Obduction ARG - Revision history

Charura: /* Words */

2013-12-07T04:40:04Z

Words

Ccstat: typo fixes and slight rewordings

2013-11-18T19:58:25Z

typo fixes and slight rewordings

Ccstat: Rewrote the "All Cyan Posts" section as "Pre-Kickstarter" and moved it to the beginning.

2013-11-18T14:11:15Z

Rewrote the "All Cyan Posts" section as "Pre-Kickstarter" and moved it to the beginning.

Hazado at 06:20, 17 November 2013

2013-11-17T06:20:25Z

MoP: /* Words */ Oy, fixed the fix with linking directly to Rands segment

2013-11-13T12:59:59Z

Words: Oy, fixed the fix with linking directly to Rands segment

MoP: /* Words */ Fixed the InGameChat link (the recording is gone from Twitch, replaced with YT)

2013-11-13T12:51:59Z

Words: Fixed the InGameChat link (the recording is gone from Twitch, replaced with YT)

Ccstat: /* Obduct.me */ added Hunrath clue and solution

2013-11-13T02:26:43Z

Obduct.me: added Hunrath clue and solution

Ccstat: /* Obduct.me */ typo fix

2013-11-12T23:15:18Z

Obduct.me: typo fix

Ccstat: /* Obduct.me */ added blue text hints from forum

2013-11-12T23:00:39Z

Obduct.me: added blue text hints from forum

MoP: /* Obduction Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Progress */ Added link to the ARG thread on the forums

2013-11-12T03:27:02Z

Obduction Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Progress: Added link to the ARG thread on the forums

