Difference between revisions of "Frog Fractions 2"
[unchecked revision] | [unchecked revision] |
Sparkletime (talk | contribs) |
Sparkletime (talk | contribs) |
||
Line 199: | Line 199: | ||
At first glance, this website of time-travel.club(TTC) mimics the efforts of an amateur time travel enthusiast's attempt at a website. There are three clickable links. The first floats by asking "So you want to learn about [http://time-travel.club/typesoftimetravel.htm.htm ~Time Travel~] do you?" This link leads to a page that is essentially a copy and paste of a wiki article concerning time travel in science fiction. The [http://time-travel.club/404.htm About Us] page leads to a 404 error page with a large number of under construction gifs. Initially, the Login link led to the same page but soon changed to lead to http://time-travel.club/accesslevelalpha.php . | At first glance, this website of time-travel.club(TTC) mimics the efforts of an amateur time travel enthusiast's attempt at a website. There are three clickable links. The first floats by asking "So you want to learn about [http://time-travel.club/typesoftimetravel.htm.htm ~Time Travel~] do you?" This link leads to a page that is essentially a copy and paste of a wiki article concerning time travel in science fiction. The [http://time-travel.club/404.htm About Us] page leads to a 404 error page with a large number of under construction gifs. Initially, the Login link led to the same page but soon changed to lead to http://time-travel.club/accesslevelalpha.php . | ||
− | When logged in on the site, you find the page is titled "FUTURE RESISTANCE OPERATION GARRISON 1.50"(FROG 1.5). This is the main website for a group known as the Resistance who were later found to be fighting an entity simply known as the Decay and shape a major part of the ARG story. | + | When logged in on the site, you find the page is titled "FUTURE RESISTANCE OPERATION GARRISON 1.50"(FROG 1.5). This is the main website for a group known as the Resistance who were later found to be cyborgs fighting an entity simply known as the Decay and shape a major part of the ARG story. |
===accesslevelalpha=== | ===accesslevelalpha=== | ||
Line 312: | Line 312: | ||
G. Dad | G. Dad | ||
Sunny D. | Sunny D. | ||
+ | Clicking Operative List (partial) goes to http://time-travel.club/operativespartialsnarfblat.php . This list changes daily. Several attempts have been made to track those changes but they appear to have no pattern to the changes. | ||
+ | |||
Clicking Current Scientific Projects leads to http://time-travel.club/sciopsnarfblat.html | Clicking Current Scientific Projects leads to http://time-travel.club/sciopsnarfblat.html | ||
The currently-active scientific projects are: | The currently-active scientific projects are: | ||
Line 326: | Line 328: | ||
More... | More... | ||
Clicking More... leads to http://time-travel.club/awibblewobblewibblewobbletoandfrobuttheonelittleduckwiththefeatheronhisbackheledtheotherswithaquackquackquack | Clicking More... leads to http://time-travel.club/awibblewobblewibblewobbletoandfrobuttheonelittleduckwiththefeatheronhisbackheledtheotherswithaquackquackquack | ||
− | This actually is a 500 Internal Server error. | + | This actually is a 500 Internal Server error page but would later be a hint to a login. |
+ | |||
+ | Inspired by other ARGs, a [ https://www.mindmeister.com/657363408?t=T2QuVC6xXt# mindmap] was created in an attempt to organize the ARG. At some point, the mindmap was vandalized and the login vaquez/jurassic was left behind. Logging in: | ||
+ | USER:VASQUEZ | ||
+ | RANK:SERGEANT MAJOR | ||
+ | COMMANDING OFFICER:DRAKE | ||
+ | |||
+ | Greetings Sgm. Vasquez, please select an option. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Resources | ||
+ | Requisitions | ||
+ | Operative List (Partial) | ||
+ | Current Operations | ||
+ | Terminal (LOCKED) | ||
+ | %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) | ||
+ | Party Lounge (KINDA LOCKED) | ||
+ | The Operatives List is the same page as Samuel's. | ||
+ | The requisitions page is http://time-travel.club/requisitionsnarfblatsgmj.html and has the same beginning as herbie with the following additions and nothing more in common with Samuel's: | ||
+ | Field Repair Kit | ||
+ | Circuitry Diagram | ||
+ | Weapons-Grade Superobtaniam | ||
+ | Frank | ||
+ | Deployable Anti-Sparkle Field Shield Array | ||
+ | Vasquez has the following operations: | ||
+ | |||
+ | Operation Glitterbuster | ||
+ | TT Operation 2016 - MU-JTECH RETRIEVAL | ||
+ | TT Operation 2015 - NOV. - Operation Gobbledrop | ||
+ | Operation M.O.N.O.P.O.L.Y. | ||
+ | Chrono-Imperium Draft Operation | ||
+ | Bring No. 3 a Sandwich (special operation) | ||
+ | |||
+ | Jim was emailed a voucher for subway in an attempt to give No. 3 a sandwich but it would appear he is not No. 3. | ||
+ | |||
+ | At GDC 2016, Justin had tweeted that he made some new business cards. A friendly dev provided an image of the card as no person participating in the ARG attended the event. Also at the event, Rachel distributed four cool stickers that were later posted to the Frog Fractions facebook [https://www.facebook.com/FrogFractions/posts/1126961720672011 page]. The business card contained a spiral text with red letters: | ||
+ | -pic here when it's fixed- | ||
+ | Typed out with [] around the red letters: | ||
+ | |||
+ | They arrived at dusk. The experimets had been wildly successfu[l], more so than we could have hoped or feard. At first, we welc[o]med them. The people of Tunisia are friendly and, [g]enerally, we expected that our vis[i]tors would treat us with the same wonder and amazement with which we regarded them. That could [n]ot have been further from the truth. They did not care about our presence, or lives, or [c]ities, or us. They went about their brutal business as if we were ants in their path: with a comp[l]ete disregard for our [e]xistence. Their capability for warfare thwarted our greatest weaponry, and their unearthly abilities countered the strategies of our greatest [m]ilitary and scientific leaders. As the d[e]cay radiated out like a cancer from the Tunisia[n] coast, those in power around the world watched in helple[s]ness, knowing that soon their nations would suffer the same fate as outs. There are at this [p]oint in history fe[w] of us remaining. Those who survived have banded [t]ogether [u]nder the guidance of we origi[n]al six, though at this point only four remain. Our numbers are smaller by the day, and our enemy has all but forgotten us. Their victory was total, an[d] out defeat pushed ou[r] species to the brink of extinction. We now resist the decay. We hide. We w[a]it. And we plan. -Excerpt from An Oral History of the Decay, Interview 8674-B | ||
