Game Theory ARG
| Game Theory ARG | |
|---|---|
| But hey, that's just an ARG. A Game Theory ARG! | |
| Type | Official |
| Creator | Game Theory |
| Discovered | 08-10-2018 |
Main Page > List of Investigations > Game Theory ARG
The Game Theory Merch Mystery and The 7 Gates were ARGs created by the Game Theory Team. The Merch Mystery was created to promote new Game Theory merchandise, and the 7 Gates were a series of 10 different puzzle hunts made to give back to fans of the channel.
Contents
The 1st Merch Mystery
On 08/10/2018, MatPat announced on his twitter account that New Merch had been released, and that a puzzle involving the merch was also created. Although the clues necessary to complete the puzzle were hidden in merch, no purchase of said merch was necessary to complete the puzzle.
Some people who purchased the merchandise noticed 1 of 6 spelling errors on their carrier bag that the item was stored in. The 6 spelling errors were all in place of the letter "o" in the word "theory".
The 6 spelling errors could then be rearranged to spell "t#30r%" (pronounced "theory"). This would be used later on in the ARG.
The next clue would be hidden in the Game Theory Journal. All of the eyes of the characters in the notebook had letters located within them. When spelled sequentially, they would spell a website name: hasmatpatgonemad.com
This website showed a A 1:00 minute video of MatPat's face with big eyes surrounded by a weird background a rays coming from his head.
Keen eyed investigators saw that Matpat's blinking was actually Morse code, seen below:
- ... . / - .... . --- .-. .. ... - / --. .- -. .-- .- -.-- / -.. --- - / -.-. --- --
This decoded to THE THEORIST GATEWAY DOT COM, and led players to a new website.
Players were greeted with one final 6 character password to put in. Players found the password to be t#30r%, from the merchandise bags. The first 100 players to solve the puzzle received a prize for completing it so quickly.
The Holiday Merch ARG
What is MatPat Hiding?
On September 16, 2018, The Game Theorists YouTube channel released a video titled What is MatPat HIDING?. In it, MatPat did a post-mortem on the Merch Mystery and what his plans for the future are. He also hid 3 clues within the video. 2 were red herrings and 1 was real.
At the 0:08 mark an encrypted message was shown:
Uifsf bsf op Fbtufs Fhht jo ifsf. Hp bxbz.
When decrypted with a ROT25 cipher, players discovered the following message:
There are no Easter Eggs in here. Go away.
At the 12:38 mark a string of numbers with dashes is shown:
23 5 - 23 15 21 12 4 - 14 15 20 - 13 1 11 5 - 9 20 - 20 8 1 20 - 5 1 19 25
When decoded with a letters-numbers cipher, the message was:
we would not make it that easy
Finally, a suspicious looking tag may appear within the video description, titled #UCVNTZJXAuvE3C7SfOsPNgEA. This was found to be a YouTube channel ID, which led players to a YouTube channel titled tenretni olleh.
The channel's banner consisted of a black image with the message "patience is the key" repeated across it.
The channel icon consisted of a red, inverse Game Theory logo, with the text pow zNb Xdd MnH instead of yroeht emag. This may be interpreted as it is, or can be turned upside down to give HuW ppX qNz mob.
Some players also tried going on thetheoristgateway.com again after discovering these clues, and were greeted with this message:
We ju5t wanted to say thank you 2 everyone w4o participated in our firs7 ever Merch Mystery Treasure Hunt. lt was somet4ing fun we wanted 2 test out, and sure, we thought some of you would enjoy it, but W3 had no idea how absolutely deep down the rabbit hole you were willing 2 venture. l mean, HEX conversions? Really?? I am thrilled you all went th3re, and let me tell you that you've made me the proudest Theorist on the planet. This first experience really wa5 just our “toe in the water." Consider it our open b3ta. We’ve read your recommendations for future ARGs and we’re ready to go all out! So my dear friends and fellow T4eorists, get ready, because it’s about to get real.
Concatenating the numbers gives "524742323534". This can be converted from hex into text, giving the following result:
RGB254
This hinted at altering the image so that each of the RGB values of colour are changed to 254, 1 less than 255. This was also hinted at in the filename, ff is 255 in hex, therefore fe is 254 in hex.
When the image was altered according to these instructions, a timestamp was discovered. The timestamp is dated 29/9/2018 at 00:00:01 PST (08:00:01 UTC).
If you also look at the source code for the site, you will find the hidden message "Return on the date which is hidden."
The 7 Gates ARG
The 7 Gates was an ARG run by the Game Theorists team consisting of seven different gates for players to solve, with each gate being more difficult than the last. Each gate required players to enter in a multitude of different keys which could be found by solving puzzles. Players were scored on how quickly they were able to solve each respective gate after it went live. Players were then ranked on a leaderboard based on their respective scores.
Creators of the ARG recommended that players join teams to work together and solve the puzzles. Each gate had three different hints that would automatically reveal themselves after a certain period of time had elapsed.
A video explanation of the ARG can be found below:
Prelude: You Are Prepared
At 8:00 UTC, https://www.thetheoristgateway.com was updated, changing from the letter to a broken countdown.
The file's name (patienceisthekey6974736a75737461636c6f636b6775797372656c6178.gif) contained hex that translated to itsjustaclockguysrelax .
The only other clue on this page was located on the css of the page. Mysterious class names called "patience" and "enter the URL" suggested there were other clues to be found.
At the same time, A video was released on the tenretni olleh channel. The video was a distorted 1-minute version of the intro to game theory videos. Many clues were hidden within it:
- At 0:06 and 0:07, a string of hex characters can be seen for one frame. When translated, they read:
july 15 1983
the first 1
- At 0:17, the title screen at the end of the intro changes the usual Koopa to Link from Zelda. As of now, it holds no clue but Matpat may change it again in other videos revealing clues.
- Between 0:35 and 0:57, a sentence made up of unique, never seen before symbols are shown. When converting each symbol to a separate letter of the alphabet, and then using a cryptogram solver, it reads:
FIND THE SEARCH - READ THE NOTES - FEAR RABBITS THAT VENTURE INTO HOLES - THE GATES SHALL SUMMON YOU - PATIENCE - AND KNOW THIS - YOU ARE PREPARED
- When the audio is but into a spectrogram, more symbols are discovered. These are believed to be a complete alphabet of all characters, including letters, numbers and operation signs.
- Finally, At 0:13, a sequence of binary is shown for one frame. When translated, it reads:
www.thetheoristgateway.com/notthefirst18fc17.html
[www.thetheoristgateway.com/notthefirst18fc17.html That website] shows an incomplete website link with a spinning red game theory logo replacing a directory.
Using the HuW ppX qNz mob and pow zNb Xdd MnH from the channel profile picture of tenretni olleh, 2 new URLs are discovered:
https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/3932396663/HuWppXqNzmod.html
https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/3932396663/powzNbXddMnH.html
The first URL shows a still image of an equation, a word search and some symbols from before. The symbols translate to that's not a tvpo , and the filename of the image (HuWppXqNzmod_57656c6c20746861742077617320656173792e20446f6e277420676574207573656420746f2069742e.jpg) contains hex which translates to Well that was easy. Don't get used to it. .
The second url shows a gif of a changing crossword, with a longer equation and more symbols. The symbols translate to must be a typo , the filename of the image (powzNbXddMnH_536c6f70707920776f726b2c20796f756e67205468656f726973742e203c696e7365727420534d48206d656d653e.jpg) contained hex which translated to Sloppy work, young Theorist. <insert SMH meme> , and the numbers in the equation can also be translated as hex, which read deadend .