@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 Having a look again to the [http://en.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ozzcx/rand_miller_here_cocreator_of_myst_riven_got_a/ reddit AMA page], it was suspicious that Rand Miller used the word "swell" really often in his welcome message. Adding "swell" to the URL again gave a valid page http://hiredark.com/words/swell/ which contains the text of an apparently "nonsense" poem. Searching for the text of the strange poem using a search engine revealed that the text was derived from the poetry of Walt Whitman, specifically the poem [http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/on_the_beach_at_night_alone.html "On the Beach at Night Alone"]. As one can see, every fourth word from this poem is used to derive the Cyan versions of it.
-The following day, Rand fave a hint in an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQLZzwFS3rs&t=49m10s In-Game Chat interview] ("'''/words/<update#6>'''"), and a new page was found, http://hiredark.com/words/surprise/. These words are also every fourth word of the Whitman poem, but with an offset of -1 compared to the /swell words (that is, each word in /surprise is the word in Whitman just before the word used in /swell.)
+The following day, Rand gave a hint in an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQLZzwFS3rs&t=49m10s In-Game Chat interview] ("'''/words/<update#6>'''"), and a new page was found, http://hiredark.com/words/surprise/. These words are also every fourth word of the Whitman poem, but with an offset of -1 compared to the /swell words (that is, each word in /surprise is the word in Whitman just before the word used in /swell.)
 Following the pattern of looking for prominent or frequently-used words in the updates, two additional pages were discovered, at [http://www.hiredark.com/words/add-on/ words/add-on] (from [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction/posts/640239 update #7])and [http://www.hiredark.com/words/name/ words/name] (from [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction/posts/646673 update #11]). These pages contained the rest of the words to the Whitman poem, with an offset of -3 and -2 respectively from the first page discovered.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 In late August, Cyan Worlds, Inc. began releasing hints and clues to what would later be revealed to be their new game project, Obduction. Prior to the Kickstarter campaign, several images were teased, some in encrypted form. These images were mostly screenshots from the then-unreleased Kickstarter trailer and included letters from the name Obduction, hinting at the title.<br />
-During the Kickstarter campaign, Cyan released clues that led through a puzzle trail to several websites. Broadly, clues in the kickstarter video led to hiredark.com, which in turn led to the site obduct.me. The sites hunrath.com and cyan.com/welcome were also found in connection with these clues. This segment of the ARG was discussed extensively in the [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28 Kickstarter thread] on the Cyan forums.
+During the Kickstarter campaign, Cyan released clues that led through a puzzle trail to several websites. Broadly, clues in the kickstarter video led to hiredark.com, which in turn led to the site obduct.me. The sites hunrath.com and cyan.com/welcome were also found in connection with these clues. These two segments of the ARG were discussed extensively in the [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28 Kickstarter thread] on the Cyan forums.
 <br />
-The ARG-proper has yet to get underway.
 = Pre-Kickstarter =
@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 A [https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151391065353078&set=o.9225241363&type=1 second image] on facebook was accompanied by the comment “Unbounded in its ken…” which is a quote from a Robert Gambol poem. Eric subsequently [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=528#p528 posted] an extended quote on the forums along with the clues “Maybe there are more levels to this than you know,” with the letters in “levels” fading to light grey, and “…maybe you need to make an adjustment to your thinking.” Upon adjusting the levels with image editing software, the obduction logo and a line of text [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=537#p537 become visible]. The text reads “736F6F64” which is ASCII for “soon.”<br />
-A [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151393080463078&id=9225241363 third image] is accompanied by the comment, "...and each step will be made in the wink of an eye," which is from The Wizard of Oz.
+A [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151393080463078&id=9225241363 third image] is accompanied by the comment, "...and each step will be made in the wink of an eye," which is from ''The Wizard of Oz''.
 edoublea then [http://www.reddit.com/r/myst/comments/1mk5wk/cyan_dropping_new_image_hints/ posts] on Reddit: "A wild clue has appeared! http://imgur.com/7KujlVh Enjoy. ;}" The wingdings in the word bubble translate to “NO!” making the image a rebus for steganograph (STEGAsaurus+NO+GRAPH). The other wingdings translate to “walking shark” which turns out to be a reference to mobilefish.com, which has an [http://www.mobilefish.com/services/steganography/steganography.php online steganography tool].
 Processing the third image with no password using the mobilefish site yields [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=632#p632 an image of a seed] with the words, "Prepate to be scattered."  Eric confirms that “prepate” is a typo on his part.