+ | |||
+ | Of note, THD 14:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3jNu_lm_7U Discharge] also mentions time travel attempts by a man named Dwayne in Tunisia with ridermail saying: | ||
+ | "Stardate 1982: just a little joke. Research proceedes as planned on the Chrono Temporal Flux Fusion Engine. We were encouraged when a rice cake appeared in the machine's primary servo dock informing us that several minutes later we would succeed in transporting a rice cake backwards in time. This is a step forward as we previously have only been able to transport inorganic matter. Dwayne and I celebrated with drinks and a viewing of Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer's final speech is brilliant, especially five drinks in. Tomorrow we plan to attempt to transport a living insect, our first test of a live specimen. Wish us luck!" | ||
+ | |||
+ | The red letters on the card spell out "loginclemenspwtundra". Initially, the login returned: | ||
+ | USER:CLEMENS | ||
+ | RANK:COLONEL | ||
+ | COMMANDING OFFICER:######### | ||
+ | |||
+ | Greetings Colonel Clemens. Your login is currently being prepped - we should have it up within the week. Please deliver your report to No. 4 ASAP. - No. 3 | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
==Indiecade 2015== | ==Indiecade 2015== | ||
Line 339: | Line 391: | ||
At Indicade, an ARGer approached Jim and Justin saying "seventeen"(suggested by RPP ""Red Pages Podcast reminds all Resistance members: If you don't open your communications with the #17, you may as well not open them at all"). They offered a choice of a Mario amiibo and a Luigi amiibo. The person selected the Luigi amiibo. | At Indicade, an ARGer approached Jim and Justin saying "seventeen"(suggested by RPP ""Red Pages Podcast reminds all Resistance members: If you don't open your communications with the #17, you may as well not open them at all"). They offered a choice of a Mario amiibo and a Luigi amiibo. The person selected the Luigi amiibo. | ||
− | |||
Eventually, the Luigi amiibo was scanned into a wii. The owner of the amiibo was called pastebin and the name of the amiibo was DTP61rrp, leading to http://pastebin.com/DTP61rrp | Eventually, the Luigi amiibo was scanned into a wii. The owner of the amiibo was called pastebin and the name of the amiibo was DTP61rrp, leading to http://pastebin.com/DTP61rrp | ||
Line 348: | Line 399: | ||
This was the second reference to Gustav Klimpt, the first being corruption in RPP Extrasode 3 Chatting with Jim that contained the following borgified image of his work known as "Woman in Gold": | This was the second reference to Gustav Klimpt, the first being corruption in RPP Extrasode 3 Chatting with Jim that contained the following borgified image of his work known as "Woman in Gold": | ||
− | + | -pic here when it's fixed- | |
The password reset question was "What is your mother's maiden name?" Finster, the maiden name of Gustav Klimt's mother, worked and entry was gained. Soon an email from [email protected] was received: | The password reset question was "What is your mother's maiden name?" Finster, the maiden name of Gustav Klimt's mother, worked and entry was gained. Soon an email from [email protected] was received: | ||
− | + | Hey Buddy | |
+ | |||
+ | You should be getting notification of a delivery of goods pretty soon. Central hopes to have it out within a week. Let me know if anything goes wrong. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Stay frosty, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Samuel | ||
+ | |||
+ | PS: Tell Dwayne he still owes me a rematch on the court and that this time I'm bringing a ref to make sure he doesn't commit any personal fouls. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The account received another email not long after: | ||
+ | Hey chum, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Here's your requisition order information. Hope you can put this to better use than the folks in the labs have been. Some weird stuff going on, but anything's worth it for the cause. We'll send you an update when the order ships out. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Details | ||
+ | |||
+ | Arriving: Wednesday, January 20 | ||
+ | Ship to: Amazon Locker - Cerrito, El Cerrito Plaza | ||
+ | |||
+ | Good luck out there, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Samuel | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another email followed when people were eagerly planning on going as soon as they possibly could: | ||
+ | Dear chum, | ||
+ | |||
+ | You should have your locker code soon. Wait for the code. You have a three day window. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Stay frosty, | ||
+ | Samuel | ||
+ | |||
+ | A user picked up the package and posted an [http://imgur.com/a/MiJzV imgur album] of photos of the contents. The package is addressed to "James A Crawford" and contains "One Pound Quartz Rock Crystal Healing" . This is considered an unsolved clue trail at this time. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==Museum of Jurassic Technology== | ||
+ | After months of hearing nothing about the Luigi amiibo, Justin [https://twitter.com/LordHuffnPuff/status/687021746227023872 tweeted] that the Mario amiibo was "Free to a caring and loving home." When asked about shipping it, he said it had to be picked up in person. He also tweeted "Part of the qualifications of being "a good home" are knowing the places and times he can be obtained. Security.". | ||
