Only 14 solvers of the first puzzle so far, too overwhelming even with the guide I posted here? I wish people that had problem would tell my with what so I could help them. It is really not as hard as it looks at first glance. And with really low amount of entries, there's a huge chance of winning games.
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Could you do me a favor and and reply to my comment in the first GA? (or did I reach the second? then that one)... Cause I did not bookmark it and I really should get back to it...
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Done. :)
Small tip, if you enter the games you can find them on your "entered games" list. ;) I need more entries. :P
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Oh, right, I remember now why I... took a break... from that one :-o
This time I own all the games on offer so I'm doing this just for fun, I really hope you get the entries you need...
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I wish you would give such a guide for the hellevator though... As it seems I'm running out of time on it for the month, since I'll be gone from technology for the next week, so I'll just give it one last go tonight, and call it quits afterwards. I've been stuck at it the whole month, with more than 15-20 hours spent on it, so maybe I'm not smart enough for it since none of the hints so far have truly helped me see a pattern.
You shouldn't really wonder with your puzzles that they have very few solvers. They are not exactly "your average" puzzle in SG, at least you should understand that...
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It's been a drop in this kind of puzzles, and with that, the solvers dropped as well. It's a shame. When I joined there were far more thinking puzzles. In the last two weeks alone, over 80% of the puzzle-threads are jigsaws. But with that being said, the first puzzle is really not that hard and doesn't take much time to solve, especially with that guide. It takes far less time to go through it than most of the trivia puzzles, and most of the jigsaws as well.
What I find most strange is that I don't get the huge amount of "Too hard" posts that some puzzles get from people that give up. I mean, I have a track record of posting hints and help along the way for people that do, even if cryptic stuff, but I try to keep an open dialogue.
Did you find out the answer to the last hint yet? It's a massive clue, and you can easily google it. I couldn't write a guide to that puzzle. It's a one-step solution. I can't make it smaller scale, like the guide did with the 5-venn instead of 7-venn. It wouldn't work.
PS, it's only been out for less than 10 days, so the time you've been stuck on it is far shorter than you think. It just feels longer ;)
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First two puzzles didn't even require hints if you ask me, they were already very doable... Then again we don't all think alike.
But on the music one, the hints are never enough as it seems (for me at least). I did google it, I have one or two things in mind, but still I don't feel it is a massive clue as you say it is. My main problem with this super-frustrating puzzle is that I expect to see a specific pattern in the very early part of the music, and I just fail to see it, no matter how much I change my thinking on it. This really breaks apart any guesses I may make regarding the translation of it.
PS: Yes it does feel longer indeed. Maybe because I'm probably the only one who has been at it all these days fruitlessly.
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Indeed, first two puzzles didn't require hints, which is why it's weird that so few people choose to solve them. :P Or don't even complain about them. The rewards are, IMO, 4 really good games, plus 1 that's on many peoples wishlist (I am Bread).
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I guess it's also that people see a "huge" wall of text and they give up already as opposed to a link to a jigsaw or an ith-link. If they can just click a link, find a puzzle and then give up they'll probably post "too hard" sooner ;-)
Perhaps next time just start with a very simple puzzle.. short description.. easy ith.. draw people in and then make it harder from the first giveaway ;-)
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Spoiler alert:
Next case will have a much easier entrance-point. revilheart has programmed a puzzle from my design. It's a very easy, but fun puzzle to get into a "train" of GAs before reaching a point where you can solve puzzles in any order you want. Atm there's a total of 9 puzzle ideas, trying to keep them small. Lots of 3D stuff and other visual goodies.
When you've solved them all, you get to the finale.
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Another idea jotted down, and got half an idea for yet another one. Just need to figure out how to get a result from it...
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Lots of 3D stuff
And my laptop is gonna be like "BURN, BABY! BURN!"
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If it's survived so far, there's nothing that should be worse for it. :) There's no bigger scenes than before, the biggest is only a third of the agent's phone, and some 3D stuff are merely gif-animations and stills.
