One of the best ways to get started and learn about Armchair Treasure Hunting is to look at past solutions for treasure hunts.  Although the solutions will not be the same, they may hold similar elements and methods.  They will get you thinking outside the box and demonstrate different ways information can be hidden within images and text. The following Six Questions with David Cohen takes a look at MasterMind by Jason Griffin.

Another great website which includes puzzles used by Armchair Treasure Hunts is 52 Master Pieces. The creator of this site happens to be the winner of MasterMind, David Cohen. As mentioned in the Six Q’s below, the site is Free to visit and shares multiple puzzles and their solutions. It is an excellent site to gain practice and insight into the puzzle solving world.  AND…..since David shared his knowledge on that site, it would seem it can certainly help you solve armchair treasure hunts- like it did for David with MasterMind!

The MasterMind treasure hunt was created by Jason Griffin and released in December of 2020.  MW had featured a Six Q with Jason .  In that Six Q, Jason’s passion towards the project was evident, and we learned some background of MasterMind.  It was a full armchair treasure hunt, and at the time the solution was found, the cash prize was $100. 

Congrats goes to both to-  Jason for creating a successful and enjoyable treasure hunt, and to – David (and his team) for taking up the challenge and discovering the solution to MasterMind.

A huge thank you to David for participating in the following Six Questions! Enjoy!

Six Questions with David:

  • 1Q) Congratulations on solving MasterMind! Where did you first hear about this armchair treasure hunt and what inspired you to dive into the pages of this particular hunt to try and discover the Lock and Key?

First of all, big thanks go out to Jason Griffin for creating such a fun and rewarding hunt, to my brilliant puzzle-solving partner and old college friend Steve Geller, and to you Jenny for creating this wonderful website. This is where I discovered the contest, on the MysteriousWritings page of armchair treasure hunts. The inspiration was simply a need for a treasure hunt fix…I love puzzle contests and am always on the lookout for new ones that are well-designed.

Somehow I missed this when it first came out a few months ago. MasterMind has many of the specific features I like most in a puzzle contest – codes, ciphers, anagrams, and other puzzles that provide immediate feedback for progress and correct answers. Other hunts often require subjective interpretations of poems or other vague clues…everyone has their own tastes, but I usually try to avoid those hunts. Also, the vibe of this hunt was positive and creative, always a plus.

  • 2Q) Can you share how you went about finding the solution for the Lock and Key, and solving some of the puzzles used in the hunt?

One feature I really liked about this hunt was that there were a number of immediately obvious puzzle elements that we could identify and sink our teeth into. There are five main pictures in this hunt which all contain hidden symbols (thank you Steve for finding the ones I missed), with a key at the end of the book to convert them to letters. This was a natural place to start, even though the meaning of the letters wasn’t immediately clear. Each additional puzzle had an “aha!” moment to it, so I’ll continue below…

  • 3Q) What did you enjoy most about MasterMind? Can you share some of the ‘aha’ moments of the search?

We certainly appreciate the creative details Jason put into his imaginative story, but what I enjoyed the most in MasterMind is what I’m always seeking in a puzzle hunt: “aha!” moments. And this book delivered more than a few. First we found a couple of intentional red herrings; a series of oddly capitalized letters scattered throughout a chapter, and later a random string of letters…but they both spelled out SORRY, TRY AGAIN (the latter with a Caesar shift). So our first aha! moments were dead ends, but in a fair and amusing way.

The first breakthrough came with a different series of oddly capitalized letters that looked a lot like one of my favorite ciphers, a Baconian cipher. This spelled out the word REVELATION, which Steve suggested might be a Bible reference to the Book of Revelation (a thought that hadn’t occurred to me). He was right, and combining this with numbers in the text directed us to the line: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.”

This was a key to the next step, which we happened to discover independently. Throughout the book there are ten sentences that end with the numbers 1 through 10, but not in order. The beginning letters of the next sentences, when reordered 1-10, were AINOMIADUE. But the book starts with a 10 to 1 countdown (as part of a hypnosis), so ordering them 10 to 1 spelled EUDAIMONIA. (A beautiful word, worth looking up!)

