Oddworld: Soulstorm

Oddworld Soulstorm ARG
Active since 12-22-2016
Oddworld Soulstorm - An ARG centered around lore from the Oddworld universe linked to the currently unreleased game Oddworld Soulstorm
Type	[[List_of_Investigations#Official|Official]]
Creator	Oddworld Inhabitants, Inc
Discovered	12-22-2016

Main Page > List of Investigations > Oddworld: Soulstorm

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Spirit of 1029

Early in 2016, Twitter account @edmudokon began posting cryptic messages that seemed to be related to the Oddworld universe. The account appears to be run by an average Mudokon named Ed who claims to have information he wants to share, but he seems to be in constant danger and can only access the outside world via a faint connection. Beginning around March 2016, @edmudokon engaged users with an elaborate series of puzzles and challenges, releasing information both on twitter and via the official Oddworld website, http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/. These puzzles eventually led to the revelation of a website, http://1029.io, as well as a message: "now you know. you can help. join us. together we can rise."

The http://1029.io webpage features glitchy effects and another rendition of the ASCII-art logo, but with the numbers 8291 replacing some characters. At the bottom of the page is an e-mail signup form, above which is a message:

THE FALL OF RF1029 WAS THE SPARK TO IGNITE A REVOLUTION. FOR TOO LONG, THEY HAVE CONTROLLED THEIR GIANT INDUSTRIAL MACHINES, GRINDING THE BONES OF OUR KIND INTO DUST IN THEIR ENDLESS PURSUIT OF POWER AND WEALTH.

WE WERE TAUGHT THAT THIS IS ALL THERE WAS: OBEY.

THE TRUTH WAS HIDDEN FROM US. OUR HISTORY WAS HIDDEN FROM US. WE WERE BRED TO WORK, RAISED TO OBEY AND FORCED TO COMPLY.

OUR NATURAL CONNECTION TO MOTHER PLANET WAS ERASED FROM THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR PEOPLE. LOST WAS OUR KNOWING. LOST WAS OUR UNITY, OUR CONNECTION, OUR POWER AND OUR PURPOSE. ALL THAT WE WERE WAS A COMMODITY TO BE TRADED AND EXPLOITED IN THE ONGOING RACE FOR MORE WEALTH. WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE PROTECTED, WE WERE TRICKED INTO KILLING. WHAT WAS WORST FOR US, WE WERE TOLD WAS BEST. WE WERE TAUGHT TO TRUST THOSE WHO WOULD DECEIVE US THE MOST.

THAT HAS ALL CHANGED.

THE HERO HAS SHOWN ALL OF US THAT OUR OPPRESSORS CAN BE TOPPLED. HE HAS FOUND OUR WILD AND KNOWING BROTHERS. HE HAS RECONNECTED THE FACTORY-BORN TO OUR NATURAL WORLD AND ANCIENT WAYS. HE HAS LIT A FIRE IN OUR HEARTS THAT CANNOT BE EXTINGUISHED.

WE WILL GIVE HELP TO THOSE WHO ARE HELPLESS. WE WILL LEND STRENGTH TO THOSE WHO ARE WEAK. WE WILL FIGHT FOR THOSE WHO ARE DEFEATED. OUR MOVEMENT WILL SPREAD LIKE A RAGING INFERNO AND WE WILL TAKE BACK THE POWER FROM THOSE WHO HAVE ABUSED IT.

WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED BY THE MEDIA CIRCUS. WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED. WE WILL NOT STOP. WE WILL NOT OBEY. WE WILL RISE AND WE WILL RISE AGAIN, UNTIL WE HAVE BURNED THROUGH OUR TATTERED BONDS AND RAZED THE MACHINE TO THE GROUND.

WE WILL RISE. JOIN US.

THERE’S A STORM COMING.

In the source code for the page, only the letters E and D of the message remain capitalized.

Later that day, the Twitter account @SPIRITOF1029 revealed themselves as a "Clandestine organization dedicated to doing good on behalf of the Mudokons and revealing information about a new horror being perpetrated against their species." They also tweeted their first message, parroting the http://1029.io URL and adding their own message: "There is a storm coming. Join us."

Up until December the feeds went dark, posting only reiterations of the URL with messages like "Rise up" and "We are the storm. Join us". Then, in January of 2017, activity on the accounts surged once again and the first hints of a second phase of the ARG began to appear.

Spirit of 1029 emerges with this sleek ASCII-art logo

Smells like Mudokon Spirit

The flurry of new activity in January mainly consisted of @edmudokon and @spiritof1029 talking back and fourth about about whether or not Ed would be able to help the organization's cause. At this point, the Spirit of 1029 makes their message very clear, stating "Oddworld has been blind to the plight of the noble Mudokons for too long. We will rise. Join us! http://1029.io". More notable activty includes the organization's quip "We recommend knowledge of many different codes and ciphers - you never know who is listening. #learnyournameinmorsecodeday", hinting that the coming information would be enciphered in some way.

