In case you're new to puzzles, usually the objective is to obtain the unique 5 characters code of a private giveaway:
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/XXXXX/

GAs include The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, Loddlenaut, SATANIC PANIC 666, Heretic's Fork, Edge of Reality, and more.
As always, I will provide hints if nobody gets it, and I will share the solution when the puzzle ends.


Have some music, good luck solving the puzzle!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8LNaPz6iIM

[HINT]

Stuck in the nose part? Maybe you should ask someone Artificially more Intelligent than you for help.


Solution

  • The music link hides a secret: only https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8LNaPz6iIM is part of the real url, the rest is superfluous...
  • The extra bit is encoded using Base64. It's easily identifiable by the final =, but also hinted by the subject of the video I linked: Mario 64
  • VGhlIGFuc3dlciBpcyByaWdodCB1bmRlciB5b3VyIG5vc2UKQTcgejMgYTIgcTYgWjc=
    once decoded becomes
    The answer is right under your nose
    A7 z3 a2 q6 Z7
    .
    This is a code that depends on your keyboard (under your nose).

If you ask an AI chatbot for help on this step, it will probably not gonna be able to solve the puzzle itself, but it should be successful at guessing it has something to do with your keyboard.

  • There's 5 bits to the code, each corresponds to a character of the GA url you're looking for.
    I made sure to create a code that included the letters Q, A and Z for a reason. If you're using a default QWERTY keyboard (the standard keyboard used worldwide, sorry AZERTY bros), you will notice that these are the first letters of each row of letters.
    The number stands for the nth character on that row of letters.
    The capitalization of Q, A, Z indicates the capitalization of the resulting character.
  • A7 = J
    z3 = c
    a2 = s
    q6 = y
    Z7 = M

The code you're looking for is JcsyM

3 months ago*

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Mine

3 months ago
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Stuck in the nose part? Maybe you should ask someone Artificially more Intelligent than you for help.

3 months ago
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Don't give too much importance on the AI hint. It's not a mandatory step, it's unreliable, and at beast will just point you to the right direction. Prioritize using your brain on the nose hint/riddle.

3 months ago
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Help, please! I can't find the answer that is under my nose.

3 months ago
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Solution is out

3 months ago
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bump solved :)

3 months ago
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bump for solved ;)

3 months ago
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https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/XXXXX

You might want to put a / at the end as well. Without it, the link won't work even with the correct 5 character code.

3 months ago
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I always forget, fixed

3 months ago
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Bump, not solved, but its right under my nose >>

3 months ago
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Bump for nosed

3 months ago
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BUMP!
Ok, found the first part, but I'm stuck on that :D

3 months ago*
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Solve the first part, have no idea what to do with the answer

3 months ago
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View attached image.
3 months ago
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Bump for solved!

3 months ago
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bump for not solved.
not sure how to sniff out the code from where i arrived at.

3 months ago
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Bump for solved

3 months ago
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Hm... still sniffing around but intrigued.

3 months ago
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Like others, I'm not sure what to do with the 2nd part.

3 months ago
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bump for half solved. it is also right under my nose... will come back to this later :)

3 months ago
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Okay, i'm admitting defeat.. Spent a few hours trying to solve this one, even signed up for your Only Fans, thinking you might give a clue there, but that didn't help either. Well done to those who made the bump look easy!

3 months ago
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Just added a hint!

3 months ago
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Maybe I need better quality artificial friends, because mine were unhelpful for the last couple of hours ;-)

3 months ago
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left-right bruteforcing involved?

3 months ago
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Not sure what left-right means, but no, there's no bruteforcing involved

3 months ago
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The music is bumping

3 months ago
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I came across this while trying to crack the puzzle, and I can't help but feel a bit silly.

https://www.ainos.com/ainose.html

3 months ago
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lol

3 months ago
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bump for solved!

3 months ago
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My artificial friend is as baffled as I am!

3 months ago
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Yeah, he can be very inconsistent.

3 months ago
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Bump for solved after the hint

3 months ago
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AI is doing the opposite of being helpful, rip

3 months ago
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This artificially smarter being ain't too smart, I still had to rely on only my own fleshy organic brain to solve it.

3 months ago
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So wait... people are actually trying to use "AI" chatbots to solve puzzles now?

3 months ago
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Yeah, gotta consider that too when creating puzzles now.

3 months ago
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It honestly never even occurred to me. Could be because my own attempts to get any straight answer from the Bing search chatbot that wasn't straight from Wikipedia or just obviously wrong ended in frustration but I don't really see the Intelligence in "AI" as sufficient to solve even a good riddle at this point.
Anyway, I'll keep torturing my human brain in an effort to do your puzzle justice.

3 months ago
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AI could be wrong. Do fact check, don't like me (https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/TZ9aRTO).

3 months ago
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lol yeah I once asked the Bing chatbot which game held the record for the most concurrent players ever on Steam and it said "Counter-Strike 2 holds the record for the most players online on Steam. It reached an impressive peak of 1,342,171 concurrent players"
Next to the answer, it shows its "sources", which was "Steamcharts".
Of course, not being able to help myself, I check the Steamchart page which was the Top Games By Current Players rankings, not the all time ranking.
I ask again and say "you're giving me the current ranking, I need the all time record" (which actually is PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS with 3,236,027 in 2018) and it replies "oh you're absolutely right, the all time record is Counter Strike 2 with 960,000 players" ....???
I ask "how is your second answer the all time record if it's less players than your first answer which was wrong?"
And again it replies "oh you're right of course, 1,342,171 is superior to 960,000"

Yeah I gave up and went digging on my own in Steamcharts. Turns out it was just doing a Bing search and spitting out the first result that seemed like it was in the ball park, ignoring the fact that the first result was current players and the second result was 2024 rankings. Oh well.

3 months ago
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AI might help for solving riddles but it doesn't help much with turning answers into giveaway codes.

3 months ago
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Wait, so is it a hint, or a joke towards people asking chatbots for help?

3 months ago
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An actual hint, because it will (should?) nudge people towards the right direction, without actually solving the puzzle for them.

3 months ago
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Wait is the hint just saying ask AI or is the hint saying something different? Multiple AIs have been of no help so just wondering if I'm missing what the hint is.

3 months ago
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Honestly, I asked chatgpt once if any spanish king had written a book.

It confirmed that yes, Philip II had written a book, "Don Quixote", under the pseudonym of Cervantes. It really sounded convincing.

Never used it again. Tried again today, it had no idea.

3 months ago
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lol yeah they call it "AI hallucinations". I call it BS.
Wake me up when they found the I in AI. Although probably will be too late by that time since geniuses are also giving it weapons... some of which would make Tolkien turn in his grave

3 months ago
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Not everybody understood Terminator was a movie, not an instruction set :(

3 months ago
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