 <br />
-On Sep 28, Eric (@LemonLime) posted in Cyan Chat, "x6yoZIW Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains." The initial string [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=845#p845 leads to] an image: http://imgur.com/x6yoZIW, and the text is a quote from The Road by Cormac McCarthy. When no progress was made, Eric [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=914#p914 provided] a link to another steganography tool. After numerous unsuccessful attempts by players to decrypt using various passwords, Eric found that the site was broken and giving php errors. He provided the password (“mazes” from an extended version of the Cormac McCarthy quote) and a [http://imgur.com/PR0LeZP link to the embedded image].
+On Sep 28, Eric (@LemonLime) posted in Cyan Chat, "x6yoZIW Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains." The initial string [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=845#p845 leads to] an image: http://imgur.com/x6yoZIW, and the text is a quote from ''The Road'' by Cormac McCarthy. When no progress was made, Eric [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=914#p914 provided] a link to another steganography tool. After numerous unsuccessful attempts by players to decrypt using various passwords, Eric found that the site was broken and giving php errors. He provided the password (“mazes” from an extended version of the Cormac McCarthy quote) and a [http://imgur.com/PR0LeZP link to the embedded image].
 <br />
-Eric then posted in Cyan Chat, "/a/JJNoN I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along." This again points to [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=928#p928 an image] (at http://imgur.com/a/JJNoN). The quote is from “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard. An extended version of the quote contains the word “imperfections,” which is the password necessary to decrypt using the mobilefish site. The [http://i.imgur.com/zCDTvtZ.jpg embedded image] was a Magic Eye puzzle in which letters are visible. Pieced together, the letters form "ODUCTiN."
+Eric then posted in Cyan Chat, "/a/JJNoN I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along." This again points to [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=928#p928 an image] (at http://imgur.com/a/JJNoN). The quote is from ''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'' by Annie Dillard. An extended version of the quote contains the word “imperfections,” which is the password necessary to decrypt using the mobilefish site. The [http://i.imgur.com/zCDTvtZ.jpg embedded image] is a Magic Eye puzzle in which several letters are visible. Pieced together, the letters form "ODUCTiN."
 [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=947#p947 Remembering] a comment by Rand at Mysterium 2009 about a potential project called Abduction, players [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=989#p989 soon found] an [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=1052#p1052 image] with the word "Obduction" on the DRC site. Searching for obduction led to a [http://www.reddit.com/r/Obduction/comments/1odh0k/you_guys_waste_no_time/ Reddit post] by Eric containing a final image link: http://i.imgur.com/oRTaRx3.jpg.
 <br />
 Players quickly discovered the [http://obductiongame.com/ Obduction website] and [https://twitter.com/obduction Obduction Twitter account].
 = Kickstarter Campaign =
@@ Line 177: / Line 178: @@
 After the four portions of the Walt Whitman poem were discovered, a discrepancy was noted in the /words/name/ portion of the poetry.  Where the word "worlds" should have appeared, there was instead the word "shades" (see above table).  Upon attempting the url http://www.hiredark.com/worlds/shades/ , yet another page was discovered which had not one but four circles, each in a different color corresponding to one of the previous color values of the Cyan dot.
-In the next few days the color changed multiple times, and with each change a new circle was added for a total of nine circles arranged vertically. The colors of these have hex values of  #667766, #637777, #55557A, #333371, #445844, #729999, #888862, #114F11, and #222264. The newest circle always matched the colors that have appeared on the /worlds/ page and also the color of the Cyan logo dot.
+In the next few days the dot color changed multiple times, and with each change a corresponding new circle was added for a total of nine circles arranged vertically. The colors of these have hex values of  #667766, #637777, #55557A, #333371, #445844, #729999, #888862, #114F11, and #222264.
 The hex value for each color contains four identical digits and two that don't match. The non-matching digits are always a valid ASCII identifier for a letter. In order of appearance, these are 77=w, 63=c, 7A=z, 71=q, 58=X, 72=r, 62=b, 4F=O, 64=d. The four matching digits from each color are distinct values 1-9, suggesting an order in which they should be placed. When arranged in ascending numerical sequence by these digits, rather than by chronological appearance, the letters form the string "OdqXzwcbr". If entered as as part of the url it gives http://hiredark.com/OdqXzwcbr which at first was a blank page but now redirects to http://obduct.me
-=== Obduct.me ===
+== Obduct.me ==
 http://obduct.me consisted of the Cyan logo, in SVG form, on a black background. After the nine color changes (see above) the Cyan dot reverted to its original color and the C portion of the logo began to undergo similar color changes. The hex value of the first color was 6F7262, which is ASCII for "orb". Noticing that http://obduct.me/orb is an existing (only Forbidden) page, and assuming a similar pattern as before with using prominent words from Kickstarter updates, led to http://obduct.me/orb/scatter, which displays the single word "Karl". The page corresponds to a Cyan clue for <C1>/<Update #13>. <br />