Oddworld Inhabitants (Oddworld developers, @OddworldInc on Twitter) was contacted by the organization at this time, being told by Spirit of 1029 "We will help @edmudokon but we can't send anything unencrypted. You'll have to break our code. We'll be in touch." Very shortly thereafter, on January 19th, Spirit of 1029 tweets: "We have received a transmission. We will pass it on as soon as we can verify. We need your help." and the Oddworld Webpage is updated to make available two files for download.

The First Transmission

First Photo

The Spirit of 1029's first transmission came in two parts, a photo and an audio file. The first part consisted of a photograph, pictured on the right as it looked upon transmission. It appears to show a tattered document with many portions of text redacted, burnt at the edges and bearing the Spirit of 1029's logo with the slogan "We Will Rise". The text on the document, where it is legible and not redacted, reads:

The distorted image sent by the Spirit of 1029 as part of their first transmission

Date:
Period: XXXXXXXXXXX
Specification Details:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
-Observe XXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX changes in test subjects
-Assess long term XXXXXXXX on XXXXXXX
-Determine product safety
Authorization: XXXXXXXXXXX
Tests requested:
-XXXXXXXX Pronostics
- ?Access whenever? product XXXXXXX
-Acidity Levels
- ????? XXXXXXXXX
-Product safety
Expected results: XXXXXXXXXX make XXXXXXXXX interesting
Test results:
-XXXXXXX highly XXXXXX
-XXXXXXX this XXXXXX ?? XXXXXX ?nice? XXXXXXXX
-Highly XXXXXXX
-Subjects: XXXXXX
- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Conclusion: Product (ready) for consumption 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
??? : XXXXXXXX there is XXXXXX here but it will XXXX ???? XXXXX
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A cleaned up version of the Spirit of 1029's first transmission made by the community

In addition to the text in the photo, there are several areas featuring symbols and runes. Along the top of the document, Anglo-Saxon runes spell out "ED". Along the bottom, BabelStone Club Penguin pigpen cipher, which is a font, spells out "YOU ARE THE KEY YOU KNOW IT IF YOU WERE LISTENING". Running along the right side of the image, arrows pointing in a number of different vertical, horizontal, and diagonal directions can be seen, however their purpose remains unknown.

As headway is made on the puzzles, the official Oddworld webpage was updated to reflect the progress, and moreover to shed light on which theories may be valid by linking to theories on the right track in their updates.

First Audio Clip

The second part of the Spirit of 1029's first transmission consisted of an eerie-sounding 1:40 audio clip. Hidden in the audio clip was Morse code, which proved difficult to decode by ear due to the overpowering audio laid over the code. However, the code also appeared to be playing in reverse, which added an additional layer of difficulty. Eventually, the code was cracked by using a spectrogram of the audio which revealed the code visually as a guide to decoding it by ear.

With the image as a guide, the code yielded its secrets. Although rough in some spots, the decoded Morse read:

qmiqwmiqyidimrjqdjijilmxmnrjqdjajmpmnrprspkesmkjpdqjnyajnwsnrpgspcsppmqidimqymdbcqajnwsnrpgspcdhbzmnjajanadumjimrpq

Moments before the Morse had been decoded, however, the community had made another exciting discovery. Using portions of the Morse already decoded accurately by ear, it had been discovered that the decoded Morse was actually to be used as ciphertext in a shift cipher, and that the key to be used was "storm". This was what the pigpen text on the document was meant to indicate; earlier in the ARG, @spiritof1029 often tweeted the messages "There's a storm coming" and "We are the storm". The pigpen served as a hint to look back at previous communications in order to unlock the current hurdle. With the newly-complete Morse code now in their possession, the community was finally able to accurately decipher the ciphertext they had obtained from the reversed Morse code. It read:

tentwentyninedotiononqexerdotiofoeserdsdaspjaepositoryforwardslashassetninetyeightforwardslashimgzerofofrfiueonedst

ten twenty nine dot io nonqexer dot io foeserdsdaspjaepository forwardslash asset ninety eight forward slash img zero fofrfiueonedst

Although clearly not entirely accurate, through trial and error the community was able to locate a new URL branch of http://1029.io, http://1029.io/repository/asset98/imgzerofourfiveone/.

First Hidden URL

The product of many attempts to correctly arrange the puzzle pieces found on the hidden http://1029.io URL

The hidden URL on http://1029.io is a page which displays one of eight photos each time it is reloaded as well as cycling messages (compile all possible variants).

• 

  7676-AL

• 

  3786-IC

• 

  9455-UM

• 

  9394-AL

• 

  7393-AN

• 

  5574-PH

• 

  2384-ER

• 

  1029-LY

The community quickly realized these were cut up pieces of a larger puzzle. Oddworld Inhabitants updated their page to read "Once you've got everything together - show us!", so the community had a clear goal in sight, the product of which can be seen on the right. This image was tweeted out to @OddworldInc, and by January 20th, the next day, they had replied, instructing the community to hang tight while they cleaned up the image.

