Finders Seekers is a monthly puzzle box that asks you to solve mysteries around the world. Each box delivers a challenging puzzle to be solved, comprised of clues related to a new city each month.
Think of it as an Escape Room adventure delivered right to your door!
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About Finders Seekers
The Subscription Box: Finders Seekers
The Cost: $30.00 + free shipping
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Use code SUMMER to save $10 off!
The Products: A complex, challenging mystery along with clues and virtual scavenger hunts around a new city each month.
Ships to: US.
Finders Seekers May 2018 Review
Each mystery begins with a letter from The Society of Seekers—Finder's Seekers' official name for their fearless consortium of dedicated detectives!
The letter indicates the difficulty level and estimated time needed to complete the challenge, along with details of the mystery and the clues intended to help you in your quest. This month's mystery took place in Toronto, Ontario! I've never been—but would love to!—so I was excited that it was another city I hadn't traveled to before!
I've alluded to a few solutions to clues in this review to give a more in-depth understanding of how these mysteries play out.
The letter directed all Seekers to use the Internet and dedicated Finders Seekers landing pages to begin their quest. The goal of this month's mystery is to find the Stanley Cup, which has been stolen by a group of unruly hockey fans. The only clues we have to go off of are 10 postcards—each are emblazoned with different tourist attractions around Toronto, and each contains a new website URL to help us find and solve clues, which will, in turn, earn us 1 hockey jersey for every clue found.
I began with the Nathan Phillips Square! I headed to SeekersUnite.com/NathanPhillipsSquare and found my first clue:
Along with giving an interesting history of the destination, it also directed us to the method we'd use to find our first jersey. This involved using another item received in this month's Finders Seekers box: the Farmer's Market Poster.
It instructed us to look closely at the Farmer's Market advertisement. Something about it was "peculiar." I won't spoil it, but it was an optical illusion that led to seeing a secret word amidst the poster design!
I typed in the word I found, and:
Score! My first jersey! I wrote down the number "5" and the fact that it was associated with Nathan Phillips Square to save for later use. (Likely to be used in the process of piecing together the final puzzle.) After that, it was time to move onto the next postcard.
This next adventure took me to:
The Distillery in historic downtown Toronto. It was cool to learn that it was founded in 1832 and was once the largest distillery in the world! I make sure to hit up unique breweries wherever I travel, so this would totally be a top destination for me should I ever travel to Toronto.
This clue would involve me working with the 5 bottle caps and distillery insert I received in this month's box.
The challenge? Put the proper bottle caps on their coordinating bottles, located in the picture. Some caps are already correct in certain rows, but the rest need a bit of ironing out.
This was TOUGH. I'm actually not even sure if I solved it in the correct fashion, but I figured it out! It involved me creating an Excel document to write out which bottles could go in columns 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and which were ruled out based off of the first row, which had zero correct placements. Like a process of elimination puzzle! Whichever bottle caps remained in the next rows were factored into those that could be correct in the final combination.
The final order was: Scruffy Moose, Lonely Mountie, Finders Seekers, 5 Hole Brewery, and Maple Lager. I entered them in and found my next jersey!
I noted the jersey and its associated location and then moved to the next destination.
This took us to Dundas Square. Located in the center of downtown Toronto, Dundas Square hosts frequent public events, performances, and art displays. The surrounding area includes lively theaters, endless shopping, and delightful restaurants.
This puzzle had us look closely at this gif of Dundas Square's flashing billboards in order to find a pattern.
It was TOUGH. I at first typed things like "EYE," "FINDERS SEEKERS," or "EYE" because the Finders Seekers eye was so prominent on multiple billboards. Turns out, all I had to do was count how many eyes I could see in the duration of the gif! I typed in "37" and found my next jersey:
Now, I won't show you all the work it took to complete the remaining 7 clues, but I will show the rest of the tools I used to do so!
This hockey puck and a jumble of letters were used in conjunction to find the jersey related to The Hockey Hall of Fame. A secret question was revealed in the letters using the puck as a visual border. I googled the sports-related question and found the answer that cracked the code! Onto the next destination:
I loved the puzzle associated with Casa Loma! Casa Loma is a Gothic Revival style house constructed from 1911 to 1914 in midtown Toronto but was never completed due to the onset of World War I and II. The puzzle itself was basically a Mad Libs challenge, which I LOVED growing up! The resulting tongue-twister phrase led me to another jersey and I was on my way.
