Reserved
Hints:
- There are no codes in the puzzle. All URLs are complete addresses.
- Given alphabet: *@$? bbcdabdad == @@$?*@?*? Substitution doesn't bring you any closer to the solution. Look for a different property of the characters used
- think about the term "Alpha and Omega"
- Finding a matrix representation for the given text can prove useful
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With all the puzzle solvers out there I do believe that the group part won't stop SG community. Thanks for the bump and I encourage you to share any ideas you have or simply come back later. Maybe somebody will guess the first step till then.
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Hmm i am pretty sure what is the first step, but after that i dont know what to do.
I mean there is no spaces, so probably i shouldnt convert it to something.
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There's 8 rows so probably one row represent one char for a itstoohard or jigidi link.
Only 10 letters used a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j so they can replace a number and give us a string of number but for what use?
Rows have differents length. Length can be use as an order for the link we have to find.
That's some ideas at the moment. More thinking still needed :D
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i think if you can convert a letter to a number.
I mean a is 0, b is 1, c is 2... because the last one is j which is the 10th.
so u will get a long number. after that i dont know what to do.
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Maybe add up every number. Then we would have one big number for each row. And then decode this number...
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Come on people, we need more participants. I'll probably give some hints later, but first I would like to see some effort from your side.
Edit: Thank you all for participating. I'm not replying to anybody directly yet as it's tempting to comment on the guesses and I don't want to direct you in any way.
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i converted all letters to numbers. a=0, b=1 .... j=9 but it does not mean anything for me. In case you can find something:
7437821109348015469895305
69682411980414926327488490381
255786272454855286623628658863
586280657948736510392434420333071296295798650970418854024
22580512085595893389859413231381999513
022223335365557935
6838258612449053184190952004109456318360522
34095011958823296538189891351456242160072393943481462
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in case if a=1 b=2 c=3 etc... until j=0 (10)
8548932210459126570906416
70793522091525037438599501492
366897383565966397734739769974
697391768059847621403545531444182307306809761081529965135
33691623196606904490960524342492000624
133334446476668046
7949369723550164295201063115210567429471633
45106122069934307649290902462567353271183404054592573
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Well, e.g.
8.548932 Latitude
21.045912 Longitude
is a location in Central African Republic, in the Ouandjia-Vakaga Faunal Reserve.
Perhaps it is a sort of Pokemon hunt with the first clue being there?
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Well, that could be more specific about the place, or it perhaps just goes on, with the next clue perhaps being:
65.709064 Latitude
16.707935 Longitude
which would be a place in Sweden.
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the problem is that we dont know what to find.
i mean it could be 1 letter, or we have to convert 1 line to a world or something...
and what if you dont have to convert the letters to numbers?
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It can be something with the number of chars per line. Puzzle was call random initially so the letters can be random and we just need the number of letters. But I'm not sure if it will lead somewhere.
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I can confirm that the letters are meaningful. The initial title reflected a random mix of techniques used to create the puzzle. I changed it for the exact reason to prevent people from chasing red herrings and assuming there's some random data included. Sorry for the confusion.
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totaling the rows get
112
137
154
258
181
70
172
231
Is this getting anywhere close to the answer?
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Something is wrong, it's not working.
I found the problem, my brain is not working.
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First hint added, by the way I have mixed feelings about how to proceed with the puzzle. Would you prefer to get more hints or shall I extend the puzzle time(In this case I'll recreate the giveaways if there are no solvers till tomorrow)?
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Maybe both? A little more time to solve the puzzle and also one very little hint?
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Time extension doesn't exclude posting extra hints. Depending on how I formulate them even a single hint may lead to solving the first part, or I may post few which may or may not cause any progress. I would prefer not to give away the whole answer with a major hint. That's why I'm asking if the participants still want to try and proceed on their own with minimal help, or shall we skip the first part entirely as no one even hopes to find an answer.
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Yeah, I totally agree with you. Giving major hints just destroys the fun of solving the puzzle.
-->I also think 1 or 2 little hints would be better
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yukulele53 already pointed out the most important facts about the given text. With the hint provided you should already be able to proceed at least a bit. Try to discuss the possibilities.
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Suggestion: Create a new invite-only giveaway that lasts only 1 hour, don't share it with anyone, let it finish with no winners. Make the puzzle land on that (now ended) giveaway. When someone solves it, they can post there.
Then, after it has been solved by enough people you can create the giveaways link the next steps to this landing page.
