Billion to One
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PERPLEX CITY, SEASON ONE |
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Billion to One is a puzzle card from the first season of Perplex City, exploring the concept of "six degrees of separation". It was solved in December 2021 by Tom-Lucas Säger and Laura E. Hall, with the help and contributions of hundreds of people. The card was designed by Jey Biddulph.
This was the last solvable Perplex City card. The only remaining card is Riemann.
Perplex City Card Catalog: Season 1 Card #256 - Billion to One
Card Front
The front of the card shows a Japanese man taking a selfie in front of a European village-style background. It contains the text "私を 見つけなさい " (watashi o mitsuke nasai, “find me”).
Card Back
The back of the card features an image of the Gorge.
The Gorge Several hundred mres wide, the Gorge was created in 0 AC through an unknown disaster, destroying the majority of the city at the time.
Hint Line
The hint line provided the following information: "My name is Satoshi."
Additional Information
Catherwood identified the background of the photograph as Kaysersberg, Alsace, France.[1]
Mind Candy confirmed several details:
- First, Satoshi had willingly agreed to participate in the game.
- Second, he had to be contacted directly. If he saw the site, he wouldn’t reach out.
- Third, he had been told a password, which he would reveal to whoever contacted him.
They also provided a high-res photo of the image used on the card. The image contained no EXIF data.
Player Projects
Several players created websites with information about the Billion to One card, to help spread the word about the search:
- Chris Warren (Ixalon): billion2one.org (Wayback Machine)
- Laura E. Hall (lehall): findsatoshi.com
- Brian Enigma (brianenigma): haveyouseenhim.info (Wayback Machine)
Ixalon's project offered a cash reward, to be split between every person in the "chain" of six degrees of separation. When the card was solved, he donated $500 each to charities selected by Laura E. Hall (lehall) and Tom-Lucas Säger (th0may).
Card Solve
In 2018, Asher Isbrucker created a podcast about the project, interviewing Laura E. Hall (who runs the Find Satoshi website) and Mind Candy co-founder Adrian Hon.
In February 2020, the YouTube channel Inside A Mind did a video about the Find Satoshi project, generating a lot of community interest in the project, including the revival of the Reddit forum and a Discord.
In December 2020, Reddit user th0may, Tom-Lucas Säger from Hamburg, Germany, used AI facial recognition image search PimEyes and discovered a photograph of a man holding a beer, which had been posted online in 2018.
Further searching revealed more photographs of this man, who lives in Nagano, Japan.
His email was on his company website, so with the help of a friend in Japan, Laura composed an email in English and Japanese. And a day later, she received a reply confirming that this was indeed “our” Satoshi! (See below for his message, shared with permission.)
The creator of the puzzle, a former employer of Mind Candy, then confirmed that it was correct.
14 years after the hunt began, Satoshi has been found!
Solution
The solution to the card was a question in Japanese that Satoshi was supposed to ask whoever found him:
“炎を産んで死んだのは誰”, Hono wo unde shinda no ha dare ("Who died after giving birth to flames?")
Answer: Izanami "イザナミ"
Explanation: Izanagi (イザナギ) or Izanaki (イザナキ) is a creator deity (kami) in Japanese mythology. He and his sister-wife Izanami are the last of the seven generations of primordial deities that manifested after the formation of heaven and earth More clear : Izanami was badly burned during the birth of the kami of fire, and died. This is the first death in the world.
Audio file: https://soundcloud.com/user-650898069-942959925/speech-20201230195201540 (source)
Satoshi's Reply
Satoshi’s Reply
Hello,
Thank you for contacting me. You said you have been looking for the guy named Satoshi.
I am Satoshi,,,,,,,,,
YES!
I am Satoshi, who you have been looking for!!!
Wow! I had forgotten about this card game altogether, and I never dreamed that someone was still looking for me. Originally, I was supposed to tell a message to someone if they found me, but … Goodness !! It has been more than 10 years! I completely forgot. I’m so sorry.
Actually, I didn’t know much about Perplex City. Fourteen or fifteen years ago, one of my best American friends asked to use my photo for the game. It sounded interesting for me. I had a recent picture from a trip I had been on and I like this kind of things so I said “why not!” immediately. However, after that, I didn’t hear much about the game or what it was. I never even saw the card itself. I didn’t care, and I gradually lost my memory of this, and a year later I had completely forgotten it.
And of course, since then, no one’s found me.
When you got in touch with me few days ago, and I learned that “Findsatoshi” was still going on, I laughed a lot! And I was very happy.
Anyway, you found me! From only one photo, and one photo taken in a small town somewhere around the border between Germany and France, and even as I was in Nagano, Japan when the Card released.
With only the first name information, “Satoshi”
My name is very common in Japan. From the name of hundreds of thousands of people, it took 14 years but I’ve finally been found!! It is really amazing!
Congratulations on solving puzzle #256! And may your 2021 be a wonderful year!
Happy New Year !!
Card Creation
The creator of the puzzle, Jey Biddulph, posted a Twitter thread with information about the creation of the card.
Some fun facts:
- Mind Candy almost ended up going with a person in Ecuador
- They almost used a different picture, taken in the city Satoshi lived in
- The photo that they eventually chose was a snapshot of him on holiday
- Satoshi was a friend of someone who worked at a game-focused PR agency Mind Candy worked with, who were based in LA
Documentary
A documentary about the search for Satoshi, Finding Satoshi, was released in 2022. It was narrated by Willem Dafoe in English, and Louis Kurihara in Japanese.
News
- ARGN, Satoshi Found: Perplex City Just Got A Little Less Perplexing
- BoingBoing, After 14 years, a puzzle to find a man has been solved
- The Escape Room-er, Find Satoshi – How a 14 year old online puzzle was finally solved in 2020
- BBC Radio 4 - The Digital Human, Series 22: Find
- Wired UK - A mystery cube, a secret identity, and a puzzle solved after 15 years
External Links
References
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Please see Brian Enigma's impressive Card Catalog for a sorted, comprehensive listing of cards. |
