Original title: [PA4]The case of the emergency lockdown[Level 2][Ends: Apr 1st]

Story: The Case of the Emergency Lockdown

"You did what?", your boss screams at you. "You're telling me you solved the last bit of the note Cipher Bin Ary left behind without telling anyone, just so you could get your 15 minutes of fame?" Not the direction you had hoped this conversation would go in.

"You should be glad I'm activating a lockdown of the Puzzle Agency to trap this mysterious man you followed, so I can't kick you out. No, instead I'm going to put you on desk duty. There's lots of paperwork to be done."

You sit yourself down at your desk and start researching Venn-diagrams. "Start at red... clockwise... 7 colours...", you mumble to yourself.

Small guide


Previously on the Puzzle Agency.
You have become an agent at the Puzzle Academy. Shortly after proving your loyalty to the agency in the Case of the Secret Ruler, a hacker managed to plant a bomb in the building. After defusing it, you found a compartment with a mysterious note. You were able to decrypt the final bits of information before the rest of the agents and set off on a hunt for Cipher Bin Ary that led right back to the Puzzle Agency through a hidden door where you just saw someone enter the building.


Disclaimer
All binary codes that decodes into alphanumeric characters starts with 0. If you get a 7 number binary code, add 0 at the start to make it a complete set of 8. While last case was about what to do with binary numbers, this case is about finding the binary numbers. All decoding is Binary to Ascii.

This case involve use of a lot of different sites. For 8 letter codes it uses ITH. It also uses GA codes which 5 letter codes can be used on.


Earlier cases (optional)
Prelude: the Puzzle Agency entrance
The Case of the Secret Ruler
The Case of the Terrorist Hacker
The Case of the Mysterious Note

There's also a Puzzle Agency steam group where news for upcoming cases are shared. Bonus giveaway to agents: PixelJunk Shooter.


Rewards
Never Alone: Arctic Collection
Evoland
The Talos Principle
I am Bread
Sunless Sea

8 years ago*

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Reserved

8 years ago
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2 small hints have been posted in the comments for the music puzzle GA.

8 years ago
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Hint for Puzzle 1

Wrote a lengthy reply further down that should help people get started: http://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/T9jOBFk

8 years ago
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Music puzzle had a small fix done to it, an error had snuck in somewhere during mid-production of it and neither of the solvers actually bothered to tell me ;) Was not a huge mistake, but it might have confused people trying some ideas that felt like they didn't make any sense because of it.

8 years ago
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Puzzle 3 (elevator), Hint 1:

The binary forms a 4 letter word before the ITH code. First letter of that word is "c". Time to put your reverse engineering skills to use.

As a reminder, you already know every 8th digit (as talked about in the disclaimer), that should help to tell you what signifies a 0, and thus a 1 together with the additional information in this hint.

8 years ago
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Bonus giveaway to agents.
PixelJunk Shooter

8 years ago
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Puzzle 3 (elevator), Hint 2:

As always in my puzzles, sometimes you have to read between the lines and sometimes you don't.

Also, next letter is "o". Now you have 27 of the bits needed to complete the binary.

8 years ago
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Puzzle 3 (elevator), Hint 3:

Ask a Norwegian what the difference between o and ΓΆ is.

Oh yes, and I forgot to add that the 3rd letter is "d". That puts the number of bits you know to 34, almost a third of the puzzle solved right there.

8 years ago*
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Puzzle 5 (keycard), Hint 1

The order of the symbols may feel reversed. Consider rotation of card while swiping and which row is inserted first into the lock.

8 years ago*
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Puzzle 1 (Venn Diagram), Hint 2:

Note that the site uses counter-clockwise when adding the colours together in the bottom right corner. I'm asking you to gather them up in clockwise order. If your binary solution starts with "V" you probably used the wrong way around the Venn-diagram. :)

8 years ago
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Puzzle 3 (Elevator), Hint 4 (final hint for the elevator):

The message contains a 4 letter word that starts with "cod", a separator and an ITH-code, which means we are looking at a total of 104 bits (which could have been solved mathematically from earlier hints). It starts at the very beginning of the music sheet and ends on the vertical line called 23.

The only thing that can seem odd are the last 4 bits, but if you've solved everything up until that point, I think you can figure out how they are counted.

8 years ago
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Solutions posted in the steam group.

8 years ago
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New case!

8 years ago
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But same bat channel, same bat time.

8 years ago
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Bat time O:
I only know Batman!

8 years ago
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It's from the 70s Batman tv-show. ^^

8 years ago
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Bump for...I dunno...

