Last December (2020), MasterMind: A True Armchair Treasure Hunt by Jason Griffin was released. It has been challenging searchers since and remains unsolved as of this writing.  Can you discover the Lock and Key within the imaginative story and forward a successful claim to receive the monetary prize of the treasure hunt?

Let’s learn more about this exciting hunt from Jason himself?  Can he offer any clues on how to solve the puzzle?

  • 1Q) Thanks Jason for participating in these Six Questions! I always like to start off by asking what was your inspiration for creating an Armchair Treasure Hunt? It’s fascinating to me all the various circumstances that spark the idea. What might have been yours?

I began working on armchair treasure hunts years back, I think around 2010 maybe. I stumbled onto The Secret online one day and fell in love with the hobby and idea. Since then I don’t know how many hunts I have been involved in but for me they are always fun. While doing the hunts I would have a blast trying to figure out the mystery and meeting new people along the way, especially people in the treasure hunting community.  I have traveled all over for these hunts and it never fails to make interesting conversation with people you meet out in this amazing world.

While speaking with people there are always two things they will say regarding hunting treasure, one is that they would love to do it, the other is that they can’t because they can’t travel or have money constraints. The repeating conversation is what sparked the idea to create a hunt of my own. I wanted a hunt that is solvable by anyone in the world, no travel needed and at a price point anyone could afford to get into. I wanted to share the fun that all of us who have treasure hunted enjoy.

  • 2Q) How can a searcher get involved in MasterMind? What do they need to do? What is the prize for the hunt?

 MasterMind is an e-book only hunt available on Amazon.com.  The book is set at the $5.99 price point to make it accessible for anyone who wants to take up the challenge. The hunt is a true armchair treasure hunt, what a treasure hunter is looking for is an email address and a code to send to the email address, the lock and key as presented in the books story. The first email received at the email address with the correct code will win the prize.

The prize was the hardest part for the hunt because there is no boots on the ground. So I stuck with a monetary prize, it is a low prize with growth potential. It began at $50.00 but has grown since release to $100.00 and will continue to grow as the book is sold.  The maximum reward is $10,000 – if that amount is reached the book will have surpassed all of my expectations, but if that happens I will make sure to announce it to the community. I will also ship a full size heavyweight championship belt to the winner as well, as they are the champion, the MasterMind!

  • 3Q) What did you enjoy most about writing the story and creating the hunt? Did you find any parts more challenging to do than others? What would you like most to accomplish from this project?

 MasterMind was written from it’s conception as an armchair treasure hunt, I do think I have weaved a good story in with the hunt as well, but it wasn’t written as a great novel or anything it is a hunt from birth. That being said, my favorite part was creating an original way to hide the lock and key. I do hope people enjoy the story in the hunt, but I hope they find the most enjoyment in figuring out the puzzle. If people have fun, and especially if people discover treasure hunting through the book and hunt, I will have accomplished what I set out to do.

  • 4Q) Can you offer any advice to searchers on how to go about solving the hunt? What are your thoughts about the difficulty? Is knowledge of codes and ciphers needed or is it more a following of simple common sense clues to the answers? Are the clues only those ‘obvious’ end of the chapter images, and some in chapter items, or are they cleverly hidden everywhere and spread all throughout the book?

The story has hidden meaning throughout, it was created for the hunt, codes and cyphers are used.  The ‘obvious’ can be used to hide things as well.  There are clues within the story that will assist, there are also cyphers that will lead nowhere, but if you find one of those you will know. I didn’t want to make this too hard, I wanted it to be accessible to all and hopefully get people involved that may have never been into treasure hunting before. I believe this hunt to be highly solvable by anyone, and will say that if the right mind gets involved it may be solved fairly quickly. I would say as far as hunts go this one is probably a 5 or 6 out of 10 in hardness – 6 only if you have never messed with cyphers before. You will only need the e-book and the internet to research to solve the puzzle.

  • 5Q) Can you share a bit about yourself? In the story, the main character goes under hypnosis and travels through some adventurous times. Had you ever been hypnotized, or do you hypnotize people? Personally, I’ve been interested in the subject and enjoyed your story. It amazes me all the mysteries and power our minds have; It made me wonder what is your experience with the mind, and why did you choose that subject matter?

It took me a while to come up with the main theme for the hunt, as anyone who has created a hunt knows, it isn’t easy. Knowing people are enjoying what you have worked so hard to make is rewarding for sure. I came up with the story with the thought of telling the story from the reader’s point of view. The main character in the story is you, the reader. The challenge was finding a way to do that, that would make sense and hopefully help carry you though the story in a way that makes you think and get involved in the story, in a new way, maybe a way you have never enjoyed before.

I hope it worked, at the same time I hope while you go through the story every once in a while you will catch something strange and remember, wait I’m  hunting for something. Kind of how the “you” in the story does from time to time. I have never hypnotized anyone, someone tried to hypnotize me at a carnival back in the early 90’s but it didn’t take. I don’t know my thoughts on hypnotism but I am also astounded by the power of the mind, the whole of reality is in there, for each of us, a different reality for each of us. Deep thoughts on that subject.

  • 6Q) Do you have any plans for releasing future books, with or without treasure hunts? Had you written others before? Do you have any other hobbies or treasure hunts you are personally working on now?

I do have another book in the works, it is not a treasure hunt but I hope it will do well and people will read it, I hope to release it as a paperback and an e-book. It will be a while for it but it is a sci-fi fantasy epic. I am on the hunt for treasure always, I still hunt for H Charles Biel’s cache’s and if I can ever figure out a cache from Byron’s The Secret I’ll let you know. 

Thank you for reading the book and for doing a six questions, it’s always a pleasure.

Jason