Candle’s Quest is a new kind of treasure map. It’s a collection of short stories and puzzles that, once deciphered, will lead you through Minecraft worlds to find treasures. The first to solve all of the puzzles and locate the final treasure will have the right to claim priceless, one-of-a-kind real-life treasures and a place in Minecraft history!
Join Candle on her adventures through breath-taking landscapes. Stand at her side as she takes on untold evils in pursuit of treasure. Meet new friends, and have a lot of fun along the way. Learn more and follow the status of the hunt on the hunt’s website: Candle’s Quest
The author, Ron, is a long-time gamer and games master who holds honors across many disciplines of hobbies. Crazy stuff like… being a certified Bob Ross oil painting instructor, being profiled in Nintendo Power magazine, having a board game piece named after him, having published articles in Pokémon magazines, and having been a panelist at MineCon conventions.
Six Questions with Ron:
- 1Q) Candle’s Quest is a great idea! Please explain more about how you combined the search for treasures with the world of Minecraft!
For people who enjoy treasure hunts, going ‘boots on the ground’ can be a real barrier to participation. With a game as widespread as Minecraft, hunters on Candle’s quest can solve a book puzzle and within minutes be exploring the virtual worlds from the comfort of their desk! Perhaps the coolest part of this is – you and your friends can explore these virtual worlds TOGETHER, no matter where you live around the globe.
How does the book work with the game? It follows the same pattern as traditional treasure hunts, except that the exploration part is done in a virtual world. Solve a puzzle in the book, use the solution to create a specific Minecraft world, follow the book’s “map” in that world to find a “treasure” block. Once you have found all of the blocks, you can use them in one last book puzzle.
- 2Q) What do searchers need to know to get started in the hunt? Do you feel anyone can join the fun – even if not familiar with either Minecraft or puzzle hunts?
Absolutely, anyone can join the fun! In fact, one of the reasons I created this project was to introduce more people to these two hobbies of mine. Most Minecraft players are already solving puzzles and exploring virtual worlds on a daily basis – I hope some of them enjoy Candle’s Quest enough to research other treasure hunt books and seek out ways to emulate their Minecraft experiences in real life! Similarly, I bet every treasure hunter knows at least one friend or relative who plays Minecraft. This could be a great way for people to connect.
That said, I imagine Minecraft could be an intimidating topic for hunters who are not that familiar with video games. Here’s how I would think of it… hunters will use Google Street View or other tools to simulate moving through the streets of our real world, looking for landmarks. That’s about 90% of what you need to be able to do in Minecraft, to solve Candle’s Quest. I am confident that a person new to Minecraft can quickly figure out how to move their character around. That’s when your orienteering skills will kick in (just like a real-life hunt) and you will start interpreting the landmarks you see as steps to the treasure.
The other 10% of Minecraft knowledge that you will need is not really for playing the game, but it will be needed when interpreting the book puzzles. You can gain this knowledge by playing the game for a few minutes, or you can do it by researching via the many online wikis or Minecraft fan sites. Here are two examples of the kind of knowledge I’m talking about:
- Figuring out what some of the images depicted in the book are. I am pretty confident that when you see a pixelated version of a watermelon in the book, you can fairly quickly research what that thing is called in Minecraft. There are other pictures that look like saplings, seeds, animals, types of trees, colored banners, etc… I am 100% sure that if you see something you don’t recognize, the hunt community on MW’s Discord will help.
- There is at least one book puzzle that requires a basic understanding of “crafting recipes” (e.g., you can break down 1 log to get 4 wooden planks, and you can use 4 wooden planks in a certain shape to create a crafting table). You can use the in-game “recipe book” to guide you, or use “creative mode” to give yourself all of the necessary items. Or, again, tap into the vast knowledge of Minecraft wikis and the helpfulness of the MW community.