At the bottom right corner of the first image, using imaging software revealed a clue: the first 17
Through a jump in logic, it was suggested this could be referring to the first 17 games made by Nintendo. This was confirmed when the games could be found within the word search in the first URL.
These game titles also all had one symbol within them that could be translated. These symbols also had a specific color. When ordering the titles by release date and grouping by the color of the symbols, a message could be deciphered from it: lucktoheaven .
This was the final clue, and inputting it into a bit.ly link (bit.ly/lucktoheaven) lead to the final URL: https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/leavelucktoheaven.
This image is believed to be the end of the "warm-up". In similar fashion to the notebook from the first ARG, the image contained a wealth of information about the ARG and the plans moving forward. The image also reveals a date for the arg to start. The time on the iPhone next to the notebook reads 12:07 11/24/18. Assuming the date is in PDT, The confirmed start of the arg (and release of new merch) was 12:07:01 PDT (19:07:01 UTC) 11/24/18 November 24th was also the release of the Until Dawn theory, but no link between the future ARGs and the video has been found as of yet.
By converting the numbers from the barcode of the pen in this picture from hexadecimal to text, the word yoshi is outputted.
Upon checking the file titled "main.css" on this image, MatPat leaves a message: Wow you guys are digging deep. I guess we could put something in here, couldn't we?
Later, a theory was uploaded to the Game Theorist channel which included a section in the intro with the Tenretni Olleh logo and a long string of repeated phrases: "THAT'S JUST A THEORY" and "THAT'S NOT JUST A THEORY." Converting the former phrase to 1's and the latter to 0's revealed an incoherent string of binary. Altering the string to make it decipherable revealed the phrase the clue is purple, however, many players found the method used to find this result to be questionable at best.
Gate 1
Gate 1 opened on 11/24/18 at 20:07:00 UTC, and contained 5 keys. This gate was themed around retro Nintendo games, such as Super Mario Bros and the Legend of Zelda. The GIF of the gate when opened blinked up up down down, a hint for the final key of the gate.
Key 1
The first puzzle consisted of a blurry gif with the clue released: july 15, 1983. The date provided was found out to be the release date of the Famicon, with the object in the gif provided matching as a distorted version of that same Famicon. Thus the first key was found to be Famicon
Key 1: FAMICON
Key 2
The second puzzle consisted of an Image of Link with the text "The one replaced" below him. Alongside that image was a link to the "The END of Princess Peach" video on the Game Theory channel. Hidden in the intro of the video at 00:53s is the same photo of Link. Looking at other videos in the channel, players were able to find out that Link isn't usually there. Instead a Koopa Troopa is usually seen in that spot of the video. Using the clue The one replaced, the second key was found to be KOOPA TROOPA
Key 2: KOOPA TROPPA!
Key 3A
All of the remaining puzzles for this gate use this provided YouTube video. By running the audio of the YouTube video through a spectrogram, several clues were found. These included a barcode that says YOSHI, the message THE YEAR IN COINS, and the link https://bit.ly/lucktoheaven. By following the link and counting the value of the coins in the image on the page it gave you 93 cents, which correlated to the year 1993. After searching Yoshi and 1993, players were able to find a game called Yoshi's Safari which came out in 1993. Thus, using the format provided the third was found to be YOSHIS SAFARI
Key 3A: YOSHIS SAFARI
Key 3B
Hidden in the spectrogram of the video was also a picture of the Twitter logo with the clue KEY 3B. This led to a cryptic tweet posted by MatPat (the creator of the ARG), which told players to play the video in reverse at quadruple speed. By playing the section of the audio with this spectrogram in reverse and at quadruple speed, it played out the Overworld theme of the original Legend of Zelda. Given the key was 9 letters long, players were able to deduce that the key was OVERWORLD.
Key 3B: OVERWORLD
Key 3C
In the same video alien glyphs, using the same alphabet as show earlier, were found surrounding the countdown that when translated said Seek two brothers and the bot / Unhex the purple perpetrator. By going to another part of the video which contained two brothers and a robot, a link was found on the television that contained a broken link www.imgur.com/4469384a784d67 with the letters and numbers at the end of the link in purple. By using the second part of the clue Unhex the purple perpetrator, and converting the hexadecimal value to ASCII produced Di8JxMg, and our correct link www.imgur.com/Di8JxMg. By changing the brightness, contrast, and hues of the imgur image, produced three separate clues: The cipher is hidden, Change the hue to see the clue, and finally a link in hexadecimal.
The gif provided makes reference to the Konami code UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START. By substituting these values with the corresponding letters flashing on the screen in the gif, the final key was found to be OOHHYAYAMP!.
Key 3C: OOHHYAYAMP!
The keys for Gate 1 were:
Key 1: Famicon Key 2: Koopa Troopa Key 3A: Yoshis Safari Key 3B: Overworld Key 3C: OOHHYAYAMP!
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious image clue was given to players. The image is the box art for the Japanese version of the game ActRaiser. At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 61°27'18.5" N 143°46'03.5" W, which led to 27 McCarthy Rd, Chitina, AK 99566. At the time that Gate 1 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Beta Gate 1
During the launch of Gate 2, the ARG site was not able to handle the traffic load of all of the players participating and crashed. Gate 2 was subsequently postponed while they fixed the issued. In the meantime, they introduced three Beta Gates to help test their site to make sure it wouldn't break again.
The first of the Beta Gates already hid a clue, even before it opened. In the time leading up to the gate's opening, the gate flashed a message in Morse code, which translated to "Break Me". Prizes were given to the first 77 to finish in the form of free Game Theory merchandise, and the first 10 to finish also received a $50 Creator Ink Gift Card.
On December 20th, the first Beta Gate opened. Unlike the main gates, it only consisted of 3 keys, but they were still as hard as usual. The site stayed up this time, unlike with gate 2, but the leaderboard still had problems. The gate was based around the theme of ARGs.
Overall, however, the first beta gate was a huge success, just as Creator Ink tweeted about after the event. See Tweet
Key 1
The first clue contained a hidden series of alien pangram glyphs when the brightness of the image was increased. By translating the glyphs, the first key was found to be tenretniolleh
Key 1: tenretniolleh
Key 2
The second puzzle gave players two clues: Complete this sentence: BLACK IS ZERO... and a link to the YouTube video "◉youareprepared◉", by tenretni olleh. Hidden around 0:14 in the video there is a frame that says BLACK IS ZERO RED IS ONE OBVY. By completing the sentence provided, the second key was found to be RED IS ONE OBVY
Key 2: RED IS ONE OBVY
Key 3
The third puzzle lead to a video called "break me" by tenretni olleh. In the spectrogram of the video, a link can be seen: https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/supersecret/h3r3isyourpassw0rd/tenretniolleh.html
The page from the spectrogram shows a custom 404 error image. By downloading the 404 image and increasing the brightness it gives us alien glyphs that translate to the file name is the password. The third key was thus found to be the file name of the 404 image, V29udCBjcmFzaCBUSElTIHRpbWUh. The file name of the image name was base64 that when decoded said Wont crash THIS time!".
Key 3: V29udCBjcmFzaCBUSEITIHRpbWUh
The keys for Beta Gate 1 were:
Key 1: tenretniolleh Key 2: RED IS ONE OBVY Key 3: V29udCBjcmFzaCBUSEITIHRpbWUh
Beta Gate 2
The Second Beta Gate opened on December 28, 2018 at 20:00 PST. The gate was themed around the Game Theory channel.
