DESERT STAR MAP: THE NIGHT CARAVAN, a math escape room game with 120 math pyramid locks
The Night Caravan rolls only after dark: a line of little wagons with sails and lamps, steering by one great star map. Tonight a whirl of wind shakes all twelve star pictures right off the map, and without them nobody knows the way out of the Sea of Dunes before the sun comes up. Follow Jib the jerboa from camp to camp, open the brick locks, crack each compass chest and put the twelve star pictures back. Every picture brings one gold letter, and the twelve letters spell where the road leads.
THIS IS A DIGITAL GAME FOR A WEB BROWSER, PLUS A PRINTABLE PDF. It is not a book and nothing is shipped.
- The interactive game is the HTML file. It opens in a web browser after unzipping, checks your answers, gives hints and saves your progress on your device. It works offline: no internet, no account, no ads.
- The PDF is a printable paper version of the same adventure. It is not interactive: you solve with a pencil and check with the answer key at the back. It works completely by itself.
How It Plays
- Twelve camps along the caravan road, each with ten brick locks. Every lock is a number pyramid: every brick is the sum of the two bricks under it
- Each open lock gives a trail bead with a digit; four beads open the camp's compass chest
- Then the camp's star picture: solve, join the stars made by your answers, and a picture shines on the star map (a tent, a camel, a sand cat and nine more)
- A final secret: twelve gold letters, one from each star picture, spell the place the map leads to
- Stars for every lock (three with no help), a caravan road map, a star map to fill and a Star Reader Certificate with your name
- Six 60-second Star Showers for quick mental math
- A true fact about deserts or the night sky at every camp: twelve in all
18 Kinds Of Math Pyramid Puzzle, From Easy To Tricky
Sand Bricks, Jerboa Hops, Water Jars, Loose Brick, Trail Signs, Sandy Digits, Dune Slide, Big or Small?, Sand Message, Dune Maze (a pyramid maze), Day and Night, Tile Set, Tent Peg Fix, Twin Dunes, Four Flags, Riddle Letters, Night Frost and Brick x.
- New kinds arrive two at a time, each with its own rule card
- Camp 1 is simple adding; later camps bring taking away, times and divide, numbers below zero and a first taste of x
- 230 pyramids in all. Every one is new, has exactly one answer and can be solved step by step without guessing
- In the game: 3-step hints on every lock (a nudge, the method, the answer). In the PDF: a hint ladder and a full answer key
Ages
8 to 12 and up. The first camps suit age 8; the last camps challenge 12-year-olds and grown-ups.
WHAT YOU GET (instant download, 3 files)
- Desert-Star-Map-The-Night-Caravan.zip: the game (one offline HTML file), both PDFs and a short START HERE note
- The print-and-play PDF again as separate files, US Letter and A4 (110 full-colour pages each)
- Free bonus folder (QR code and link in the PDF): The Midnight Mile (16 expert locks with answers), the Caravan Party Pack (door sign, trail bead stickers, star picture garland, bunting, colouring page) and ink-saver versions of the booklet
How To Open The Game
1. Unzip the download (Windows: right-click the ZIP, then Extract All; Mac: double-click it)
2. Double-click Desert-Star-Map-The-Night-Caravan.html; it opens in your web browser
3. Play, with touch, mouse or keyboard
Please Check Your Device
- Windows, Mac and Chromebook: yes, in a current web browser (Chrome, Edge or Firefox work best)
- Android phones and tablets: yes, open the file with Chrome
- iPad and iPhone: Apple's Files app does not run games from a file. You would need a file-viewer app with its own browser, or a computer. The printable PDF works on every device.
Good To Know
- Digital download only: nothing is shipped.
- About 15 to 45 minutes a camp; twelve camps make many hours of puzzles.
- The game never goes online. Nothing is collected or sent; your progress stays on your device.
- A kind desert story: the wagons roll by sail, and the animals are free neighbours met along the road, never ridden, loaded or harmed.
- The twelve star pictures are our own drawings. They are not real constellations.
- Love math pyramids? Creouts Publishing also publishes math pyramid puzzle books in paperback: see creouts.com/pyramid-puzzle-books/.
Personal Use License
For your own family or a single classroom. Print as many copies as you need. No resale, sharing, uploading or claiming as your own; no AI training.
Digital download, nothing is shipped. Because files can be copied at once, we cannot take them back after download; if something is wrong with your file, write to us and we will fix or refund it.
