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.. | |
Type | [[List_of_Investigations#Official|Official]] |
Creator | Twinbeard/Jim Crawford[1] |
Discovered | 03-10-2014 |
Main Page > List of Investigations
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/Slacker 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.
This wiki page and ARG progess would not be possible without the wonderful work of the people in the Frog Fractions 2 unfiction thread, the neogaf thread, and the discord
Note: While Jim Crawford, Justin Bortnick, and Rachel Sala (the developers of Frog Fractions 2) all participate in the ARG to some capacity, they do not give clues when asked and should not be harassed.
For a quick chronological 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.
Train Hot Dog and Red Pages Podcast
"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
For an in depth run-down of all Train Hot Dog episodes and what has been gained from them, see the Train Hot Dog page.
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
Red Pages Podcast(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.
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
When the login was updated later that week, his login appeared as follows:
USER:CLEMENS RANK:COLONEL COMMANDING OFFICER:VICKERS
Greetings Colonel Clemens. Resources e-Mail Client (COMING EVENTUALLY) Requisitions Operative List (Partial) Current Operations Terminal (LOCKED) %corrupt_entry%segf (LOCKED) Party Lounge (HEMI-LOCKED)
The Requistions contain some shared entries with Vasquez:
Field Repair Kit Circuitry Diagram Weapons-Grade Superobtaniam Hank Deployable Anti-Sparkle Field Shield Array Candy Floss Candy Apples Popcorn Soft Drinks Jellybeans Gumdrops Butt er help me im trapped in a fortune cookie factory
The Operative List is again the same as Samuel's. And his operations are
ASSIGNED 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 Sizing Operation
The link for the email client is http://time-travel.club/getannettefunicellohohohohoho.html but results in the same 500 server error as the More... link in Samuel's login.
At some point, the login for number six changed to read (the terminal was initially locked but is not now):
USER:NUMBER SIX RANK:CHIEF COMMANDING OFFICER:N/A
Greetings Number Six. Your login is currently in process - certain features are now active, but there is much yet to be completed. Resources Terminal %corrupt_entry%segf (IN PROCESS) Party Lounge
This led to finally gaining access to the party lounge at http://time-travel.club/party.html . The lounge contains a .gif of a mariachi band with the songs Las alzanas, Camino Real de Colima, and La Madrugada playing in Party.mp3. In the source code, a message can be found:
This seems like a secure place to hide information, so here goes: watch out! You may be using this Party Lounge to take your mind off of the grueling reality outside this base. You may be secure in your position as a high-ranking resistance officer. Be warned: danger lurks in even the safest of places. Do you know what relationship Numbers 1, 3, 5 and 6 have to the decay? Have you never wondered what happened to Numbers 2 and 4? Have you questioned the abductions of individuals from prior eras, or the futures you are trying to prevent? Stay alert. I'll be in touch as I am able, but do not look for me - it may be some time until my next communication is able to get through to you.