Key 1
The first clue was an image telling players to watch Game Theory: Gamers will NEVER solve This Mystery! (Accounting Plus Zoo Level). This video turned out to be a red herring, with the actual clue hidden inside of the message. Increasing the brightness of the image revealed the message Ok that was mean. You didn't really have to watch the video but while you're at it, give it a like and a subscribe. Oh by the way if you want to advance to key 2, the password is NO CRASH FTW..
Key 1: NOCRASHFTW
Key 2
The second puzzle led to an image giving instructions on how to convert a series of blinking lights into letters.
Going back to the "◉youareprepared◉" from Gate 1, players were able to translated the blinking lights from the logo into MARIORIOMAOOOO.
Key 2: MARIORIOMAOOOO
Key 3
The third puzzle linked to a video called "77696C6C627265616B796F7572626F6E6573" by tenretni olleh. When translated from hexadecimal to ASCII it decoded to willbreakyourbones.
Near the end of the video a series of flashing lights under the phrase "leave. no. stone. unturned" spelled out unturnnostone. Additionally, by using a spectrogram on the audio at the end of the video it shows a series of lines followed by ".com". By combining these two clues, it led to the website www.unturnnostone.com.
On www.unturnnostone.com, there was an image with the unfinished link <www.unturnnostone.come????????????.gif. By clicking on the coloured question marks players were redirected to https://www.unturnnostone.com/themissingtones.html
On the page were seven sets of stones with alien pangrams on them. Each set of stones contained a sequence of characters with characters missing at the end corresponding to the sets of coloured question marks at the end of the unfinished link.
Sequence 1
The first set of stones translated to A C E G I K ... ?. The pattern for this sequence is that each stone is two letters after the previous stone in the alphabet. Since the last letter in the sequence is K, the answer for the first sequence is M.
Red Question Mark: M
Sequence 2
The second set of stones translated to Z W T Q N K ... ?. The pattern for this sequence is that each stone is three letters further back in the alphabet than the stone before it. Since the last letter in the sequence is K, the answer for the second sequence is H.
Green Question Mark: H
Sequence 3
The third set of stones translated to A B D G K P ... ?. The pattern for this sequence is that the difference between the positions of each letter increases by one for each stone. The second stone is one letter after the first stone, the third stone is two letters after the second stone, the third stone is three letters after the second stone, etc. Following this pattern, the answer for the third sequence is V.
Blue Question Mark: V
Sequence 4
The fourth set of stones translated to AB EF IJ MN QR UV ... ??. For this sequence each stone translated to two letters, and thus the answer gave us two letters as well. The pattern for this sequence is that each stone gives two consecutive letters, with each new stone skipping two letters in the sequence. Since the last two letters are UV we skip W and X, and thus the answer for the fourth sequence is YZ.
Orange Question Marks: YZ
Sequence 5
The fifth set of stones translated to ZA YB XC WD VE UF ... ??. The pattern for this sequence is that the first letter of each stone is one letter behind the first letter in the alphabet in the previous stone, and the second letter is one letter ahead of the second letter in the previous stone. Since the last two letters in the sequence are UF, the answer for the fifth sequence is TG.
Yellow Question Marks: TG
Sequence 6
The first set of stones translated to 77 143 198 242 274 297 ... ???. The sequence for this pattern is that each stone is the addition of multiples from 77 going down for each new stone. For example, the first stone is 77 which is the seventh multiple of 11. For the next stone we can get it's value by adding the multiple of 11 below the previous, in this case 77 + 66, which is 143 the value of the second stone. Following this pattern we can add 11 to the value of the last stone, 297, to get the answer for the sixth sequence 308.
Purple Question Marks: 308
Sequence 7
The first set of stones translated to 34 41 46 56 67 80 ... ??. The sequence for this pattern was that you needed to add the individual digits of the previous stone together, and then add that to the previous stone's original value to get the next number in the sequence. Since the last number in the sequence is 80 we can add the individual digits together to get 8, which when added to 80 produces the answer for the seventh sequence 88
Black Question Marks: 88
Putting it all together
By opening the "blank image at the bottom of the page and increasing the brightness of the image you are actually given a simplified version of the instructions:
thefirststone: Add two starting from A thesecondstone: Subtract 3 starting from Z thethirdstone: A +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 thefourthstone: Skip two letters starting from AB thefifthstone: Start with ZA. Subtract a letter and add a letter respectively in pairs. thesixthstone: 77+66+55+44+33+22+11 the seventh stone. Stuck eh? Here's a hint: Addition is all you need.
By combining the answers from above and inserting them into the unfinished link according to their respective colours led to unturnnostone.com/mhvyztg30888.gif. The gif consists of even more stones with the alien glyphs on them. The falling glyphs at the top of the screen when translated from alien glyphs to hex, and then from hex to text translated to yourpasswordis
The flashing stones on the bottom translate to unbreakable. The flashes on the stones could also be decoded using Morse code into inhex. By converting unbreakable into hexadecimal it produced the final key 756e627265616b61626c65.
Key 3: 756e627265616b61626c65
The keys for Beta Gate 2 were:
Key 1: NOCRASHFTW Key 2: MARIORIOMAOOOO Key 3: 756e627265616b61626c65
Beta Gate 3
The Third Beta Gate opened on January 9, 2018 at 20:00 PST. According to CreatorInk this beta gate was made to prepare players for puzzles that they may encounter in future gates.
Key 1
The clue given for this puzzle site was an image requiring players to find the title of a painting from a frame in a YouTube video. By adjusting the image settings the title of the video "GameTheory: Gaming is BROKEN! …What Comes Next?" could be found over MatPat's head. Alternatively, the video could be found using the date shown on the painting which corresponded to the release date of the video. In the video, the title of the painting was Pretentious Internet Ramblings.
Key 1: Pretentious Internet Ramblings
Key 2
For this puzzle players were tasked with collecting and assembling nine different puzzle pieces to get the key. The first clue was an image containing more alien glyphs, and the message Enter the date in this format: MMM DD YYYY, which told us the format of the key. Decoding the alien glyphs gave the message enter the date price found.
Piece 1
At the bottom of the image there were letters in a lighter colour that spelled out the link bit.ly/bg3thefirstpiece which redirected to a dropbox which contained the first puzzle piece and some further instructions.
The instructions read:
1. Download "The_First_Piece.PSD" to your hard drive. 2. Go to www.photopea.com 3. Open the file. Tip: "The_First_Piece.PSD" is a multi-layered image file that must be Downloaded. Saving the preview image won't work.
The first puzzle piece was this image which would be 1 of 9 puzzle pieces that players were to find.
Piece 2
For the second puzzle piece players had to turn up the opacity of the ‘UNHIDE ME’ layer to 100% which revealed a link to the second puzzle piece.
Piece 3
On top of the second piece was bit.ly/bg3rdstreet, a link to the third puzzle piece.
Piece 4, 5, & 6
The third puzzle piece contained hexadecimal which decoded to openmeinatexteditor.
Opening the image in a text editor and scrolling to the bottom, revealed the following message:
You are one third the way. This will get you two thirds the way: https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/supersecret/456/
Going to the link in the text file gave players the fourth, fifth, and sixth puzzle pieces.
Piece 7
The fourth, fifth, and sixth puzzle pieces contained golden alien glyphs on them which translated to:
4th piece: www.unturnnostone.com/0011 5th piece: 0111011101000110 6th piece: 1000.html
Combining all three translations, produced the link www.unturnnostone.com/001101110111010001101000.html which gave players the seventh puzzle piece. The binary code at the end of the link translates to theseventh.