8 years ago
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For not solving anything yet? :)

8 years ago
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Yeah, the obvious answer was not the answer, so I'm taking a 14 day break :P

8 years ago
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Yeah, sorry. 00101010 doesn't make a good ITH-code. :(

8 years ago
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No, the other obvious answer :)

8 years ago
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Are you sure a 1 week break isn't enough? ;)

8 years ago
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Oh yeah, I solved it a few days ago but forgot to solve it....yes, I make no sense.

8 years ago
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Indeed, you don't. :)

8 years ago
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I have all the rewards this time, but I've already finished the paperwork, just cause :)

8 years ago
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Proper agents do what they are told! scolds SilentGuy for leaving the office without telling everyone where to go

;)

8 years ago
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Oh well, two wishlisted games. I guess this will be my priority from now on.

8 years ago
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Yeah, I looked at my friendlist and ordered the games based on wishlist popularity. Most popular at the end of course. :)

8 years ago
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Probably the same two that I have wishlisted. :P

8 years ago
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Same order as in the main description, so 3rd and 5th game. Which means they are both behind the hardest puzzle. :)

8 years ago
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Well this looks complicated.

8 years ago
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It looks harder than it is. (At least the first puzzle)

8 years ago
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I can confirm this.

8 years ago
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That is looks hard, or that it isn't that hard? =)

8 years ago
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That it looks hard. And at the same time, for a reason I can't explain, I believe it is easy.

8 years ago*
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+1 (at least the parts I've completed)

8 years ago
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Please remind me of this after 72 hours. Agent is currently on fieldwork :P

8 years ago
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Will do. :)

8 years ago
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I found some free-time in-between classes :yay:

Would have solved the first step yesterday if it had not been too late at night when I found it.

8 years ago
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Yay, and you've arrived at the hardest puzzle (3). :)

Mostly because of how bad that song creator is playing the piano...

8 years ago
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I see what you did there, but I haven't seen my way out yet.

8 years ago
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That's ok, I can remind you in 2 days to take another listen. :)

8 years ago
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I forgot to remind you... did you solve everything already? :P

8 years ago
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I'm stuck in the last puzzle, I think. This week is quite busy, so I guess I'll try later on.

8 years ago*
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Ah, the keycode. There's a hint there I might need to add. Almost everyone so far has fallen into the same pitfall after getting a 5 letter code, but everyone's solved it quickly.

8 years ago
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This guy Nordh is suspicious... O:

8 years ago
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Congrats on being first solver. :)

8 years ago
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Bump for making the first step.

8 years ago
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New case? Just saw it.
Nice, hopefully it will be more manageable than the last one which I literally didn't know what to do...
Also, good rewards, gives me motive. xD

Question is the previous puzzle mandatory in solving this?

8 years ago
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No previous experience needed.

However, as always, there are some nodbacks to previous cases, 2Β½ puzzles are inspired by the bomb and the events around it from two cases ago. For example, a 4-set Venn diagram was used when defusing the bomb, and you're using a 7-set diagram here.

For story purposes you may miss some unimportant details, but the main points are covered in the brief "Previously on"-section at the top.

Also, unlike the last case, you won't really need google to solve this one, I've tried containing all information needed within the case itself, such as a direct link to a wikipedia-article for more information how to understand puzzle 2. There's one question you'll probably have to google, but it's a very easy one and nothing tricky about it. Just a checkpoint question.

8 years ago*
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Well I adored the bomb like no other puzzle these last months, so you should know my opinion on the Venn diagram. However this seems much more complex than just a diagram. I did start to decode something with it, but I got a strange result that also has symbols in it, except characters. This is truly strange...

8 years ago
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Read the Disclaimer in the main post. It's got very important information for solving the puzzles.

Bigger sets of Venn diagrams looks very complex, because they need to be to be able to create unique fields. In other words, there is not a single field in the diagram that contains the same combination twice. It's very interesting how it's created.

8 years ago*
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Of course I have read everything on your post. :) And yeah the diagram is indeed very interesting.
However symbols as part of results do not help me at all to get either an ITH or a GA code (since symbols not accepted in these formats), so I'm obviously missing something very vital here.

PS: Never mind I think I was looking at it in a complete wrong way due to how my fantasy works.

8 years ago*
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Feel free to add me on steam and I can check the binary you've collected to see where you may be going wrong.

8 years ago
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Not yet, I'll try some days without that. :) May do that only if I utterly fail. I want to try some other things first. ^^

8 years ago
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Grats on solving it.