Eventually, it was pieced together from the fact that http://time-travel.club/getannettefunicellohohohohoho.html and http://time-travel.club/awibblewobblewibblewobbletoandfrobuttheonelittleduckwiththefeatheronhisbackheledtheotherswithaquackquackquack both being references to songs by notable children's folk songwriter Raffi and Justin having tweeted a reference to "Frogs Size 12" that a valid login was joshua/giraffe a popular song by Raffi that references frogs size 12 and 'So if you see them get a net... Funicello, Ho Ho Ho.'. The login appears to besufferieng from the decay, featuring decayed letters around the top part that lists RANK and COMMANDING OFFICER as UNKOWN as well as saying ERROR ACCESS OVERIDE:
USER:J̡̢̡̫̙͓̩̲͛̎̊̈́͑̽Ơ̲̙̼̜͕͔͙͍̟͂̊̆͂̓͛̓̆̕S̹̦̰̘͍͙̝͚̥̤̆̊̔̍̚H̸̝̗͙͖̹̗͈͚̹̰̿̏͊̏͠U̷̢͖̮̗̭͇̟̗̎̐̓̊̇͐͜͞A̶̹̜̣̼̬̣̱͑͂͂̍͐ͅ RANK:Ǘ̹̜͓̘̙̗̓͐̾̋̃͜ͅŅ̸̲̣̰̬͓̃́̃́̍͛̑̀͜K̵̡̛̲̮͈͔̮̍̂̄̒Ṉ̛͉̝̬̟͍͔̝̅͂̈́͠O̴̢̧̦̦̝͔̙̗͊͌̊̾̅͘̚Ẃ̢̲͕̻͓͂̿͛̓̐͝N̸̢͖̙͈̦̾̉̄̿͒̈͢͟͢͝͞͞ COMMANDING OFFICER:Ǔ̶̜̰̠̗̘͈̆̓̐̚N̷͖̱̗̙̼͓̐̆̉̈́́͜ͅK̴̡̢̙̖͕̯͎̑̔̽͑̎́̈́̂̑͠Ǹ̸̖̲͔̬̯̇̉̒͊͟͟O͕̮̥̖͋̏͛̿̀͠͞ͅW̸̧̰̞͎̭̞̰͎͚͋͂̀̽͑̈͜͝Ṅ̶̬̪̜̯̝̬̥̬̃̽́͂̇́ E̷̩̪͕̦̼͖̹͇͋̏̇͑̽̈́͛̋͢R̴̡̨̤̦͍̘̣͓̥̝̒̇́̽͠R̯̪̻̫͍̖̹͂̐̆̋͗̍͆̈͢͝Ơ̥̺͔̭͍̝͊̄̅̂͋R͔̠̼̫̐̾̏͋͗̋ͅ_̛̦̟͇̤̖̳̀̒̂͆Ȁ̴̧̺͈̟̹̹͂̽͌̂̓ͅC̵̛͙̗̙̹͍̩̬̅̈̿͛̇̊͜͟͞͝ͅ C̶̡̛̗̦̗͚̬͚̫͂͐͆̈́͗̕͟͡È̡͖̺͙̣̯͕̑͌͒͂̑̃̑̚S̵̡̞͓̹̠̮̣̓͆̐̏́̇̓͛͜͡Ş̵̢̛̖̥͉͖͎̝͖̥͋̄̾̃́͂̈͛_̢̖̺͕̰̘̦̮̱̏̒̄̎̄̅̀̑̈́͠ͅÓ̢̡͍̼͖̫̜̩͛͆͒͌̑̍͂͊ V̶̢̢̛͚̩̥̱͙͚̅̇̿͊̏͌͞E̵̼̘̯̱̼̯̘̋̎̆̽̊̑͂͐͛R͔̯̻̺̝̦͊̑̀̈̈́̕͘Ṙ̢̙̥͎̺͖̰̹͙͇̃̅̅̓̈́I͔̪̘̩̬̬͊̏̊͒̊̚͜ͅD̡̧̜̪̩̠͙̉͑̌̐͞͞Ė̵̡̳̟͎͎͉̠̠̉̆̀͛͐̚
RECOVERED A.H. DOCUMENT LIBRARY The Four Hounds of Sarnath Walking in the Wilderness Words of the Last Dragon A History of the Styrgin Empire Nightmare of the Abyss Testament of Zagmar Overheating: The Risk of Too Much Sun Rules of a Gunslinger Spiral Folklore Curses and Purification Doomsday Reincarnation Undeadening and Dark Matter Vampires: A Bloody History Wrack and Ruin: The Final Years of the Celulitte Church Magical Excavating Machine Magic Cards: An Introduction to Tarot The Troll Princess Fundaments of Remembrancy: A Primer The Great Collapse of Ragnarok Yggdrasill's Illusion How To Become A Wizard
Some texts are links, which take us the an excerpt from the relevant book. They will also have a 'more'* button that doesn't work, continuing the tradition of dead links, only these links only have a page number. One link(Spiral Folklore) is also to the Wikipedia page for Uzumaki. After a couple of days, a bunch of new books showed up in the list. The books that are not clickable are from the library in the game Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django. This was confirmed via Justin streaming the game on twitch.