Piece 8
The seventh puzzle included to three sets of binary encoded as black and orange dots. Alien glyphs translating to 1,2, and 3, were also included next to the binary sequences to explain the required order. The binary consisted of:
1: 0110100001110100011101000111000001110011001110100010111100101111 2: 01101001011011010110011101110101011100100010111001100011011011110110110100101111 3: 00110101001110010110101000110100011101010011010101100001
When converted from binary to ASCII it produced the link imgur.com/59j4u5a with the eighth puzzle piece.
Piece 9
The eight puzzle piece had a QR code, which when scanned took players to https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/supersecret/thefinalpiece/index.html. The alien glyphs on the outside of text translated to wwwdotthetheoristgatewaydotcomslashsupersecretslashthefinalpieceslash.
At the bottom of the image it tells players to open the image in a text editor which revealed the following message:
Hello again, Theorist. Instructions: Extract the first 11 capital letters of the text. Extract the first 11 numbers of the text. Add them to the end of the hidden URL, letters first followed by the numbers, then add .PNG. You shall have your final piece.
By following the instructions provided it produced www.thetheoristgateway.com/supersecret/thefinalpiece/ECADSISSRIA33063373121.PNG which linked to the final puzzle piece.
The Finished Jigsaw
After completing the whole puzzle it showed a blurred image of the characters Ratchet and Clank, Spider-Man, and Spyro, a completed map, and the co-ordinates 34°11'36.8 N, 118°20'42.0 W. The co-ordinates provided led to the location of the offices of Insomniac Games in California, USA. The game characters provided were also all characters in games made by Insomniac Games. Using the clue from the beginning of the puzzle that told players to Enter the date in this format: MMM DD YYYY), players were able to deduce that the final key was Feb 28 1994, the founding date of Insomniac Games.
Key 2: Feb 28 1994
The keys for Beta Gate 3 were:
Key 1: Pretentious Internet Ramblings Key 2: Feb 28 1994
Gate 2
This gate was based around horror indie games such as Bendy and the Ink Machine and Doki Doki Literature Club.
Key 1
The first puzzle started with a black-and-white cartoon of Bendy with the message Complete this sentence: Bendy is being threatened by.... By going through all of the Game Theory videos on the video game Bendy and the Ink Machine, players were able to find Game Theory: How Bendy Will END! (Bendy and The Ink Machine) which matched the picture and the sentence. Finishing the rest of the provided sentence, the key was found to be a symbol of death.
Key 1: a symbol of death
Key 2
Similarly to the last puzzle players once again had to finish the sentence to get the next key. In this case players were given an image of Sans from Undertale alongside the message Complete this sentence: Not killing him, but turning at least part of him into.... Much like before players were able to find Game Theory: UNDERTALE - Sans's SECRET Identity! which matched the image and sentence. Finishing off the rest of the provided sentence, the key was found to be a pile of bones.
Key 2: a pile of bones
Key 3
Once again this puzzle requires players to find the matching Game Theory video. In this case the image was of a series of base64 characters with the message Complete this sentence: Using base64, the text reveals a creepy hidden poem titled.... These matched the video Game Theory: Doki Doki Decoded! (Doki Doki Literature Club), with the third key being Open Your Third Eye.
Key 4
The final key for Gate 4 had a different type of puzzle. The fourth puzzle gave players a link to a video called one. At the end of the video players were told that the goal was to find zero. By viewing the audio of the video through a spectrogram players were able to find the word "one." alongside the message "the emerald will guide you". During the video a green version of the Chaos Theory logo would briefly appear on the video. Players soon found out that every time that this happened a glyph would also be shown on screen. There were 27 glyphs in total that combined to spell out CHIBIXXIDOTDEVIANTARTDOTCOM which was the link chibixxi.deviantart.com.
The image also contained three symbols for "death", "bone", and "eyeofRa". Additionally, there were more alien glyphs at the top of the image which decoded to bit.ly/67327a65726f.
The bit.ly link redirects players to another YouTube video called "zero". At this stage in the puzzle players were on the first instruction to search zero for the hidden location. Much like the first video "one" this video contained a secret message in the spectrogram, in this case containing the message "zero." alongside "follow the crimson". Additionally, there is another spectrogram message at the end of the video which states "find RA".
Hidden in this video were twenty-one occurrences of the crimson chaos theory logo. At each appearance a letter is missing from the text. Combining all of these missing letters spells out WWWDOTMICTLANTECUTLI.COM which is the link www.mictlantecutli.com.
After passing the first instruction, according to the second instruction players were told that a graveyard lies beneath the ancient hex. On the new page lay a single image with a file name encoded in hexadecimal. Decoding the hexadecimal gave the link www.mictlantecutli.com/01110100011010000110010100110011/THE.GRAVEYARD.zip.
In "THE.GRAVEYARD.zip" were a large collection of 177 different images with assorted morbid and mythological iconography. At this stage players from the instructions players were told to search the graveyard for these three symbols. The three symbols mentioned here were the symbols of "death", "bone", and "eyeofRA" showed on the instructions image. Each image in the graveyard have names in binary. By converting the names of the icons provided in the instructions into binary or looking for the image with the hidden icon in it gave players the three images they were looking for.
death
bone
eyeofRA
Now according to the images once found, look deeper, hidden inside the data of the images were a series of binary strings as shown below:
LIST 1: Wallyfranks Aliceangel Boristhewolf Shawnflynn Undyne Elyssa Libitina URL part 1: http://www.mictlante LIST 2: Asrieldreemurr Flowey Toriel Alphys Natsuki Sayori Monika URL part 2: cutli.com/746865666 LIST 3: (The others have escaped. FIND THE FINAL SEVEN. Only then can you enter my gateway. -RA) URL part 3: 96e616c37.wav
Combining the URL parts in all three images together produced the link http://www.mictlantecutli.com/74686566696e616c37.wav. Using a spectrogram hidden instructions to reverse and double the speed of the audio were found. Following these instructions players were able to decode alien glyphs in the spectrogram into mictlantecutli.com/gatewaytora. Additionally, by speeding up the audio the names for "List 3" could be found: Sammy Lawrence, Protagonist, The Projectionist, Mettaton, Joey Drew, Yuri, Papyrus.
Using the link players were greeted to a large word search of different UTF-8 characters with some highlighted in red. At the top of the image was a hidden message stating "TRAIL OF BLOOD WILL HIDE THE KEY". Using the last instruction seven+seven+seven names and their location shall be revealed to you, players had to solve the word search by finding all of the provided names. After finding and marking down all twenty-one names, the characters in red that weren't part of the names when ordered from left to right and top to bottom produced a YouTube video https://youtu.be/576bjygaMc8.
With the final video in player's hands, it was revealed to be... a rickroll. With "RA" standing for "Rick Astley". The final key was given at 1:00 in the video as Ñê¥ê®9@ñ#å9!¥£ÝÖûܶ.
Key 4: Ñê¥ê®9@ñ#å9!¥£ÝÖûܶ
The keys for Gate we are:
Key 1: a symbol of death Key 2: a pile of bones Key 3: OPEN YOUR THIRD EYE Key 4: Ñê¥ê®9@ñ#å9!¥£ÝÖûܶ
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious clue was given to players. The image is the art for a game called Bulbo and the "Lizard-King". At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 26° 26' 56.1"N, 102° 48' 32.2"W, which led to Las Margaritas, Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico. Players also noticed several missing letters in the paragraphs provided in the image which when combined spelled out patience. Finally At the time that Gate 2 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Gate 3
This gate was based around topics covered on the Film Theory channel such as Marvel, Disney, Rick and Morty, and Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. The third gate was based around Marvel's Infinity Stones on a gauntlet like trophy, and revolved around various different movies and television shows talked about on The Film Theory channel.