+ | |||
+ | For THD 37: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4PR4JGhHqY Top Ten Citrus Fruits], the thumbnail image when downloaded is the logo for the [http://www.mjt.org/ Museum of Jurassic Technology] | ||
+ | |||
+ | -pic here when it's fixed- | ||
+ | |||
+ | On February 6, 2016, Justin streamed on [https://www.twitch.tv/lordhuffnpuff twitch]with the Mario amiibo confirming he was still looking to give it away. RPP 68: [http://redpagespodcast.com/listen/neil-degrasse-titan Neil Degrasse Titan] which featured Jim, the following was in the ID3 tags: | ||
+ | Genre: A secret hidden in the ID3 tags, hello there friends | ||
+ | Comment: vzthe.pbz/cU1Fd6o | ||
+ | Running the comment through rot13, "imgur.com/pH1Sq6b" is found. This linked to a calendar that had a clock point to 2pm on the February 18th date and reads "Don't be late -No 6". | ||
+ | |||
+ | -pic here when it's fixed- | ||
+ | |||
+ | A picture was received by the gustav email from ltsamuel's email that had a map with an arrow guiding from the entrance of the Museum of Jurassic Technology to a nearby park with a crown on it: | ||
+ | |||
+ | -pice here when it's fixed- | ||
+ | |||
+ | At this point, several references to chess had been made via Justin's twitter along with the set of borgified images that had expanded to include a crow from Rachel Sala's tumblr (aka a Rook) and a horse image from twitter (aka Knight). In RPP 67: [http://redpagespodcast.com/listen/he-is-number-zero He is Number Zero], the podcast begins with "We move our pawn to g5". This is the opening move of the Borg Gambit. This came into play at the event. | ||
+ | |||
+ | When ARGers arrived at the event, Justin and a girl assumed to be Rachel Sala, the artist for Frog Fractions and Frog Fractions 2, had already set up a chess board with the pawn moved to g5. The Mario amiibo was the black king. When asked for the amiibo, Justin responded they had to win the chess game with Justin playing as black and the ARGers playing as white. Justin made some mistakes to allow for the ARGers to win. Then someone in "tinfoil" hat and vest, saying something about "time police" came and escorted them away. When asked if they needed help or should be followed, they replied "No". | ||
+ | Accounts of the event are posted [https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedetectives/comments/46gnjt/frog_fractions_update_thread_for_today/ here]and [http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=39801&start=915&sid=9a406d8028cd51453bcaaca89ca5b9fe here] and a brief video of Justin walking away with the chess set is available [https://youtu.be/TN911ssqheU here.] | ||
− | + | The Mario amiibo owned by "imgur" and named "a/e4RLf" led to http://imgur.com/a/e4RLf . This was three posters presumed to be made by the resistance. | |
+ | [[File:CyborgTumblr.jpg]] | ||
− | + | All the posters can be viewed on [[Frog Fractions 2/Propaganda Posters]]The next day, Rachel posted the images on her [http://drawathing.tumblr.com/post/139636774003/some-posters-i-made tumblr]. When the images on the tumblr are downloaded and pasted into a notepad, there are camelCased words: | |
+ | cyborgD irtdist | ||
+ | ressedS | ||
+ | parkles | ||
+ | oldTree | ||
− | + | cybor | |
+ | gDirt | ||
+ | distr | ||
+ | essed | ||
+ | Spark | ||
+ | lesol | ||
+ | dTree | ||
− | + | DST appears the be the main reference with Jim also talks about license plates with DST down the side in THD 43: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAZT9Oqp4cg Desolate Clovis] and mentions it does not mean Daylight Savings Time in THD 44: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppmx6MiXIVM GDC March Dog]. This is considered an unsolved trail of the ARG for now. | |
==Ashby Brewery and Indie Games Studio== | ==Ashby Brewery and Indie Games Studio== |
Revision as of 01:19, 28 August 2016
Frog Fractions 2 | |
---|---|
The FF2 ARG began in March 2014, and its goal is the discovery of which game is secretly a sequel to Frog Fractions.. | |
Type | [[List_of_Investigations#Official|Official]] |
Creator | Twinbeard/Jim Crawford[1] |
Discovered | 03-10-2014 |
Main Page > List of Investigations
The Frog Fractions 2 is a sequel to Frog Fractions, a flash game by Twinbeard Studios that developed a sizable cult following. In March 2014, a successful Kickstarter campaign launched Frog Fractions 2. This ARG seeks to find the game, keeping in mind all of the following:
- It will not be named Frog Fractions 2 or likely resemble Frog Fractions
- It will not be credited to Twinbeard Studios as the creators
- Its release date is unknown so the game may or may not be available at present
- When the "jig is up" (the game is found), Kickstarter backers will received a copy of the game.
The launch of the ARG began with clues within the the pitch video itself, as it was quickly interrupted by a message from the year 2023 that warned the viewer "It's too late for our timeline, but it may not be for yours." Since then, there have been clues everywhere from podcasts by the developers to the Obama Shaving Simulator to real life events such as Indiecade and ARG-specific events around Berkley and LA.
For a quick reference of everything so far, see Frog_Fractions_2/Timeline.
Contents
Summary
Background
In 2012, a browser game called Frog Fractions was released by Jim Crawford/Twinbeard. This was ostensibly a simple game about 'learning fractions', but does not actually teach this, nor is any specific knowledge required to play. The game features a frog sitting on a lily pad and shooting out its tongue to catch various descending bugs, in order to protect some fruit towards the bottom of the screen. As gameplay continues, upgrades can be added and the play style varies (sometimes wildly) from that of the initial stages. The game is often considered an ironic or 'joke' game (not to diminish its impact) due to its subversion of established mechanics and surprising twists and turns.