Totally not hiding a bump with a late reply.

8 years ago
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But I haven't. I mean I'm still clueless on that last puzzle...

8 years ago
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You solved the one we were talking about here, the Venn diagram. ;)

8 years ago
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Bump for 10 solvers of the first puzzle. :)

8 years ago
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And bump for being stuck with no idea on that last music puzzle. Loved the first two ones though.

8 years ago
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Mandrill just solved that one, so now we have two solvers of it. :)

8 years ago
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Bumping for Mandrill being on the last puzzle. :) Will he be the second solver? Exciting!

8 years ago
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Ah bad timing for a busy weekend, need to play some catch-up :-)

8 years ago
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Mandrill seem to, for some reason, have gotten stuck on the last one. :P Or his dog just saw a butterfly fluttering by his window and got distracted. And we all know Mandrill doesn't solve the puzzles on his own. :)

8 years ago
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:D dog told me she didn't have an immediate idea on the last one, so I took a break before I would get really stuck. Apparently solving it takes more than 5 minutes and I'm trying to act all adult and non-addicted here ... I'll return to it soon enough :)
Edit: I hope that didn't sound like bragging ... wasn't meant like that. The steps before took me somewhat more than 5 minutes each ...

8 years ago*
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Perhaps because you can read music sheets that took a short time, but let me tell you, it took hours to get it as good as it was there for me. :) Although I'm quite sure reading the binary would take far less time than actually creating it. Then we're talking single digit minutes. Took some time to actually learn the tool as well. And took me the longest time to understand why I couldn't do anything in Firefox, then it turned out it worked very well in Chrome. Even though simple playback works in both.

8 years ago
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Yep with the right idea reading these really is a matter of minutes ... getting that idea of course can take quite some time :) And I do realize that creating these takes a lot longer -- I really appreciate all the effort you put into this, I really love your puzzles :)

8 years ago
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Thank you, that means the world to me. :)

8 years ago
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I just dropped by for a few minutes hoping for some hints. Nope :P

8 years ago
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For which puzzle? =)

Oh right, you're on the music puzzle. There's a small hint dropped in the comments there.

8 years ago
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"Too" small though.

8 years ago
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Well, it removes over 80% of non-relevant stuff that you don't have to search through. :) Although, that removed bit probably sounds better. :P

Disclaimer: 80% is purely an estimation, I haven't really calculated how long the song is. :P

8 years ago*
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That removed a lot indeed. I just need to take some music lectures now.

8 years ago
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And when you've taken some, there's appearently an extra unintentional hint to solve it according to Mandrill. :P Since I have no music knowledge though, I doubt you'll have to take many lectures to solve it. :)

8 years ago
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Bump for most of you are probably overthinking for the music puzzle. (Am I allowed to say this?)

8 years ago
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Yes, taunt them however much you like. ;)

8 years ago
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Wait, I'm not taunting... Just trying to help (:

8 years ago
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Overthinking indeed, as I do with almost all puzzles anyway, so it's not really something new for me...

8 years ago
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EDIT: so the thing that confused me is now fixed and I solved the music puzzle ;-)

8 years ago*
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What's a measure? ^^

As mandrill says below, remember what you're looking for as seen in the disclaimer.

8 years ago
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But I know what I am looking for. I even e-mailed my ex-girlfriend who has a music degree with instructions, she didn't respond :(

8 years ago
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My puzzles are so evil, they are even making people harass their old girlfriends. >:)

You really don't need a music degree. As I've mentioned several times, I'm clueless when it comes to music. The only advantage when it comes to reading music sheets is something I didn't even know about. Appearently one note sounds exactly the same as another (c and #h if I remember what mandrill told me correctly), so it's weird that it was written in two different ways. That gives a clue on that there's something hidden, but I think most people understand there IS a message in the notes by now. :P I don't know the difference yet or how they look though, perhaps this is a hint that I'm yet again unaware of. ^^

8 years ago
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Bump for solved \o/
Don't overthink the music puzzle ... just remember what you are looking for :)

8 years ago
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I know what I'm supposedly looking for, but I have no idea "what" should be translated as "what", in that complex music sheet...

8 years ago
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Try to simplify it as much as possible. Remember, you already know every 8th digit. Use it to your advantage.

8 years ago
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How do you play this puzzle?

8 years ago
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You realize you have 4 of the 5 games, and really don't want the other one (tried the beta and hated it), and move on. :)

8 years ago
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But... the story is a reward in itself! :)

To be fair, I rarely enter games in puzzles I've solved :P

8 years ago
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That's a hard question to answer, and it differs from each puzzle. There are a total of 5 puzzles and in each you're looking for binary sequences that gives you either an 8 letter code or a 5 letter code.