Key 1
To start off players were given an image of a trophy with six "infinity stones" with the caption The 7th stone has been lost. Discover its identity. Your journey begins here. Increasing the brightness of the image revealed a series of alien glyphs that translated to the pathway is hidden beneath.... Opening the image in a text editor revealed the following message:
Six powerful stones have been stolen, but a seventh remains hidden. You must journey across space, time, and alternate realities to discover the stone’s identity and location. Begin your search here: www.unturnnostone.com/theseventh Godspeed, Theorist.
Going to the link led to an image of the third gate, the seventh stone, and alien glyphs that translated to enter. Clicking on the image led to an image telling players to travel to "alternate realities". Taking the current URL and replacing "spaceandtime" with "alternaterealities" led to https://www.unturnnostone.com/theseventh/alternaterealities.html, the next page.
On this page was the message:
well done, theorist. the seventh stone is trapped between two dimensions. the first is 444. the second is hidden. find it. multiply the two dimensions and add .htm to journey forward.
By downloading the image and checking its dimensions, it was found to be "444 x 333". Multiplying these numbers together and following the instructions led to the next link https://www.unturnnostone.com/theseventh/147852.htm. The next image provides the first key for the gate: enots yroeht eht.
Key 1: enots yroeht eht
Key 2
For the second puzzle players were given an image of "the theory stone", and a YouTube video containing references to both Rick and Morty and Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Hidden during the video were seven different occurrences of the Chaos Theory logo showing up. All of these occurrences were also accompanied with an alien glyph which when collected translated to numbers. This led players to a calendar shown in the video entitled "NUMBERS!" filled with random characters. Running these characters through a ROT-19 Caesar cipher led to the URL bit.ly/timeforftarg.
The bit.ly link redirected to an image of two clock ciphers, one for hours and another for minutes. Various alien glyphs were shown over the cipher wheels which translated to Interdimensional Time Cipher and A Flash of RED is What You Seek. In the earlier part of the video various different frames of red clock hands could be seen. Using the provided cipher wheel the clock hand positions could be decoded to our second key: how did i get herw. As shown in the video, the typo was intentional to ensure it could not be bruteforced (this ends up being done several times during the ARG).
Key 2: how did i get herw
Key 3
For the third puzzle players were once again provided another YouTube video. Hidden on Morty's shirt during the video was the format of the answer, requiring the addition of the alien glyphs, the binary sequences, and more decoded clock positions. The alien glyphs could be found at 00:08 in the video and translated to wwwdot. The binary sequences were found during the Family Feud scenes and when translated produced thetheorystone.com/thepa. Finally, using the same decoding technique as show in the second puzzle, players were able to decode the clock sequences in the Rubik's Cube commercial at 00:54 in the video into thway. Combining all three of these answers together gave players the URL: www.thetheorystone.com/thepathway.
To get the third key players were told to fill in the blanks and use the indicated letters from the blank words to finish the unfinished link. The colours of the blank spaces on the image also acted as a hint for the specific part of the video that the answer came from. The first match was for Elsa's Frozen Palace shown at 00:26 in the video. The second match was for Moe's Tavern shown at 00:49 in the video. The third match was for Nidavellir shown at 00:18. The boxed letters from the now filled out words spelled out lasernavel, both our third key and our next link: www.thetheorystone.com/lasernavel.
Key 3: lasernavel
Key 4
Using the previous link players were given a Photoshop file containing an unfinished QR code with the message find the hidden layers. Alongside this players were also given another YouTube video which contained instructions to take specific letters from the names of the Vindicators from Rick and Morty. Assembling these letters together and appending them to the provided link produced www.thetheorystone.com/iluvrobots. Similarly to the last puzzles players were once again tasked with filling in the blanks to get the last key. The matching locations for these were "Ollivander" at 01:03, "The Benatar" at 00:53, and "Time and Relative Dimension in Space" at 00:42. Once again the box letters spelled out vaderisnice, both the fourth key and the next URL: www.thetheorystone.com/vaderisnice.
Key 4: vaderisnice
Key 5
The link from the previous puzzle gave players the second part of the unfinished QR code. Viewing the source code of the page gave players the below message:
IMPORTANT WEBSITE CODE BELOW. Do not attempt to edit, copy, or decipher. Violating this website's privacy law number 6C6F6C7A will result in permanent exclusion from the internet. User will be given 21 seconds to close this window. <<#-- BEGIN JAVA.PHP CODE SCRIPT SNIPPET --#>> xt fsdbfd ymjwj bj bjwj, ijxnlsnsl lfyj 3 tk ymj fwl fsi bj bjwj qnpj, it bj wjfqqd bfsy yt hwjfyj fstymjw anijt bnym rtwj xujhywtlwfr ymnslnjx fsi fqnjs lqdumd ymnslnjx fsi qttp-fy-ymnx-kwfrj-gd-kwfrj rjhmfsnhx? bmd sty lnaj ymjr xtrjymnsl wjfqqd fsstdnsl qnpj f hfjxfw hnumjw? bj ytyfqqd htzqi mfaj ltsj anljsjwj tw jsnlrf ts dtz gzy ini dtz wjfqqd bfsy yt anxny bbb ity ymjymjtwdxytsj ity htr xqfxm fwjdtzqtansnydjy ? <<#-- END LINUX.WTH CODE SCRIPT.DLL SNIPPET THING --#>>
The code snippet provided could be decoded using a ROT-21 Caesar cipher (as hinted through the message) to get the following message:
So anyway there we were, designing gate 3 of the ARG and we were like, do we really want to create another video with more spectrogram thingies and alien glyphy thingies and look-at-this-frame-by-frame mechanics? Why not give them something really annoying like a caesar cipher? We totally could have gone vigenere or enigma on you but did you really want to visit www dot thetheorystone dot com slash areyoulovinityet?
Going to the provided link gave players the final part of the unfinished QR code. Scanning the QR code brought players to a 3D model of "the theory stone". Hidden across the texture of the 3D model were various different alien glyphs that translated to bit.ly/imlovinit777. The theory stone as shown in the 3D model could be found at 00:22 in the video, giving players the final key for the gate: McDonald's Happy Meal. Please note that this key must be entered in with this exact set of characters.
Key 5: McDonald's Happy Meal
The keys for Gate 3 were:
Key 1: enots yroeht eht Key 2: how did i get herw Key 3: lasernavel Key 4: vaderisnice Key 5: McDonald's Happy Meal
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious clue was given to players. The image is the box art for a game called Cosmic Wars. At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 49°13'58.9" N 1°20'07.2" E, which led to Chemin des Barrières, Bernières-sur-Seine, France. At the time that Gate 3 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Gate 4
Gate 4 did not contain any puzzles, instead consisting of a shooter-style minigame where players had to shoot balls through a revolving set of walls without hitting them.
Key 1
The first stage of the gate is a video breaking down how the minigame works. At the end of the video players are told that to get the first key you must add all of the scores shown in three screenshots during the video. The three scores shown were 44, 24, and 9. Adding these together gave you the first key 77
Key 1: 77
Keys 2, 3 & 4
The remaining keys are all unique to each player's game and are only received after beating the different stages of the minigames.
Keys 2, 3 & 4 were unique to each player
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious clue was given to players. The image is the box art for a game called Defender of the Crown. At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 49°50'28.0" N 24°01'42.5" E, which led to вул. Копальна, 4, L'viv, L'vivs'ka oblast, Ukraine. At the time that Gate 4 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Gate 5
This gate was based around Game Theory's live streaming channel, GTLive. It involved players searching through various different GTLive streams to solve puzzles and ultimately find all of the gate's keys.