This was also included in Toronto's box, and it helped me solve the clue for the Niagara Falls postcard! It was a tricky, brain-twisting word puzzle that led me to five words associated with Niagara Falls. It was so satisfying to figure out! Typing those words led me to my next hockey jersey: #3.
This pencil was used to solve the clue for the CN Tower postcard. The clue read:
For 32 years, the CN Tower held the record for the world’s tallest free-standing structure. At 1,815 feet tall, it still stands as the tallest in the Western Hemisphere. It was built in 1976 by the railway company Canadian National (CN) as a communication tower for TV and radio, while demonstrating the strength and ingenuity of Canadian industry.
Today, the tower serves as an observation gallery providing panoramic views that stretch over 25 miles in each direction. A rotating restaurant provides a truly unique dining experience and a glass floor thrills those who dare walk across it.
As you ride the elevator to the first observatory, you are handed a strip of paper and a souvenir pencil. This will lead to the next hockey jersey.
I had to look to Facebook the Finders Seekers' Facebook community for help on this one. It was HARD, but with a few clues, I realized that it was a lot like a previous tactic (and answer) from a clue in their Las Vegas box! After I solved the CN tower clue, I only had two more to go: Lake Ontario and Ford York.
I will skip the gritty details of the final two clues, but eventually, I ended up with my 10 jersey numbers: 5, 0, 4, 5, 5, 9, 2, 2, 3, and 7.
The beginning instructions said to head to SeekersUnite.com/Jerseys to finish the mission, and this is what I came upon:
I had to do some research when it came to how hockey jersey numbers are ranked or organized. (I am woefully out-of-the-loop when it comes to sports!)
Turns out, hockey rules had nothing to do with it. Finders Seekers made sure to have us write down which location was associated with which jersey number. I clicked the helpful hint on the final puzzle, and it said:
Those sneaky, sneaky fiends! I now knew it was now time to experiment. I looked at all my postcards and saw that each one had a small line doodle on the front of back. Put 'em together, and I could probably make some sort of overarching picture from the connected line doodles, right? It. was. fruitless. So much guessing, flipping, and rearranging!
Eventually, I figured I'd have to get some logic behind this puzzle-making. As I had collected ten total numbers and knew that Finders Seekers had a habit of incorporating phone calls into past clues, I looked up Toronto area codes and found they could be 416, 647, or 437. I didn't have any sixes in my final number round-up, so I knew 437 had to be significant! I started by first connecting the cards associated with 4, 3, and 7: Hockey Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls, and Fort York.
I then figured that my three 5's could easily make for the generic 5-5-5s that are commonly found in fake numbers, so I started to try incorporating my three postcards associated with the number 5: Nathan Philips Square, Casa Loma, and Skun-k World Tour. (Not stuck in that particular order, of course.)
Still nothing. No matter how wide I spread my postcards across my floor, no matter how many different variations of my numbers I typed into the final word box, I could not solve it. I'm bummed! I can connect the swirls on the postcards in many ways, but none seem to lead me to the right order. Maybe I should back away from the 437 area code idea. If any of you did this box and have tips, let me know!
Verdict: This box was very challenging—I'd say much more so than last month's, which I was able to solve! I'm not giving up on this puzzle, though. I feel like I'm so close. Just a few correct swirls away from finding the correct order of numbers! I'll turn to help from the Finders Seekers community on Facebook for tips. Members are AWESOME about direct-messaging in order to offer helpful clues to those who are stuck. The Facebook group is full of such supportive, curious, like-minded adventurers, and it's nice knowing that other's have been stumped by similar clues but got through with help from pals across the country.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? You likely won't receive the Toronto box right away, as Finders Seekers ships a box related to a new city each month, but you may receive it soon after subscribing! Order before the 22nd of each month to receive your box as soon as possible.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Use code SUMMER to save $10 off!
Coupon - Use code CRATE5 to save $5 off!
Value Breakdown: This box cost $30.00 total, including free shipping. The items contained within the box are very inexpensive but allow for a fun, stimulating way to spend a few hours.
Check out all of our Finders Seekers reviews and board game and puzzle reviews for more challenging subscription boxes!
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What was the most puzzling clue for you in this month’s Finders Seekers box?
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