# Were those 'Solve a puzzle and get a massive prize' books ever legit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 28, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782 "2007-05-28T14:22:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Dumbest\_Guy\_in\_the\_Room](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@The\_Dumbest\_Guy\_in\_the\_Room](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Dumbest_Guy_in_the_Room)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/1 "2007-05-28T14:22:16Z")
I remember when I was a kid there were lot of books that offered a prize to the first person to crack the puzzle within. Generally it was a relatively small book. Each page had a picture and some text. The text would tell a not very good story and the back of the book would tell you that included within was a set of multifaceted clues that would enable you to figue out the location of something valuable. Generally there’s a suggestion that the puzzle is well hidden, but a bright kid could crack it. For some reason whoever ran my local library was obviously a fan of these type of books, as they had quite a large collection. Leaving aside the fact that once someone who has the ability to get to wherever the object is hidden actually solves it, no-one who buys the book afterwards has any chance at all, were these books ever really legitimate? If not, how could they get away with such blatant false advertising? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/2 "2007-05-28T14:32:04Z")
[This one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)) was. I only found out about from the book about solving the mystery _Quest for the Golden Hare_ many years later. It was a great read. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/3 "2007-05-28T14:51:32Z")
Kit Williams’s _Masquerade_ was the first of these, I think, at least for the 80s surge in popularity. Williams also had another one, something about a golden bee. And I remember there was one about a hidden golden horse, as well. Found a [FAQ](http://www.bunnyears.net/kitwilliams/bee.html) on the Untitled bee book by Williams! And [here’s](http://nooga.com/treasure.html) a site about the golden horse book. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/4 "2007-05-28T15:12:43Z")
“A lot of books” is clearly an exaggeration. I think that there were maybe a half a dozen of them. Do you actually remember seeing dozens of such books at your local library? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Dumbest\_Guy\_in\_the\_Room](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@The\_Dumbest\_Guy\_in\_the\_Room](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Dumbest_Guy_in_the_Room)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/5 "2007-05-28T15:29:47Z")
It’s about 15 years ago so I don’t remember too clearly. By ‘a lot’ I meant maybe 10 or so. One is an interesting and original idea. A second is a copycat trying to glom off the success of that. I think I was surprised that many more than that would be produced. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/6 "2007-05-28T16:50:47Z")
Quite a few of them listed at [The Armchair Treasure Hunt Club - Hunts for the General Public](http://www.treasureclub.net/publichunts/index.html), some of them never solved. I certainly remember that an inordinate amount of time was spent in our house fruitlessly trying to crack the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Conundrum. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/7 "2007-05-28T20:30:04Z")
The generic name for such things now is an [Armchair Treasure Hunt](http://www.treasureclub.net/). They’re still around but apparently aren’t too common (outside of England anyway). Back in the 80s there was a module published for the _Fantasy Trip_ RPG called “Treasure of the Silver Dragon” which contained hidden clues to a real dragon statuette made of silver, that IIRC was solved in less than a week. There was a later module titled “Quest for the Unicorn Gold” which also supposedly contained clues to a real gold unicorn somewhere that was never found, leading many to speculate that the publisher never actually hid the unicorn (and that it may never have even existed in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/8 "2007-05-28T20:59:21Z")
Atari got into the act with a series of four contests associated with 2600 video game cartridges. I think one of them was Adventure. Solve something related to the game and win some ridiculous prize, like a real jewel-encrusted crown or a gold sword. We had one of the games but I never bothered trying to solve that aspect of it. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-those-solve-a-puzzle-and-get-a-massive-prize-books-ever-legit/405782/9 "2007-05-28T21:18:47Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] Atari got into the act with a series of four contests associated with 2600 video game cartridges. I think one of them was Adventure. Solve something related to the game and win some ridiculous prize, like a real jewel-encrusted crown or a gold sword. We had one of the games but I never bothered trying to solve that aspect of it. [/QUOTE] The [Swordquest](http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/2600/2600_2.shtml) series: Waterworld, Fireworld, Earthworld and Airworld. > [@](#): > > SwordQuest Contest ad > One of the more interesting game series for the 2600 came about as a result of the legendary “SwordQuest Challenge.” Launched in 1982, this contest would span four DC comic books and four game cartridges. There would be four parts of the quest, which were referred to as “worlds” (the four worlds being Earth, Fire, Water, and Air). For each world, there would be a separate prize and in the end, there would be a showdown between the four winners for the grand prize. What were the prizes? Get this: for each world, the prize was an 8-karat, jewel-encrusted, $25,000 artifact designed specifically for the contest. The artifacts were the Earthworld Talisman, the Fireworld Chalice, the Waterworld Crown, and the Airworld Philosopher’s Stone. The grand prize was a $50,000 “Sword of Ultimate Sorcery.” > > So how’d the contest work? Well, you basically got the comic and the game and tried to solve the game by finding a certain phrase using clues in the comic to solve the game. Needless to say, this wasn’t easy. Earthworld was won by Steven Bell, Fireworld by Michael Rideout. > > However, the contest was never completed. The Waterworld cartridge was released, but the prizes were never awarded (perhaps Waterworld went millions of dollars over budget… perhaps Kevin Costner was involved?). Actually the whole series was rather boring and the console market crash brought it (thankfully) to an early end. It was an extravagant and original idea, though, to say the least. IIRC, the series tanked so badly that Airworld was never even released. I know I had Fireworld and Earthworld, and LORD was this a boring game. Even worse than E.T.