Frog Fractions 2
| 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. | |
| Creator | Twinbeard/Jim Crawford[1] |
| Status | Ongoing |
| Discovered | 2014-03-10 |
| Completed | |
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
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.
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.