Key 1
For the first puzzle players were given an image of a couch with two messages 1. Behind a green couch on the 14th of March 2019 a date was hidden in black and white and Travel forward in time exactly half a fortnight to find the location that science conceals. By increasing the brightness another message was also given:
3. On the date that it was hidden at the time revealed by science. TURN ON [CC] and complete this sentence: "...so thank you let's get to ___ __"
The date March 14th 2019, GTLive streamed Cartonfall. In the background of the stream, co-streamer Jason would change the order, add, and remove from a series of 8 black and white books. Interpreting these books as binary produced the message OCT 9 15. A week after October 9th 2015, in the background of a GTLive stream numbers and letters can be seen on the pattern of a molecule. Ordering the letters based on its respective number gave players the link: bit.ly/LLAMADRAMAGTL.
On the page given was a timestamp corresponding to another GTLive stream. By enabling the closed captions and using the previous template "...so thank you let's get to ___ __", the first key was found to be fine ass.
Key 1: fine ass
Key 2
For the second puzzle players were given an image with a series of YouTube thumbnails and an unfinished link. The last thumbnail in the sequence was blurred out with flashing green question marks on top, indicating to players that the rest of the URL would be found in that thumbnail. Going to the GTLive channel, the thumbnails provided were in a consecutive order, with the blurred thumbnail saying SAVE ME!. Using the provided spaces in the unfinished URL, it was found to be https://www.unturnnostone.com/saveme!.
Upon clicking the link players were greeted to a maze with alien glyphs in each room. Solving the maze and translating the runes in the rooms visited provided the next link https://www.unturnnostone.com/h3ll0.
Following the link leads players to a printable paper model with broken alien glyphs on them. Opening the image in a text editor gave the following message:
HELLO theorist! i'm so glad we're doing this together. i feel so much safer battling through dark dungeons with a NEIGHBOR than alone, especially in this CRUEL COLD WORLD we live in. but buckle up, we've only just begun. an ARROW will reveal the code to unlock this key...
Taking all of the words in capital letters from the passage (HELLO NEIGHBOUR CRUEL COLD WORLD ARROW) led players to a GTLive video on the game Hello Neighbour. In the background of the stream is chalkboard in the shape of an arrow with our second key 38212 on it.
Key 2: 38212
Key 3
For the third puzzle players were given an unfinished URL and an audio file of a printer running. Running the audio through a spectrogram revealed the message what kind of [printer] am i? alongside a picture of a printer. The printer was a dot matrix printer which gave players the finished link: https://www.unturnnostone.com/dotmatrix
Following the link led players to another maze, but this time with two separate floors that needed to be traversed. Finishing the maze once again and translating the traversed alien glyphs gave the next link: https://www.unturnnostone.com/youdefinitelyneedaprinter.
The next link gave players the next part of the paper model with even more alien glyph parts. Opening this image in a text editor gave players ASCII art of a nugget and the following message: on a wonderful spring day, matpat ate something. tHis dElicious treat is your key to the eXit. The message has the letters 'H', 'E', and 'X' capitalised indicating that hexadecimal is required. By looking through the included ASCII art for all hexadecimal characters, and decoding the characters to ASCII revealed may 7 2017 55:55. Going to the GTLive at that specific date and time in the video, the third key was revealed to be nugget.
Key 3: nugget
Key 4
For the fourth puzzle, players were once again given an unfinished URL alongside an arrow shaped chalkboard with a picture of Julius Caesar next to the number 25. Increasing the brightness and contrast on the image revealed more alien glyphs that decoded to TEACH US TEEN SLANG EMOJI CHALLENGE. Going to the YouTube video mentioned, the same arrow chalkboard can be seen with the message czf, gfmjdjb. Using the hints provided in the original image, by putting that message through a ROT-25 Caesar cipher decoded it to bye, felicia. This gave players their next link https://www.unturnnostone.com/bye,felicia.
Following the link led players to another maze, this time with four different floors to traverse through. As told by the llama in the image, players were also required to reach the exit in exactly 34 steps. By solving the maze and translating the traversed alien glyphs it produced the following string 3RLFFORETNECEHTTAEULAVDEXEHEHTDNIF, which when reversed said FIND THE HEXED VALUE AT THE CENTER OF FLR 3. The hex colour value of that are was bada55. Additionally, around the center of the third floor were more alien glyphs that translated to unturnnostone.com/?. Adding the hex code to the unfinished link gave players their next link unturnnostone.com/bada55.
The next link contained another set of paper model instructions. Once again by opening this image using a text editor the following message could be found:
In his teens, Matt's enthusiasm for learning about a historic explorer was killed by a meanie. >> WHO WAS THIS EXPLORER? << Begin at the base, eight to the second power. ClNlYXJjaCB0aGUgc3RyZWFtcyBmb3IgInRoZSBncmFkZSIgdGhhdCBzaGFyZXMgdGhlIHNhbWUgdG90YWwgbnVtYmVyIG9mIEdhdGVzIGluIFRlbnJldG5pIE9sbGVoLiBJdHMgdGl0bGUgY29udGFpbnMgdGhlIGRhcmtlc3Qgb2YgZHJlYW1zLiBCZWdpbiB3aGVyZSBmb3VyIHR3bydzIGFwcGVhciBzaWRlIGJ5IHNpZGUgYmVmb3JlIHRoZSBzbGFzaC4gTGlzdGVuIGludGVudGx5IGZvciBleGFjdGx5IDMwIHNlY29uZHMsIGFuZCB5b3VyIGtleSBzaGFsbCBiZSByZXZlYWxlZC4=
The second part of the message was base64 which translated to:
Search the streams for "the grade" that shares the same total number of Gates in Tenretni Olleh. Its title contains the darkest of dreams. Begin where four two's appear side by side before the slash. Listen intently for exactly 30 seconds, and your key shall be revealed.
With there being seven total gates and using the rest of the clues players were able to find Mario Maker: Your 7th Grade NIGHTMARE! which at 22:22 (four two's appear side by side) contains MatPat talking about Sir Francis Drake our fourth key.
Key 4: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
Key 5
For the final key players are given a gif showing them how to assemble their paper model. After assembling the complete paper trophy the broken glyphs align with each other to produce the final key BL6M3 J450N.
Key 5: BL6M3 J450N
The keys for Gate 5 were:
Key 1: fine ass Key 2: 38212 Key 3: nugget Key 4: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE Key 5: BL6M3 J450N
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious clue was given to players. The image is the box art for a game called Eve of Extinction. At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 1°04'30.2" N 60°11'14.4" W, which led to Vila Moderna, São Luiz - State of Roraima, Brazil. At the time that Gate 5 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Gate 6
This gate was based around Game Theory's newest merchandise line, giving players a sneak peek of their new "The Lost Pages" journal.
Key 1
For the first puzzle players were given an image with a circular maze and various fill-in-the-blank questions, alongside a link to the very first Game Theory video. Using the content in the YouTube video the following answers (in the brackets) can be found:
Each of these answers can be found in the maze with a single letter highlighted in yellow. Traversing from the start of the maze through each answer and noting down the highlighted gives us our new link: www.unturnnostone.com/lavos. Following the link tells us that the first key is Marle.
Key 1: Marle
Key 2
On the new link there are two downloadable files, one missing puzzle piece, and a Photoshop file with three different layers. These layers were "ChronoTrigger", "HIDDEN | | DON’T LOOK", and "Background". According to the image players had to set each layer to the multiply setting for it to work. Additionally, red symbols found on the images showed players how they had to align them. Finally, the missing puzzle piece could be placed in the Photoshop file in the missing hexagon.
