Left or Right?
Hey Almeck, the point of my puzzles is rarely for them to be difficult. Although I try to make it so that difficulty correlates with the value of the game. Instead, I'm trying for the puzzles to hopefully be interesting in some way. They can't be solvable on auto-pilot, or they would not be interesting.
For this particular one, I liked the 'original communication'. So I created a puzzle that more or less forces you to listen to the whole thing. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't - but you'll sit down and listen at least once. :p
The follow up is a bit more of a mind-bender, but it is well hinted. What are some basic things you can check about a file? Once you collect some simple data, you should be on the right track. And the solution ties in with the poll on this post in a somewhat cheeky way. A small moment of delight perhaps, for solvers who see the connection and have a little chuckle.
That's all it is about. The pleasure of finding things out.
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I appreciate a difficult puzzle... but if you're missing pieces to the puzzle then it feels a bit overkill.
Making it too easy is definitely not the way to go, I agree. But neither is making things too difficult.
I've made my fair share of puzzles (not here, but for games and such) and one thing that I (and people I worked with) always had to remember was that not everyone is working with the same level of knowledge or context and to give the player a chance to learn a concept before presenting them with a more complex version. That way, they'll have the knowledge and then can so apply it to the actual puzzle.
In this case, I understand not wanting to give the answer away, but at some point parts of your puzzles have felt like "Guess what I'm thinking." Don't get me wrong, the majority of your puzzles have been excellent. Downright clever and sometimes even devious. I can respect that. I simply feel that some parts of them could use a touch of... fine tuning for lack of a better term?
That all said, I've made no further progress on this one after landing amongst a field of symbols. But will have to give it another crack once I get off work.
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not everyone is working with the same level of knowledge or context and to give the player a chance to learn a concept before presenting them with a more complex version
While that is true for game design (because they want good reviews from satisfied customers to then sell more games) or for education (because their job is teaching after all), I don't think that means that a puzzle on here necessarily has to include both the introduction to a new concept and the more complex version. Knowledge is not built from a singular source (and never should be tbh).
There are a lot of puzzles on here with varying levels of difficulty and required knowledge. I don't think you can expect to be able to solve every single one of them but you learn more with every one, be it by solving or by looking at the solution afterwards. And with the internet at hand, you can always look deeper into concepts new to you and educate yourself. I don't think it's on the puzzle creator to teach beforehand.
but at some point parts of your puzzles have felt like "Guess what I'm thinking."
Hm, weird, I feel the exact opposite of that with Tomas' puzzles. At worst, it's "I currently have no idea what you're hinting at, let me try to figure it out" but most of the time it's "I think I know what you're hinting at, let me try that" for me.
IMO, all of Tomas' puzzles so far were very logical and had a guiding thread leading through them. I like that there's very few red herrings - no matter if accidental or intentional - and that usually everything fits a common theme even tied in with the game being given away and almost everything is a hint in some way or another.
Every puzzle so far felt rewarding to me in and of itself after solving it and without even considering the giveaway linked to it. And I wasn't mad about the ones I didn't solve, because they still made sense unlike some other ones I've tried before. And I've done a few puzzles here that didn't feel as rewarding even after successfully solving them, because they were tedious or had to many accidental red herrings or were just plain illogical or similar.
In my eyes, this is absolute puzzle masterclass. And part of the fun was and is figuring out, what new concept has been used this time, understanding it and then trying to crack the nut.
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Well, this one actually isn't difficult. Some previous ones were much, much more difficult.
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Considering the amount of people stuck, I would wager that I'm not alone in thinking the complexity is not the easiest. For a veteran member of SG, perhaps not. But as I have only been here a few months I have not learned all the tricks of the trade yet.
That and the amount of people that needed hints to solve it? It's not an "easy" puzzle. If you want to argue that it's medium difficulty, sure, I could see that. But easy? Not quite.
Was it clever though? Certainly.
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Well, you are right about experience being a factor here. When you solve enough puzzle you start to see patterns. But there is something else that makes the puzzle hard - you may know all the "tricks", but in some puzzles it's not obvious what to do anyway, what "trick" is used exactly, there is too many possible approaches. But this one is pretty straightforward. First step is just "read the topic and do what it tells you to do". Second step may seem a little bit harder, but actually it fits just one "pattern" of what it could be. Sure, there are easier things, like jigidis (that will take much more time though) or a hidden link, but if we are talking about puzzles - this one is really user-friendly.
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I disagree with the second part being easier. The tools you use can make it more or less difficult. Having the right tool I solved it in no time. Before that, it just was not clear enough to proceed. That's where the experience comes in. I cannot say more here otherwise it would provide too much context and may reveal an answer. But feel free to check my comment on the GA itself and you will see what I am talking about.
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Did my suggestion of notepad++ help? I'm still stuck lol
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I can only suggest to give it a try. Whether it works or not would be giving away too much. More than a hint.