Here is the text from the links:
THE FOUR HOUNDS OF SARNATH (p42) said, "Ye four shalt be my greatest, and the Empire shall quake before your might." Sarnath thus christened his knights, who would over time come to be known across nations. Gleeok the Multifarious, the most junior of the Hounds, was deployed to Ashwall on the outskirts of the Empire's encroachment to ensure that no enemies would breach the Church's territory. Over time, the ancient structure acquired the name Dreadfort, and stories of the monster within haunted the dreams of imperial soldiers. Ilthor the Sagely, wisest of the four, eschewed martial prowess in favor of magical knowledge. Though slight of build, his forces were amongst the strongest the Church could deploy. Through his enchantments, each man fought with the endurance and strength of three normal soldiers. Ragnasaurth the Unbreakable, second in command, was known not only for his prodigious size but also for his greatshield, against which scores of foes dashed themselves in vain. When he finally fell on the field of battle, none were strong enough to move his corpse, for it is said his bones were denser than any known metal. The leader of the Hounds was the (next page)
A History of the Styrgin Empire (p23) It was not for many years yet that those individuals who would rebel against the Church's corruption would be born, for in this period the Church remained benevolent. In 542, Pontiff Urzarath II ascended to the popehood, and began a program of wealth redistribution that was widely popular with the peasant and merchant classes. Based upon his philosophy of universal access to basic resources, heavy taxes were placed upon the nobility of all nations controlled by the Church, and though the aristocrats grumbled and when intoxicated were known to drunkenly rail against the church, it cannot be denied that at this point the lunacy of Zagmar and resulting rift between Church and Empire was unthinkable. Despite differences of opinion between the papacy and the imperial house, both maintained cordial relations. When Urzarath II died in 558, he left behind a legacy of stewardship that future Emperors took to heart, and ultimately led to the (next page)
The Testament of Zagmar (p68) This world is untempered steel, and we shall be the hammer that shapes it. Our Divine Master has shown us a new path forward, forged in flame and darkness. We shall release those suffering from their bondage, and show them the new path forward. The whispers of our Lord shall become a mighty roar, and incarnations shall walk the earth. It will be a joy and an honor to surrender to his touch, to give ourselves in totality. (next page)
Wrack and Ruin: The Final Years of the Celulitte Church (p347) last, the Empire's armies surrounded the grand cathedral of Amour Lardo. From his chambers at the cathedral's apex, Zagmar paced and glared down at the gathered armies before his gates, gnashing his teeth in insane fury. The cathedral of the gods had never been breached, and had already survived many hails of explosives, and he was secure that the heathen forces would be driven before his faith. Church officials, realizing that the war was lost, were furtively abandoning their posts, surrendering to the Emperor himself, who stood at the head of the host. Zagmar, however, had a final trick left: a (read more) (next page)
Fundaments of Remembrancy: A Primer (p5) course, as every schoolchild raised in the Empire knows, a position as a remembrancer is one of the most honored, most coveted, and most competitive positions one can hold - it requires extensive historical knowledge, mastery of several schools of magic and the ability to step through time itself if required to obtain critical information. It is no surprise, then, that many journeymen remembrancers fail to achieve employment in their chosen profession, and also that even professional remembrancers are often slain in the line of duty. As a result, (read more) (next page)
A clue has yet to be discerned from the text other than flavor and connecting to other events like Zagmar's twitter invasion.
Terminal client
A twitter account was noticed claiming to belong to the time travel club and represent the Resistance: https://twitter.com/RESIST_DECAY . The account shows a message contacting Coughlan Labs, an entirely separate ARG that was stumbled into and is already solved. It was not certain how official the twitter was until someone began a twitter password reset process which showed enough of the email the account belongs to confirm the email is linked to Samuel's gmail account. On August 15th, After a picture proving this was posted to the discord, the twitter account was invaded by Pontiff Zagmar.