In March 2014, after the success of the original game, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund the creation of the game's sequel, 'Frog Fractions 2'. Accompanying the campaign was a strange video, that appeared to be an deadpan proposal of a fun game for kids, but contained some sinister and mysterious content.
Kickstarter Video
The pitch video(720p) is first interrupted at 0:44 with a message from the year 2023. A different voice interrupts at 2:26 and 2:37 to stress the importance of "0451". This clue would not be solved until after the Berkeley Event.
At 3:20, a sepia toned broadcast addresses "people of the future". There is a great deal of writing on the blackboard:
The url at the top of the board leads to http://twinbeard.com/eolo5387.html . http://twinbeard.com/eolo5387.html leads to pictures of bread, prompting users to go to http://twinbread.com/eolo5387.html, which contains the same image but distorted. This lead to http://twinbread.com/
Twinbread
Brainfuck codes
In the source code of http://twinbread.com,there is a brainfuck code. This translates to the text (the top is supposed to read Twinbeard but it gets uglified in copy/paste):
__ .__ ___. .___ _/ |___ _ _|__| ____\_ |_________ ____ _____ __| _/ \ __\ \/ \/ / |/ \| __ \_ __ \_/ __ \__ \ / __ | | | \ /| | | \ \_\ \ | \/\ ___/ / __ \_/ /_/ | |__| \/\_/ |__|___| /___ /__| \___ >____ /\____ | \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
>> ONYX BF 1.9.7 May 26 1997 10:46:16 $$ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ >> MOTD 2011-12-02 $$ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ >> IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT $$ >> SOME USERS ARE ATTEMPTING TO USE $$ >> ONYX BF WITH A WEB-BASED INTERPRE- $$ >> TER LOCATED AT BRAINFUCK.TK. LET $$ >> IT BE KNOWN THAT THIS PARTICULAR $$ >> INTERPRETER HAS SEVERAL KNOWN $$ >> ISSUES RUNNING THE ONYX BF CODE- $$ >> BASE AND IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. $$ >> THANK YOU. -MGMT $$ �→↓↓■�→↓↓■�
For http://twinbread.com/eolo5387.html, a bunch of characters make up the source code. Removing all non brainfuck characters, it results in a text: watch?v=YzVP-gRfRTY
. This text leads to a youtube video titled Kernal of Truth. The audio is a playing of a datassette signal for a 50Hz PAL computer.
The audio had to be inverted first and then converted into TAP with UberCassette and then baked into a prg with TAPClean then run 011 (0801-6F40).prg in VICE. Code reference here
egb13.ugzy is ROT-13 encoded string rot13.html
From the source of twinbread.com/rot13.html, there is a link to castlevania_passacaglia_of_disrepair.rom which is actually a GameBoy Advance rom.
When run in Visual Boy Advance it produces an all too familiar tune and the following image:
Make Bread
http://twinbread.com/makebread.html contains the following instructions:
TYPE 101675 ON KEYPAD PUT FLOUR IN BREAD MACHINE PUT SALT IN BREAD MACHINE PUT MILK IN BREAD MACHINE PUT WATER IN BREAD MACHINE PUT BUTTER IN BREAD MACHINE PUT HONEY IN BREAD MACHINE PUT YEAST IN BREAD MACHINE PUT GLUTEN IN BREAD MACHINE PUT MALT IN BREAD MACHINE PUT SUGAR IN BREAD MACHINE PUT EGG IN BREAD MACHINE PUT CORN IN BREAD MACHINE PRESS START FORE FORE GO TO SLEEP
When these instructions are entered into the console during the text adventure portion of the original Frog Fractions game, the console displays the following:
"You wake to the smell of freshly baked bread. A wispy human figure in a bathrobe and crown walks in, carrying a loaf of sliced bread. "It's ready!" she says. Then she gets a good look at you. "Oh dear. No time for bread; you have to do something about that beard before your meeting starts!" She pushes you into the bathroom.
The user is then taken to the site http://abeardforevervoyaging.com/leadership.html , which contains the Obama Shaving Simulator.
At the end of each Obama Shaving session, some tweets are shown. If Obama is shaved perfectly, one of the tweets will contain the following message:
Kenneth Salazar @Salza . @OBeardy. If you want to see PUBLIC_FIGURE alive again, bring the money to 37.871764,-122.265303 at 2014-04-05, 3PM local time.
These coordinates correspond to a location in Berkeley, California and the message announced the first real life event of the ARG.
Berkeley Event
On April 5, 2014, Jim Crawford arrived at the designated meetup coordinates carrying a brown paper bag. He gave out business cards, previously given out at GDC, which had the Twinbeard logo on the back along with some text "JCRNWmZiVE5DXGhfTg=="
. When held to the light, the card showed a URL fragment ad.com/eol
, which is a reference to the brainfuck codes.
After a while, Jim led the group away from the campus. After a short walk, a man in the group, who was wearing a tall top hat, screamed "Enough!" and pulled a plastic gun on Jim. A group of time police arrived and arrested Jim, who threw the brown paper bag to the ground in the process. A pair of opposing time travelers appeared and the arresting time travelers fled in a car while the opposing travelers chased them on foot. A man on a motorcycle appeared to deliver a message to the group and then left as well. Videos of the arrest can be found here and here. Below is a transcript of the exchange:
Top Hat Guy: Alright, enough of this! James Crawford! Jim: Not again! Top Hat Guy: In the name of his majesty, for your time-crimes against the chrono-imperium, for your distribution and production of bug porn, for your association with agents of Bug Mars, for your fraternizing with frogs, and for your other crimes, you must be held accountable! Jim: Wait, what’s going on? Top Hat Guy: Come on. Time Traveller 1: There’s no time! Time Traveller 2: Stay back! Do not interfere with the timeline! Jim: Save yourselves… Top Hat Guy: Do not interfere with the timeline! Time Traveller 2: They’re coming! Go, go! Stay back! Opposing Time Traveller: Wait, the disks, the disks!
