Treasure Hunter

Treasure Hunter is a minigame that replaced the Squeal of Fortune on 4 February 2014. Instead of the player spinning a wheel to get prizes, it features chests which have to be opened with keys.

The release of Treasure Hunter saw the removal of Yelps and the addition of a new figurehead for the minigame: a princess named Alice. These keys can be obtained in the same way spins were. Any unused spins or unclaimed prizes were turned into keys. Rewards from the Treasure Hunter have been rebalanced to be more relevant to player's skill levels.

Members cannot play Treasure Hunter on a free world. Attempting to do so will prompt the message: "As a member, you are eligible for improved prizes, so please play Treasure Hunter on a members' world instead."

On 7 April 2014 Treasure Hunter received a major overhaul in which many previously members prizes became claimable by free players. The ability to talk to Alice was also added.

Mechanics
Five chests are offered. Each contains a white, yellow, orange, red, or purple gem. Once a chest is selected, a key is used to open it and the gem containing a prize of the appropriate scarcity is revealed. The player is offered the option of placing the prize in the bank or inventory (provided there is space), discarding, collecting later or cashing out for a small number of coins. There are five rarities of prizes, going from most to least common: white, yellow, orange, red, and purple.

Each item has a category, which gives an idea of the item's purpose and function. The categories are as follows:
 * [[File:Cosmetic item icon.png]]Cosmetic items: Items which are purely cosmetic.
 * [[File:Extras item icon.png]]Extras: Small but useful items such as coins and magic notepaper.
 * [[File:Useful Item icon.png]]Useful items: Items which serve a purpose, such as skill outfits and weapons.
 * [[File:Lucky icon.png]]Lucky: Alternate coloured variants of standard equipment that can only be obtained from Treasure Hunter.
 * [[File:Super Rare icon.png]]Super rare: Items which can only be found in the Super rare slot. With the exception of 200m, these extremely rare items are exclusive to Treasure Hunter.
 * [[File:Statistics.png]]Skill: Each of the 26 skills has its own category, containing items useful for training the skill and things that grant experience in it.
 * [[File:Prismatic item icon.png]]Prismatic: Items that can be used for experience in any skill. Note that items in the prismatic category can also appear in other skill categories.
 * [[File:Promotional icon.png]]Promotional: Temporary items that are only on Treasure Hunter for a limited time or are more easily obtainable for a certain period of time.



A player can "freeze" individual categories by using Hearts of Ice, which prevents you from getting any item that belongs to that category. Only skilling categories and the promotional category can be frozen. Up to 10 categories can be frozen at any one time. If a player would get an item from a frozen category, it will be rejected and another item will be chosen from the remaining items that are not frozen. Every treasure chest opened will deduct from the player's Hearts of Ice total the number of categories that were frozen at the time, regardless of whether or not the item gained was associated with a frozen category. The frozen categories remain selected until the player deselects them. Hearts of ice are obtained automatically alongside daily keys, daily challenge keys, key token redemptions and purchased keys, and five hearts of ice are given for every five spins made in a single reset period.

Obtaining keys
There are various ways to gain treasure hunter keys, both through gameplay and other means. Whenever a key is obtained, a Heart of Ice will also be obtained as a bonus. Additionally, whenever 5 keys are used in a single day, 5 extra hearts of ice will be given.

Keys on Treasure Hunter are used in the following order:
 * Daily keys
 * Keys obtained through gameplay
 * Purchased keys

Daily keys
Free players get one key a day while members normally get two keys a day, and members who bought a silver or gold Premier Club membership package get three daily keys. Treasure Hunter resets every midnight UTC. Daily keys do not roll over to the next day, thus requiring the player to log in and use the daily keys every day for maximum profit.

Monster drops
Nearly every monster in RuneScape, barring those in minigames or Dungeoneering, has a chance of dropping a Key token. They can still drop if you already have 10 earned keys, but you will be unable to claim it until you use one.

Skilling activities
Players may gain key tokens through any of the same methods that can be used to find a strange rock, in addition to Divination, whether they are a member or not. Unlike strange rocks, a key token obtained whilst skilling with a full inventory will not replace an item of the player's, it will be redeemed automatically.

Distractions and diversions - P2P
Every month, the player may gain a single key token for starting a game of Troll Invasion. Additionally, a different distraction and diversion is chosen each week to give the player a key token for simply participating. The events rotate each week in the following order:


 * Evil Tree — chop, light or nurture an Evil Tree
 * Shooting Star — mine any size star and gain experience
 * Penguin Hide and Seek — redeem at least one Penguin Point
 * Circus — complete one of the events

Quests
The completion of any quest will earn the player 2 additional keys, this includes any sub-quest of Recipe for Disaster, Dimension of Disaster, and the Thieving Guild capers.

Challenges
A free key is given for completing a daily challenge, totaling to between 28 and 31 extra keys a month if every days' challenge is completed. Challenge keys count as earned keys and can be stored to a maximum of 100 earned keys. Although some daily challenges are available to free players, only members get keys for completing them.

Bonds
Players can purchase Bonds for gold coins or cash and redeem the bond for 15 keys.

Buying keys
Keys can be bought in groups of 15, 35, 75, 200 or 450 keys, with a respective 40, 120, 400, 1200 and 3000 bonus Hearts of Ice given to the player upon purchase. Players can spend a maximum of $200 US per day and $500 US per month when purchasing keys. Purchased keys will expire 6 months after they were bought.

Earning keys
Keys can be earned by watching advertisements, buying products, completing surveys, etc. This is accessed by choosing the "Earn keys" option. Clicking this button will log you out to the lobby while you are using this feature.

Rewards


Various prizes can be won from Treasure Hunter, ranging from common skilling items, to bonus experience stars, to rare, untradeable weapons. When a chest is selected and the prize presented, it can either be sent to your bank (for most items), your inventory, or converted directly to coins.

Trivia

 * On 7 April 2014, the Treasure Hunter interface was updated, with more prize categories visible on the Hearts of Ice screen and the ability to talk to Alice being added.
 * Before 12 January 2015, hearts of ice could only be used to freeze the skilling categories.