and define the sequence in your scavenger hunt. We support you in your planning with manuals, our help center and our YouTube channel with explanatory videos, among other things.

Have we caught your interest? Then get started now.

To the YouTube channel

The Nebolus app

Discover Nebolus scavenger hunts

Once you have created your scavenger hunt in the planning tool, your target group can discover it mobile with the Nebolus app. A code is generated for each Nebolus scavenger hunts, which you can pass on to your target group as part of the implementation (e.g. school project weeks, first semester weeks at universities, community event). The app is structured in the form of a story-oriented location-based game, i.e. the focus is on a map of the respective location and the stations to be completed. Nebolus is designed as a group activity and can therefore be completed by small teams. Our Nebolus app runs on Android and iOS smartphones and can be downloaded free of charge from Google Play and the App Store. The Nebolus app was developed in accordance with the principle of data economy, i.e. no data is collected that can be assigned to a specific person.

More about data protection

Health literacy with gamification

Playing to improve health – no contradiction

We are convinced that promoting and maintaining health (skills) can be fun. That’s why, when developing Nebolus, we used various game mechanics that are used in classic analogue and computer games. Nebolus is based on a story frame that is told from the point of view of a protagonist and a hint-giving person (e.g. a friend) in the form of voice messages. This is intended to enable an immersive experience in the Nebolus scavenger hunt. Stations have the function of levels, the completion of which can unlock various achievements (badges). To increase motivation and stimulate the spirit of adventure, there are also hidden stations to discover where important side information can be found. Nebolus is not about speed, but about playfully exploring the local surrounding.

Interactive maps

Exciting stories

Voice messages

Collect achievements

Our story templates for a captivating experience

Ready to use and customizable to your needs

In order to create the best possible gaming experience for participants, Nebolus scavenger hunts are based on a fictional story framework with virtual characters. These address various low-threshold health topics. A story manual is available to help you develop your own story. However, you can also use our story pool and adapt it to your own needs. We currently offer seven story templates covering the topics of mental health, physical activity and fitness, nutrition and alcohol consumption. Click on the titles below for more information.

Health topic: Mental health

Mike needs your help! His best friend Emma has disappeared from the face of the earth for three days – she hasn’t come to school, she can’t be found at home and she can’t be reached on her cell phone. Mike is seriously worried. He knows that Emma has been fighting with her mother and father for a long time. Emma’s parents have split up, both have new partners, her mother has even had two new children, and all in all she simply hasn’t had much time for Emma. Emma was not doing well at all. Is that why she disappeared? Then there was apparently also the matter of the new teacher Mr. Schreiber. Mike doesn’t really know what it’s all about yet, though. To be honest, Mike had been putting a lot of energy into his training at the gym recently and spending less time with Emma. Did he miss anything important? Mike asks Emma’s friends and family for clues that could help find Emma. These send him to a wide variety of places. The participants in this rally accompany Mike on his search for Emma, look at the different places where Emma was and find out how she was helped there. The facilities Emma has been to are as different as the reasons why Emma visited them. The participants will find out that Emma has many problems that are somehow all connected. Fortunately, she was able to find a local health service provider that could help her with these problems. Perhaps the participants will even find messages from Emma in the facilities that can explain her sudden disappearance.

Health topic: Addiction prevention/alcohol consumption

Yasmin has just spoken to her sister Elsa on the phone. Elsa told her that she woke up in the morning totally exhausted and with bruises all over her body. She no longer really knows where they come from. All she can remember is that she was out partying yesterday with her two best friends Lucy and Azra. Somehow Elsa can only remember the beginning of the evening, when she had a snack and a cocktail with her friends in a bar. After that, she only remembers scraps of memories, some colorful lights. Maybe they were in a club? Then there was probably another guy Elsa was talking to. Unfortunately, Elsa no longer knows whether she knew the guy beforehand. What on earth happened yesterday to cause Yasmin’s sister to black out like that? I wonder if Elsa has had too much to drink or if someone has mixed her with knockout drops. Elsa has already tried to call her two friends to find out what happened yesterday, but Lucy and Azra are not answering their phones. Because Elsa is too unwell to look for her friends, Yasmin sets off. Can the participants help Yasmin find Lucy and Azra? Fortunately, the three friends have a cell phone search app where they can see where each other are – just in case one of them gets lost on a night out. Participants in this rally can now use the app to see where Azra and Lucy are and ask them what happened yesterday. However, it will be difficult to find Azra, as she moves from one place to the next, sometimes faster than you can follow her. But what does she want from the local counseling center for parents, children and adolescents, the Diaconia’s addiction prevention center or all the other facilities? Can any of these institutions help explain what happened to Yasmin’s sister yesterday?

Health topic: Nutrition

Lia, a 16-year-old climate activist, regularly joins thousands of other young people at demonstrations such as Fridays for Future to draw attention to the climate catastrophe. Her mission to save the world even spills over into her private life, so that she constantly gets into arguments with her boyfriend Robin (17) because he thinks Lia is overdoing it with her behavior. In particular, her latest endeavor to eat vegan for the climate has Robin worried about Lia’s health. He accuses Lia of eating an unbalanced diet, which causes a nutritional deficiency that has a negative impact on her health. But is a vegan diet to protect the climate really as harmful to health as Robin claims, or are different types of vegan diets not the same thing? In this scavenger hunt, the participants join Robin on his nutritional mission to explain the possible health effects of a vegan diet to his girlfriend Lia using expert knowledge. Together with Robin, they are looking more closely at the links between (vegan) nutrition and climate protection under the health topic of ‘sustainable and climate-friendly nutrition’. They accompany him to various experts on nutrition, food and environmental protection in your local surrounding. It is also possible to integrate hidden stations to support Robin in his endeavour. Ultimately, the aim is to acquire the necessary knowledge to be able to answer the question of whether a vegan diet is really harmful to health and whether it is good for the climate at all. It is also important to find out what Robin’s motivation is at the rally: Is he only interested in Lia’s health or does he have other reasons?

