Ninja Race
- 90 Minutes
- 20 – 500+ people
- Indoor · Any venue
What is Ninja Race?
Ninja Race is an outdoor team building activity where participants explore the city, complete missions, and compete for points using a custom smartphone app.
Teams move through the surrounding area in groups of around five people, solving clues, completing photo challenges, answering cultural quizzes, and taking on skill-based missions. The app guides each team with navigation, hints, task instructions, photo submissions, and live scoring.
Invite Japan handles the full event setup and facilitation. You provide the hotel or venue, the date, and the participant details. We design the route, prepare the missions, brief the participants, manage the event on the day, and finish with a ranked results presentation and photo slideshow.
Ninja Race is available in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Okinawa, and Yokohama, with established routes designed for corporate groups. For other locations, we can create a custom route with approximately 6–8 weeks of preparation time.
Six Cities, Each With its Own Character and Challenges
Every Ninja Race route is custom-designed around the city’s landmarks, culture, and hidden spots. Each location offers a different experience, so your team can enjoy a program that feels connected to the place they are exploring.
Tokyo routes take teams through a mix of business districts, cultural landmarks, and local neighborhoods. The city feels familiar enough to navigate, but dense and layered enough to keep the experience surprising.
Osaka routes include castle areas, historic merchant streets, and neighborhoods that reflect the city’s lively character. The challenges are designed around real local context, making the experience feel specific to Osaka.
Kyoto routes connect temple areas, preserved streets, and cultural landmarks that give the program a strong sense of history and place. This location is especially effective for international teams visiting Japan for the first time.
Fukuoka’s compact and walkable layout makes it well-suited for Ninja Race. Routes can move smoothly through the city, with a good balance of history, modern culture, and local atmosphere.
Okinawa offers a completely different setting from mainland Japan, with Ryukyuan heritage, tropical surroundings, and a distinct local culture. It is a strong choice for annual offsites, incentive programs, and events where the destination itself is part of the experience.
Yokohama’s waterfront areas and open spaces make it especially suitable for larger groups. Challenge locations can be spread across the area without feeling too congested, helping the event stay smooth and manageable.
Ninja Race can be designed for many cities and areas across Japan. We can create a custom route around your venue, incorporating local landmarks, culture, and points of interest.
For custom locations, please allow 3 to 5 months of preparation time.
Four Stages, From Hotel Lobby to Ranked Results
Ninja Race is designed to run smoothly from start to finish. We handle the setup, briefing, facilitation, app support, scoring, and final results presentation, so your team can focus on the experience.
Setup and Team Formation
Our team arrives before the participants to prepare the event area and materials. Participants gather at your hotel lobby or chosen venue, form teams, receive their game kits and color-coded headbands, and scan a QR code to access the app.
Briefing and Warmup Activity
Our facilitators explain the challenge types, safety guidelines, and how to use the app. Teams then take part in a short opening activity before being released into the city on their assigned routes.
The Race
Teams follow their own routes through the city and compete for points by completing challenges across five categories. The app manages navigation, hints, timers, photo uploads, and live scoring throughout the race.
Results and Rankings
Teams return to your hotel or venue for the closing session. We run a final group challenge, present the ranked results, and share a photo slideshow from the race. The session wraps before dinner, giving your team a clear and memorable ending to the experience.
Six Challenge Types, Designed So Different
People Lead at Different Moments
Every Ninja Race includes a mix of challenge types. This keeps the experience balanced and gives different team members a chance to contribute.
Creative Photo Missions
Teams complete photo-based missions using the city around them, such as recreating a historical scene, posing with a landmark, or telling a short story in three images. Photos are uploaded through the app and can be shown during the finale as a fun visual recap of the day.
Physical Challenges
Physical challenges include target-based, accuracy-based, or coordination-based tasks that create clear moments of success, failure, and recovery. These tasks help teams see who steps forward, who supports others, and how the group works together under pressure.
Japan Trivia and Quizzes
Trivia questions are connected to the location where each team is standing, with topics such as local history, architecture, culture, and nearby landmarks. For organizations with specific goals, we can also include company trivia, product knowledge, or values-based questions.
Digital and GPS Challenges
Some missions only appear when a team reaches the correct location, keeping the race fair and preventing shortcuts. The app manages location-based missions, hints, timers, photo uploads, and scoring throughout the experience.
Skill-Based Builds
Teams receive materials and complete a construction or engineering-style task within a time limit. These open-ended challenges are useful for seeing how teams plan, divide roles, make decisions, and adapt when there is no single correct approach.
