AKA How I learned to stop worrying and defuse the bomb.

Story: The Case of the Terrorist Hacker

Suddenly an alarm goes off throughout the Puzzle Agency. Your boss comes running to your desk and pulls you with him into his office. He announces that a hacker going by the name of Cipher Bin Ary has cracked the code to the Puzzle Agency entrance besdM and released it publically on the internet, now anyone is able to find the agency.

What's even worse is that he has hidden a ticking timebomb in the agency. Only you have the skills to find the bomb and defuse it before everyone explodes. Agent, our lives are in your hands, please hurry.


Earlier cases (optional)
Prelude: the Puzzle Agency entrance.
The Case of the Secret Ruler.


Disclaimer
This case involve use of the site found in the prelude. All hidden codes are to be used on that site to reveal that puzzle's setting.

Rewards
15 GAs before main puzzle
3 GAs after the main puzzle Alien: Isolation, Titan Souls, Broken Age
1 GA via another puzzle
1 First to find keydrop bonus for Knights and Merchants, let me know if you've collected it.

Estimated times the bomb exploded
Total Guesses - Total players x 4 = Bomb explosions
242 - 29 * 4 = 126

This is an estimation that's only true when all players are also solvers.

Top 10 agents
1 lmxn
2 silentguy
3 jeffhowe
4 mahv
5 m3rc
6 mellery
7 ercalote
8 Citrinate
9 Blackfyre
10 faragona

9 years ago*

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Where are all the puzzle solvers O:

9 years ago
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I know right?! This is THE puzzle to solve! Very original, fun, clever and well designed!

9 years ago
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Time to try another thread title! ;)

9 years ago
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Oh, I like this one (:

9 years ago
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Haha here's a bump for the catchy title and the reminder of the classic Kubrick film. :)

PS: I have no idea where to go to end up on the GA from the pyramid event. Probably something too well hidden..

9 years ago
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That one is not hidden at all, it's at the very last giveaway when you have solved everything, including the cats.

9 years ago*
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Including the cats? You mean I must finish first the whole pyramid event then? I don't get it..

9 years ago
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Yes, everything. You need to be called a Puzzle Master by Jeff to reach it.

The only thing hidden in this puzzle, by the way, is the code, that so far noone has announced that they've grabbed.

9 years ago
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Code? I missed that.

9 years ago
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Still noone's reported taking it or that it's been silently taken. :)

9 years ago
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First, I mixed up columns and rows. Then, I realized that it was right to left.

Bump for solved!

9 years ago
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Well done, agent! There's still time to give away some "bundle trash" to reach level 2 before the end of the event if you want to indulge yourself in some high win-chance giveaways. :)

9 years ago
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This needs another bomb... uh I mean bump of course!

9 years ago
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Well done, agent.

9 years ago
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Agent Chour reporting.
Nearly lost all of my 9 lives defusing the wires. Something's fishy there.

9 years ago
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Saved a couple of lives!

9 years ago
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I'm through Q1 (still working on the puzzle) and I'm pretty sure your ordering for the wires is entirely wrong.
You claim that the ordering persists but the answer doesn't reflect that. Instead the answer acts as if the instructions keep the ordering - but they don't (which is fairly easy to infer based on the wording). In other words you have to intentionally misinterpret the instructions (as if they kept the ordering) to get the accepted answer, and if you interpret the instructions correctly (i.e. without keeping the ordering) the answer which should be right (written with persistent ordering) is not accepted.
(If what I wrote is unclear, PM me to get a detailed explanation in private.)

9 years ago
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I got them all in my first try, so I don't know what you are talking about :)

9 years ago
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That the ordering is wrong, and that whoever got the ITH answer correct the first time has been applying the wrong logic (no offense). I left a detailed explanation in the actual giveaway since I can't spoil answers here :)

9 years ago
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You're writing as if you think persist means not keeping. Persist means that it is kept, not the other way around. I couldn't read the hidden text on the ipad, so wasn't quite sure what you meant earlier, but if I understand you correctly now, you've simply misunderstood a word and thought it meant the opposite of what it actually means.

If I've misunderstood you here, does the clarification posted in the hints-section at least help with what you had a problem with?

I really appreciate the feedback, it's rare to get well-written feedback on puzzles.

9 years ago
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No misunderstandings. As we've discussed in detail in the actual giveaway post, your hint suggests that the original order of the wires is kept when inputting the solution, i.e. that the solution can range from 1 to the number of original wires (which, in itself, is correct. I might have worded myself wrong if you believe I disagreed with you here).
However, what you may have wanted to add was that the instructions had to be read as if the removed wires still existed (somewhat similar to 'persisting' but spelled out a lot more clearly because it defies the logical reading of the instructions). I believe you mentioned you made the hint clear by now, so there shouldn't be any trouble for future solvers :) Thanks for going through the trouble, by the way.
Basically what I disagreed on is that your previous hint didn't make it clear that you had to read the instructions in a very specific way. So I didn't disagree on the actual choice of the word 'persist' but that the hint was too vague. Sorry to have kept up a long discussion about it!