The profile picture changed to Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Francis Bacon and the banner changed to a picture from Dark Souls 3 of a cathedral. Notably, he tweeted "This prisoner has offered to join our cause in exchange for freedom... he claims he has been imprisoned for years." along with a photo of Jim. The Resistance soon regained control and noted "Intruders are recieving assistance from prisoner JC101-B. Contain and eliminate if necessary."
Following the raid of Pontiff Zagmar on twitter, time-travel.club/accesslevelbeta.html changed to simply say "help." After it returned, Number Six's login had gained access to the terminal at http://time-travel.club/client.html . Initially, it returned only ACCESS DENIED. This was also confirmed via Justin's twitch stream, however this was just a technical difficulty.
In an ID3 tag on RPP 77: Art Has No Meaning, there is the phrase 'The password is behind your eye'. Later, a user involved with the ARG that has back the RPP Patreon received a letter:
The login to the admin terminal is number six/behindyoureyes. The directory is listed as:
Available Commands: dir, email, exit, help [target], list [target], read [email date],
Within the login, four emails have been found. Each email corresponds with the date it was received and it is assumed the year is 5142 given the formatting Eyyyymmdd:
$ list email E51420813, E51420815, E51420820, E51420827 $ read E51420813 Roth, We've lost contact with Brown down in portal experimentation. There's something going on down there. Do you know anything? -Croft $ read E51420815 Roth, The boys downstairs have really stuck their foot in it this time. A routine resource run went sideways and some crazy followed them back with a small army. That's the reason for the communications outage yesterday. We've contained the extradimensional intruders in a lower level for now but may require military backup. Will update you soon. -Hearn $ read E51420820 Roth, You're so lucky being located upstairs. It's been a real crapshow down here over the past five days. We managed to starve the crazies out and they retreated through the portal, but we can't seem to get the thing closed. They took the prisoner with them. The crazy one that appears to be their leader screamed some nonsense about returning soon with more forces, so we need to get this shut down before we have an army in our base. We can't fight a war on two fronts and the soldiers don't need this distraction from the true enemy. I think we may have bitten off more than we can chew with this stuff - again. This time we can't let it turn out as badly because we won't get a third chance. Any support the boys upstairs can provide would be greatly appreciated. -Hearn $ read E51420827 No. 6, Speaking in my capacity as military liason to science, I want to let you know that the latest anti-sparkle suits are a rousing success. I'll have an official report on your desk by Tuesday, but yesterday's field operation allowed us to directly take full exposure for half an hour with no adverse effects. Tell the boys in the lab great work, and look out for the report soon. -Lt. Samuel
The client also contains standard easter eggs (xyzzy, plugh & aptitude moo) but they all seem to be References rather than anything important. The client uses standard linux ctrl commands and also contains commaned N,S,E,W but the user is unable to travel in any direction regardless of previous text.
The same date (August 27) as the last email, the gustav email account received the following email:
Howdy partner, I just let No. 6 know that the suits worked out great, and we need like 20 more fabbed asap. I put a work order in so you should see that coming through on your terminal, but thumbs-up on the new metamaterial. Works great. Stay frosty, Samuel PS: Did you hear about the crazy portal accident down in Research? Those clowns almost compromised the entire base. Nuts.
The following day (August 28), a new email appeared in the terminal, apparently spoofing the Sombra ARG.
Translated it says:
how about a different type of fraction?
It is largely believed given the skull's message only differs from sombra's skull by 4 spaces in the output that this was a joke as the FF2 discord was actively discussing the gamedetectives at the the time the skull appeared.
This is an open line of investigation.
Indiecade 2015
In October 23rd 2015 edition of Train Hot Dog; Episode 23: 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 62:Buff Wizard ""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 Klimt, 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":
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 Event
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
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".
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:
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 couple made an appearance in the Kickstarter Simulator game released in April of 2014. No clues were found in this game.
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, claiming his roommate John had made it. 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 about game night.