@@ Line 196: / Line 197: @@
 Note that the final clue was received via Cyan.com 's News page on Nov. 11, 2013.  Rather than plain text, a .png image is shown containing <C4>/<Update#18> under a post heading of "Welcome".  Further exploration revealed a new directory on the cyan.com domain of cyan.com/welcome .  This leads to a page with comparable formatting to the Cyan News page but without any other posts.  The .png hint image is there as well.
-In the forum comments discussing these clues, some text was changed (presumably by a moderator). One set of changes, in red color, indicated that Cyan had given an official <C3>/<Update #16> clue (previously it had been successful guesswork). A second set of changes highlighted words or letters in blue, ostensibly to draw attention to them. These included "<today>" (quote marks only), the individual letters g-o-o-g-l-e in a series of consecutive posts, and "November 11" (including quotes and text).
+In the forum comments discussing these clues, some text was changed (presumably by a moderator). One set of changes, in red color, indicated that Cyan had given an official <C3>/<Update #16> clue (previously it had been successful guesswork). A second set of changes highlighted words or letters in blue. These included "<today>" (quote marks only), the individual letters g-o-o-g-l-e in a series of consecutive posts, and "November 11" (including quotes and text). In [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?p=2409#p2409 a post] describing one of the possible google hits, the word "correct" was also turned blue. The link in the post is to [http://www.ufobc.ca/kinross/planeMishaps/hunrathAndWilkinson.html a page] that describes the disappearance of one Karl Hunrath on November 11, 1953. Karl and the other passenger in his plane were purportedly flying to a rendezvous with a flying saucer to take them away from earth.
-Following this hint, http://obduct.me/Hunrath is a valid page (note that Hunrath is case-sensitive). That page displays a slightly different view of the farmhouse from the trailer, with a wooden signboard in front. The sign says "Welcome t* Hunrath", with a circular piece of the sign missing where the o of "to" would be.
+Following this hint, http://obduct.me/Hunrath was discovered (note that Hunrath is case-sensitive). That page displays a slightly different view of the farmhouse from the trailer, with a wooden signboard in front. The sign says "Welcome t* Hunrath", with a circular piece of the sign missing where the o of "to" would be.
 == Hunrath.com ==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-== Obduction Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Progress ==
+= Obduction Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Progress =
-In late August, Cyan Worlds, Inc. began releasing hints and clues to what would later be revealed to be their new game project, Obduction. Prior to the Kickstarter campaign, several images were teased in encrypted form. These images were mostly screenshots from the then-unreleased Kickstarter trailer and included letters from the name Obduction, hinting at the title. (See the "All Cyan Posts" section below for specifics).<br />
+In late August, Cyan Worlds, Inc. began releasing hints and clues to what would later be revealed to be their new game project, Obduction. Prior to the Kickstarter campaign, several images were teased, some in encrypted form. These images were mostly screenshots from the then-unreleased Kickstarter trailer and included letters from the name Obduction, hinting at the title.<br />
 == Kickstarter Video ==
@@ Line 157: / Line 181: @@
 The hex value for each color contains four identical digits and two that don't match. The non-matching digits are always a valid ASCII identifier for a letter. In order of appearance, these are 77=w, 63=c, 7A=z, 71=q, 58=X, 72=r, 62=b, 4F=O, 64=d. The four matching digits from each color are distinct values 1-9, suggesting an order in which they should be placed. When arranged in ascending numerical sequence by these digits, rather than by chronological appearance, the letters form the string "OdqXzwcbr". If entered as as part of the url it gives http://hiredark.com/OdqXzwcbr which at first was a blank page but now redirects to http://obduct.me
-== Obduct.me ==
+=== Obduct.me ===
 http://obduct.me consisted of the Cyan logo, in SVG form, on a black background. After the nine color changes (see above) the Cyan dot reverted to its original color and the C portion of the logo began to undergo similar color changes. The hex value of the first color was 6F7262, which is ASCII for "orb". Noticing that http://obduct.me/orb is an existing (only Forbidden) page, and assuming a similar pattern as before with using prominent words from Kickstarter updates, led to http://obduct.me/orb/scatter, which displays the single word "Karl". The page corresponds to a Cyan clue for <C1>/<Update #13>. <br />
@@ Line 181: / Line 205: @@
 Using http://www.epochconverter.com/ converts this number to Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:00:00 GMT. This is the same date as the countdown on http://hiredark.com/.
-== Sites to Watch for Clues ==
+= Post-Kickstarter =
 [http://obductiongame.com/ OBDUCTION website] (in the video)
@@ Line 202: / Line 227: @@
 [https://mobile.twitter.com/obduction Obduction on Twitter]