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I doubt you're not smart enough.. you're probably just waayyyyy overthinking it.. Like Nordh has said before, the puzzle can be solved with no musical knowledge whatsoever.. And you know what you're supposed to be looking for too, so just use two hints together and try not too think too hard ;-)
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It's so many different symbols and notes in the music, that there's literally way too many possibilities of translation (I must have tried more than ~15 different ways of translating stuff), what to keep and what to toss aside, including more possibilities regarding the order in which things are read... It really makes it near-impossible to know what is relevant to the case and what is not. I cannot see how people could easily read this...
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Yeah this confirms you're just way overthinking it.. as with most "thinking" puzzles on here, if you have an idea and you need all kinds of (complex) alterations to make it work, it's most likely not the right idea.. Usually the solutions are simple and straightforward, but you just need to think a little outside the box to come up with the right theory.. when I'm solving a puzzle, I come up with a theory and I try to verify as fast as possible if it's going to work, and if I can't do that in at most 15 minutes, I toss it aside and try to think of a new theory cause it's most likely not the right one.. As for the music puzzle, Nordh has been so kind to provide you with means to verify a theory really fast :-)
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I've confirmed with radagast that he has counted the number of notes needed correctly, and that the last 4 of those are a bit different. He has found a part of the music sheet that matches the same amount of notes and has 4 different notes at the end.
Personally I would just put the bits that I know beneath each note and just find the pattern within all 0s and all 1s. With the last hint, I don't think I can make it any more clear. It is literally showing you the answer when you google it.
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I've already done that in various ways, but since even the first letters have contradicting results without a pattern, what's the use of checking the rest of the 0s? The correct number of notes I found in the music sheet contradict themselves in too many ways to count, so they seem to be the wrong choice of notes anyway.
And google shows no answer its just your idea because you know the answer. :P
PS: Any trick to print the music sheet? It seems to require logging in. lol.
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Oh I can assure you there's definitely a pattern.. if you see it, you're probably going to hit yourself ;-)
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You can confirm that the "Norwegian ΓΆ vs o" hint is very relevant, right?
Ps. It doesn't have to be Norwegian, it can be Danish as well.
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I did hit myself. Though most of the hints were not really the reason I found it. A reset brain function would be more useful in this kind of puzzles, than any hint imo. :O Alas we don't have such technology in our everyday lives. Though sleep is a decent substitute. I just rarely get it.
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I need to figure out how to create a brain-zapper for reseting brain functions before next case for people that gets stuck too long in one puzzle. :)
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Just a bit of a bump, since someone's mass creating threads. :P
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Bump for the case solved. Propably still missing some things.
Well I liked the case (apparently with the exception of elevator :)
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You could also say, you were missing some things before you even started on this case. :O
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My conspiracy theoretician gut tells me that Nordh is acting suspicious.
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I think we all know that he is Bin Ary himself.
Case closed!
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Or they work together. I believe Bin Ary is the boss of Nordhbane.
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Now you've hurt my feelings, and I even helped you get through the last puzzle. ;(
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Come on now Nordh, we all know that something is going on with you and Bin Ary. I am just the one with the speech. ;)
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You "could" help more people through that last one. Though I admit I didn't really try hard yet. All my energy (and time) was wasted on the hellevator...
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Well, it helps if people actually ask for help. :P
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Indeed. Maybe next week I should.. even from a cellphone.. I might just have an hour or two during one night...Will see. xD
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In the meantime, print them out, cut out the lock and card and fill out the green fields while you're away from a computer. ;) It may help swiping the card physically to reveal the right solution. :)
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"Nordhbane" is rot13 for "Abequonar", which clearly is a terrorist name.
The word value of "Cipher Bin Ary" is 128, that's 80 hex; the word value of "Nordhbane" is 81. Coincidence? I think not.
"Nordhbane" backwards says "enough drones!", seems to be some sort of political statement. Maybe his son Issa was killed in a drone attack.
"Nordhbane" is an anagram for his real name "Nod Ben Ary" -- notice how he turned the y upside down to obscure it! -- so Cipher probably is his brother or father. Or wife -- who can tell, with all those beards and gowns.
The sheeple just don't want to see it.
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Oh. And I was pretty blind to not realize that the anagram actually reads "not Bin Ary". That diversion is sooo weak ... it's sad, really.
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Don't be shy. :P So funny title... Suspicious indeed. xD
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Bump for solving the first ones. Stuck on the keycard for now.