Moterbike Time Traveller: You guys aren’t chasing Jim Crawford, are you? Well don’t look for him now. That’s not the real Jim Crawford, or at least not yet. I come from a dreadfully dark timeline, and we’re trying to prevent that. I’m just here to tell you that now, and I have to go myself. You guys have a wonderful day.
The brown paper bag had the following contents(photos here):
12 napkins, 4 plastic forks, 4 plastic spoons: One of the napkins has a flower sticker with a ladybug on it. A Wooden Frog Statue: It has a bug sticker on one side of it. Flower and Cactus Leaf: They are real plants, not plastic or anything. Floppy Disks: 10 Unlabeled floppy disks wrapped in tinfoil. Most of them have some bug or frog stickers on the foil. Here is a summary (the numbering is arbitrary, I don't know how they were originally stacked in the bag): 1: Stamp 2: Flower and Ladybug Flower 3: Ladybug and Bubbles 4: Ladybug on Leaf, Flower, Bubbles 5: Ladybug on Flower 6: Inflated Frog with Bubbles 7: Dragonfly, Ladybug on Leaf, Lilypad 8: Frog with Tongue 9: Frog on Lilypad, Ladybug on Leaf (Also has a jumping frog on the back, not shown in the picture.) 10: Ladybug on Lilypad, Dragonfly, and Bubbles
Foil-Wrapped Rosencrantz Character Sheet: It was wrapped similarly to the 10 floppy disks, but contained only this piece of paper. The foil for this one has a ladybug sticker and a lilypad sticker. The lilypad sticker partly obscures the text "Jack HS" written in marker on the foil. Plastic sword, dropped by the second group running up the street, probably unintentionally
Floppy Disks
The 10 floppy disks wrapped in foiled were scanned and contained images of bug porn in the form of months from a calendar along with files named stinky.arj, stinky.a01, stinky.a02, stinky.a03, stinky.a04
. .zip of the files are available here
The images all had strange EXIF data:
02.jpg: x"83968686858540A689A3884081409781A340968640 04.jpg: 82A4A3A385996B409694859385A340A689A388408388 06.jpg: 8585A285408195844082818396956B408881A2884082 10.jpg: 9996A695A26B40A39681A2A340A689A3884082A4A3A3 12.jpg: 85994081958440A2A381A682859999A840918194"
When converted by psuedo base-8, it reads:
COFFEE WITH A PAT OF BUTTER; OMELET WITH CH EESE AND BACON; HASH B ROWNS; TOAST WITH BUTT ER AND STAWBERRY JAM
As for the "stinky" files, stinky.arj required a password. The password is "zero four five one", given from the kickstarter pitch video. The result was an MP4 that contained a live action walkthrough of Frog Fractions. It can viewed on youtube here.
Trainhotdog and RedPagesPodcast
"I don't understand either, rider, so we're in the same boat. It's exciting."-Jim, Train Hot Dog Episode 9 - Hot Dog Time Machine
Train Hot Dog(THD) is a weekly podcast where Jim Crawford talks while riding a train (allegedly). Episodes are posted to the Twinbeard youtube channel first and then later to trainhotdog.cool Listeners of the podcast are known as "riders" and questions can be submitted via "rider mail", either through a call to the rider mail numbers 469-BEARDS-4 or 469-CEASE-PI, or via comments on the youtube videos.
At the end of Train Hot Dog Episode 12: Stay On Your Toast, a voice says "Brought to you by time dash travel dot club". This lead to the discovery of time-travel.club and confirmed the involvement of THD in the ARG.
In addition to this, at the bottom of trainhotdog.cool, it says "To leave a Rider Mail, call (469) BEA-RDS4", clicking the link leads to a magic eye image. The image run through a magic eye solver results in the message DANGER SPARKLES
RedPagesPodcast(RPP) is a video game and books themed podcast co-hosted by Frog Fractions 2 writer Justin Bortnick, Gord, and Paul. Podcasts are posted on their website here.
In Extrasode 3: Chatting with Jim Crawford,some noises are heard around 37:30 until about 40:00. This is morse code for RPS SSENIHSUM TNAREBUXE ERIM SSENIHSUM TNAREBUXE ERIM
. In the background is speech, quoted from "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. The full quote is:
"You can't tell them," droned the psychologist slowly, "because that would hurt and you mustn't hurt. But if you don't tell them, you hurt, so you must tell them. And if you do, you will hurt and you mustn't, so you can't tell them; but if you don't, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you hurt, so you mustn't; but if you don't, you hurt, so you must; but if you do, you-"
This confirmed the beginning of the involvement of RPP in the ARG.
Time-travel.club
At first glance, this website of time-travel.club(TTC) mimics the efforts of an amateur time travel enthusiast's attempt at a website. There are three clickable links. The first floats by asking "So you want to learn about ~Time Travel~ do you?" This link leads to a page that is essentially a copy and paste of a wiki article concerning time travel in science fiction. The About Us page leads to a 404 error page with a large number of under construction gifs. Initially, the Login link led to the same page but soon changed to lead to http://time-travel.club/accesslevelalpha.php .