Puzzles and Brain Teasers
Logic puzzles and lateral thinking tasks give teams a chance to slow down and think together. These challenges often bring out participants who may not lead during faster or more physical tasks, helping the group recognize different kinds of strengths.
Browser-Based App, No Downloads Required
Zero Installation Required
Participants access the game through a QR code, so they can start immediately from any smartphone with mobile data. The browser-based format keeps the setup simple for both participants and organizers.
App-Guided Missions
Teams use the app to view their route, read mission instructions, submit answers, upload photos, and check their progress. This keeps the experience organized and allows each team to move through the race at their own pace.
Live Photo Album and Recap Slideshow
Team photos are uploaded directly through the app into a private event album. At the finale, the photos can be shown as a slideshow, creating a natural closing moment and useful content for internal communications or HR reporting.
Real-Time Scoreboard
Points update as teams complete and submit challenges. At the end of the race, we present the final rankings, scores, and completion times, making it easy to run prize presentations or include results in a post-event report.
Fully Bilingual in Japanese and English
All challenges, hints, and instructions are available in both Japanese and English within the same app. Japanese and non-Japanese speaking participants can play together using the same interface, without separate materials.
What Happens in the Room, Consistently,
Across Every Team That Runs This
These aren't goals the program sets out to hit. They're what happens because of how the day is structured, which is why we can describe them this specifically instead of in generic workshop language.
Collaboration becomes necessary, not encouraged
Five challenge categories mean no single person can carry the team. People who don't normally work together end up depending on each other, and they see it work.
Communication sharpens under time pressure
Navigating GPS routes, splitting up tasks, and submitting answers in sequence forces teams to communicate fast and clearly. That pressure comes from the format itself, not a facilitator prompting them to talk.
Leadership appears where you didn't expect it
Different challenge types call for different strengths, so leadership doesn't always come from wherever it usually does. Managers who've run Ninja Race with their teams tell us they saw a team member differently afterward, and it changed how they thought about that person's role.
A reference point the team returns to
Competition, movement, and real challenge make memories that last. Teams still bring up specific moments from Ninja Race months later, longer than most workshops get remembered. That staying power is what builds working relationships, not a one-off debrief.
Teams get to know the city
Every route is built around real local context: history, architecture, why a neighborhood looks the way it does. Teams leave knowing the place, not just having walked through it. That matters most for international teams and employees who are new to Japan.
Analytical and creative profiles both contribute
Photo missions reward instinct and creativity. Puzzles reward logic. Builds reward spatial thinking. The team that balances all three wins, and that's a message people absorb by living it, not by hearing it in a workshop.
Two Options: One for Established Cities, One for Anywhere Else
Sample pricing based on 20 participants. Final pricing depends on your group size, city, and any add-ons, so request a quote for your exact numbers.
- Full city route with all challenge types
- Bilingual facilitators and game kits
- Opening physical warmup
- Live rankings and photo album
- Final challenge at your venue
- Full rankings reveal and winner ceremony
- Everything in the Full Experience Plan
- Custom route built for any city or area
- Location scouting & challenge design
- Ideal for offsites outside core city areas
- Requires 3 - 5 months lead time
- Good to know
- Starts and ends at your hotel or chosen venue
- Per-person pricing varies by group size
- Travel costs may apply outside core city areas
- The Invite Japan team arrives 30 minutes before start for setup
- Custom location design requires 6 to 8 weeks lead time
- All plans include bilingual facilitators and support staff
Optional Additions for Clients with Specific Requirements
The standard program is complete without any of these. Add-ons are for organizations with branding requirements, internal content goals, or events that need to produce specific deliverables.
Custom Trivia and Quizzes
Replace or supplement the standard trivia with questions you write: company history, product knowledge, values frameworks, or anything else you want teams to carry. Particularly effective for onboarding cohorts and product launch events.
Corporate Messaging Integration
Embed your company’s values, strategic priorities, or campaign messaging directly into the challenge content. Teams run into it inside the race itself. No slide deck after lunch, just something they find on their own.
Custom Banners and Signage
Branded flags, start and finish banners, and checkpoint signage with your logo. It changes the feel of the event, and the photo of your whole team under a branded banner at the finish line tends to travel far internally.
Branded Swag and Prize Packs
Team merchandise, prize packs for the winners, or branded swag for all participants. We coordinate sourcing and delivery to your venue in advance. Nothing for you to arrange on the day.
Something specific in mind?
The program is built to adapt. If you have a theme, a cultural element, a specific neighborhood, or a challenge type that fits your group’s context, tell us. We’ll design it in.