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A tiny hint.
If it's not an ITH code than what else can be transcribed in a similar fashion?
New hint added
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As you're stating that something didn't work could you be more precise?
Did your attempt to decode the text fail, or did you manage to get something meaningful but it doesn't work?
Remember about the first hint. Only full urls, so there's no need to guess the site, only the format is important
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no idea how to convert this to full urls - it mean starts with http:// or what? :D
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I mean that if there was a link to a giveaway it would be in a format https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/XXXXX/, not only the XXXXX code. Obviously the link leads somewhere else, but it already contains the domain. It also is longer than a simple 8 letter code.
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I'm just bumping with 2 key drop here :)
Heckabomb: DH8NL-?MQYL-7IX9W --- ? = OP's names first letter
Ionball 2: Ionstorm: 3X?3Z-XMJ3H-5XMPC --- ? OP's names last letter
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The GAs have ended. I'll recreate them and give you time till Sunday.
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I'm more confuse with the hints. Does the characters used as en example for the alphabet are useful or are they just for the example?
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They're just an example. The hint states that any alphabet could be used even symbolic one. Substituting letters by numbers or symbols from a different alphabet doesn't change a thing. You're neither closer not further to the solution. Think about the property I was referring to. The hint itself contains a hint to that question.
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The fact there is 10 characters used maybe it has something to do with base 10. Also the first chars of all lanes are uppercase and all other characters are lowercase. Can't see something else at the moment.
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As it seems nobody succedded in getting anything from hint 2 another small hint added
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I want to gather all the hints we have so far together. If you think I am mistaken about something or want to add something don't hesitate to do so.
-We are looking for a link in the puzzle. It might be shortened but complete otherwise. It should even have the "http/https" part in it. It is longer than 8 characters.
-Characters in string does not matter. This means you could swap all a's with o and it should be still solvable
-Having different characters has a meaning. This means we can't solve only based on repetition count.
-Uppercase characters in the start of the lanes probably have a meaning.
-It has something to do with the term "Alpha and Omega"
Some of my thoughts:
-There might be some unnecessary info in that wall of text. (I am probably wrong)
-Characters other than the uppercase ones might not be meaningful (I am probably wrong)
-Focussing on repeating character groups might be useful since there might be reoccurring "/"s and "."s in the text.
-Alpha & Omega => A to Z? God & Jesus? Father & Son? idk..
-It is hard
Letter occurrence count:
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I can see some interesting findings here. I won't specify which ones are correct and which are wrong, but you are certainly on the right track
-It is hard
:(
Edit: In most group puzzles I took part a post like this with all hints summed up together with possible meanings sped up the solving process a lot. I was wondering when will somebody decide to create one and invite others to the discussion.
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alpha and omega can mean that we only need first and last letters. maybe we also have to skip words like Alpha word 1 omega word 2 alpha word 3 omega word 4 etc ...
Since I was warmer with my last message and I mentionned Upper and lowercase it must be something with atleast uppercase.
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Unfortunately I was referring to the first part of your message. The case is irrelevant.
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It seems everybody trying your puzzle is a bit confuse about the way to solve it :D
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I noticed. I think that I'll end up dropping a somehow more direct hint in the evening. On the other hand with the hints given and few of my comments to some posts you should already be able to solve it. Unfortunately nobody seems to be interested in participating in a brain storm.
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Maybe this hint will make some light about the puzzle and the other hints :D.
row 1 25 characters
row 2 29 characters
row 3 30 characters
row 4 57 characters
row 5 38 characters
row 6 18 characters
row 7 43 characters
row 8 53 characters
We have to find a way to make characters appear and probably some special characters since we are looking for one or more URLS.
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Time for a big one. 3rd hint added.
Generally all the steps needed to decode the url are described in the hints or were used in participants' guesses. You only need to combine them in the proper way.
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It seems evne more complex like this for me because I didn't used matrix since a long time. But I'm not sure someone will have figure out to go this way without the hint.
I'll try things this evening but I'm totally not sure about the way to proceed :D
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In case you're not one of the 2 players at the ITH:
Don't worry, no complex math is involved.
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I'm not. I just have no clue how to read, use this table at the moment :D
I assume we have to find a way to make more characters appear than a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j. But the problem is my brain is not seeing the way to do it :D.
I'll maybe go on amazon to find a better one!