For the second puzzle players were once again given another maze full of names and a YouTube video, which was the very first Film Theory episode. By opening the image in a text editor players were given the message THE UNCHOSEN ONE. According to the video, which related to Harry Potter, the "unchosen one" was Neville Longbottom. Using the points raised in the video certain words related to Neville could be found, which were July 30, Alice, Trevor, Nagini, Phoenix, and Snape. Once again by traversing the maze and noting down the highlighted letter in each word revealed the new URL: unturnnostone.com/leviosa.
By following the link players were once again given another journal paper and a missing hexagonal piece. Lining up all of the new pieces together revealed alien glyphs that translated to our second key Everett.
Key 2: everett
Key 3
For the third puzzle players were given an image with the link www.unturnnostone.com/gate6key3.psd on it. The file contained five different layers, including a YouTube thumbnail for one of Game Theory's videos on Bendy and The Ink Machine. By moving and rotating the different letters to align pieces of alien glyphs and texts. The alien glyphs when aligned translate to unturnnostone.com. Additionally, when aligned properly the timestamps "00:27 - 00:40" can be found alongside an incomplete sentence. Going to the timestamp in the video and using the closed caption, the sentence can be completed with "mindless ink monster", which completes the link: www.unturnnostone.com/mindlessinkmonster.
Following the link leads you to another Photoshop file called "WF1MDMVU46HmUFPF8qc1.psd" with ink blots on it. By getting rid of the layers with the ink blots, it reveals three circles, which when combined and rotated reveal alien glyphs that translate to unturnnostone.com/sbgnl. The link once again gives you another journal page and a missing hexagonal piece. Alongside that it also have an image with "H_ LI_D" and a series of symbols found on the hexagonal piece. Connecting the symbols under the blank spaces using lines produced the number '3', giving players their third key h3 li3d.
Key 3: h3 li3d
Key 4
The fourth puzzle gave players an image of a computer and a computer terminal on a fridge. Hidden in the terminal message on the fridge is another link www.unturnnostone.com/h6ck3d. Following the link led to a similar image. By going into the source code of the page another image could be found which contained a QR code. Scanning the QR code led to unturnnostone.com/youarevulnerable. On this page there was another link to unturnnostone.com/securelogin, which gave players a Photoshop file with a set of rotating wheels with unaligned alien glyphs on them. Rotating the glyphs to align them up and translating it produced the next link in the sequence unturnnostone.com/h4ck1n9is4cr1m3. Once again this gave players another journal piece, two missing hexagonal pieces, and an image with more symbols and missing letters in the message "P_VOT_NG". Much like the previous key, by connecting the symbols in the order provided two alien glyphs were created which translated to 1 and L. By filling in the blanks players were given the fourth key P1V0TLNG
Key 4: P1V0TLNG
Key 5
For the fifth puzzle players were given an image with another unfinished URL. By increasing the brightness the second part of the link could be seen: unturnnostone.com/notyouraveragepoem. On the next page was a message with blinking letters and lines. The blinking letters spelled out aspy which produced the next link to go to: hunturnnostone.com/aspy. The next page had a gif with four different frames with different colours and characters. Combining the letters at the bottom of each frame spelled out "a1z26 cipher". Converting the numbers hidden in the logo in each frame into letters produced ctithpbd, which led to our next link unturnnostone.com/ctithpbd.
Following the next link led to another Photoshop file and the letters "_R_N_G_V". In the Photoshop file were more hexagonal pieces with a series of different words. Connecting the symbols corresponding to the words given produced more alien glyphs that spelled out E E E I, which when used to fill the blanks spelled out our fourth key ERENEGIV.
Key 5: ERENEGIV
Key 6
For the sixth puzzle players were given a link encoded into a second alien glyph alphabet which was teased in the teaser video for Gate 6. Using the paragraph below the image that contained every letter in the alphabet, using statistical analysis and previous examples players were able to translate the new alphabet. The link could then be decoded to unturnnostone.com, once again telling players that they needed to finish the link once again. Much like before, players needed to use the sequences to connect the symbols to produce more alien glyphs. However in this case instead of just doing it on the hexagonal piece players had to do it using all of the previous completed journal pieces. Connecting the symbols and translating glyphs gave MADPAT and the new link unturnnostone.com/madpat.
Following the link led to an image telling players that the cipher key was "MADPAT", along with the message "indecipherable cipher". By increasing the brightness of the image more alien glyphs were found that translated to:
Tiodt gwfeco h hiav m gezznk stttjv u wphh u hhfcd gwfeco a hiav l tosn dwphce a kiqs l
The hint "indecipherable cipher" is a reference to a nickname for the Vigenere cipher. Additionally, the previous key was "vigenere" backwards. Using a Vigenere cipher with the provided key "MADPAT" decoded the following message:
First Switch H With P
Second Switch X With J
Third Switch A With O
Then Switch A With E
This provided instructions on how to switch the hexagonal pieces on the journal pages. Using the four symbols on the main image for this key (Chrono Trigger, Bendy, Watch Dogs, and Harry Potter) gave players an order of which to go through the journal pages. On each journal page was a series of three different co-ordinates in red. These co-ordinates could be solved using all of the journal pieces in the same way as before using the new positions of the hexagons. Translating these glyphs and assembling them in the correct order produced the final key prep4re4hel1.
Key 6: prep4re4hel1
The keys for Gate 6 were:
Key 1: Marle Key 2: everett Key 3: h3 li3d Key 4: p1v0tlng Key 5: erenegiv Key 6: prep4re4hel1
Final Clues
After completing all of the puzzles in the gate a mysterious clue was given to players. The image is the box art for a game called Fatal Labyrinth. At the top of the image are the longitude and latitude coordinates 55°58'02.7" N 92°43'44.1" E, which led to Sverdlovskaya Ulitsa, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarskiy kray, Russia. At the time that Gate 6 was solved the purpose of these clues were unknown. These clues would not be used until Gate 7 was released.
Gate 7
This gate was based around an interactive text-based adventure game and was considerably harder than any of the gates before it.
Key 1
For the first puzzle players were given a link to a text-based adventure game where they chose which option to take by using various different URL paths. The correct path to go through was amysterioushouse/ -> thelivingroom/ -> thebasement/ -> findthepath/.
Upon going to "findthepath" players were given a puzzle where they have to place down a series of connecting road tiles to create a path from the start to the exit. Each tile on the grid had an individual letter. Collecting the letters on the correct path gave players the next link to go to drama/. Once again players were given another road tile puzzle, this one however more complex than the first. By using the correct path players were given the next link pandamonium/. Finally, players were given one last road puzzle to solve. However, using instructions found in a hidden layer in the file, players were instead told to combine the letters not on the path instead that time. Doing so gave players the final link yayyoudidit/.
Answer: drama
Answer: pandamonium
Answer: yayyoudidit
The page informs players to add "gameover/" to the "mysticalportal/" link from the first room to get themysticalportal/gameover/, and the first key of the gate gameover.
