DEERFIELD, Mass — The thrill of a treasure hunt was brought to New England in "Project Skydrop," and after over two weeks of playing, the game ended Wednesday with someone finding the valuable golden treasure in the woods of Northwestern Massachusetts.
Information on the winner and exact location has not yet been revealed. The 21-mile diameter surrounds the Massachusetts towns of Greenfield, Deerfield, Montague, and Shutesbury; Amherst is just out of the circle.
Video game and real-world game designer Jason Rohrer, of New Hampshire, along with artist Tom Bailey, commissioned a golden object - which contains 10 troy ounces of 99% gold valued at around $26,500 - and placed it in the woods somewhere on the East Coast of the United States.
This object resembles a "cyclone" on a base with dots and symbols etched onto the sides of the rings.
The real-life game started on Thursday, Sept. 19 and gave players a 500-mile radius to go off of. As the days went on, the circle got smaller.
At one point, it was possible that the treasure was in Connecticut. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, the 121-mile circle diameter covered Litchfield County, along with parts of Hartford, Tolland, northern Middlesex, and northern New Haven Counties.
The diameter of the circle shrunk to 95 miles on Thursday, Sept. 26, covering most of Litchfield County, along with parts of Hartford and Tolland Counties. Connecticut was out of the question by the end of the weekend as the radius continued to shrink.
Project Skydrop provided hints in the form of aerial shots of the treasure's location to those who sign up to become members. The membership fee was $20, and a portion of that went into the ever-growing prize bounty pool, which grew to $87,600.
There's also a Discord server with over 12,000 members signed up to share their thoughts during the treasure hunt.
Livestream cameras caught a glimpse of who snagged the object. That winner will keep the treasure and take home the bounty prize in Bitcoin.
Had the prize not been found, the game would have ended on Thursday, Oct. 10, when the radius would have become one foot and given out the object's exact location.
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