When logged in on the site, you find the page is titled "FUTURE RESISTANCE OPERATION GARRISON 1.50"(FROG 1.5). This is the main website for a group known as the Resistance who were later found to be cyborgs fighting an entity simply known as the Decay and shape a major part of the ARG story.
accesslevelalpha
In THD 13: Butt Folk, there is a username/password in the spectrogram:
When entered into the login on TTC, the following text is show:
USER:GADSBY RANK:RECRUIT COMMANDING OFFICER:DWAYNE
Welcome new recruit! Congratulations on your wise decision to join the human resistance movement and help rescue all life from the enemy.
About the Resistance Our nemesis is one you know all too well; the decay has changed the landscape of the earth and irreparably altered the path of mankind. As we are unable to combat our foe head-on, the resistance exists to win humanity's liberation through covert operations and advanced technology of types unavailable even to our most powerful enemies. United, we stand between the decay and the sparkly annihilation of our species.
This website will serve as your home base for intelligence updates and new information vital to the survival of this organization. As you prove yourself and are promoted through the ranks, you will gain access to additional resources and information to aid you in completing the operations we assign you.
Congratulations, and good luck recruit! You will recieve orders from your commanding officer shortly.
Resources Requisitions (LOCKED) Operative List (LOCKED) Current Operations (LOCKED) Terminal (LOCKED) %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) Party Lounge (VERY LOCKED)
accesslevelbeta
http://time-travel.club/accesslevelbeta.php was found without a working password known. Justin Bortnick tweeted from his twitter account about a new Mario Maker level code 04AA-0000-00A6-45F2(the tweet appears to have been deleted.)In a level called "dispatch 2", blocks spell out "PWD:SCREAMED". The username was Herbie. This is a reference to the end of the "I, Robot" phrase in the RPP Extrasode 3. "-and Herbie screamed" being the next words in the story.
RPP also tweeted "This arrived at the Red Pages office yesterday with a note from "Herbie" that read "You have the pieces." Spooky!" along with an image of a borgified King of spades (This also would be found to correspond with the sprectrogram of THD 10)
Logging in showed the following message:
USER:HERBIE RANK:CORPORAL COMMANDING OFFICER:WILLIAM
Welcome Corporal! Your continued dedication to the human resistance movement authorizes you to additional resources unavailable to new recruits.
About the Resistance Our nemesis is one you know all too well; the decay has changed the landscape of the earth and irreparably altered the path of mankind. As we are unable to combat our foe head-on, the resistance exists to win humanity's liberation through covert operations and advanced technology of types unavailable even to our most powerful enemies. United, we stand between the decay and the sparkly annihilation of our species.
This website will serve as your home base for intelligence updates and new information vital to the survival of this organization. As you prove yourself and are promoted through the ranks, you will gain access to additional resources and information to aid you in completing the operations we assign you.
Keep up the good fight corporal. Your service is integral to the cause.
Resources Requisitions Operative List (LOCKED) Current Operations Terminal (LOCKED) %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) Party Lounge (VERY LOCKED)
Clicking Requisitions leads to http://time-travel.club/requisitionsnarfblat.html that lists some of the ingredients for making beer(a reference to the Ashyb Brewery Quarterly report) along with F-Rations, Anti-Sparkle Lotion, and Bread. Clicking Current Operations leads to http://time-travel.club/operationsnarfblat.html which listed the following operations:
Operation Glitterbuster TT Operation 2014 - CRAWFORD TT Operation 1965 - M. BRADLEY. Operation B.R.E.A.D.
Also in the Mario Maker level, the blocks were morse code that translated to "Hello Number Six"
Eventually, RPP's Chatting with Jim had the morse code fully transcribed.
lwo osoutriv deniarpsssenihsum tnarebuxe erimssenihsum tnarebuxeerim ssenihsum tnarebuxe erimssenihsum tnarebuxe eri7senihsum tnarebuxe erim
This turned out to be an anagram for "Username is the number six password is revolution". Originally, the login(number six/revolution) said:
USER:NUMBER SIX RANK:XXXXXXX COMMANDING OFFICER:N/A
Greetings Number Six. Your login is currently being prepped - please continue to use Corporal Herbie's login for the time being.
This has since changed.
In the comments section of the Polygon article How to Shave Obama: Behind the baffling, nearly two-year-long quest to find Frog Fractions 2, LordHuffNPuff (Justin Bortnick's known alias) posted a message:
Tired of staying at home all winter? Looking for an exciting holiday retreat? Why not take a trip to scenic Bug Mars? Experience the thrill of customs and immigration; dine on the finest freshly-baked bread; be titillated by the planet’s number one cultural export! When you travel with Bug Bros. Travel Agency, the red planet is just a hop, hop and a hop away. For booking information, contact us 24 hours a day! Our travel specialists are ready to take you on the trip of a lifetime. Dial (213) 631-3764 today!
When the number is dialed, the message said "This is Resistanct Agent 3764, Lt. Samuel. I'm probably out on a mission protecting the remnants of our species or maybe training new recruits, but leave a message and I'll get back to you if I'm not dead or enslaved!" A recording of the message is here.
People that left their number were called back by the Bug Mars Travel Agency and informed the codeword for their trip was "caravanserai", the caller being very specific on the spelling of the word.
Samuel/caravanserai is a login:
USER:SAMUEL RANK:SCI_H
Greetings Doctor, please select an option.
Resources Requisitions Operative List (Partial) Current Scientific Projects Terminal (LOCKED) %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) Party Lounge (SOMEWHAT LOCKED)
Clicking Requisitions leads to http://time-travel.club/requisition_scisnarfblat.html . The list adds the following items in addition to herbie's list:
Acid Base Bass (fish) Bass (dropped) Sparkles (contained, pressurized) Membrane M. Brain F. Brain G. Dad Sunny D.
