The Game is Afoot! #1

Despite of anything or any work taking up my time & energy, one thing I just CAN'T missed out on is puzzle games like the kind of DeviantArt often did before Eclipse took over.

And now with my new absolute unit of a phone (thanks so much o' generous Universe!) I finally get access to faster internet, therefore fast VPN and Reddit access! Finally I get to read and find for myself curious posts, stories, puzzles, ARGs, RBI cases etc I could only watch from Youtube lol. Although of course later I'd fully play the games via desktop (had to open Reddit via my phone 'coz I just don't want to pay for a VPN service for desktop - though weeks later I actually found a very good free one!).

Lately on one of those forums  I stumbled upon  a post that promoted a game called "Riddler" (they already took down the site by now). Apparently it's an annual riddle solving game brought by CSI-VIT with REAL MUNEHZ PRIZE equal to about USD $130 for the first place (correct me if I'm wrong)! Not 'much' maybe but FINALLY A REAL FULL 'PRO' TREASURE HUNT EVENT o' Universe thank yuooo..!!!

 

Truth is with the state of DA that's now dry of these games I would  join with or without any doubloons in the end! And oh dear lord these puzzles are H.A.R.D. - at least to my current puzzle-solving capacity!

I could only solve FOUR of the total 36 puzzles, like 1:9 ratio oh lawd!! *dead by freezing* The hints were super vague, you'd have to get informed enough, follow the world news / tv shows / internet / etc - oh no, simple google searches wont help you connect the dots! And if I hadn't found a Discord community dedicated to solving these and hadn't read additional helpful hints by some posters I'd barely get past the 2nd (or 3rd?) question! At least that's my first impression as a first-time player.

I'd say the puzzle / riddle design could be improved by giving better-quality or clearer hints but the fact is some players managed to get quite far, so I guess I might not be the best judge. 😆

See, I only got the 79th place ayyayay..

 

The website and graphic designs are really nice though, also the customer service (they have their own Discord and responsive when I asked them) they're serious in creating the game - it's already down now but you can still see some related posts in their Instagram.

 

 

 

T H E   G A M E   I S   A F O O T   !

 

And here's how I solved my four riddles! 

 

1.

"Digital Present" entry puzzle:

How I solved it:

I tried googling the main possible keywords, because sometimes the keys are laid in front of you, e.g.:
"Watermelon and Pear TV", "watermelon and pear dr chang", "dr chang", etc I forgot what else. Tried  many possible answers, no use!

Then my brain took a break.. and out of the blue I've got an idea to try Googling "dr chang cat" (or was it "dr chang kitten"?).. THERE IT WAS, FINALLY! Something very likely meant as the answer came up: "BONSAI KITTEN" - I put in the phrase and it worked!! Wahooooo..!!

2.

 Hint (lost 40 points to get this):

 

 How I solved it:

At first I googled the most literal sense of the riddle: "I see my face in you", "fox to peacock", etc ; but I also already sensed strongly that the fox and peacock must mean to be logos of 2 large media companies: FOX and NBC so then I also looked for anything related to them: "I see my face in you fox to nbc", "mirror fox to nbc", "twin actor fox to nbc", "move from fox to nbc", and the like leading to even more specific keywords to search like "andy samberg (one of the performer in the Youtube video hint) nbc mirror", "brooklyn 99 (Andy Samberg's show that moved from FOX to NBC) mirror" etc.

 

Many times I thought I was on the right track, like when I found the Saturday Night Live show by Andy Samberg called "The Mirror", but any keywords related to that still not the answer.

Then I looked into the Discord chart, there's a clue, "It's Brooklyn 99 related" - great, this narrowed down the focus! But when I googled "twin brooklyn 99" and "mirror brooklyn 99" the only possible answer was Scully twins - the related keywords like their names or role names were still not the answer!

Then I searched for "mirror" synonyms and tried them one by one paired with "brooklyn 99", when I googled "lookalike brooklyn 99" (or was it "doppelganger brooklyn 99"?) I saw a unique name showed up: "BILL HUMMERTROUT" and ouh mai goadd voila!!

 

3.

Forgot to take the screenshot, so I had to take from Riddler's official final walkthrough.