Using the two links in the story-part of the main description you need to find 8 sets of binary numbers, one for each number on the rainbow coloured image. Now since it's a 7-set Venn diagram you'll only get 7 binary numbers from the image, so you have to add a 0 at the start of each set, as written in the Disclaimer.

I've attached a 5-set Venn diagram. If, for example, we look at the area with AD near the top. That means you are inside circle A and D, but outside of circle B, C, E. Now, the key is how to figure out how that translates to binary numbers. As a hint, the very center area is ABCDE = 11111.

View attached image.
8 years ago
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So should I assume that there are 2 more puzzles after the music one? :O

8 years ago
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You assume correctly. 5 games, 5 puzzles. :)

8 years ago
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There's still a long way to go then... I thought of something in the music puzzle, but it got me nowhere after all... :/

8 years ago
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I hope you reloaded after the latest revision, I fixed an error 20 minutes ago.

And the music puzzle is the hardest one, unfortunately it made little sense to put it at the end storywise. :P

8 years ago
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I get what I have to do now. So easy, how the hell have I been stuck on this for so long...

But I'm still getting gibberish with the 2nd and 6th characters. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.

8 years ago
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The creator of the clock-based puzzles don't know the clock ;)

8 years ago
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That's very confusing though, that the inside order is different than the outside order. :)

8 years ago
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Yeah, well, I didn't create the site. :) Did you notice you could flip the diagram around by click-dragging??

8 years ago
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Did my reply clear up anything for you?

8 years ago
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I wan't to know how to play this puzzles and I don't have these games

8 years ago
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Bump for another great puzzle solved! :-)

8 years ago
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Well done, agent. And yet the mystery thickens.

Queue dramatic music.

8 years ago
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Bump for few parts solved :)

8 years ago
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Yay, our 6th solver of the music sheet. :)

8 years ago
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So much jigsaw spam, I'll simply have to bump to keep afloat. ^^

8 years ago
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Perhaps there should be a special Jigsaw subforum. :]

8 years ago
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Bump as sometimes lurking for hints isn't enough.

8 years ago
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I'll drop a hint in about 12 hours if I don't get any new solvers. :)

8 years ago
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You will have not to add hint, because you've just got 1 new solver :P

8 years ago
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Actually he has 2 - PapaSmok solved it a little earlier too. :P

8 years ago
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I think he is referring to the elevator music puzzler, which PapaSmok already solved yesterday :P

8 years ago
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Yes, sorry, I'm tired and distracted.
Congrats on getting out of the elevator. :)

8 years ago
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Yay. I'll wait another 12 hours then ^^

Also, stupid Puzzle Agency forcing agents to solve puzzles to get out of the elevator. So typically management, am I right?

8 years ago
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Perhaps they'll start serving coffee in the elevator?

8 years ago
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Would you imagine the catastrophy when people drink too much coffee and then can't exit the elevator? :O

8 years ago
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Extra motivation to get out then :P

8 years ago
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Actually, other solvers bring more motivation, at least for me. It shows that it's not that hard at all and I'm doing something wrong as always.

8 years ago
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Indeed, it's the only thing that has kept me so far around here. As usual I'm probably overthinking everything...

8 years ago
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Not sure if you saw it, but a hint has been added. :)

8 years ago
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Yup, haven't had a chance to work on it yet. Will do it tonight. Thanks for the heads up :)

8 years ago
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Congrats on getting out of the hellevator. :)

8 years ago
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Hellevator indeed :)

8 years ago
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Uh huh :-p

8 years ago
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hahahaha (patiently waiting for hints)

8 years ago
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Loved all the puzzles, thanks :)

Bump for fully solved!

8 years ago
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Well done on the fully solved. :)

8 years ago
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Once again, great set of brain teasers! :D

Bump for completely solved!

8 years ago
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Well done, agent!

8 years ago
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Helluva ride!

(Btw I'm bringing a sonic screwdriver for the next case, Cipher Bin Ary can't win now. :P)

View attached image.
8 years ago
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Should have used that one to control the hellevator!

8 years ago
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You know that job in Japan where they are hired to push people into trains? I wonder if I can hire someone to push people into my hellevator. This really needs more solvers, and it's way easier than the last case. :)

8 years ago
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The hellevator's almost reached the bottom floor. Also a teaser for next case. More teasers in the steam group.

View attached image.
8 years ago
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