Lastly, and I think this goes without saying – you DO need a copy of Minecraft Bedrock edition to play in. It’s the edition most people have on their phones, gaming consoles or pc (over 300 million copies worldwide). I bet they would be thrilled to navigate Candle’s worlds with you and then show you their world and the wondrous things they’ve built! I don’t want to downplay that there is a cost to the game, but I am certain it is less than a plane trip and/or gas.
- 3Q) What was your first treasure hunt? How did you get involved in the hobby of armchair treasure hunting and what kept you hooked?
In 2002, a relative of mine had seen an article about David Blaine’s upcoming “Mysterious Stranger” book, and thought I might like it. They had no idea what they were getting me into.
I happened to be visiting San Francisco at the time and finding the book on its release date at an unfamiliar book store added to my feeling that I was about to embark on some strange quest. I spent so many of the following nights counting the fingers of lizards and researching the history of magic, as well as getting caught up in this new, exploding world of internet communities and message boards. On top of that, my work requires me to travel quite a bit (I’ve recently completed my quest of visiting all 50 US states), which I thought would make it much easier for me to actually retrieve the golden orb if I was the one to solve the book. Over the next two years, I was lucky enough to be visiting many of the places that were referenced in the book – it really felt like I was hot on David Blaine’s trail.
I have been a puzzler and gamer all of my life. I love the outdoors, geocaching, and the spirit of adventure. Armchair treasure hunting combines these things like nothing else. After “Mysterious Stranger” it was easy to get sucked into more and more books.
I am currently hunting The Whistle Pig, Jon Collins-Black’s Pokémon box, and am (im?)patiently waiting on a city to approve my Secret dig request. My bookshelf holds a few more books I’ve almost given up on.
- 4Q) How would you rate the difficulty of the puzzles in Candle’s Quest? Are you expecting the hunt to last a few months, a year, or more?
To be honest, I was terrified that someone was going to solve Candle’s Quest from the ebook before most people even had a chance to receive their paperbacks or hardcovers. I calculate that, once a player understands the mechanics of each puzzle, and how to move around the Minecraft world, it should take 5-10 hours to complete.
But there’s the trick – understanding what to do for each puzzle. For the puzzles that Candle gives you, she tells you exactly what you need to do, and there are hints or “confirmers” throughout the book. There is an element of incremental learning, where the mechanics of early puzzles may be applied in more complex ways in subsequent puzzles. And when you reach a puzzle solution, it should be very obvious if it is correct.
Of the puzzles that Candle gives you, there is one simple puzzle, but it requires the most Minecraft knowledge – an equalizer for Minecraft players new to treasure hunts. The other puzzles are fairly easy from a traditional puzzling sense, just Minecraft-flavored.
Once you have those solutions, interpreting the word play of the Dragon’s Verse (an homage to The Secret) can be a little tricky – there’s no Google Maps to give you place names in the virtual forest. But I’ve given guidance in the book that each landmark is within a certain reasonable travel distance, so using the in-game coordinates system should keep players from wandering off into the infinite horizon.
The real trick is going to be – figuring out how to use those initial solutions in the final puzzle.
- 5Q) Armchair treasure hunting has been around for decades, but many are just learning about the hobby. What do you feel creators can do to help grow and invite more searchers into this adventurous community?
For creators who don’t have the money for marketing, allure of a multi-million dollar chest, or the power of a big publisher, I think it’s going to have to be; encourage the grass roots might of your audience. Ask each of your players to post about the hunt on social media – if they are having fun, become your champion. And if they have other hobbies, talk to those people and actively find the overlap.
- 6Q) I love how you utilized Minecraft! What did you enjoy most about creating the hunt and do you plan on creating other projects?
The most exciting thing for me was how many of my hobbies I was able to combine for this book. Not only does the book contain Minecraft-themed puzzles, but I made and included several oil paintings, a little poetry, and short stories to tie it all together. I also created a web site, a new YouTube channel, and exercised a lot of project management skills behind the scenes.
I’ve always taken my hobbies to the next level and have a long list of potential projects. In fact, I just launched a monthly Minecraft puzzle challenge via YouTube.
