Happy Cake Day to Me! :D:

I just realized it's been 3 years I'm hanging around with you bastards - if it's not opportunity good enough to call it quits on my puzzle retirement I don't know what is :D: Anyway - prepared a little puzzle for ya - I'm very rusty in puzzle-making (been over a year since I prepared a proper one) so zelgh-style considered this one should be super-duper-easy. So GL all :>

Game to Win: Legend of Grimrock 2
Level Requirement: Lvl 1+
Special Requirements: All SG Wins activated on your account, not being on my Blacklist.
Time: You have 1 week.

All puzzle cheaters / GA leakers gonna be blacklisted as well as immediatelly reported to support. No sharing hints / ideas in this topic nor anywhere.

Oh and if you want to check if you are Blacklisted or not, you may do so here.


SOLUTION

9ppl managed to solve the puzzle with just 5 entering GA. Fastest solver managed to do so in a little bit more than 2 hours since puzzle got posted, Last solver solved it just 16 hours before GA ended. To all the solvers - I salute you and am impressed by your puzzling skillz :>

Now to the main course :>

Actual first stage of the puzzle was "Blacklist Check GiveAway" posted in OP.

A the start of GA Description there was a hidden link You may see on this image.

Hidden link http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/7bqxnt?? was missing 2 letters ??.

Hint to these two missing letters was cake picture in GA description. The cake represented New York's Empire State Building, it was also posisble to reverse google search the image and find it's listed as NY cake. Pretty obvious - 2 missing letters were NY and full ITH link was http://www.itstoohard.com/puzzle/7bqxntNY

At ITH stage you were presented with 20 questions in yes/no form. Full ITH solution can be viewed here.

After solving ITH you were presented with QR Code, but sadly the code was broken and wasn't working :(

By image editing of your choice (you could do so with changing color's pallete, saturation and other stuff in Photoshot/Gimp, but also could use simply probe tool, or filling tool from MS Paint) you could notice that some of "pixels" on QR code weren't in fact pure black. Black color has hex value of #000000 and some pixels had color value of #010101. Very similar but not the same :D: To be exact there was EXACTLY 20 altered pixels.

You can view all 20 "fake" pixels on this image.

Now notice this. There are 20 fake pixels in QR code. There are also 20 questions on ITH. Even more - all answers are in yes/no format, so either true or false. Does it ring the bell? It's just like binary or Boolean data type or however you want to call it ;)

And yes - eqach question corresponded to a single pixel. If Answerr was Yes (True/1) the pixel should be black, if answer was no (False/0) the pixel should be white. Proper colors/values of pixels can be seen on this image. Red pixels represent ones that should be black, while green pixels represent ones that should be white.

Original non-altered QR you would get at the end would look like this image.

Decoding this QR would give you 5 letter code qzodt which was GA code for main GA: http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/qzodt/legend-of-grimrock-2 :>


NEWS:

7th solver so far :>

We have a grand total of 6th solvers so far, but only 4 entries - so still great win-chances! Gogo solve t3h puzzle! :>

We have 2 more solvers - plus one of them is a total newbie - it's his 1st puzzle solved! :> That meas that no matter if you're a veteran or a fresh blood - this puzzle is for everyone! :>

We have our 2nd solver - took him 6 hours but again - without any hints! See? It's totally doable so gogogo - I want me CV so at least 3 peeps more ;p

We have our first solver! Without any hints whatsoever and done it in only 3 hours! CONGRATS YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!! :> Also so far only 6 other people reached last stage so keep on trying - this GA will probably have really high win-chances so it's totally worth a try :>


HINTS:

Only hint you need
(and a little bit of brain-work ;>)

9 years ago*

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2 solvers already... Only to make me feel dumb. I haven't tried the puzzle since I kinda gave up earlier, but hearing that 2 people solved it makes me want to give it another try.

9 years ago
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gogogo - you even have your own groupee, that just jumped to conclusion that of there are 2 solvers you must be one of them: http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/pM3wK/labyronia-rpg#P8uxqfe :D:

9 years ago
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Nah, my ideas aren't working. I'll wait for hints, if there will be any after 4 solvers...

9 years ago
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we'll see :> 4 solvers, k, but only 2 of them joined GA - 2 others just solved it for the sake of solving zelgh puzzle :D:

9 years ago
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Happy cake Zelghadis
congrats mate!

9 years ago
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I'll give ya a bump for the fact that I'm not on your blacklist! ;)
AND FOR THE CAKE!

9 years ago
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I seem to be blacklisted. If you happen to remember why, a response, either here or steam, would be appreciated. Not an issue whether you do or don't, j would rather know to avoid any accidental mistakes. Have a most glorious day.

9 years ago
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seems you were on BL since SGv1, but don't remember why, and since your profile loks good nowadays, removed ;)

9 years ago
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Thank you. I respect when somebody BL me, i just prefer to know why is all. Have a bump.

9 years ago
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well, I surely did have a reason, but honestly don't remember it anymore, as it may have been easilly like ~1year ago ;p and like I said - I don't remember, your profile looks good, great ratio as well, so see no reason to keeping you on BL ;p

9 years ago
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the puzzle master itself doing a puzzle! :o
I'm here just to register that I think this is epic.
it's the first time I see it here... still newbie. don't judge me.

