Accounting+ ARG
| Accounting+ ARG | |
|---|---|
| The Accounting+ ARG centers around a tadpole conspiracy. | |
| Type | [[List_of_Investigations#Official|Official]] |
| Creator | Crows Crows Crows |
| Discovered | 2017-12-07 |
Main Page > List of Investigations > Accounting+ ARG
The Accounting+ ARG is an alternate reality game centered around Accounting+, a game by the studio Crows Crows Crows. The ARG is centered around a conspiracy involving the developers of Accounting+, a fictional drink called Shpleebly, and tadpoles. The mythical "secret zoo level" has been a pervasive theme throughout the ARG.
Accounting+
On December 7, 2017, at the Game Awards, the first trailer for Accounting+ was unveiled. Shortly afterwards, William Pugh and Justin Roiland took the stage, and immediately hinted at the existence of a "secret zoo level". Nothing more was teased until the game's launch on December 19.
Launch Email
On December 19, 2017, Accounting+ was launched for Playstation VR. Additionally, people subscribed to the Crows Crows Crows newsletter received an email containing the following hidden message:
J R X W 6 2 Z A M Z 2 X E 5 D I M V Z C A Z D P O 5 X C 4 I C U N B S S A W T P N 4 Q E Y Z L W M V W C A 2 L T E B U W 4 4 3 J M R S S A Y L M N Q Q G 6 Z R A O V Z S 4 I B T G M Z T S M J S G Q Y Q
Decoding this message from base 32 yields the following:
Look further down. The Zoo Level is inside all of us. 33391241
At this time, the numbers 33391241 are an unsolved clue.
Rapsgiving Email
On December 28, 2017, people subscribed to the Crows Crows Crows newsletter received an email containing a link to a music video called WhosThatInTheTree. The song heavily features samples from Accounting+, and the music video contains footage from the game as well.
Additionally, the email contained another secret code:
82 69 86 70 85 69 86 83 85 48 86 66 85 107 78 73 81 48 120 80 86 48 53 66 85 49 78 81 81 86 78 84 86 48 57 83 82 65
Converting these numbers from alt-codes yields the following result:
REVFUEVSU0VBUkNIQ0xPV05BU1NQQVNTV09SRA
And a final conversion from base 64 yields the following message:
DEEPERSEARCHCLOWNASSPASSWORD
Apology Email
On February 6, 2018, people subscribed to the Crows Crows Crows newsletter received an "apology email", where the developers confessed their involvement in a tadpole conspiracy:
Three years ago, we were approached by [REDACTED NAME] from Shpleebly Drink Corporation. They offered us funding for multiple games, with the condition that we include on-brand subliminal Shpleebly advertising in them. They also insisted that we legitimise the deal with the midnight harvesting of thousands of tadpoles from our local pond. We’d like to be able to earnestly promise you that we did not know what the tadpoles would be used for. But the truth is, some of us knew and were complicit. Others were totally innocent. We expect our ongoing internal accountability process to continue to account for this freaky breakdown in communication. We’re totes getting to the bottom of it. The truth is, our Shpeebly Drink representative repeatedly communicated to us that the beverage was made from tadpole juice. We just didn’t want to hear it. It didn’t profit us to hear it. We drank. We smoked cigarettes. We tainted our games with corporate promotion. We damaged our creative integrity. We supported the destruction of countless ecosystems. We tried to have a frog killed. And we did this all in the service of profits we mercilessly culled from Shpleebly Drink Corporation.
By way of an apology, Crows Crows Crows also announced the Water Park Update in this email.
No hidden messages have been found in this email as of yet, but links to the official Shpleebly website are peppered throughout.
