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FOUND TREASURE Shipwreck Box! Few moments in treasure hunts are as exciting as the moment a hidden treasure is finally found! Except perhaps hearing the story from both sides. In this special interview, we get to hear from both RealLifeGoonie (the creator behind the hunt) and Pogues 4 Life (the finders who solved the clues and claimed the prize).
From the inspiration and puzzle design to the twists, breakthroughs, and final discovery, this conversation offers a rare look at the adventure from beginning to end. Lot’s can be gained and learned from their experiences. I appreciate them taking time to share it with us all in the following Six Questions! (3 for the finders – 3 for the creator) – enjoy – truly inspiring!
(Join discussions of all treasure hunts on the MW Discord)
(Shipwreck Box Hunt by North Texas Treasure Hunts – – Official Site – more to come!)
Six Questions:
First 3 Q’s for Pogues 4 Life!
- 1Q) Congrats on the find! What did you enjoy most about this particular hunt -over maybe others you’ve worked on? Which puzzle was your greatest ‘aha’ moment? Did you have it fully solved before heading out to retrieve the treasure?
The North Texas Treasure Shipwreck Box was a very clever and well designed puzzle set. We liked that the creator used creative keywords and images to nudge the solver towards the right solve methodology for each puzzle. There were a lot of aha moments such as seeing the 1202 in the bunny ears and realizing that it connected to the Fibonacci Sequence (Liber Abaci was published in 1202). Or realizing that the colored areas of a grid of letters were actually fold lines to make a paper airplane which revealed a new message.
The most fun aha moment was putting our solved pieces together. Then the poem line “first name is tarnished” along with 925 from connecting the Braille ship dots led us to Boykin Springs named after Sterling Boykin. The shape of the opening at the Aldridge Sawmill there confirmed it was absolutely correct (a checkpoint we could see from home! Horray!)
- 2Q) Please share the discovery of hidden treasure! Was it hidden exactly where you thought it would be or was it difficult to find once on location? Please describe how it felt once confirmed.
Thankfully the creator gave specific instructions in the poem. Once you find the “tomb shaped pillars” and “hop the wall” finding the treasure was a matter of some bush whacking. This was very satisfying (especially compared to some other hunts where we know we’ve got the right solve, but grid searching has been excessively time consuming and so far fruitless).
It can be time consuming and expensive to go BOTG, and having pretty high certainty that you’ll be able to find the treasure was a great feeling. It didn’t take away from the adventure of BOTG – needing to drive back roads and get to a decent parking space, then having to hike to where you needed to be was still an adventure. Seeing a giant X on the ground and knowing to search NEAR FLAGSTONE X made following those last few steps to the treasure box all that much more rewarding!
- 3Q) What advice would you give to new searchers just getting into treasure hunts? How do you personally approach a hunt in a way that leads to successful solves and ultimately finding the treasure? What habits, skills, or mindset do you think help beginners grow into stronger searchers over time?
First, have fun with it. Find some people to bounce ideas off of (whether a friend or partner IRL or someone on MW forums, discord, etc). We currently have a little team who works on hunts together and we were all strangers before meeting on the forums! Most of our chatter is jokes, gifs and incorrect ideas… but sometimes the pieces come together and we get a win! We have fun regardless, which at the end of the day keeps you learning and ultimately positioned to win on occasion!
3 Questions for RealLifeGoonie (Creator of hunt)
- 4Q) What was your reaction when you learned the treasure had been found? Did the finders solve the puzzles the way you intended, or did they surprise you? Are you satisfied with how it ultimately concluded?
My first reaction was WOW that was fast! I couldn’t believe how quickly the finder was able to solve it and actually get to the location to grab it. There were also a handful of others who were able to solve it as well but just barely missed it. I was very impressed with everybody. The finders solved the puzzle as intended and were nice enough to include a video of them hiking to the box location for others to see. It was also awesome of them to let me know so quickly once they found the box, really great sportsmanship! This lets me notify all the searchers and prevents them from wasting their time and hard earned gas money. I’m very satisfied with how this concluded and it was good to see the treasure go to a great team of friends!
- 5Q) Now that you’ve gone through the full cycle of creating, hiding, watching theories develop, and seeing the treasure recovered, what part of the process did you enjoy most? And why?
I really enjoyed all the people emailing and messaging me in Discord about their solves and experiences. It was great to see people out in nature making memories almost immediately. Many people described how exciting it was to crack the clues and rush out to look for the box. That’s really what all this is about, having fun and adding that feeling of excitement and adventure back into our lives.
- 6Q) Since this was your first treasure hunt, what lessons are you taking from this experience as a creator that you’ll carry into future hunts? And what are your future plans for hunts?
I definitely learned a lot of lessons on this first hunt. I knew there would be some very sharp treasure hunters participating, but I am really going to have to increase the difficulty if I want these boxes to last 1-2 months. It’s easy to write a hunt that lasts a day or two, and very easy to write a difficult hunt that lasts years. The hard part is designing hunts that consistently fall into the sweet spot of a few months or less. Perfecting this will be a trial and error process that I will continue to strive for. I want to write clues that everybody has a chance at solving, yet they need to be difficult enough to keep the experienced folks from grabbing it in 2 days!
As for the future hunts, I have already purchased the majority of the treasure for the next box. My plan was to space each box 3 months apart to give enough time to generate sales, but 3 months almost seems too far away given how quickly this first box was found. The future hunts will definitely be PDF only, with the option to print your own hardcopy at home. This is the only way to ensure fair start times for everyone. The cost of printing and shipping hardcopies completely wiped out the profit that should have gone towards increasing the value of the next box. This is another of the many lessons I learned on my first hunt.
I’m grateful to all the searchers who choose to participate and provide me the creative opportunity to add some fun back into the community!