Annoyed & Done

Ok. So I had a small team of people working on an ARG for a good month. We set up the Trial of Insight as a easy mode test run for the game to make sure that there'd be a chance of it being seen through and it seemed that when providing hints, only one person was able to solve the puzzle, and by brute forcing the cipher. Needless to say that the first round of the actual game crumpled to pieces.

I am indeed Ranshi, I just wanted to remove all pretense for the sake of ambiance. When I said that some of the posts weren't me: many weren't, as they were other members of my team. I would like to use this account as a genuine alternate, however. I will keep my accounts separate and not favorite my own cards. *glares at a few particular people* That's all I have to say.

Remember your dreams.

Comments

  • This doesn't mean that I am opposed to setting my game up anew, should the community think itself prepared for the challenge.
  • edited March 2019
    (eyes go wide open) YOU TWO ARE THE SAME PERSON!?!?!
  • Yeah, and we put a lot of work into it. But then either people didn’t care, had no idea what they were doing, or were like @Bowler218 and ran at full sprint after every single red herring!
  • I like knowing the story! All I was doing was asking questions that had nothing to do with the puzzle!

    (Reads that)

    I may need to take my escape room class again.
  • Or maybe the puzzle was too complex.. idk, at least you have a very creative mind
  • In the trial, I provided clues every step of the way.

    The black and white pixels was binary. I clued at that through a card that you and I discussed @Tomgion, albeit the nature of the effect.
    image
    If you take the capital letters from the effect and flavor, it spells BINARY. I had Arin mention the weird flavor in the comments.

    The smaller image translated to "Be sure to cover all of your bases. Always remember your dreams. You might survive, yet." This provided a hint that the larger image could be decoded through base64. From there the last bit was admittedly a bit of a leap. It was a keyword cipher with "dreams" as the keyword.
  • @Bowler218, the story was INTENDED to be vague at first and take shape as people progressed. You were just jumping all over the place! You even tried telling me about professional ARGs done by companies as hype for upcoming games. I HAD A SMALL TEAM SO IT WASN'T GOING TO BE ANYTHING EXTRAVAGANT!!!! I'm sorry. I still have a lot of pent up frustration that you caused me and my team.
  • Im sorry! I thought i was helping by giving you real ones to look at and see how they did it, like showing an aspiring writer the harry potter series to show them ways to do things! Thats all i was trying to do!
  • It didn’t come across that way. Someone on my team punched his computer with frustration of you. It went right through the screen.
  • Im sorry if i came across as rude! I was just trying to be helpful!
  • I definitely enjoyed the puzzles, and would be more than welcome to see another one. But I felt like the first one put off a significant number of people...

    The first puzzle already involved a couple of layers, and the last was slightly annoying (or bloody obvious when I look back on it). I think it would have been better if the first puzzle only involved a single layer.
    (I did have to write some python for one of them, so I would say it's not beginner friendly. Speaking of which...)

    < nitpick >
    The pixels layer was one that stumped off a LOOOOOOOOOT of people. I guess it was a good signpost that screamed "YOU NEED TO BE THIS TECH SAVY TO PROCEED". I can't say for you whether it was a good decision, but I can't guarantee the players all know a good programming language / has the time to convert it to 0s and 1.

    If you want this concept, perhaps put it at a later stage of the challenge / deeper layer.
    </ nitpick >

    The one given to me would've been a better starting one: the message was plain there, and the only thing needed was a single cipher.

    TLDR Nice concept, would love to see again, but maybe make the first one simpler and gradually increase in difficulty.
    Also, not everyone wants to imitate the style of Harry Potter.
  • You didn't have to write python for any of them. They were all made with online converters that could be used to deconstruct them. What did you need to use python for, @LyndonF?
  • Converting the image to 1s and 0s.

    Now that you mention it, you can definitely Google for the right tool online.... (Like what I did for the last bit :P)
  • edited March 2019
    @OmnipresentAnonymous I had an idea for the trial, but it literally closed the second before I posted it.
    (The eldrazi thing I asked you about was a shortened version of it)
  • I do agree with @LyndonF - Start simple and increase the difficulty. Once people see some success, they become invested in seeing a resolution.
  • We did...
  • @Ranshi922 I understood what to do but at the moment I did there was nothing I could do about it. I simply didn’t have time. Maybe that is something else to look at, but that was just me personally.
  • Part of it was that it was a trial...
  • I have no idea what's going on, and the initial message you typed for this discussion doesn't help

    What is this all about?
  • A thing from a while ago.
  • I am going to set up a google form to determine how many people would be interested in another one. If there is enough interest, I will set one up for the summer.
  • @Corwinnn, could you kindly point people this way?
    image
  • Thanks... @Corwinnn, it’s a link.
This discussion has been closed.