The Ashby studio posted in 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 website 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.
Also of note is some IP hashing on the website:
Index: MD5(IP + 1) Hours: MD5(IP + 2) About: MD5(IP + b) Menu: MD5(IP + z) Beer: MD5(IP + a) Privacy: MD5(IP + y) Admin: MD5(IP + x)
So all the extra letters are: 12bzayx
. This appears to change some capitalization on the Beer 101 page but it's unsure why this is done.
On August 27, 2016, Justin drank a ginger beer from Ashby Brewery and Indie Games Studio on his twitch stream. He kept insisting they were easy to find, mentioned a phone number, and that the beer recipe was from 1901 (See twitch stream references) A user tweeted at the assumed to be defunct twitter account and the account responded then tweeted:
One of our most popular brews is our classic 1901 recipe for ginger beer! Why not stop in and try one?
As of now, no successful login has been made on the website and it is considered an open line of investigation.
Other Relevant Information
LordHuffnPuff on Twitch
LordHuffnPuff is the typical alias for Justin Bortnick, one of the Frog Fractions 2 developers. While his twitter account has provided a few clues, his twitch stream has featured several time travel shenanigans and other ARG relevant information, often at the beginning or end of the broadcast. Justin does NOT answer general ARG questions and should not be spammed with them. While he never archives his streams, here is a list of important dates on the stream:
5/16/16 - Justin Streamed "Spooky" games. Spelunky, Neverending Nightmares, Spooky's house of jumpscares (which didn't work) and finally Oxenfree. He also held up a business card from Insomniac Games held in a moo.com business card holder. Thanks to Riking for recording this stream. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZpfJxTxUM&feature=youtu.be7/05/16 - Justin Streamed Boktai 2, he played the game until the library section (which held books from Joshua's TTC login). He left the stream with his character looking at the titles: Nightmare of the Abyss AND Overheating: The Risk of Too Much Sun. He ate more of those licorice doggies. Also he held up a red card that kind of looked like the netflix logo.
7/20/16 - Justin streamed Hearthstone. He began looking through several books including Paradise Lost and Eggs, As Usual Breafast Etc. After the stream, an image of the beach was shown while music played. At one point, I've Got You Under My Skin played. The Dark Pages Podcast logo was up for a while while music from the Dark Souls games played. At the very end, Justin's camera came out to show him in a Groundskeeper Willie mask. He imitated Willie's voice and said "ack, how can I get this computer to work."
After this stream, he tweeted that he had bought all the cheap copies of Eggs, As Usual Breafast Etc. stating "We could not let these valuable artifacts fall into the wrong hands, lest the entire operation be compromised." A copy of the book can be read at this link
7/30/16 - Justin streamed Heroes of the Storm (HOTS), Rocket League, and Guild Wars 2. At one point, he held up a a magazine titled XVII featuring Jeanne D' Arc and an article in the corner titled "A sere ditched his lord for me".After the stream briefly ended, he returned in a top hat and coat speaking in an old-timey accent and holding up a newspaper from Oct 24, 1901. An article titled "Once and Then Nevermore" on display and Justin talked about Annie Edson Taylor going over Niagra Falls in a barrel. Following the end of the stream, he tweeted "Well that was strange" and responded "felt a bit... displaced for a few minutes"
8/02/16 - Justin streamed Heroes of the Storm. At the beginning, he did an old-timey slapstick silent movie routine.
8/14/16 - Justin streamed Heroes of the Storm. At the beginning of the stream his facecam had a sepia filter and old time music from the early 1900's was playing. The songs player were: Grand Ol Flag, Swanee River, Take Me Out To The Ballgame, Auld Lang Syne, On Moonlight Bay, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot. At the end of the stream he looked through all of the hero skins in-game, "reviewing" them. After he returned to the first skin he looked at, he just repeated himself, going through every single skin again. This time loop of sorts happened 4 times.
8/15/16 - Justin streams Heroes of the Storm again. Towards the end, he pretend he's going to review skins and then ends up reviewing other game elements like stimpacks, doing the math to see how many games you have to win for them to be worthwhile. He ends the stream answering a phone call.