Health topic: Physical activity/fitness

Inspired by fitness influencer Fit Flow, 16-year-old Max trains to his limits every day with the goal of perfecting his body. But his buddy Noah (16) has been worried about him for some time. Max looks tired all the time and he has lost weight, although he is already a slimmer guy. His social life also falls by the wayside, he hardly has any time for his friends and prefers a workout to gambling. In this scavenger hunt, the participants join Noah on his mission to understand his friend Max’s fitness mania and enlighten him about his radical approach. Under the health topic of ‘fitness’, with specific a focus on ‘fitness influencers’, the participants support Noah. What’s behind the fitness mania on the net and on social media? Do such training sessions make you healthier and fitter? And is it realistic to achieve a toned body like that of the influencers through workout videos? It is also important to find out what you should pay attention to when exercising. Does it depend on the frequency of training or the quality? Inspired by new insights, the participants join Noah in reflecting on their own activity levels and physical health. The participants help Noah uncover the common fitness myths of fitness influencers with the help of experts at various stations in the local surrounding. To this end, sports and health centers, sports clubs or even an adult education center can be approached to promote various dimensions of health literacy and demonstrate the variety of sports on offer. The participants work together in groups to find out the reasons behind Max’s sudden fitness trip and are given tips on healthier alternatives. By supporting Noah, they may be able to work together to convince Max to slow down his training a little.

Health topic: Nutrition

We are in the year 2237, the ‘MEGA Corporation’ has replaced the state and takes over all decisions for the population. People live in complete dependence on MEGA, they lack any awareness of making decisions independently. They have no knowledge of proper nutrition, how to cook or how to get from one place to another. All the knowledge about daily tasks and decisions is no longer in their hands. But this is countered by the resistance group ‘Selfies’, which aims to free people from their dependency. The participants are supported on their mission by Thymea (18), who has transported herself back to the year 2022 using the thought transmitter. The common goal is to collect information on the health topic of ‘healthy and sustainable nutrition’. The participants then pass on what they have learned to the group leader Abel (21), who navigates the players from the future. The aim is to find answers to the following questions: How do you eat well? What do you need to look out for when growing, producing and selecting food? And how do you prepare food? In addition, help is needed to distinguish between reliable and unreliable information. But the participants must be vigilant, because the MEGAS agents are aware of the plan and are already hot on their heels. The aim is therefore to complete all the stations without being discovered by MEGA. Here, too, participants have the possibility of exploring hidden stations. Information on this health topic can be found, for example, at interest groups for healthy food, adult education centers or health insurance companies (suggestions for stations can be found in the story template). So, what are you waiting for: send your participants on a discovery tour on the subject of nutrition, put the participants in the role of Thymea and support them in shaping the future sustainably.

Health topic: Addiction prevention/performance-enhancing substances

Camilla (20) actually wanted to meet up with her fellow student Jasper (21) to learn together for the next exam for her law degree. But Jasper doesn’t show up. He only left Camilla a mysterious message. Camilla is worried. Jasper has changed noticeably of late. While he had previously struggled extremely through his studies and thought aloud about quitting everything, from one day to the next he threw himself into it almost over-eagerly. At the same time, however, Jasper was suddenly constantly tense and easily irritable, as well as looking tired and losing a noticeable amount of weight. However, he didn’t really want to talk about it and blamed it on the stress of studying. Now Jasper hasn’t shown up for their appointment, but has left Camilla a message that alarms her: Jasper doesn’t seem to be well and, what’s more, he feels he’s being followed by someone. Together with the scavenger hunt participants, Camilla wants to find out what is behind Jasper’s change. In the search for the truth, there are more and more indications that Jasper has addiction problems. In his messages to Camilla, he gradually reveals how he has tried various illegal substances to improve his learning performance. And now he has problems getting away from them and suffers severely from physical and psychological consequences. In the course of the scavenger hunt, the participants get to know various local services that deal with excessive demands, stress and addiction issues. Can Jasper, with the advice of the experts and Camilla’s support, turn things around before it’s too late?

Health topic: Prevention of excessive media consumption

Kaja (15) is actually always online, using all kinds of channels. As a passionate cosplayer, she presents her costumes here and exchanges ideas with others. But suddenly her cosplay friend Leroy (15), who lives in another city, can no longer reach her. Is she ghosted him? Leroy wants to know what’s going on, takes the regional train to Kaja’s town and sets off in search of her. She has posted cryptic things on her profiles that indicate to Leroy that she is not well. It becomes increasingly clear that this is not about him, but that Kaja has a bigger problem and is looking for help. It also emerges that she deliberately went offline to protect herself. But from what? Through the places and messages Kaja leaves for her cosplay friend Leroy, there is increasing evidence that her current behavior is related to her online media consumption: The feeling of constantly having to be online in order not to miss anything, coupled with the pressure to post pictures and stories that can keep up with those of other cosplayers, have stressed Kaja out more and more, to the point where she was consistently in a bad mood. When she also started to have problems sleeping and eating, Kaja made the decision to go completely offline. How can Kaja regain control over her media consumption and rebuild a better relationship with herself? And can Leroy help her? In the course of the rally, the participants get to know various local services and experts that help them to develop a more conscious media consumption. Among other things, the phenomenon of “Fear of Missing out” (FOMO) and self-presentation in social media will also be addressed.