History Main / FictionalMysteryRealPrize

With the rise of internet and being super easy to share your findings with the whole world, this model is pretty much forgotten, while some internet-based examples exist.

* ''Literature/{{Masquerade|1979}}'' was/is probably the best known example of this trope. Illustrator Kit Williams did the book and made a contest to find a golden figurine of a hare somewhere in the British Isles. The book itself had many clues contained within its story on how to find the hare. These involved symbols, wordplay and some arithmetic to figure it all out. However, the winner of this contest won through [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections inside information]].

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' had the "Aardwolf" contest organized by Apogee Software: by finding deep in a secret area a sign saying "Call Apogee Say Aardwolf" and following this instruction, players could win a prize. The contest was abandoned, however, since cheat programs popped up within days of the game's release, allowing anyone to see the sign without effort.

* ''Manx Gold'' by Creator/AgathaChristie, originally serialised in the newspaper ''The Daily Dispatch'' in 1930, had its main characters following clues left in their eccentric uncle's will, to find four snuff boxes filled with treasure on the Isle of Man. Readers who were able to travel to Man and follow the clues themselves would find the snuff boxes, which really contained a voucher for £100. The story was commissioned by the Manx tourism office,

* WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons once ran a contest based around the episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns", where if a viewer correctly guessed who shot Mr. Burns they would get animated into the show. However only one person guessed right, but used a college email leading to the team being unable to contact them. They instead had to choose a winner at random and the person who won didn't even watch the Simpsons and instead chose a cash prize.

* ''Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse'' was released both as a book and as a movie, available on VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and RCA Selectavision Videodisc. The premise involved a golden horse statuette and clues contained within the film and book on how to find it. It was thought that those who helped work on the film knew the location of the golden horse so it was dug up and moved elsewhere; unfortunately, the book and film were [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable never updated accordingly]]. The contest officially ended on May 26, 1989 and the golden horse was donated to charity.
* ''Money Hunt: The Mystery of the Missing Link'' was a video released in 1984 where the winner could get US$100,000. The video started off with an introduction explaining the rules and giving a few hints. The rest of the video involved a film noir detective story with a private eye named [[PunnyName Cash Hunt]] who had to solve the same puzzle. The solution involved the name of a USA city & state, a safe deposit box, and a telephone number which had to be called once the correct solution was deduced.

* ''Secrets of the Alchemist Dar'' by Michael Stadther. This book involved clues that would lead you to 100 rings, valued at US$2 million. However, the author's publishing company went out of business and it's unlikely any of the prizes were claimed. See the entry on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrets_of_the_Alchemist_Dar Other Wiki]] for more details.

* The Creator/BenAffleck-produced TV series ''Push, Nevada'' had a $1,000,000 prize for the first person to figure out all the clues. And then it got cancelled before the planned end of the series, so they had to scramble to shove a bunch of clues in all at once towards the end. The last clue was actually aired during a ''Series/MondayNightFootball'' commercial break.
* The 1985 miniseries ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Space Murder In Space]]'' offered a cash prize to viewers who could figure out the mystery, with the last 15 minutes of the show being shown at a later date to explain the solution.

* ''Literature/KitWilliamsMasquerade'' was/is probably the best known example of this trope. Illustrator Kit Williams did the book and made a contest to find a golden figurine of a hare somewhere in the British Isles. The book itself had many clues contained within its story on how to find the hare. These involved symbols, wordplay and some arithmetic to figure it all out. However, the winner of this contest won through [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections inside information]].

* ''Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse'' was released both as a book and as a movie, available on VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and RCA Selectavision Videodisc. The premise involved a golden horse statuette and clues contained within the film and book on how to find it. It was thought that those who helped work on the film knew the location of the golden horse so it was dug up and moved elsewhere; unfortunately, the book and film were [[UnwinnableByMistake never updated accordingly]]. The contest officially ended on May 26, 1989 and the golden horse was donated to charity.

* Referenced by the {{Creepypasta}} story [[https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Pale_Luna "Pale Luna"]], revolving around an InteractiveFiction game, in which the player must bury some "gold". Doing so rewards the player with geographical coordinates, presumably leading to real-life buried treasure. An enterprising gamer sets out to find the treasure, and indeed finds something in the indicated location: [[spoiler:the corpse of a murder victim]].

