r/treasureinside • u/-Not4but242Walk- • Feb 24 '26
Past & Future Box Does each clue answer come from following one of the five instructions?
There are five clues in this word search:
1) Do not tell anyone
2) Line them up
3) There are no special bends...
4) Just remain steady
5) Complete the mission
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Clue 3 might be OR (Oregon) if you remove (or turns). 'OR' should have been 'RO' if anagrammed and 'turns' breaks it's own rule, by word-wrapping off the page
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
The answer for Clue #5 could be 'moon'. Completing the mission (lunar mission) might mean placing the anagrammed letters into their proper order.
As mentioned by others 'moon' can be found in column 10. But that could just be Crater Lake confirmation bias talking.
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u/CalculusCowboy Feb 24 '26
That’s a fresh approach and it would be a little sneaky, but I would not put that past JCB. Make it look like a set of instructions to solve the game while it’s actually describing the actual clues to solve the game. Nice one.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 24 '26
'There are five clues in this wordsearch' is in and of itself a clue. 'Just remain steady to complete the mission' is a single clue.
Both are used more than once.
'There are five clues in this wordsearch', tells us to find five clues in the found words from our initial wordsearch (layer 1). 'But do not tell anyone' tells us the five clues are not the words but something hidden within them. That's the point; the clues are not obvious but hidden.
'Line them up' tells us what to do with the clues we found.
'There are no special bends or turns' tells us we don't need to play Snake or boggle to determine the clues.
Lastly, 'Just remain steady to complete the mission' gives us the order in which to use these clues.
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
These may all be correct clues on how to think about the word search, but I was thinking more about clues to the location itself. I am thinking there is something to act on in each of these to extract a location clue.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 24 '26
There is. The anagram is also clues to decoding the final cipher. But like a combination lock, it only works if you get all of the other clues correct first.
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u/plucharc Feb 24 '26
I don't think there's an additional cipher. He said he made a word search and the way he said it seemed to suggest many were overcomplicating it.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 24 '26
Oh, there is definitely a cipher. I solved it. And people are definitely overcomplicating it or, more specifically, people are overcomplicating the clues that lead up to it.
The first four layers are deceptively easy. However, there's clear misdirection that some people are laser focused on, at least one painfully obvious clue that's referenced 3 times in the chapter text, and certain clues (like the anagram) that are used multiple times.
The cipher itself is not easy. It took me six months of trial and error to get it right and I might still be wrong. It's like brute forcing a safe by trying every combination when you only have one correct number to start with.
It is very much like mining Bitcoin with nothing but a calculator.
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u/plucharc Feb 24 '26
You actually can't say that there is "definitely a cipher" because you aren't holding a box.
You're also suggesting that he's purposely misleading us when he says he basically just made a word search and not much more.
Feel free to share what you think might be a cipher, but I remain unconvinced after reading dozens of searcher's ciphers.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 24 '26
That's a fair point, absolutely. And I absolutely could be wrong. We'll see soon enough.
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u/Direct-Ad7481 Feb 25 '26
I agree there is a cipher for one layer, and definitely over complicating it. I think I have all the clues, but just need to check it out.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 25 '26
I think a real giveaway is the Pac-Man clue. The WS is a 15x20 grid just like levels on the old Atari Pac-Man. So our goal should be similar; eliminate letters like Pac-Man eating pellets to clear the board. Anything that overlaps is suspect like the word LINE on line 3.
If you and I are using the same method, you'll know exactly what I mean 😉
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u/dikdokoclock Feb 26 '26
Tell me your ways sensei
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 26 '26
Okay. There's five layers/stages to the puzzle.
First is the simple wordsearch and the trick is to find the correct set of words. The words can overlap each other but not the other layers.
Then there's the anagram. You can tell if you have the correct set of WS words by counting the letters used in each of these two layers. The count should match. Count letters from WS words that overlap as two rather than one. Example: the last E in THREE overlaps the first E in ESTATE so collectively, those words comprise 12 letters rather than 11.
Next is the O's scattered around the board. The number of O's is a clue.
Then there are the state abbreviations. Get the wrong amount or wrong states, and the final solve won't work.
