Sam Pickett ‘21
Columns Editor
Background: Coming up on the one year anniversary of COVID,[1] my girlfriend and I are still looking for new ways to entertain ourselves during quarantine. We’ve been to Charlottesville’s wineries and breweries, we’ve watched countless movies, and we’ve even seen the entirety of Sex and City.[2] And so as Valentine’s Day arrived and snow fell on the ground, we found a solution to our problem on TikTok: a Finders Seekers mystery box. The box promised “abundant cryptic clues and puzzles to get your heart racing and brain ticking.” Intrigued, we purchased the “St. Petersburg Russia” mystery, where we would help solve a hundred-year-old mystery surrounding the royal Romanov family and their well-guarded secret.
Description: The puzzle opens with a letter describing our task. According to legend, Russian princess Anastasia secretly escaped her family’s captors in 1918 and evaded execution, becoming the only surviving member of the royal Romanov family. A group of Romanov relatives had a family relic, an antique box, that they believed would reveal Anastasia’s secret location. To open the box, they contacted the “Society of Seekers,” of which we are now members.
And so we were transported, via my MacBook Air, to St. Petersburg, Russia, where we would have to solve a series of ten puzzles. For each puzzle we solved, we received an animal and a gemstone that would later help us discover the numbers needed to open the mysterious box. The puzzles varied in difficulty and in form. In one, we had to cut out designs in a dress pattern to reveal the answer. In another, we had to analyze a program for “Swan Lake” to find a hidden message. Over the course of the ten puzzles, however, we were able to use almost every method of puzzle-solving that I had seen in a movie. I felt like I was in the DaVinci Code.
Pictured: The contents of a Romanov Mystery Box. Photo Courtesy of Sam Pickett '21.
Review: All in all, the puzzle took us about two hours. Finders Seekers was supposed to be the most difficult of the puzzle subscription services, according to reviews, but I’m not sure if we would agree. It was challenging at times—we did use the “hint” button a couple of times—but that was less because we couldn’t discover the answer and more because we weren’t sure what kinds of solutions the puzzles were targeting. Were we overthinking or would shining your phone flashlight through a random train ticket actually reveal some kind of hidden secret?
But, when you think about it, how long would you really want to spend on a virtual puzzle? Two hours was about perfect for us. If we got stumped, there were options for a hint, and they would even reveal the answer if you got desperate (we, as proud UVA Law students, refused to even consider this as an option). This ensured that we never got too grumpy or mad at the game, which is important to consider when doing activities as a couple.
We had also wondered about the possibility of doing this kind of puzzle with friends in a *COVID-less* future. We felt that it was a game best suited for two-to-four people. Any more than that, and people get left out because not everyone can examine the puzzle at once. Any less than two and you can’t rely on your super smart girlfriend to solve the puzzles that stump you.
Conclusion: We rate this experience a 7/10. High points were the well-made quality of the objects/puzzles in the box, novelty, affordability,[3] and feelings of accomplishment. Low points were it not being that hard and no trophy at the end. I love a good trophy.
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shp8dz@virginia.edu