* An In-Universe example is the Blue Star Bottlecaps in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. Certain caps of Sunset Sarsaparilla have a blue star on the underside and if any one brings at least 50 of them, an old man named Festus will grant them a treasure. People have murdered for their bottle caps and so can the [[PlayerCharacter Courier]]. It turns out that the bottle caps were just a pre-war promotional gimmick so Clark County (the county Las Vegas and neighboring cities are in) kids can come to the bottling plant for a [[https://fallout.fallout.com/wiki/Sunset_Sarsaparilla_deputy_badge fake deputy's badge]]. The Courier gets that, a made-up story about the company for kids, a whole stockroom full of bottle caps (the real treasure as caps are used as currency after the nuclear holocaust), and a unique laser pistol from someone who got in there earlier and died. The The Legend of the Star is based on the Tootsie Pop urban legend, where kids would have to turn in 100 wrappers with young Native American shooting a star for a free Tootsie Pop.

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* The author Bill Adler created (or co-created) several books that offered cash prizes for solving a mystery: these included ''Who Killed the Robins Family?'' (1983), ''The Revenge of the Robins Family'' (1984), and ''Murder Game'' (1991).

* A few years later, Kit Williams put out a second picture book along the lines of ''Masquerade'' simply dubbed "The Bee Book" or "The Book With No Name". The challenge this time didn't involve going to dig anywhere; it was to find out the true name of the book. The solution involved bees, the changing of the seasons, and Kit's illustrations throughout the book to figure out the title. There was [[TimedMission also a deadline]] involved as the answer was to be revealed AYearAndADay after the book's release. More information on that book can be found [[http://bunnyears.net/kitwilliams/untitled/ here]].

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' had the "Aardwolf" contest organized by Apogee Software: by finding deep in a secret area a sign saying "Call Apogee Say Aardwolf", and following its instruction, the players could win a prize. The contest was abandoned, however, since cheat programs popped up within days of the game's release, allowing anyone to see the sign without effort.

* In-Universe example: Played with in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''. In one episode Mr. Krabs takes Spongebob and Patrick in a treasure-hunting trip, playing pirates. For some reason Krabs doesn't allow S & P to read his map. When Krabs is sleeping S & P took their time to investigate the map... and reveals that it's just the pirate-styled board game they played days ago. But just as Krabs is going to punish them for looking at the map, [[RealAfterAll they find the X and consequently the treasure beneath it]], after all, the board game was based on the real map.
* The Cipher Hunt, a world-wide hunt for the statue of Bill Cipher, was placed after the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' ended. The hunt for the statue included decoding ciphers, assembling a notoriously large jigsaw puzzle, and searching for clues in various places such as a shrine in Japan and a forest in Oregon. The hunt took two weeks and the statue was moved after fans found it- as while it was originally placed on private property with permission, the land came under dispute by another landowner.

* An In-Universe example is the Blue Star Bottlecaps in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. Certain caps of Sunset Sarsaparilla have a blue star on the underside and if any one brings at least 50 of them, an old man named Festus will grant them a treasure. People have murdered for their bottle caps and so can the [[PlayerCharacter Courier]]. It turns out that the bottle caps were just a Pre-War promotional gimmick so Clark County (the county Las Vegas and neighboring cities are in) kids can come to the bottling plant for a [[http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sunset_Sarsaparilla_deputy_badge fake deputy's badge]]. The Courier gets that, a made-up story about the company for kids, and a whole stockroom full of bottle caps (the real treasure as caps are used as currency). The The Legend of the Star is based on the Tootsie Pop urban legend, where kids would have to turn in 100 wrappers with young Native American shooting a star for a free Tootsie Pop.

* The BenAffleck-produced TV series ''Push, Nevada'' had a $1,000,000 prize for the first person to figure out all the clues. And then it got cancelled before the planned end of the series, so they had to scramble to shove a bunch of clues in all at once towards the end. The last clue was actually aired during a ''MondayNightFootball'' commercial break.

* The Cipher Hunt, a world-wide hunt for the statue of Bill Cipher, was placed after the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' ended. The hunt for the statue included decoding ciphers, assembling jigsaw puzzles, and searching for clues in various places such as a shrine in Japan and a forest in Oregon. The hunt took up two weeks and the statue was destroyed after fans found it, as it was on private property.

* The Cipher Hunt, a world-wide hunt for the statue of Bill Cipher, was placed after the cartoon ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' ended. The hunt for the statue included decoding ciphers, assembling jigsaw puzzles, and searching for clues in various places such as a shrine in Japan and a forest in Oregon. The hunt took up two weeks and the statue was destroyed after fans found it, as it was on private property.