His end of the phone call was as follows:
"hello, what's up? okay. uh, I'll call you back in like 5 minutes. no no no that's fine, I'll call you back in 5 minutes. okay. yep. yep. okay. now if I don't let them..that's bad. okay... uh huh... and how many are there? maybe I should, just tell me now. (whispers sorry, knock on door?). And how many did you lose? that's that's within acceptable tolerances. uh huh. uh huh. well it can't be real, it's gotta be some sort of trick right? uh huh. have you considered a firewall to prevent that? no, have you considered stronger passwords to prevent that? okay, I can't do anything given that, I can't get to you. you're too far away for be to be of any help. Okay, good luck, maybe next time you'll be smarter about that thing. okay, alright, good luck."
He hung up and reminded the stream "Never make your passwords easy to guess, you might get hacked, or password guessed or whatever."
After the stream, he came back online only showing a blank screen. Then the Timetravel.club admin screen was shown. Justin entered "aptitude moo" and then ":(" when ACCESS DENIED appear.
8-27-2016 - Justin streams HotS and Hearthstone. At one point, he drank a ginger beer from his "friends at the Ashby Brewery and Indie Game Studio", saying the recipe is from 1901. The Ashby twitter account tweeted the following day about their ginger beer. When asked where to get it, Justin looked up the website and said he was sure someone could figure it out if they spend more than ten seconds looking at it.
THD and RPP References not noted above
This is a list of things found in the podcasts but were either redundant or simply references.
For more information on every THD, see the Train Hot Dog page
Episode name | Found information |
---|---|
THD - All | The first three letters of the first three titles spell out DNA, it may be coincidence |
THD 20 - 61 | Two things with the fonts, they begin to change font types here, then in THD 34 onward the title cards switch orders of the podcast title and episode number and train hot dog, then 45 onward the titles contain lines where one letter in the font is in a different font The full sequence is; PAHTCGUWNGNBGL. In 61 they returned to normal |
THD - Selected | Several THDs have a line or two of static on their title card, it was generally assumed that meant there was a clue in them but nothing is confirmed |
THD 10: Steam Hot Dog | Sprectrogram shows the borg king card, wasn't found until after RPP posted the card on twitter |
THD 12: Stay on Your Toast | Audio slowed down says "I have a message for/from Jim Crawford" |
THD 14:Discharge | Quotation marks in spectrogram around the ridermail about dwayne (quote included above, just not this detail) |
THD 16: A Trip Through The Graphics Pipeline | also has morse code for the MIRE EXUBERANT MUSHINESS hint, redundancy |
THD 17: Kitten Gains | Had an odd reflection in the thumbnail, is not on the youtube playlist, 17 reference for Indiecade |
THD 18: Nightcore Night Court | Around 23 minutes into the podcast you can hear the train conductor voice say, "Attention Passengers: Don't believe his lies. Find the truth about the decay. Thank you." |
THD 21: Shark Lips | Part of a speech from MYST recut: "Thank you for bringing the red page." "Thank you for breaking the scripts. You must. YOU MUST! I need/mean (help? not sure here). (something else I can't make out). STOP DECAY. DON'T WASTE TIME." |
THD 22:Ashen Stools | Referenced to on a plane February 3, 19- (The day the music died, 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.1966 – The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon. |
THD 29: Bumper Sandwich Booger Lips | SSTV signal, decodes to operation gobbledop picture by using a program called MMSSTV. You just play the audio while the program is running and it automatically recognizes the format and decodes the image. Think it's just a reference to the Operations pages |
THD 30: Mobius Face Meeting Itself | Arcade noise in the background are this http://arcadecontrols.com/files/Audio/arcade86.mp3 |