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But I can see on your avatar you already have one nice brain! :D
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Ok. I got through! Stuck on some further step though :)
Can't say it was easy.
This table (aka matrix -> this hint helped) may be useful is of extreme use:
The frequency of each letter in each line.
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 |
| 0 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 0 |
| 7 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 7 |
| 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 4 |
| 4 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 7 |
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Now we just have to figure out how you used it to progress :D.
Thanks for the precious information and good luck with the step you are actually stuck.
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I think you'll catch up with me soon enough :)
Good luck!
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Like I said all the required steps were already mentioned by other users. Congratulations on finding the proper way of applying them and good luck with the last step.
Btw. What do you think about the hints? Were they really that bad considering I made the first step a group effort to solve? I'm open to criticism.
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As far as hints concerned for me only the last one made some sense :). But mostly because I tend to overcomplicate certain things (e.g. I can think of "alpha and omega" only as a god, not alphabet although it does makes sense in the retrospect).
All in all I think you'll learn what must be done if you do enough puzzles :). This one is a good one!
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When there's logic involved I tend to find answers. That's all :)
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That helps alot! I still can't believe none of us figured it out earlier.
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Ok. Maybe an alternative form of the table may help those who are stuck :)
Alternative table
| line | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | 3 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 4 |
| b | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| c | 1 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| d | 3 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 7 |
| e | 3 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 |
| f | 3 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| g | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
| h | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| i | 3 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 6 |
| j | 3 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 7 |
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I can see we've got a really helpful participant.
There are still over 2 days left. Don't you want to keep all the chances for yourself? ;)
To prevent misunderstandings, I'm fine with that. It's only a joke
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Well, I found the puzzle a bit late and read quite a lot before trying things out. So I think it's kinda fair that I share my findings with people. Besides I usually solve puzzles for puzzles sake :)
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Yeah, I agree with that. If there's something at the end it's only a bonus. The most satisfying part is finding the correct answer, preferably on your own.
It's my first attempt at creating a puzzle and for the whole time I was torn apart between giving more hints to help people struggling with the puzzle who may have felt discouraged by the lack of progress or limiting the hints as much as possible not to spoil the fun for more advanced puzzle solvers.
TBH the worst scenario that I thought of would be when there were only few solvers not willing to share extra hints on their own. I wouldn't know if I should give more hints to help the rest, which on the other hand could be a bit unfair to the people who managed to solve the puzzle by then. At lest you relieved me from the burden of this decision and I can leave giving extra hints to you and other solvers.
I was encouraging people to share their findings and brainstorm the possibilities from the beginning. The only thing I ask is not to share the final results and refrain from giving a direct instruction how to solve the puzzle(or at least put it into a spoiler and warn other participants)
Ps. It's hard to be on the other side. When you know the solution form the beginning your opinion about the most tricky parts is biased, so it's hard to think of some good hints.
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well I don't really care about GA that much. I'm just frustrated that I can't solve it even though I invested quite some time to solve it. If I can't solve it before time ends I will be checking here for how to solve it :)
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Try checking my previous replies. It should give you an idea about the next step.
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For people new to this topic:
We've got 3 solvers up till now. The path is open, so at least give the puzzle a try.
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Where do you get all those gifs/movies/music from? I'm starting to believe you've got a database full of links for every occasion.
Thanks for a bump
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Puzzle will last till
mondaysundayHedhicbbajdeiabfegjijfdaf
Gjgicebbjiaebejcgdcheiiejadib
Cffhigchcefeiffciggcdgcigfiigd
Figciagfhjeihdgfbadjcedeecadddahbcjgcjfhjigfajhaebiifeace
Ccfiafbcaiffjfijddijifjebdcdbdibjjjfbd
Accccdddfdgfffhjdf
Gidicfigbceejafdbiebjajfcaaebajefgdbidgafcc
Deajfabbjfiicdcjgfdibijijbdfbefgcecbgaahcdjdjedeibegc
I might have overdid it a bit so feel free to share ideas till you get an url. From that point forward it should be quite easy and I expect that people will solve the rest individually.
It's my first puzzle so if you think something is not working as intended fell free to ask for verification.Main prize: Tales of Symphonia giveaway
7GAs total
Ps There's an sgtools check at the end. Standard rules apply(no multiple wins, everything activated) + ratio 0.75 for the main prize.
Edit: I would like to ask you all a question about the puzzle. A pity pools can't be added to a topic. Please instead respond to that post.Comment has been collapsed.