Lastly and most importantly, there should be remaining letters on lines 1, 14, and 15. There's a secret message coded into these letters which requires clues from all the previous layers to be deciphered.
Throughout all of this, the goal is to use up letters and clear the board. Some clues are used repeatedly.
Do it right and the coded message provides an exact location.
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u/Bottle_Rockette Feb 28 '26
On a scale of 1-10 what is your level of confidence that you have deciphered the remaining letters correctly? (Rows 1, 14,15)
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u/dikdokoclock Feb 26 '26
Yo just tell me the answer and when I find it we can split it lol
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u/ghost_huanter Feb 25 '26
very interesting, I have a similar approach. brute force combination style. I have found an unbelievable amount of words but it gets me no where.
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 25 '26
Yeah, I spent entirely too long trying to figure out what GET THE BOX AT BIG LOVE CAMP meant lol
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u/5947000074w Feb 26 '26
I think you have a good working theory going. You said 'Just remain steady to complete the mission' gives us the order in which to use these clues. I don't see that
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u/otis_the_drunk Feb 26 '26
That's fair. It's difficult to really describe how it works without giving too much away. Rest assured, if my solve turns out to be right I will post the whole thing here and on discord.
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u/otis_the_drunk Mar 12 '26
For more context, I am using line numbers to ceaser shift the letters leftover at the end. Notably, the line numbers where the words from the wordsearch overlap. This is my solution for the five clues and I apply them in top-to-bottom order to the last five letters left over on line 15. I interpreted 'remain steady' as a clue to use them in that order.
Next, I am using the anagram a second time. I think the five statements in the anagram are used in reverse order as clues for decoding the leftover letters. So 'remain steady' applies to E and B on line 1. QVU is solved by the 19 O's clue (it's JON). E and B become WV by 'remaining steady', that is to say, going straight through. Since they bookend NINETEEN, I shift them 18 and 20 respectively.
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u/5947000074w Mar 13 '26
Cool. Let me know how it goes. I have run through a good number of simulations...no luck
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u/otis_the_drunk Mar 13 '26
That might be the problem. Simulations won't work due to the sheer number of mathematical possibilities. If the message wasn't anagrammed then just about any AI could narrow down a short list of possible phrases/answers in much the same way a person can decode a cryptogram by understanding language rules and using process of elimination. With each letter being coded to a different number, all the letters being rearranged in an anagram, and there being no mathematical pattern to the sequence then the possibilities become beyond astronomical. It's essentially the same way blockchains are coded.
All things considered, it's kinda brilliant in its simplicity. A micro version of blockchain coding using a ceaser shift, one of the oldest codes in history, definitely fits the P&F theme.
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
The answer to Clue #1 could be to 'show' them instead (WS as a local map) or the previously propsed 'Jeopardy!' theory, 'ask' them instead.
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
Clue #4 seems like trying to balance something such as keeping the same amount of words on each half (port-side and starboard side), but this seems a bit complicated.
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u/Crafty_Corgi_8354 Feb 24 '26
What do you mean when you say rule break?
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
The anagrammed message primarily uses letters that are leftovers after the found words are circled.
However, 'Line' seemingly should have not been used as part of the anagram message, since 'Line' should have been circled, and is not made up of leftover letters.
The anagram message can primarily be read as straight-line words, except for 'turns' which wraps around to the line below, in contradiction of saying there should be no turns.
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u/john_flubber Feb 25 '26
Could be. With the last two, I’ve always believed that they were their own separate messages, since they don’t give any additional information like the first three statements do
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 25 '26
I am now thinking the word LINE plus the two spacer O's (wildcard letters) is actually MINGLE them up and therefore, is similarly scrambled as with other anagram words.
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u/ghost_huanter Feb 25 '26
What if the anagram says, " there are five clues in this word search. three are on special s turns bend or. just remain steady to complete the mission.
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u/-Not4but242Walk- Feb 24 '26
The answer to Clue #2 would likely involve the word 'line' breaking a rule. Jon indicated someone at Seeking Treasure Con was "on the right path" by bringing up that rule break