THD 31: Krampusloaf | id3v2 tag info for thd31.mp3:
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]: "We're in space, and space is the place," Began the Champ, pallid utterly; "The madness is running wild, and so shall you." |
THD 32: Blini | Jim just says Blini for 2 minutes, he also tweeted "Train Hot Dog, with its most recent episode, has achieved 32-bit fidelity. http://jewelofthehotdognet.work/" oddly, THD 33 was not uploaded to trainhotdog.cool and then 34 was also named 32 on that site, after a while it was changed back |
THD 35: No Han Pics | Suspiciously, Jim read from a page on the wiki that was created only days before the release of the podcast, there was only on reference found to any Bigger Luke theory before the ARG started |
THD 64: The One Where Jim Doesn't Talk | Justin is talking, he mentions Abraham Lincoln becoming the first cyborg in 1901. Furthers the 1901 obsession |
THD 65: The Other One Where Jim Doesn't Talk | This episode was done by an ARGer, there's added backwards audio that says "let's keep this time loop" and "I wonder if I can escape this time loop" as well as Morse code that says "TERKIM FETHROG IS WITH YOU. STAY SAFE. FROG GOT YOUR BACK." Terkim Fethrog is the username of the person who made the episode. |
Red Pages Extrasode 3 | background is mock picture of a game with "Gold: 285", nickname of the painting in the ID3 is "Woman in Gold", Klimt's woman in gold as seen above, Link to the corrupted image to download if needed here |
RPP tweet | "Current Statuses - Gord: mired, Justin: exuberant, Paul: mushy" MIRED EXUBERANT MUSHINESS reference |
RPP 62: Buff Wizard | From the ID3 tags:
Comment: [Description: ] [Lang: ] Ashby: 17 Varieties Comment: [Description: ] [Lang: XXX] Ashby: 17 Varieties UserTextFrame: [Description: BPM (beats per minute)] 17 This is an Ashby reference and also 17, used for Indiecade again |
Other | Jim also tweeted about a new HD called korn hotdog, http://kornstories.com/ |
Common Themes
The ARG has encountered several running themes throughout the two years of its existence.
Refer to the themes page for detailed information.
Here is a list of the themes:
Time Travel Sparkles Decay Butts Chess
Characters
There are many characters in the ARG. Refer to the characters page for detailed information on each character.
Games Confirmed to not be Frog Fractions 2
Please see the list of games confirmed not to be Frog Fractions 2.
References
Resources
A list of resources to aid any search:
Unfiction thread:Frog Fractions 2 Kickstarter ARG
A searchable .txt of the forum through page 55: http://norgg.org/files/ff_forum.txt
Change log for the Operatives list on time-travel.club: http://new.norgg.org/files/timeagents.txt
Chat logs of the discord channels through 8/21: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3o3qWI_oCVPVy1mM0tRX2FvU1U?usp=sharing
Experimental Mind Map - https://www.mindmeister.com/657363408?t=T2QuVC6xXt
Media Appearances
Kickstarter buzz
3-10-2014 Polygon - Frog Fractions developer launches $60K Kickstarter for sequel
3-16-2014 arstechnica - Frog Fractions 2 wants to surprise players that already expect the unexpected
3-17-2014 Destructoid - Is there a Frog Fractions 2 ARG already underway?
3-27-2014 [http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/27/5552666/frog-fractions-2-stretch-goal-aims-to-buy-oculus-rift-back-from Polygon - Frog Fractions 2 stretch goal aims to buy Oculus back from Facebook]
4-02-2014 Wired - You’ll Want to Play This Game — If You Can Ever Find It
4-03-2014 Eurogamer - Frog Fractions 2 dev releases Kickstarter Simulator 2015
ARG Specific Articles
12-15-2015 How to Shave Obama: Behind the baffling, nearly two-year-long quest to find Frog Fractions 2
Frog Fractions 2 general
9-24-2015 Destructoid - Where in the world is Frog Fractions 2?
5-17-2016 Justin said this applied: Point&Clickbait - Wow! This Complex ARG Reveals The Crushing Emptiness At The Heart Of Everything
8-14-2016 Destructoid - Is this Frog Fractions 2? Find The Gold Bars