Clicking Operative List (partial) goes to http://time-travel.club/operativespartialsnarfblat.php . This list changes daily. Several attempts have been made to track those changes but they appear to have no pattern to the changes.
Clicking Current Scientific Projects leads to http://time-travel.club/sciopsnarfblat.html
The currently-active scientific projects are: SCIENTIFIC PROJECTS Experiment 036 - R.P.A.G.E.S. Trans-Temporal Communication Array Experiment 037 - Cybernetic Sub-dermal Integration Experiment 038 - Ocular Replacement and Recovery Sugery Experiment 039 - P.O.D. Encoding and Encryption Exploration ARCHIVED EXPERIMENTS Experiment 001 - Anti-Gravity Thrusters Experiment 002 - Experimental Hydroelectrolysis & Subdermatoglyphic Radiation Experiment 003 - Axis-Defeating Local Pancake Experiment 004 - Synthesis of Beer from Sparkles More...
Clicking More... leads to http://time-travel.club/awibblewobblewibblewobbletoandfrobuttheonelittleduckwiththefeatheronhisbackheledtheotherswithaquackquackquack This actually is a 500 Internal Server error page but would later be a hint to a login.
Inspired by other ARGs, a [ https://www.mindmeister.com/657363408?t=T2QuVC6xXt# mindmap] was created in an attempt to organize the ARG. At some point, the mindmap was vandalized and the login vaquez/jurassic was left behind. Logging in:
USER:VASQUEZ RANK:SERGEANT MAJOR COMMANDING OFFICER:DRAKE
Greetings Sgm. Vasquez, please select an option.
Resources Requisitions Operative List (Partial) Current Operations Terminal (LOCKED) %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) Party Lounge (KINDA LOCKED)
The Operatives List is the same page as Samuel's. The requisitions page is http://time-travel.club/requisitionsnarfblatsgmj.html and has the same beginning as herbie with the following additions and nothing more in common with Samuel's:
Field Repair Kit Circuitry Diagram Weapons-Grade Superobtaniam Frank Deployable Anti-Sparkle Field Shield Array
Vasquez has the following operations:
Operation Glitterbuster TT Operation 2016 - MU-JTECH RETRIEVAL TT Operation 2015 - NOV. - Operation Gobbledrop Operation M.O.N.O.P.O.L.Y. Chrono-Imperium Draft Operation Bring No. 3 a Sandwich (special operation)
Jim was emailed a voucher for subway in an attempt to give No. 3 a sandwich but it would appear he is not No. 3.
At GDC 2016, Justin had tweeted that he made some new business cards. A friendly dev provided an image of the card as no person participating in the ARG attended the event. Also at the event, Rachel distributed four cool stickers that were later posted to the Frog Fractions facebook page. The business card contained a spiral text with red letters: -pic here when it's fixed- Typed out with [] around the red letters:
They arrived at dusk. The experimets had been wildly successfu[l], more so than we could have hoped or feard. At first, we welc[o]med them. The people of Tunisia are friendly and, [g]enerally, we expected that our vis[i]tors would treat us with the same wonder and amazement with which we regarded them. That could [n]ot have been further from the truth. They did not care about our presence, or lives, or [c]ities, or us. They went about their brutal business as if we were ants in their path: with a comp[l]ete disregard for our [e]xistence. Their capability for warfare thwarted our greatest weaponry, and their unearthly abilities countered the strategies of our greatest [m]ilitary and scientific leaders. As the d[e]cay radiated out like a cancer from the Tunisia[n] coast, those in power around the world watched in helple[s]ness, knowing that soon their nations would suffer the same fate as outs. There are at this [p]oint in history fe[w] of us remaining. Those who survived have banded [t]ogether [u]nder the guidance of we origi[n]al six, though at this point only four remain. Our numbers are smaller by the day, and our enemy has all but forgotten us. Their victory was total, an[d] out defeat pushed ou[r] species to the brink of extinction. We now resist the decay. We hide. We w[a]it. And we plan. -Excerpt from An Oral History of the Decay, Interview 8674-B
Of note, THD 14:Discharge also mentions time travel attempts by a man named Dwayne in Tunisia with ridermail saying:
"Stardate 1982: just a little joke. Research proceedes as planned on the Chrono Temporal Flux Fusion Engine. We were encouraged when a rice cake appeared in the machine's primary servo dock informing us that several minutes later we would succeed in transporting a rice cake backwards in time. This is a step forward as we previously have only been able to transport inorganic matter. Dwayne and I celebrated with drinks and a viewing of Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer's final speech is brilliant, especially five drinks in. Tomorrow we plan to attempt to transport a living insect, our first test of a live specimen. Wish us luck!"
The red letters on the card spell out "loginclemenspwtundra". Initially, the login returned:
USER:CLEMENS RANK:COLONEL COMMANDING OFFICER:#########
Greetings Colonel Clemens. Your login is currently being prepped - we should have it up within the week. Please deliver your report to No. 4 ASAP. - No. 3
Indiecade 2015
In THD23: Accessory Bolt Holes for Camel, the spectrogram contained dots. When stacked, with the last line shifted one to the left, those dots produced some braille:
34 1' 30.5148 N 118 23' 36.1932 W These are the coordinates for Indiecade 2015. In THD 24:Flirting in Traffic, downloading the mp3 from trainhotdog.cool has an image in the ID3 tags that reads:
Looking for Riccardo Zacconi A tragicomedy in two acts
Jim often borrows the name of the CEO of Kings.com for badges at events such as GDC, with the badge tweeted here. At Indicade, an ARGer approached Jim and Justin saying "seventeen"(suggested by RPP ""Red Pages Podcast reminds all Resistance members: If you don't open your communications with the #17, you may as well not open them at all"). They offered a choice of a Mario amiibo and a Luigi amiibo. The person selected the Luigi amiibo.
