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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.
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.
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Comments
(Reads that)
I may need to take my escape room class again.
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.
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.
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.
Now that you mention it, you can definitely Google for the right tool online.... (Like what I did for the last bit :P)
(The eldrazi thing I asked you about was a shortened version of it)
What is this all about?