Eye Sigil ARG

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Eye Sigil ARG

Eye Sigil.jpg

The Eye ARG, also known as the Sigil or Eye Sigil ARG, began in 2014 and involves at least 10 otherwise unrelated indie games which all contain a hidden symbol and a unique puzzle piece which forms part of a larger "map".
Creator Unknown
Status On Going
Discovered 2016-01-25
Completed

Main Page > List of Investigations


History

The Strange Glyph

On or around January 25th, 2016, a strange image was found in the SteamApp root directory of the game "Crypt of the Necrodancer". While this image had been found long before, its purpose remained unknown until another glyph was obtained, this time by snooping through the original image using a hex editor. Still, no clear answers about the images would emerge, until...

A Shared Mystery

By a combination of astute observation and dumb luck, it was discovered that the initial image found in Crypt of the Necrodancer, coined "the sigil", was present in other games as well. In each game where it is present, the sigil is accompanied by a second, hidden glyph. Sometimes, the glyph will become visible after completing a challenge in the game. In certain circumstances, the glyph has only been recovered using data-mining strategies (ie digging through the files/assets of the game).

The Big Picture

After several glyphs had been discovered, some began to wonder if, perhaps, each glyph was intended to be joined together to form a larger puzzle, which could then be applied somehow, either as a cipher or otherwise, in order to gain new information. While it is not certain how these pieces ought to be assembled, various guesses have been made as to their configuration. It is also currently assumed that we don't have all of the pieces yet, and so are still searching for sigils in games.

Sigil Pieces Puzzle Tool

You can now give it the puzzle a try yourself with a tool made by DukeBG, making it easy to place an rotate the puzzle pieces yourself. Give it a go!

Clean result: Dukemap.png

History of possible solutions to the puzzle (ie configuring the pieces into one uniform image) included:

Attempt One Attempt Two Attempt Three Attempt Four Attempt Five Option 1 Attempt Five Option 2 Current state
Glyph Example 1.png Glyph Example 2.png Glyph Example 3.png Glyph Example 5.jpeg Finaloption1.jpg Finaloption2.jpg Finaloption6.png

Please note that some older versions of the assembled puzzle no longer include all current pieces, as they were created prior to those pieces' discoveries.

If you want to give puzzle assemble a shot yourself, two up-to-date albums are available, one with all the pieces & sigils in their original format and one with labeled PNG versions of each piece, re-sized so their circles match in diameter. Historically, flipping and rotating of pieces is acceptable during assembly, however skewing/stretching/re-sizing of the piece is not. Piece overlap is encouraged, as it helps confirm a piece's true orientation.

Commonality Between the Games

The question of whether or not the games involved with this ARG are linked in some way has proven very difficult to answer. It was first postulated that each games' developers had attended Indiecade, however later discovery of additional games sunk this theory. For now, a consistent, viable theory of connection is lacking. However, coming up with one that works could be the key to finding the rest of the sigil-containing games.