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Have another full puzzle solver, and also another entry for Never Alone, which means I only need one more entry and then I can CV for all GAs. :) Still very high chances of winning!
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You shouldn't worry about that imo. As long as you make such creative puzzles, you will always get the entries. After all, you also offered some pretty good games. It's not like you expected entries in crap games...
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21 solvers for the first puzzle and only 4 entries for Never Alone (which is a really good game), but I guess since it was in such a good bundle, lots of people bought it then.
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nope finished it all 5/5. :) It was indeed the only super hard part. But many hints by now. Jeff is there too.
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Even with the hints, I don't think I will be able to get this. :P
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I thought so too... If you tried lots of stuff and failed (like I had done for many days straight), try rethinking the whole strategy from the beginning... Just discard everything and try to find a relatively simpler way. For me, it was a one hour's sleep that helped in the end...
And try to utilize as many hints as possible if all else fails...
PS: It's like an exercise on out of the box thinking after all
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Doesn't look like it. :) haven't seen any posts beyond the one you were stuck on.
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Bump for going out of the country over the weekend. I will probably be able to connect, but not as regulary as normal, so don't take my silence for unwilling to help. :)
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Another bump, this time for fully solved!
Thanks for the cool puzzles
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Well done, agent, and thanks for appreciating the puzzles. :)
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Bump in behalf of the puzzle creator who is not able to spam bumps and complain about jigsaw puzzles at the moment. :P
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Another bump, because I need to make this last since I've suffered from a headache today and haven't been able to work on the new case. :P
6 puzzles done, plus mostly finished with the train. Still debating how many cars/wagons should be in it, but will probably use a lot of trash bundle keys in there.
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You mean you already have the next 6 puzzles ready? Do you ever rest from these ? :O You are crazy. :P
Suggestion:
To draw more people start with an easier puzzle that doesn't require too much thought/ciphers etc.
(I think this was your downfall on this. Many people got disheartened from the get-a-go. And the music puzzle should have been last if you ask me. :P )
Leave the hardest for last, and also the best reward for last, to give motive to the end, though you already know that. xD
PS: At least you got enough entries in the games.
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7 now. And it's one that initially fell through because I couldn't make it work, but I was able to solve it in another way. So I still have 3 planned that needs creating.
First one was easy this time actually. Quite a lot of solvers as well compared to some other cases. And a fully fledged guide on how to solve it with a 5 venn as an example. :)
As I've already mentioned though, I couldn't put the music last because it wouldn't fit the story, but I already lost several solvers on the 2nd puzzle, which is very easy, much easier than the first one.
The next puzzle starts off with one of the easiest puzzles I've done (with programming help from revilheart), it just requires a tad bit of short term memory or a pen for some quick notes. After that, puzzles can be solved in any order, so no worries that there will be an early blockage.
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Make that 8. :) The dart board went faster than expected.
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Bump for last puzzle hours and for being still stuck at incomprehensible lock and keycard >Ο<
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Did you try printing it out? :) Probably the easiest method of filling in the greens.
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No, because the only thing I understood of that puzzle is that we will obtain a GA code from the green portion (that will be, of course, in binary), but nothing more...I tried a couple of thing with the card but got nothing and the lock, well, that is a mystery to me, I don't even understand how do they will work together .-.
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Try swiping the card over the lock. That's usually how magnetic key card locks work. ;)
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That is the problem. I know we have to use our imagination, but I really can't see the lock in the image: I can't figure out neither its shape and how it works. As I said it's probably because of my lack of imagination, that's why I gave up right in front of the ending line XD
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The black and white lines. Which are equally wide as the squares on the keycard. That's the lock.
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This is the lock, without the extra visual details.
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So my guesses were correct but...is it a tight crack where you slide the card?
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It's kinda like the card slot on the right side of this image. Imagine that you're just seeing a 2D sideways xray view of it.
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This is mostly a logical puzzle. I don't think you really need that much of your imagination, as you may think...
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Bump for 1 hour left and for having a new solver 10 minutes ago. :) Better late than never!
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8 minute left hype! ^^ Don't think we'll get any more solvers now. :)
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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
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