There were other steps along the way, but in the end the email address we needed was made by applying what we had found to the very first sentence of the book (“the beginning”), giving us the address realeudaimonia@gmail.com. The “key” that needed to be sent to this address was EUCATASTROPHE (another beautiful word worth looking up) which could be made by rearranging the letters we decoded in the pictures.

  • 4Q) What was the most challenging part of the hunt for you? Was there any time you thought about giving up?

The most challenging part was one puzzle that had a much easier solution than the method I used. One of the pictures shows a piece of paper with a series of symbols. I managed to crack it as a cryptogram with no spaces between words, no key, and with more than one symbol representing the spaces…very difficult! It turns out that later in the book there’s a reference to The Babington Plot, a real-world story where these symbols were used in a code…and a decoding key can easily be found with a Google search. Still, I’m glad I did it the hard way, that was a satisfying solve.

I never thought about giving up, for two reasons. One is that, like anyone who enjoys puzzle contests, I’m used to failure and the feeling of being stuck with no new ideas. That’s never a reason to quit (unless it seems like the hunt is a scam or of poor quality, clearly not the case here)…the answers are out there…usually it’s best to just take a break and come back later when a new idea or insight might lead to progress. The second is that this contest was a rare one where everything simply fell into place quickly. Bought the book on April 29th, sent in our entry on May 2nd. There wasn’t enough time to give up!

  • 5Q) MW had the pleasure of doing a previous Six Q’s with you, as the creator of 52 Master Pieces; an exceptional and puzzling website. At the time, plans for creating more puzzle fun was not in your future. Is it now? What have you been doing lately in the Treasure Hunt and Puzzle World? (besides solving MasterMind)

Thank you for the kind words. 52 Master Pieces was one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever been a part of. No current plans for another hunt, but I have to admit I am inspired by your Masquerade Tribute that’s raising money for worthy charities. If you plan to do this again in the future and need one more puzzle-maker to fill your dance card, please feel free to let me know…I might be open to something like that if all the stars align. 🙂

I had taken a break from treasure hunts and contests for a few years, but there’s something about a pandemic that inspires indoor hobbies. Steve and I spent tons of time on The Great US Treasure Hunt a few months ago. We were so close a couple of times! Most months I participate in GAMES magazine contests…my daughter and I just won a runner-up prize last week. But all our current attention is going to the Higher and Higher contest in the Masquerade Tribute. (By the way, everyone reading this should register for this contest and then focus on any of the individual hunts other than Higher and Higher…kidding of course, but please do check that out and support their worthy causes).

  • 6Q) Can you offer any advice to those struggling with how to solve armchair treasure hunts? I know many searchers love the concept but get discouraged because they don’t know where to start. What would you suggest? Do you feel you can build the skills needed to solve armchair treasure hunt with practice?

My best advice is the advice that I always need to remember myself…be motivated by enthusiasm. If solving puzzles ever feels more like work than play, or if the motivation is only for a prize or other accolades, put down the pencil and find where your true enthusiasm is in that moment, and do that other thing instead.

That said, for anyone who is a beginner and doesn’t know where to start, I’d strongly recommend finding online summaries of old puzzle contests with step-by-step solution guides. MysteriousWritings is a great reference for this! If you read through a solution and think “wow, that’s brilliant, I want to see more of this and try to solve something myself,” then go for it!

We’d also still encourage everyone to visit our old 52 Master Pieces contest website at 52masterpieces.com (free, no ads). All the prizes have long since been redeemed, but everyone can still enjoy all of the puzzles including many codes and ciphers that commonly appear in armchair treasure hunts. The site includes answer keys and links to explain all of the hidden contest puzzles and solutions step by step.

I would say that the hardest part of being an armchair treasure hunt enthusiast is frequently feeling “stuck” and only achieving victories a very low percentage of the time. But if your primary goal is to challenge your mind and enjoy the experience, then even if you don’t win you’ll succeed every time. Cheesy but true!

Thanks again Jenny for another Six Questions and for all you do in the treasure hunting world. You’ve brought a lot of joy to many people and we’re very grateful to you.

Sincerely, David