Additionally, players were given another box art of the game "Game Over" with the co-ordinates 73°16"35.9"N 125°06"45.9'E
Key 1: gameover
Key 2
For the second puzzle players were told to go back to the amysterioushouse/thelivingroom/thebackyard from the first puzzle, now with a new path to add to the end flashoflightning/. By following the path players were led to solvethenonogram/ with instructions on how to solve nonograms, the next puzzle in the gate. Solving the nonogram and combining the now highlighted letters produced the next path chaostheory/, and the player's next nonogram. Solving the nonogram revealed the Game Theory logo, and using the letters in between the handles of the trophy gave players their next path hikynk/. The next path contained a Photoshop file with an incomplete QR code. Going deeper into the file revealed another nonogram which when finished completed the QR code. Scanning the completed nonogram led players to gate7/NonoPassword/, which told players to return to themysticalportal/ and add "heroes/" to get /gate7/themysticalportal/heroes/ and the second key heroes.
GTARG_G7K2_Nonogram2.jpg
Answer: chaostheory
Answer: hikynk
Once again players were given another set of box art, this time for "Heroes", with an accompanying set of co-ordinates 3°39"47.'1 N 33°45"59.8' E.
Key 2: heroes
Key 3
For the third puzzle players were given the message not all ends are dead seek therabbithole at the seventh crossing. Additionally, yellow flashes can be seen on different letters on the passage spelling out another.
Going back to the path adeadend/ and adding another "adeadend/" to the end led to a slightly different page. Continuing to add more "adeadend/" to the end of the link led to multiple different pages until the sixth crossing, where players are told to add anotherdeadend/ instead. Using the clue from the start of the puzzle and adding therabbithole/ lead to another set of puzzles to solve.
Matching the symbols at the bottom of the image to the letters at the top of the page gave the next path ja5on/. The next page had a similar puzzle which gave the new path PE3pAChou/ when solved. The next page was the same type of puzzle and led to the next path dowzZbXpdWnI/. Solving this puzzle told players to return to the "mysticportal/" and add theincredible/ and gave players the third key theincredible.
The First Puzzle
The Second Puzzle
The Third Puzzle
Once again players were given another set of box art, this time for "The Incredible", with an accompanying set of co-ordinates 77°50'44.1"S 166°38'28.4"E.
Key 3: theincredible
Key 4
For the fourth puzzle players were directed to beyondhell/ which contained a replica of the shooting minigame from Gate 4, tasking players to score 1000 points on hell mode. After playing the game for a short period of time it became apparent to players that winning the game was impossible.
On the game, MatPat's eyes blinks were found to be Morse code which when decoded said view source. Viewing the source code revealed the following message:
OK seriously, can we talk?
Was Gate 4 really that bad?
Yeah I know. To be fair, I still haven't passed it myself.
t(ಠ益ಠt)
But let's keep that between you and me.
So can we let bygones be bygones? Water under the bridge?
So we can be like...
.*. /~ .~\ /~ ~\ /~ .~\ /~ ~\
*** ' `\/' * ' `\/' *
V ( .*)( . *)
/\|/\ \ MatPat . *./ \ YOU . *./
| `\ . . .*/' `\ . . .*/' .*.
| `\ * .*. */' _ _ `\ * .*. */' ***
`\ * */' ( `\/'*) `\ * */' /\V
`\/' \ */' `\/' |/\
`\/' |
GATE 4
Awesome. You’ve been patient enough.
Are you ready?
The Key 4 password is “dearmatpatweforgiveyouforgate4”
But you can only enter it if you truly forgive me.
See, I knew you would :)
GODSPEED THEORIST! And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Using this, the fourth key was found to be dearmatpatweforgiveyouforgate4.
Key 4: dearmatpatweforgiveyouforgate4
Key 5
For the fifth puzzle players were told to return once more back to the "mysticportal/" with the new path journeysend/. Additionally, players were given another set of box art, this time for "Journey's End", with an accompanying set of co-ordinates 40°44'50.4"S 145°17'37.2"E. Upon following the link players were given a new link to theopenportal/. After that players were given the next path to TheMysticalGarage/ and then playthegame/.
Following the link players were given an NES game to emulate. The game was a puzzle games where players must step on all of the bubbles and return to there starting position. Throughout the game certain bubbles will need to be stepped on a specific amount of times to pop them before you can finish the game. The objective for this game was to reach Room 700 which would give players the next key. The amount of rooms that a player skips each round is random, with players having to have completed at most 20 different rounds to finish. Reaching Room 700 gave players the new path clhhcfkqplm/.
The new path tasked players with reaching Room 1400 to receive the next step. Hidden in the background of the image were more alien glyphs that decoded to:
LEFT: Hidden deep within this message lies the first fragment of the forgotten list. RIGHT: Thirty-seven thrice shall prepare your passage to the long forgotten earth.
Opening the file in a text editor revealed a list of thirty-seven games. These games were used in a later step in the puzzle. Upon reaching Room 1400, players were given ybxhjfflbqgk/ which finally tasked them with reaching Room 2000. Opening the file in a text editor revealed a second list of thirty-seven games. Finally, upon reaching Room 2000 players were given the path gflmhmwxlywy/. The third list of thirty-seven games could be found when the file was opened in a text-editor. In quotation marks on the page more alien glyphs were found that translated to:
TOP: "Game Over Heroes The Incredible Journey's End" BOTTOM: "Speak this to unlock the 5th key and be not afraid of the descent into darkness."
Thus, the fifth key was "Game Over Heroes The Incredible Journey's End
Key 5: "Game Over Heroes The Incredible Journey's End
Key 6
The sixth puzzle gave players ASCII art of an NES console with a light blinking in Morse code that translated to gate7/intotheabyss/. This page gave players the new path yourfondestmemories/. The following page gave players the following message:
These timeworn shelves hold titles long admired / One hundred eleven titles must patiently be retired / Three siblings remain / Their ancient family tree will reveal the hidden plain / When spoken, unlocks the key
Entering "the game room" on the page gave players a Photoshop file with various different games. Using the three lists of thirty-seven games from the previous puzzle, three games in the photo are not part of the list (Nanosaur: Hatchling, Cro-mag Rally, and Bugdom). These three games were all made by the same developers, a company called Pangea Software. Our sixth key was then found to be Pangea.
Key 6: Pangea
Key 7
The final puzzle of the ARG gave players ASCII art of Pangea and link to the new path pangea/. Entering Pangea introduces the players to the "Mother Glyph" (the name encrypted in alien glyphs). Entering into the challenge gave players a Photoshop map of Pangea with 10 pins. Using the 10 sets of coordinates from throughout the ARG players were able to move the pins to the rough location of where they would be in Pangea.
Around the map of Pangea were a series of different alien glyphs which translated to:
TOP LEFT The Incredible --- Heroes Fatal Labyrinth --- Defender of the Crown TOP RIGHT: Game Over --- fatal Labyrinth The Incredible --- A Journeys End BOTTOM LEFT: Actraiser --- Cosmic Wars Fatal Labyrinth --- Heroes Defender of the Crown --- Cosmic Wars BOTTOM RIGHT: Bulbo and the Lizard King --- Eve of Extinction Eve of Extinction --- Defender of the Crown
Connecting the pins as shown above reveals the symbol of Pi. Using the hint from the page that told players to "awaken her first seventy-seven children", adding the first 77 digits of Pi to the current URL gave us our final page for the ARG: https://www.thetheorystone.com/gate7/theopenportal/pangea/31415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862/. On the final page players were given a thank you video from the creators for playing the ARG and were given the final key þΩ+¦ΣΠͼΣ.
Key 7: þΩ+¦ΣΠͼΣ
Thank You Video
The keys for Gate 7 were:
Key 1: gameover Key 2: heroes Key 3: theincredible Key 4: dearmatpatweforgiveyouforgate4 Key 5: "Game Over Heroes The Incredible Journey's End Key 6: Pangea Key 7: þΩ+¦ΣΠͼΣ
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