[[/folder]]

* The SwordQuest series from Atari for the Atari 2600. A total of four games were planned, but only three were released. Each game came with a comic book and the goal was to find five words which would qualify the player for the national tournament. These words were hidden in the comic book, and clues to their location were given by the cartridge for solving various puzzles. If the player found all five words, he was given a certificate of merit and his name was entered in the drawing for the tournament. The national tournament consisted of a handful of other finalists competing against each other in a special "tournament" version of the game. Those who won the tournaments could get really fantastic prizes of gold and jewels. Sounds like fun? It wasn't - the games [[GameBreakingBug were lousy and confusing]] and involved more of luck rather than skill. The entries on the Atari Protos page describes each game in detail, the contest, the prizes, and their problems:

* In-Universe example: Played with in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''. In one episode Mr. Krabs takes Spongebob and Patrick in a treasure-hunting trip, playing pirates. For some reason Krabs doesn't allow S & P to read his map. When Krabs is sleeping S & P took their time to investigate the map... and reveals that it's just the pirate-styled board game they played days ago. But just as Krabs is going to punish them for looking at the map, [[RealAfterAll they find the X and consequently the treasure beneath it]].

* ''Literature/The39Clues''

* ''Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse'' was released both as a book and as a movie, available on VHS, Betamax, Laserdisc, and RCA Selectavision Videodisc. The premise involved a golden horse statuette and clues contained within the film and book on how to find it. Things went wrong however as in the above Masquerade example. It was thought that those who helped work on the film knew the location of the golden horse so it was dug up and moved elsewhere. Unfortunately, the book and film were [[UnwinnableByMistake never updated accordingly]]. The contest officially ended on May 26, 1989 and the golden horse was donated to charity.

Organizing a contest around your book, TV series, or other work can greatly help in promoting it. A Fictional Mystery, Real Prize contest is the variant where readers are challenged to solve a puzzle, with the clues hidden within the story itself. For example, in a whodunit, the reader who figures out the culprit ahead of time and sends in his answer can win a prize. Or the producers of the show might bury a treasure somewhere, for the first smart and adventurous reader to figure out the cryptic directions within the story and physically travel to dig up his prize.

Obviously, such a story typically must be written specifically around the contest, so the Fictional Mystery, Real Prize gimmick is usually its main selling point. Once the prize is won, the work might lapse into obscurity and be considered little more than a curiosity, unless it stands as a story on its own.

As several examples below attest, such a contest may result in a headache if it's not [[DidntThinkThisThrough planned out properly]].

An AlternateRealityGame is an advanced form of this.

!!Examples:

[[folder: Comic Books]]

* ''Money Hunt: The Mystery of the Missing Link'' was a video released in 1984 where the winner could get US$100,000. The video started off with an introduction explaining the rules and giving a few hints. The rest of the video involved a film noir detective story with a private eye named [[PunnyName Cash Hunt]] who had to solve the same puzzle. The solution involved the name of a USA city & state, a safe deposit box, and a telephone number which had to be called once the correct solution was deduced.

* Edgar Wallace's 1905 mystery novel ''The Four Just Men'', published as a SerialNovel, offered a high prize to the reader who could guess the solution to the mystery before the publication of the final chapter. The contest was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Just_Men_(novel) an utter disaster]]--for one, Wallace never really predicted that there could be ''more than one'' winner.

* The BenAffleck-produced TV series ''Push, Nevada'' had a $1,000,000 prize for the first person to figure out all the clues. And then it got cancelled before the planned end of the series, so they had to scramble to shove a bunch of clues in all at once towards the end. The last clue was actually aired during a ''MondayNightFootball'' commercial break.

** [=MicroQuest=] #6 ''Treasure of Unicorn Gold''. This game had clues that would lead to a small gold unicorn. Unfortunately Metagaming folded before the location was found, and it's unclear what happened to the statue.

* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimania Pimania]]'' had a £6000 golden sundial as a prize for the first player to solve the clues leading to a specific time and place.
* ''My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win A Fat Cigar'', by the same company as ''Pimania'', challenged the players to identify a famous film star based on in-game clues; the readers who mailed in the right answer had a chance to win a trip to Hollywood to meet the star.

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' had the "Aardwolf" contest organized by Apogee Software: by finding deep in a secret area a sign saying "Call Apogee Say Aardwolf", and following its instruction, the players could win a prize. The contest was abandoned, however, since cheat programs popped up within days of the game's release, allowing anyone to see the sign without effort.

* ''[=TimeHunt=]'', a website around 2002 or so with a ClockPunk feel to it. The prize was a mechanism supposedly created by John Dee, and to claim it you needed to visit the nine planets and solve puzzles concealed in stories by various well-known writers, thereby accessing mini-games which enabled you to access other planets and solve further puzzles... Sadly, the site went down for some reason before anyone completed it.

* In-Universe example: Played with in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''. In one episode Mr. Krabs takes Spongebob and Patrick in a treasure-hunting trip, playing pirates. For some reason Krabs doesn't allow S & P to read his map. When Krabs is sleeping S & P took their time to investigate the map... and reveals that it's just the pirate-styled board game they played days ago. But just as Krabs is going to punish them for looking at the map, [[RealAfterAll they find the X and consequently the treasure beneath it.]]