There's more than one way to get the answer though. You will just have to try different tools and make the right adjustments. Reread EVERY clue and part of the puzzle TomasMacMordain has given. That is all I will say until the GA is over so as not to reveal too much. And if Tomas wants me to delete this message, or any others, I will do so. Just to be clear
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Do I need some other technology to solve this other than vanilla windows? I am not a robot but honestly i feel like it would be easier to solve this if I was.
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No you don't actually need anything else.
And I think it will be harder to solve this if you were a robot 😊
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I still don't know what you did last summer-- I mean how to solve this thing.
Best I got were unreadable chars. Do you have some ELI5 tips? idk, imagine I just woke up from 100 frozen slumber, have hangover and I'm being clubbed back to slumber by 12 angry seals (the beautiful animals, btw)
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Not sure at which stage you got the unreadable chars. The bit inversion stage?
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Yes? actually no, I did it without invrt and got that, but then read another comment whom also couldn't figure it out (you told 'em about Xor) which I searched for that as well, then tried that way and got a single unreadable char.
About 10 more minutes of searching and trying without sucess, I simply gave out, I am most likely over thinking it which is what I always do!
I must be completely incapable of taking things easier/simple, thus I miss what's right there
and it bytes me in the arse XD
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I hope when it's all over you can explain how I was supposed to solve it, because I think I'm gonna give up at this point, just no idea how to progress with the file, tried everything I can think of, but I will be curious what the ultimate solution was.
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It's likely that you're doing one of two things perhaps:
1 - thinking like a robot (trying to decrypt the file)
2 - ignoring basic facts about that file, or ignoring how you proved that ... you weren't a robot
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So that at least helped a bit and now I see that connection, now I just need to...figure out what to do with that information. I'm not sure if I now feel dumber or smarter. I'll have to think on it a bit more I guess and see if inspiration strikes. But thank you for that.
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I feel dumber now, because even though I understood the connection, I still don't see the correlation between the two things.
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I feel like I'm missing a fundamental part of how these puzzles work, because I think I "solved" it, I just don't...know what to do with that information. Is it part of a url, is there some site I'm supposed to go to and put in the solution to generate a link to the giveaway, or did I not solve it at all and it would make sense if I had? As I've continued to not make progress beyond this last step I feel dumber with each passing moment.
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If you found a 5 character code, you're done.
This is what giveaway URLs look like: https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/[the all-important 5 character id]/
Many puzzles don't give you an URL at all. You're looking for a 5-character 'solution'.
A simple puzzle might just say: aFZFixMedd and you'd construct https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/aFZdd/ to solve it
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Thank you for that. I thought I had a 5 character code but...apparently not. Assuming I've got one more step to take. I appreciate all the hints and help at least.
I don't even care about the giveaway anymore. I just want to solve this thing.
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don't forget the slash at the end of the url, it's important
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no - save page as... it's just a text file, and the browser does its best to show you the contents
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I'm not sure what you're saying. If you're asking whether you need keen eye-sight to solve the puzzle, the answer is no. Might be that you'd need to switch to better tools for looking at the text though.
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I would suggest notepad++, although I haven't actually solved it, so I could be way off
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I love your puzzles even when I have no idea what is going on. Bump!
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After I spent the last 3 days on this puzzle, I think I'll wait for the solution once ended, because this time I find the experience more frustrating that interesting. Not knowing what to do doesn't open the mind to any solution.
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I used such a tool. It still gives me a 43 character code at the end. That does not make sense.
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WaxWorm said it well. The tool you need for the job matters, but it also matters how you use it.
Once you have the right tool and use it in the right way the solution will reveal itself very quickly.
What you seek is within the text, but all the text is important. Every single thing Tomas has given is important to find the solution.
Even if sometimes the wording of some hints/tips can be a tad misleading, at least imo
This may be saying too much, and if Tomas deems so I will edit/delete this message.
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Bump for solved, thanks for this really clever puzzle !
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You're not looking at the key
You're also posting quite a bit of information. Do you mind removing the bit that says what you're seeing?
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The attack of the machines is imminent!
The central A.I. has sent out encrypted comms to awaken its minions.
Our code-breakers were able to intercept and crack the code. To receive the real communication, you have to take the ID, and invert its bits, as given by the 1s in the following key:
Once you've absorbed the real message, head over to your briefing - we'll hand you the key to the armory.
Good luck, soldier!
PS: Lvl2+. The following countries are excluded, as the title is not available there and can't be gifted: AM AZ BY KZ KG MD RU TJ TM UZ
PPS: If you solved the GA and landed on a deleted GA, re-download the text file (make sure to properly reload, so it does not come from your browser cache). I've replaced the text file to reveal the properly set up GA. Sorry about that, I forgot to check for region restrictions when setting up the original GA. If you're one of the people who have already entered the deleted GA - just solve the text file again to get to the new GA.
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