Foreword

In current Blue Award's miniseries of puzzles you were first asked if you knew itstoohard well, a test ultimately passed only by few. Then you were asked for some math knowledge and skills, with much better success rate. The time has come for next puzzle in the miniseries, asking for yet another type of skills and knowledge. If you possess those skills, you should feel compelled to use them and succeed. Otherwise, you will ultimately fail.

You might have seen quizzes based on "cover art" for games, for example BigBadGoat's hand drawn doodles. Of course in Steam's case there are no actual boxes so the "cover art" constitutes of all those logos/header images/whatever you call'em that you see here on SteamGifts, too.

Blue Award thinks such puzzles are quite fun, at least as long as you do know the games in question. Then things can get ugly, even with hints about the game in question that try to guide you to the right answer.

Blue Award has decided to grace SteamGifts with his own take on such cover art based quizzes, inspired most directly by quite recent NB264's implementation of such, although others had their own more or less evil takes, too, like Zelghadis or Kappei if memory serves him right.

You'll face a series of quizzes. First two are pretty much an aversion, they have quite obvious answers. Third is pretty much played straight, games should still be recognizable but you may have some trouble guessing them if you don't know them. Hopefully it's still relatively easy to solve without complications, though.

But then things get serious. Because in the end it's not a quiz. It's a puzzle. Progressively more evil. Ultimately asking for some concrete types of skills to solve it. And the initial three quizzes are there mostly just to clue you in on what is happening (although they do have rewards on their own, too, so don't be too discouraged until you see the 100% evil version).

Don't search for rhyme or reason behind games' selection. This is not this type of puzzle. If you understand what is happening and have skills to deal with it, great, you will succeed. Otherwise, you will fail. Bruteforcing utlimately will not help you, either. In the end there's a concrete problem to solve and concrete (and actually numerous, but all involving similar skills) ways to go about it.
 

More details about the quizzes

All cover art and names are taken from the Steam database. That doesn't necessarily mean the game is still available, though, in your region or otherwise. That on the other hand doesn't mean that a game that isn't available is in fact featured somewhere for sure. Because again, if you are looking for any explanation why this or that has been chosen, to hopefully get an idea what to expect next, you're just wasting your time. In the end it might not even be a game, but a demo or dlc. Who knows. As long as it was in steam content database.

Each answer should correspond to English name for what is called an app in steam database, taken verbatim, including any non-latin script characters and punctuation marks if they actually are present, even things like the trademark symbol. Not sub (subscription) or package name or what you see on Steam store. It is an important distinction.

For example, this is obviously what you'd call Oblivion for short. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition is what you'd see on Steam store, at least the English one. Oblivion Game of the Year is an example of package that contains the app. But the actual app name is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as you can see here. The one and only valid answer would be the last one.

Again, first three quizzes all have giveaways associated with them and should be solvable by just about anyone, only third one possibly giving some difficulties if you don't know the games, so feel free to try them out even if the description above scared you greatly. The first one is linked from Blue Award's steam profile description. The real deal starts after third quiz and it doesn't matter if you know the games in question or not, which should be obvious enough at that point.
 

More details about the giveaways

There are 6 giveaways in total associated with this puzzle. Initial two are accessible from the first two quizzes, each from one of them, and since they are mighty obvious the time you are given to solve them is plenty. First of those giveaways has $0.10 Contributor Value, the second $20.20.

Third giveaway is accessible from the third quiz and since it is playing quite straight the idea of knowing the games in question like many other puzzles/quizzes, there's more time on it compared to the first two. It still does have a CV value though, $30.30.

Remaining giveaways are accessible after the third quiz. One of them has CV $30.35. The remaining two have no CV attached. They all end at the same time, not long after the third. However, you are strongly advised not to postpone solving process too long as you might miss your chance to join the giveaways before they end. Like, last 24h may be too late. Maybe even sooner. You'll see why when you get there, consider it a fair warning but don't read too much into it for now.

The Averting Timer (2014 JAN 13 2000 ZULU) - GA #1 for Quiz #1, CV $0.10 and GA #2 for Quiz #2, CV $20.20 (ENDED)
The Playing-it-straight Timer (2014 JAN 18 2000 ZULU) - GA #3 for Quiz #3, CV $30.30 (ENDED)
The Subversive Timer (2014 JAN 19 2225 ZULU) - remaining GAs, one of which is CV $30.35 the final two are no contributor. (ENDED)

Giveaways have ended, but puzzle considered still active for the miniseries!

Allright, all the giveaways have ended. Giveaway #4 was actually a hidden Indie Gala 7 giveaway accessible from giveaway #3, for which you didn't have to solve any of the 100% evil quizzes. Surprised so few found it, but ah well :3

All the puzzles went rather well I think personally :3 These are the itstoohard solutions to the first two, obvioues ones:

• solution for puzzle 1: http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/PPEnExeb/rLQXaLRo
• solution for puzzle 2: http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/tapP0NyM/NVs9WCx1

The third puzzle was playing it straight and was first actual puzzle, for which I am not providing a solution yet, because my whole miniseries is still ongoing. The same goes for the hidden #4 and for the whole 100% evil puzzle, I will not post solutions until whole miniseries concludes, please consider these still active.

I will say though, that there was absolutely no pattern behind how the images were scrambled. It was purely random. But, at the same time, the generation process has very simple and provable fact that allows you to tackle the problem in many, many ways, none of which are really complicated. I had some people who at least originally couldn't believe there was no patter behind it. I guess I've made enough sacrifices to Nuffle :D

In the end I expected you to code a solution, although some folks got bit creative. I haven't included more itstoohard puzzles (there were several 100% to discourage bruteforcing/solving by hand) or more images in the package to keep some resonable limits, but still not so people could try working around those limits anyway. Solving ITH quizzes would end up with Bad Rats giveaway, to get to the final giveaway you'd have to through me.

For prospective future solvers of my miniseries, getting to Bad Rats (#5) will be enough, face to face protocol ceases to be active. But I am considering including #4 in it, which should much simpler if you tackled with my other puzzle recently opened, Blue Award's Secret Sharing Scheme

Congratulations to all solvers, especially to the winners.

Oh and I talked in third person purely as a flavor, pretending like I'm a Narrator, to clue in about the final giveaway, which was The Stanley Parable. This was also foreshadowed on the first quiz and the final quizzes leading up to #5