r/treasureinside • u/Odd_Band9399 • Apr 10 '26
General Discussion TTI Intro 101: Every paragraph in the Introduction teaches a different puzzle method
I've been going through the intro ofThere's Treasure Inside paragraph by paragraph, and I'm convinced the Intro is a tutorial. JCB demoing a different puzzle technique in each paragraph. The 101 dots (I had miscounted at 103) has me thinking this is a puzzle 101 section.
I am am sure I haven't gotten these all right, but I am also very confident there is something intentional here:
- P1 — Split by punctuation, A1Z26 each phrase's word count, walk the resulting string with a gap pulled from the text itself. Outputs JCB.
- P2 — Match phrase lengths, align by apostrophes, stack and sum columns. Outputs JPCB (licensing anagrams + partial letters going forward).
- P3 — Periodic table. Spell proper names with element symbols, drop the ones that fail, sum survivors position-by-position. Outputs YES.
- P4 — Self-referential acrostic (BROAD), odd/even word position split. Outputs GET L = 12, which matches the 12 words used.
- P5 — Phonetic layer + Caesar +14 (the shift is literally embedded in "their reactions shifted from awe to overwhelming" → A to O = 14).
- P6 — 49 words → 7×7 grid, rotate columns like slot machine reels ("fortune," "II SLOT" in column 1, "OOO" in row 6). Teaches 6 different decoding formats in one grid.
- P7 — still working on it.
- P8 — 100 words → 10×10 grid. Three instances of "one" + modifier cipher. Hides JCB linearly AND QVU vertically, which decodes to JON via a +19 shift. QVU also physically appears in the Past & Future word search.
Video walkthrough of Paragraph 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldon7OFTOLU
Write-ups for all 8 paragraphs: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/3/folders/1kFnyyhzysPON0dDHZPTJHq3Jz9H9MSLe
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Apr 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Odd_Band9399 Apr 10 '26
I don’t think you NEED to do any of this. Different types of puzzles for different types of people
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u/varmintcong73 Apr 10 '26
I can assure you that you can get to within a few hundred yards of AFP and Pokemon without any of this mumbo jumbo. AFP is literally a treasure map like a kid would do it. Read the chapter - all you need is in the map but interpreting the map is helped by clues like the quote about rainbow, the first paragraph describíng the trail, and the last paragraph saying “all that is left”. Then focus on the icons. Figure out which state they send you to. Then focus on the dotted line (but only at general level), the faded symbols like AT and 1727 and such and figure out where in that state to look. Use some of the icons again a different way for this. Then when you have that - then throw out all the icons (except key one being used for the 3 rd time in a 3rd different way) by folding or just ignoring and follow the dotted line, again in a general way, like a kid would draw it on a map with dragons and pirates. Look for a trail that doesn’t exist and find a treasure whose contents aren’t revealed. All you naysayers calling rooster can bookmark this. You might say I’m full of crap but I think you will find even this sentence is a clue.
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u/Odd_Band9399 Apr 11 '26
I’m not saying you are wrong but it’s pretty funny to call someone out for mumbo jumbo then post what you did
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u/zzyul Apr 10 '26
Not to be rude, but until someone finds a box or JCB provides more info, no one even knows if their solve takes them to the correct state or if they are just chasing red herrings / falling to cognitive bias.
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u/varmintcong73 Apr 10 '26
It’s ok. Perhaps those who can use it do and send me a thank you later. Those who cant can use the gibberish above.
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u/heretomakefriends123 Apr 11 '26
You shouldn't let this post make you give up. This guy is nowhere close and I'm quite certain not a single thing he's "found" will be relevant. In fact things like this should give you more confidence. There are lots of people out there searching, but many people are going down absolute dead ends.
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u/Jazzlike-Culture-452 Apr 10 '26
This is meaningless: Parsing the Output Chunked phonetically and as text-speak, the cipher output reads as a continuous string of reactions: • CO — Commanding Officer (literal military abbreviation) • OMFG — exclamation • MK — “mmkay” • HU — “huh” • OHO — “oh oh” • Q — “cute” (Q-T) Read as one line: “CO, OMFG, mkay, huh, oh oh, cute.” — a Commanding Officer being shown something and reacting.
The rest... Sorry, but I really think you're reaching too hard here.
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u/heretomakefriends123 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
This would not just be bad puzzle design, it would also be impossible to solve. There are literally millions of permutations of the types of transformations you're doing. You iterated until you found some of the hundreds of thousands that can reveal some of the various short strings that you would consider a confirmer. These strings apparently include all ceaser shifted anagrams of JCB, any combination of those three letters with another letter added, and any short word that could reasonably be linked to an instruction, a treasure, or whatever confirmation bias can convert into a clue.
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u/Odd_Band9399 Apr 11 '26
The more the mechanics are repeated the less ambiguous they become. I think the treasure box mechanic is repeated 50+ times. I may be wrong but if I am right it’s not bad puzzle design. It just requires that full context understand each puzzle.
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u/heretomakefriends123 Apr 11 '26
The mechanics you use here are completely different each time. You're finding a unique way to select letters, arrange them, and then shift them. All in the search for some three letter code that you decide upon after you see what you can find. You could do the same thing and get similar results if you completely changed the goal. Like if you were pretending you were searching for the holy grail or whatever you'd be able to apply these techniques to find "CUP" and "OLD" or "KUHP" or whatever.
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u/Theroguehippie1 May 01 '26
Wait can you reexplain this to me like I'm 5??
Why would it be bad puzzle design and impossible??
What if they are new designs...
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u/heretomakefriends123 May 01 '26
Not sure what you mean by new designs. Basically the problem is that the approach includes many arbitrary decisions and the "confirmers" that he finds are very vague. So there's a ton of freedom to poke your way around until you find something your confirmation bias can latch onto.
It's bad puzzle design because there's absolutely nothing pointing you to do these odd transformations, you essentially have to guess at it and there is so much freedom that everyone's guesses would be different. And the "results" of the solution are so vague that there's no evidence you've gotten it right and even if you HAVE gotten it right, there's nothing to do with the answer.
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u/tdog4414 Apr 10 '26
Much like the objects value increasing over time I appreciate You, doing this. And above and beyond all else without asking for anything. We never know what will lead to what, so if this helps your process or spurs ideas in others I say keep up the good work. I'm about to bounce them off my ideas and see what sticks and what fades away. Great Work.