Confirmed Appearances

No. Found In Store Price Release date Sigil Added Sigil Location Sigil Image Solution Puzzle piece Video
1 Crypt of the Necrodancer Steam GOG $14.99 2015, Apr 25th May 29, 2015 Image placed in the root directory of the steam game folder Eye Sigil.jpg Piece is embedded inside the sigil image file Cotn piece.gif YouTube
2 Mini metro Steam GOG iOS $9.99 2015, Nov 6th 2015, Feb 13th Sigil appears by going back and forth between credits and menu MiniM screen.png Puzzle piece is obtained by recreating the sigil. MiniM piece.png YouTube
3 Legend of Dungeon Steam $9.99 2013, Sep 13th 2015, Dec 8th Sigil appears when clicking the dwarf in the pause menu. LoDsigil.png Puzzle piece is on the 27th floor after finding the sigil. LengOfD piece.png YouTube
4 The Magic Circle Steam $19.99 2015, July 9th Before 2015, July 14th Sigil appears on the door of an airlock. Mcsigil.png Puzzle piece appears above the room with the airlock. MagicC piece.png YouTube
5 Neon Struct Steam $17.99 2015, May 20th release Sigil appears on the shirt of a character named "Stranger". NeonS screen.png Puzzle piece found by playing through the game talking to all strangers, getting all geocaches, saving a displacement orb for the end, and throwing it past the ending trigger. NeonS piece.png YouTube
6 Mos Speedrun 2 Steam Android iOS $8.99 2015, Sept 3rd 2015, Oct 15th Sigil appears in a secret area reached by jumping through a roof tile in stage 3-4. Puzzle piece found by solving all secrets in the game up to the final puzzle. MosS2 screen.png The puzzle piece appears in a hidden area on level 3-3. MosS2 piece.png YouTube
7 Flickers Website $0.00 2015, Nov 1st 2015, Nov 9th Sigil appears on tree shortly into the game. Flickers screen.png There is a dot on the sigil level that disappears after a short time. Piece appears when reaching it (i.e. speedrunning the level). Flickers piece.png YouTube
8 Sokobond Steam GOG $9.99 2014, Jan 21st 2015, Jan 31st Sigil appears whenever you solve a level with a solution involving hydrogen. When this happens, it appears with a count of such solutions you completed (out of 12 total). Soko screen.png The piece will appear on screen once 12 solutions involving hydrogen are completed. Soko piece.png YouTube
9 Moon Hunters Steam GOG $14.99 2016, Mar 10th release Sigil appears in some levels as a statue structure. In multiplayer, two people have to perform a specific pose while standing on the sigil to obtain the puzzle piece. MoonH screen.png The piece will appear on screen once the solution is completed. MoonH piece.png YouTube
10 Soda Drinker Pro Steam $9.99 2016, Apr 13th release Sigil appears in the corner of the room in Level 2. SodaDrPro screen.jpg Puzzle piece found by glitching through wall. SodeDrPro piece.png YouTube
11 Bellular Hexatosis itch.io $0.00 2015, Nov 6th release Sigil is visible at the start of the game. Clicking on the sigil causes it to spin. Bhsigil.png Puzzle piece found by clicking the colored mushrooms found elsewhere in the game in the order the sigil displays after spinning. Bellular hexatosis piece.png YouTube
12 Slide the Shakes Android iOS $0.00 2016, Feb 24th Unknown Sigil appears in the corner of the room in Level 88. Morse code hidden in the level spells out "ARCHUSB". Shakesigil.png Piece was on a USB hidden at an arch in L.A., that was a landmark in another ARG by the same devs. Slide the Shakes Piece Unlabled.jpeg N/A
13 Souls of Darkness itch.io $8.00 2016, Jan 2nd release, though webdings added only on 2016, May 10th Sigil appears next to the name of the map. Symbols underneath the sigil are webdings and correspond to a series of numbers. SoulsOfD screen.jpg The numbers were a book cipher to be used on the GAME SOLVERZ HINTS after each of the 11 chapters in the book. It led to osdPcDotpng which led to the image link of the puzzle piece. SoulsOfDarknessPiece.png N/A
14 Kingdom of Loathing Website $0.00 2003, Oct 2nd 2014, Oct 3rd Sigil appears on first visit to The Secret Government Laboratory. KoL screen.png The drops of the monsters in the 'Secret Government Laboratory' (Excluding those from Monster Manuel) had the first letters being all different letters from A to M. If organised into alphabetical order, the last letters of each name gave the string 'nlry9htdotgif' which led to the image on the images subdomain of KoL. Nlry9ht.gif N/A
15 Quadrilateral Cowboy Steam $19.99 2016, July 25th release Visible above several clocks in the "Malta Stock Exchange" level. Qcsigil.png One of the monitors on the "Malta Stock Exchange" level says "MISSING CHUNKS". Within the games files, the code that renders text on this screen needed to be modified: "DELETE_THIS_CHUNK" part should be deleted and the missing chunks that are spread in comments of other scripts should be "restored". Then the piece is displayed on the monitor, drawn by rectangles defined by the chunks. TJ2Ss7I.png N/A
16 There Came an Echo Steam $14.99 2015, Feb 24th release Visible on the wall in level 5, near a point called Foxtrot 6 TCAE sigil.png Datamining the sigil revealed an equation (solution=EIEIO), leading to "Old McDonald Had a Farm" phrase. Using this voice command in-game in front of where the sigil is shows the piece on screen. TCAE.png YouTube
17 Duskers Steam $19.99 2016, May 18th release Hit f1, f2, f12 or del on launch, then hit enter on seeing %*)!@(#$@*#$(&& and it appears in the top left for a split second DuskersSigil.png Choosing the %*)!@(#$@*#$(&& option opens the browser with an URL containing string of characters 0-)$(_]]@!!+@=. This string is mentioned in one of the in-game logs that also hints to another similar string, leading to the second URL with a login form. Currently the legitimate credentials to this form are not known, but the puzzle piece was found in that folder under the filename piece.jpg. DuskersPiece.jpg N/A
18 Clockwork Empires Steam $29.99 2014, Aug 15th 2015, Sep 16th Seen in the promotional drawing on their website update page. Same art appears ingame at certain "strange artifact" events ClockworkSigil.png The puzzle piece was hidden with OpenStego steganography software with the randomLSB algorithm and the password 191761112 in the image with the sigil. The password is composed of the amounts of times the symbols in the promo image appear on the Phaistos Disc in order (19, 17, 6, 11 and 12). CEPiece.jpg N/A
19 You Have to Win the Game Steam Free 2012, May 6th 2015, Aug 20th Seen on the Listen to the Wind screen of the Extra Spicy mode near the end of the campaign. Alternatively available in the list of sprites by using the edit command by pressing ` in-game YHTWTG sigil.png The room with the sigil has a changed title — a clue to a different room, which will also have a sigil upon visit. Following the trail of clues in changed titles, the player arrives to the winning screen with 7th sigil and title Backmask the Myth, referring to the screen Hydra is Myth of the original campaign. By playing the original campaign and entering the password ARDYH near the end, the player is teleported to a series of secret rooms marked by the sigil. By progressing to one of the rooms (Sadness) the player will see the piece in the pause menu. YHTWTG piece.png YouTube

Media Appearances

25th Jan. 2016

[EN] PCGamer - There is an indie ARG on the loose

[EN] VG24/7 - Is this a Steam AR game to promote The Witness?

[EN] Kotaku - For Years, A Few Steam Games Seem To Have Been Hiding A Larger Secret

[DE] Gameplane - The Witness – ARG, eine Sigille und Rätsel über Rätsel

26th Jan 2016

[EN] MXDWN - The Game Is Afoot! Steam Games Hiding A Secret

14th Feb 2016

[EN] DVSGaming - Crypts to Trains: The ARG That Connects 9 Random Games

31th July 2016

[EN] Vox Ludicus - There is a new ARG, encompassing 15 indie games on Steam.

Resources

Clues

Red Herrings

Developer Exchange Archive

Investigative Tools

Unsolved