9 years ago
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no judging - just saying that one of 4 solvers is a newbie as well still he managed to solve it. Heck - according to him it was his 1st puzzle ever he solved :D:

9 years ago
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Well, every genius had a first puzzle solved...I don't think that means as much as you imply :P

9 years ago
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only thing I imply that this puzzle is doable whether you're a pro veteran or just a newbie :>

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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sorry for extremely late but well done sir! I believe that I cannot solve this puzzle in just one life time.
very well done for who did. figure out so much possibilities is really something else.
thank you for posting the solution by the way! I like to learn puzzlers tricks because, you know, maybe someday. :D

9 years ago
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Fairly new to all this, but I daresay I believe I've made it to your last stage, which is accomplishment enough for me! Will come back to this tomorrow. Thanks for the puzzle, and Happy Cake Day, old timer!

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Oh no, my chances got cut in halve, someone else joined the GA... Or in other words, have another bump for a difficult but doable puzzle :D

9 years ago
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and now your chances are only 1 out of 3... :(

9 years ago
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Congratulations and a solvebump :P

9 years ago
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<bravo!>

9 years ago
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Buuuuuump for solved :3

9 years ago
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congrats ;]

9 years ago
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bump for good puzzle. also I have solved one simple puzzle here before but it was not exactly memorable. and while this is one of my first puzzles on SG it is definitely not my first puzzle in general, they are some of my favorite things to do, eg. portal 1 & 2, sudoku, and zachtronics industries are all great. same with strategy games like chess, civ, axis and allies, and xcom

9 years ago
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But it is too hard. :(

9 years ago
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it's not - it has 5 solvers already without a single hint :>

9 years ago
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It took me two hours to get past step 1 thou (however that was mainly because I was overthinking stuff). Gonna give some to step 2 before grandiously giving up.

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Nice, well, I was on the right track, realized that the Yes/No should have to do something with the black/white dots; however I could not find a pattern (did not realize there were dots in a different color) and was rather trying to fit them to a row or column and later just gave up.

9 years ago
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if you gret stuck on any image - always try to edit it in several ways :> and thanks for participating :> good luck in future puzzling! :>

9 years ago
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Happy cookie day zelg!

9 years ago
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Bump for solved! Happy (belated) cake day!

9 years ago
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We have a grand total of 6th solvers so far, but only 4 entries - so still great win-chances! Gogo solve t3h puzzle! :>

9 years ago
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Happy cakeday zelg!

9 years ago
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GOD! Have been stuck on this stage for hours now and cannot figure out why it won't work.

So frustrated right now, but hell yea, this is good fun. :D

9 years ago*
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hey, I'd really aprreciate if you edited out 1st paragraph - from "hours now" to "etc" - It is saying a little too much and hinting maybe not how to solve, but at least how to get to solving that particular stage ;)

And good luck :>

9 years ago
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Edited, even tho i wasn't completely sure if you we're joking about it helping people getting to that "stage" as you'll have to beat the other "thing" to even get this challenge.

Anyways i give up, used over a day now trying tons of different things.
I found the 00 / 01s and still i cannot read it even tho the timing should be right and even the format and version used.

Happy cakeday and was fun getting this far, but i'm just clueless what else to try now. :/

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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YAY! Solved, I mean :)

9 years ago
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I stucked in the middle:).

9 years ago
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that's not middle - you're stuck on last stage :D:

9 years ago
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Maybe, but this last stage is not beatable for me. But this is my first puzzle ever;). I think i even find some clues but anyway I dont know what to do :). Of course I can not say what I found but...

9 years ago
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don't ;) when the puzzle ends I will post the solution here :>

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Got stuck on the "solution" of the yay/nay thing several days ago... gonna have to try again later.

9 years ago
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I yhink i stuck on the same. Answer did not give me answers at all ;)

9 years ago
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Me too, tried everything I could think of but I guess I'll have to wait for the solution.

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Well... I did notice 2 wrong "pixels" but didn't play around enough in mspaint :(
Thanks for the puzzle!

9 years ago
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you're welcome :>

9 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 10 months ago.

9 years ago
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well, if you tried it matters :>

9 years ago
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Zelghads.... I really want to solve your puzzle-- but you can see where I am stuck I think... Yes? No? And I don't know what to do but I feel like I'm stuck in a prison cell behind bars and cant begin to get unstuck....

9 years ago
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I guess you got stuck the same place most of you did :> Will get unstuck by yourself or when solution gets posted :D:

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Yeah, I don't have any brains or time left for this. I'm giving up...

9 years ago
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as promised - puzzle ended, solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Damn, I was close. I opened the image in an online editor and I was trying to remove some pixels after looking up how QR codes are made and noticing a pixel that shouldn't be where it was. I also noticed different color pixels when playing with brightness / contrast, but I didn't make the connection to the questions. Although I did try to work with the questions alone, thinking the QR code was simply a distraction. Anyway, I didn't really give this a lot of time. Maybe next time.

9 years ago
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Maybe ;) The main hint should be that exactly 20 picels got altered, while there was also exactly 20 questions ;) Good luck with future puzzling! :>

9 years ago
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Frustrated reminder bump..

9 years ago
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solution posted :>

9 years ago
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Uhm ... where is the puzzle??? People here are talking about "stages" - I can't even seem to find the start of it. Ah well...

Happy cakday, zelgh \o/

9 years ago
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noob ;p you'll see wjen solution get posted :>

9 years ago
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you can now see where the puzzle was - solution is posted :>

9 years ago
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Thanks for revealing. I had found the ITH link but couldn't figure out the two missing letters. I tried manipulating that picture, but it revealed nothing. I'm not a very patient person. Here's where I stopped trying.

9 years ago
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protip for future - if you find a strange image reverse google search should be one of the first things you try :> also reverse google search of mirrored image as well, as making mirror image is easiest way to trick google :> I found this photo by "NY cake" question and that's exactly what google search was revealing :D:

9 years ago
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Bump for solved ... Really fun puzzle and still 16 hours left!

9 years ago
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