Photograph of the final image before it was torn into the pieces the community was given, sent out with a message from Oddworld Inhabitants to hang tight until Thursday.

First Unlocked Photo

The final image, sent by the Spirit of 1029 and received by the community through Oddworld Inhabitants Twitter account. The image has been confirmed to be a render of the upcoming Oddworld: Soulstorm pulled directly from Unity & created in conjunction with Cyrus McWilliams, formerly of Blur, and Fat Kraken Studios in England.

The second transmission sent out by the Spirit of 1029, identical to the first released image but with various codes hidden within.

While waiting, the community picked up on what appeared to be some writing on some of the pieces. This writing was later verified to read "Who?", "Where?", "So Tired", and a set of numbers likely to be "8291". After three days, @OddworldInc tweeted out a scrambled image, pictured left, stating "We received something and there's one last thing we need you to do. Share it. Spread the word.". The next day, after the tweet gained 100 shares, they tweeted another image, pictured left, this time unscrambled. At this time, they stated "While you shared our message 100 times we worked away to bring you this. We're clearing it up even more, we'll share what we find Thursday.", while the webpage was updated with the message "Update 5: Thanks to you guys sharing the previous images online, we've managed to decode the photo further and have updated the thumbnail here. We'll return on Thursday with the finished, fully decrypted image - but until then, please do let us know what you think!" And, true to their word, when Thursday came @OddworldInc tweeted out a final picture of a render from the upcoming Oddworld: Soulstorm, pictured right, in all its unscrambled un-cropped glory. The release of this image signaled the end of the first of five phases of content release Oddworld Inhabitants have planned.

The Second Transmission

NOTE: This section will be updated and formatted once investigation of the second image concludes.

On Feburary 2nd 2017, the Spirit fo 1029 again reached out to the community, tweeting out via @Spiritof1029 "Our agent has delivered another transmission. We will verify its origins and pass it on." Several hours later, Twitter account @OddworldInc sent the message "We were just contacted again. Don't go anywhere, we might need your help with this...", and the Official Oddworld Site was updated with a message as well as an image, pictured left.

This "in-progress" picture highlights the hidden details found so far & outlines their currently known solutions:

Below is an image of the morse code fragments pieced together:

The Morse decodes to... Morse code, of course:

DASHDOTDOTDOT DOT DASH DOTDOTDOTDOT DOT DOTDOTDOT  DASH DASHDASHDASHDASH DOTDASHDOT DASHDASH

Which in turn decodes to:

-... . - .... . ... - --- .-. --

BETHESTORM

Loose Ends

Source Code Comment Numbers Puzzles

These numerical puzzles were found in the source code for the official Oddworld website as early as the date of the Spirit of 1029's first transmission. Their solutions have been found, but the intended use of the solutions remains unknown.

!--
   
72   99
  \  /
   27  45
    \  /
     18  39
      \  /
       21  36
        \  /
         ??  28
          \  /
           13  21
            \  /
             7

-->

SOLUTION: 12
7+2+9+9 = 27, 2+7+4+5 = 18, thus 2+1+3+6 = 12

&

!--    
   
16 _ 37 _ 58 _ 89 _ 145 _ 42 _ ?? _ 4
|_________________<_________________|   
   
-->

SOLUTION: 20
1^2 + 6^2 = 37, 3^2 + 7^2 = 58, thus 4^2 + 2^2 = 20

Other Source Code Comments

On http://1029.io, the following comments could or can be found in the page's source code:

!-- we'll be here, waiting. -->

&

!--               
Well, I //--/ED Mudokon/. But who// _____ r///u/ //? 

Directional Arrows from First 1029 Transmission

These arrows appear on the first document sent by the Spirit of 1029 and their significance has not yet been established.

Written Text on "Puzzle Pieces" Image

Writing which was noticed written over the image on the puzzle pieces, but which is absent from the final released image. The significance of the writing remains unknown.

• 

  1029-LY "WHERE"

• 

  7393-AN "SO TIRED"

• 

  3786-IC "WHO?"

• 

  Complete Image "8291"

Anomalies In First Released Image

Hidden against the background of the first released image are several text strings, pictured below. Their significance is unknown.

1101110BC
100000BD or 100000BC 
010100BD

Chronology

Coming Soon

Media Appearances

26th Jan 2017

[EN] PC Gamer - Oddworld: Soulstorm reveals first batch of images in community ARG

[EN] GameInformer - First Image Surfaces From Oddworld: Soulstorm

27th Jan 2017

[EN] Destructoid - First Oddworld: Soulstorm image surfaces

28th Jan 2017

[EN] WWG - Oddworld: Soulstorm Debuts Its First Image With Some Help From The Fans