Eventually, the Luigi amiibo was scanned into a wii. The owner of the amiibo was called pastebin and the name of the amiibo was DTP61rrp, leading to http://pastebin.com/DTP61rrp
The pastebin appeared to be the header information of an email address [email protected] sending a "Note to self". This was the second reference to Gustav Klimpt, the first being corruption in RPP Extrasode 3 Chatting with Jim that contained the following borgified image of his work known as "Woman in Gold":
-pic here when it's fixed-
The password reset question was "What is your mother's maiden name?" Finster, the maiden name of Gustav Klimt's mother, worked and entry was gained. Soon an email from [email protected] was received:
Hey Buddy
You should be getting notification of a delivery of goods pretty soon. Central hopes to have it out within a week. Let me know if anything goes wrong.
Stay frosty,
Samuel
PS: Tell Dwayne he still owes me a rematch on the court and that this time I'm bringing a ref to make sure he doesn't commit any personal fouls.
The account received another email not long after:
Hey chum,
Here's your requisition order information. Hope you can put this to better use than the folks in the labs have been. Some weird stuff going on, but anything's worth it for the cause. We'll send you an update when the order ships out.
Details
Arriving: Wednesday, January 20 Ship to: Amazon Locker - Cerrito, El Cerrito Plaza
Good luck out there,
Samuel
Another email followed when people were eagerly planning on going as soon as they possibly could:
Dear chum,
You should have your locker code soon. Wait for the code. You have a three day window.
Stay frosty, Samuel
A user picked up the package and posted an imgur album of photos of the contents. The package is addressed to "James A Crawford" and contains "One Pound Quartz Rock Crystal Healing" . This is considered an unsolved clue trail at this time.
Museum of Jurassic Technology
After months of hearing nothing about the Luigi amiibo, Justin tweeted that the Mario amiibo was "Free to a caring and loving home." When asked about shipping it, he said it had to be picked up in person. He also tweeted "Part of the qualifications of being "a good home" are knowing the places and times he can be obtained. Security.".
For THD 37: Top Ten Citrus Fruits, the thumbnail image when downloaded is the logo for the Museum of Jurassic Technology
-pic here when it's fixed-
On February 6, 2016, Justin streamed on twitchwith the Mario amiibo confirming he was still looking to give it away. RPP 68: Neil Degrasse Titan which featured Jim, the following was in the ID3 tags:
Genre: A secret hidden in the ID3 tags, hello there friends Comment: vzthe.pbz/cU1Fd6o
Running the comment through rot13, "imgur.com/pH1Sq6b" is found. This linked to a calendar that had a clock point to 2pm on the February 18th date and reads "Don't be late -No 6".
-pic here when it's fixed-
A picture was received by the gustav email from ltsamuel's email that had a map with an arrow guiding from the entrance of the Museum of Jurassic Technology to a nearby park with a crown on it:
-pice here when it's fixed-
At this point, several references to chess had been made via Justin's twitter along with the set of borgified images that had expanded to include a crow from Rachel Sala's tumblr (aka a Rook) and a horse image from twitter (aka Knight). In RPP 67: He is Number Zero, the podcast begins with "We move our pawn to g5". This is the opening move of the Borg Gambit. This came into play at the event.
When ARGers arrived at the event, Justin and a girl assumed to be Rachel Sala, the artist for Frog Fractions and Frog Fractions 2, had already set up a chess board with the pawn moved to g5. The Mario amiibo was the black king. When asked for the amiibo, Justin responded they had to win the chess game with Justin playing as black and the ARGers playing as white. Justin made some mistakes to allow for the ARGers to win. Then someone in "tinfoil" hat and vest, saying something about "time police" came and escorted them away. When asked if they needed help or should be followed, they replied "No". Accounts of the event are posted hereand here and a brief video of Justin walking away with the chess set is available here.
The Mario amiibo owned by "imgur" and named "a/e4RLf" led to http://imgur.com/a/e4RLf . This was three posters presumed to be made by the resistance.
All the posters can be viewed on Frog Fractions 2/Propaganda PostersThe next day, Rachel posted the images on her tumblr. When the images on the tumblr are downloaded and pasted into a notepad, there are camelCased words:
cyborgD irtdist ressedS parkles oldTree
cybor gDirt distr essed Spark lesol dTree
DST appears the be the main reference with Jim also talks about license plates with DST down the side in THD 43: Desolate Clovis and mentions it does not mean Daylight Savings Time in THD 44: GDC March Dog. This is considered an unsolved trail of the ARG for now.
Ashby Brewery and Indie Games Studio
Introduced in the kickstarter pitch video, the studio posted on kickstarter update #11 a new video titled The Ashby Brewery and Indie Game Studio Fall 2015 Quarterly Brewsletter on September 23, 2015. During the video, there are three audio glitches before certain words: 0:55 decay, 1:44 truth, 2:08 info. This would lead to http://decaytruth.info/ , the wbesite of the Ashby brewery. The website claims the brewery was founded in 1777 but it clear Charles Ashby is a time traveler. The site also lists a location with hours. The address is a grocery store that does not sell beer from Ashby. http://decaytruth.info/admin.html was found. Entering the same word in the login twice returns the word with a question mark following it. As of now, no successful login has been made on this website.
It was discovered that Jim posted back in 2012 on his blog about the Ashby Brewery and Indie Game studio, with a picture of a beer with the label. http://goombas.org/1347_ashby-brewery-indie-game-studio.html
The post featuring cherry wheat beer that is listed on their menu. https://twitter.com/AshbyBrewery is a twitter account featuring the same picture and only a single post from 2012.