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:20, 17 November 2013
Line 176:		Line 176:

	Following this hint, http://obduct.me/Hunrath is a valid page (note that Hunrath is case-sensitive). That page displays a slightly different view of the farmhouse from the trailer, with a wooden signboard in front. The sign says "Welcome t* Hunrath", with a circular piece of the sign missing where the o of "to" would be.		Following this hint, http://obduct.me/Hunrath is a valid page (note that Hunrath is case-sensitive). That page displays a slightly different view of the farmhouse from the trailer, with a wooden signboard in front. The sign says "Welcome t* Hunrath", with a circular piece of the sign missing where the o of "to" would be.
		+
		+	== Hunrath.com ==
		+	http://www.hunrath.com contains the same picture found on http://obduct.me/Hunrath, also contains the number 1389045600000 inside the webpage source code.
		+	Using http://www.epochconverter.com/ converts this number to Mon, 06 Jan 2014 22:00:00 GMT. This is the same date as the countdown on http://hiredark.com/.

	== Sites to Watch for Clues ==		== Sites to Watch for Clues ==

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 Having a look again to the [http://en.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ozzcx/rand_miller_here_cocreator_of_myst_riven_got_a/ reddit AMA page], it was suspicious that Rand Miller used the word "swell" really often in his welcome message. Adding "swell" to the URL again gave a valid page http://hiredark.com/words/swell/ which contains the text of an apparently "nonsense" poem. Searching for the text of the strange poem using a search engine revealed that the text was derived from the poetry of Walt Whitman, specifically the poem [http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/on_the_beach_at_night_alone.html "On the Beach at Night Alone"]. As one can see, every fourth word from this poem is used to derive the Cyan versions of it.
-The following day, Rand fave a hint in an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQLZzwFS3rst=49m10s In-Game Chat interview] ("'''/words/<update#6>'''"), and a new page was found, http://hiredark.com/words/surprise/. These words are also every fourth word of the Whitman poem, but with an offset of -1 compared to the /swell words (that is, each word in /surprise is the word in Whitman just before the word used in /swell.)
+The following day, Rand fave a hint in an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQLZzwFS3rs&t=49m10s In-Game Chat interview] ("'''/words/<update#6>'''"), and a new page was found, http://hiredark.com/words/surprise/. These words are also every fourth word of the Whitman poem, but with an offset of -1 compared to the /swell words (that is, each word in /surprise is the word in Whitman just before the word used in /swell.)
 Following the pattern of looking for prominent or frequently-used words in the updates, two additional pages were discovered, at [http://www.hiredark.com/words/add-on/ words/add-on] (from [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction/posts/640239 update #7])and [http://www.hiredark.com/words/name/ words/name] (from [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyaninc/obduction/posts/646673 update #11]). These pages contained the rest of the words to the Whitman poem, with an offset of -3 and -2 respectively from the first page discovered.

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:00, 12 November 2013
Line 171:		Line 171:

	Note that the final clue was received via Cyan.com 's News page on Nov. 11, 2013. Rather than plain text, a .png image is shown containing <C4>/<Update#18> under a post heading of "Welcome". Further exploration revealed a new directory on the cyan.com domain of cyan.com/welcome . This leads to a page with comparable formatting to the Cyan News page but without any other posts. The .png hint image is there as well.		Note that the final clue was received via Cyan.com 's News page on Nov. 11, 2013. Rather than plain text, a .png image is shown containing <C4>/<Update#18> under a post heading of "Welcome". Further exploration revealed a new directory on the cyan.com domain of cyan.com/welcome . This leads to a page with comparable formatting to the Cyan News page but without any other posts. The .png hint image is there as well.
		+
		+	In the forum comments discussing these clues, some text was changed (presumably by a moderator). One set of changes, in red color, indicated that Cyan had given an official <C3>/<Update #16> clue (previously it had been successful guesswork). A second set of changes highlighted words or letters in blue, ostensibly to draw attention to them. These included "<today>" (quote marks only), the individual letters g-o-o-g-l-e in a series of consecutive posts, and "11 November" (including quotes and text).

	== Sites to Watch for Clues ==		== Sites to Watch for Clues ==

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 In late August, Cyan Worlds, Inc. began releasing hints and clues to what would later be revealed to be their new game project, Obduction. Prior to the Kickstarter campaign, several images were teased in encrypted form. These images were mostly screenshots from the then-unreleased Kickstarter trailer and included letters from the name Obduction, hinting at the title. (See the "All Cyan Posts" section below for specifics).<br />
-With the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign, Cyan released clues through the kickstarter material and surrounding promotional activity that have so far led to several websites. This segment of the ARG is ongoing. Broadly, clues in the kickstarter video led to a website called hiredark.com, which has several sub-directories with various clues. These clues have since led to the site obduct.me.
+With the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign, Cyan released clues through the kickstarter material and surrounding promotional activity that have so far led to several websites. This segment of the ARG is ongoing, discussed actively in the [http://forums.cyan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28 Kickstarter thread] on the Cyan forums. Broadly, clues in the kickstarter video led to a website called hiredark.com, which has several sub-directories with various clues. These clues have since led to the site obduct.me.
 == Kickstarter Video ==