 Hint from a Discord poster (so I didn't have to lose 40 points haha.. 

but in the end I didn't need the hint to solve this):

 

 

How I solved it:

The youtube link will bring you to this video:

 

You can see there's some kind of device attached to a person, I took a screenshot then reverse-searched it - it's Hal 9000. The riddle said about the same origin, so I put in anything related to Hal 9000 origin,
"india" (Hal 9000's creator is Dr. Chandra - likely an Indian name), the fictional lab, etc.

At that time I was not sure if the answer should be the name of the origin or the name of the famous youtuber.. so I also tried to find a famous guitarist in Youtube: "best guitar player", "best guitar player india", etc. I stumbled upon some very possible answers like "Amin Toofani" (he's Pakistani most likely, but close lol), "Estas Tonne" (also a viral one), still not the answer.

Then in my desperation I looked for "guitar player china" ('coz the movie containing Hal 9000 is a Chinese movie), and here's what I found on top of the search result:

I put in "SUNGHA JUNG" (don't know why Youtube list him as he's from South Korea not China.. but close I guess?) and CORRECT-O-MUNDO!! Didn't remember if I also put in "South Korea" or "Korea".. but apparently the answer is the person's name, not origin.

Curiously when I put that "guitar player china" again in Youtube now the day I'm writing this, he's no longer on the top result.. just slightly ranked down.

By the way about the hint, I think it referred to one of Indeed's company addresses which is Singapore - close to China or South Korea maybe but that's a long shot, not sure what this was made a hint at all! But I think I also did searches related to the football event, the guy in the gif, etc, and all to no avail, not to mention barely related to the final answer!

 

4.

 Hint from a Discord poster (so I didn't have to lose 40 points haha..):

 

 How I solved it:

Daaymn.. it's quite a while since I solved this, my train of thought of this is kind of blur. I think firstly I looked for something related to Spiderman (based on the quote + Marvel comic screenshot), then something related to this video ("Cause I'm a Blond" - the lyrics, the singer, etc):

 

I think I tried to combine the two clues: maybe an actor from a Spiderman movie who's blond.. then gathered other clue, I google the whole other quote "I literally missed the forest for the trees", also reverse-searched the whole quote's image. It led me to several interesting finds, like some documentaries about deforestation or something, but nothing related to Spiderman or blond thing. I then tried the names of many Spiderman actors, hmh.. not the answer.

Then when I checked the Discord chat I found that hint, obviously he's in a movie called "Between Us". The problem is there are many movies with that title or containing that title! I thought I tried also to cross-check between Spiderman movie actors to Between Us (all versions I could find) movie actors.. not sure I found anything related.

But then somehow I got an idea of adding a word in the search: "SPACE between us" in the search, there it was, a unique movie didn't show in my previous searches (or was it, but in the next few google pages??): "The Space Between Us (2017)".. then I looked for cast member, thinking of something related to Spiderman (did I cross-check the cast too?).. then when I saw Logan Paul on the cast at the bottom google search result (he's the last, barely make it to be included I think!).. I just felt that has to be it!!

Because I remember back then I watched some internet sensation of Logan Paul exploring Aokihagara forest and filming a suicide victim, gaining huge backlashes from the internet.. so all the quotes now make sense (apparently not to be solved literally word per word), and of course he is blond!! And ouh my goddd la voillaaaa..!!!

 

By ten thousands of thundering typhoons and sunken ships and tresors there's NO WAY I'd find this without the hint (which is still SUPER VAGUE, SUPER GENERIC) AND THE FACT THAT I WATCH YOUTUBE FUNNY VIDEOS + COMMENTARY / ROAST VIDEOS NOW AND THEN SO I MIGHT BE QUITE INFORMED IN THAT PARTICULAR INTERNET USELESS VIRAL NEWS!! 

 

 

So what ye think? Despite the brain-freezing puzzles I totally enjoyed it! They also finally posted all riddles and solutions in PDF format, but when I last checked they've already removed the link. If you're curious you can ask me the file via email slytherclaw.padawan@gmail.com (hope they allow this)!

Welp, it's not "Veni, Vidi, Vici" for me this time but I'm happy enough to find this cool game at all! I surely keep my eyes open for moar TREASURE HUNTS! X marks the spot! Weigh yer anchor, all hands on deck! Im coming, mah true passion, mah true looovee..!!!