9 years ago
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I can always improve on clear instructions (where they are supposed to be clear, like in this case). It's really valuable feedback for future puzzles. In my head it was clear, I was the one that rewrote the rules to be more than just one cable cut. In the original game only 1 cable is cut, and that's all. So I rewrote them to fit that specific instance of cables and never thought twice that someone would think the cable cut was gone, but I've learned my lesson on not being stuck in my own head. :)

Next puzzle leans towards being a lot less clear though according to what people want (Poll). ;) It will still be fully logical, but instructions will be scarce.

9 years ago*
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Oh, I just noticed the site you're using for your poll (it's the same one that my previous group used to vote-kick me). I thought I should tell you that it's a very poor poll site because a single person can spam votes indefinitely, there is no logging of browser, IP or anything. So you can't really take any of the results at face value.
Looking forward to your next event! ;)

9 years ago
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There are checks on that site if you want to have some security (but I forgot to turn them on since I was doing it on an iPad from a bus' wifi. :P). If something strange starts happening I'll just remake it or just go with my own preferred toughness. ;)

9 years ago
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Bump for defused the bomb!! :D

9 years ago
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Bump for solved! I was late, but I did not fail my comrades ;)

9 years ago
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Bump for bomb has been defused!

9 years ago
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Bomb disarmed! Thanks for a great puzzle time :)

9 years ago
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Well done all new bomb defusing puzzle agents!

9 years ago
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This is the most creative puzzle I've seen in sg so far. Wow, thank you really.
So the puzzle with the Puzzle Agency entrance has expired, I was wondering if the one with agent's phone has expired too? If not, I will try to invest some time on the barcode.

9 years ago
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They have all expired, except for this one. The only reason to do them is for practice and story. You'll find there's a common thread throughout the cases in regards to a cipher. Next one will not be a difference.

The phone is the very last one in that case, it's from The Case of the Secret Ruler. The barcode is simply binary for "p3d.in/" to tell you what site the hidden codes are to be used on.
Since I had used it on two cases already, and I wanted to open up the puzzles for more people without having to solve that bit, so I made it part of the story that it had been cracked by the hacker.

9 years ago
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Resting now. Bombs tire me

9 years ago
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I'll try to have a new case for you soon, agent. Rest well.

9 years ago
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Oh yes, bump for less than 2 days to go and for secret keydrop still not snatched (as far as I know). I'll probably try to use it myself at the end of the case to see if it was used or not. :P

9 years ago
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18 hour bump.

9 years ago
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And another bump for half a day left.

9 years ago
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So where was that key? :S

9 years ago
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I've asked the person that first found it if he wants to try and use it before I try myself. He didn't want to claim it. It's still out there though, so until he's replied you're free to try and find it. :P

9 years ago
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I already have the game, was just curious. :P Now that I think about it, 15 GAs before the main puzzle, each of them could be a letter in the key... But I'm too lazy to try that out. xD

9 years ago
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It would seem someone's taken it without saying anything, some people are really ungrateful. People being ungrateful end up on my blacklist. So for anyone reading this, make sure you give thanks for games you win.

It was hidden in the " ' " within the "Nordh's Office"-link on the Broken Age GA. Ixmn found it straight away as the first solver, but didn't want it. silentguy, the second solver, also found it, but didn't want it.

9 years ago
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Mmh... no fun for people whos first language wasn´t english...
I give up...

9 years ago
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Are you talking about the instruction manual? I'm not a native english speaker either, but it's rather simple english in them. Are there any special chapters you don't understand? Perhaps we can help you with translations.

9 years ago
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Field report:
Bomb defused. Crisis averted.

9 years ago
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View attached image.
9 years ago
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Bump for solved! Glad I remembered this was still on my todo list :)

9 years ago
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Close call, less than 4 hours to go! :)

9 years ago
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1 hour to go before this case closes and the next begins.

9 years ago
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Add me to the list of those who needed this push. I had tried some of your earlier puzzles and concluded that I did not like the binary codes, and so this wasn't for me. As this was closing, I thought I would give it another try, and I enjoyed it. The puzzles were clear and entertaining. I blew up the bomb on the venn diagram when I typed it in wrong, and it took me forever to read the password puzzle correctly. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks.

9 years ago
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Well done.

You'll probably not like the next one as much as this one unfortunately though. A lot more logic solving/deciphering, but feel free to drop in, there's bound to be at least one or two GAs you can access without much problems (as long as the other agents can solve the first puzzle ;))

9 years ago
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I have no fear or logic solving/deciphering. Indeed, a number of my puzzles are very logic heavy. However, I really don't like image puzzles as much. I have concluded over the years that any puzzle that requires photoshop is probably not for me. I looked at the binary images and thought that they were not for me.

Not that there is anything wrong with image puzzles. I really like pickled vegetables. My wife hates them. Neither of us is right or wrong. Its just a matter of taste. In writing my own puzzles, I try to mix things up, but I am interested more in puzzles than in quizzes, or google-fu on itstoohard.

9 years ago
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Then you're in luck I suppose. :) There's a puzzle I would solve using photoshop in the new case, but can just as easily be done with pen and paper. It's nothing tricky about the image itself. You'll see what I'm talking about once you get there ;)

9 years ago
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:DDDDD Thank you! i really ejoyed the puzzle and i got some gifts :)))

TY very much

9 years ago
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I'm glad you enjoyed the puzzle, hearing that is the best reward I can get for creating it. :)

9 years ago
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