But they're not exactly the same. There is something different, perhaps right down at Hex level? But great, that means if the picture clears up the artifacts we're not going to get any more false positive patterns. One more original hopefully incoming soon. Vacthok, after merging the images and flattening layers, did you play with the brightness and contrast settings to see if any feint text/pictures came out? It's a known technique for hiding things (marginally different colors almost invisible to the human eye). UPDATE: Thanks BenandKate for your image. The file size is identical on this one but I've put up on dropbox as 'jyyj from Forum.png' and 'jyyj Original.png'. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qajctbusu5caw94/AABBjD2xh4RjkGsk7amBeicaa?dl=0
Just posted this discussion on game detectives, a new subreddit about solving ARGs. Hopefully this will help keep the search going on.
I did play around with brightness and contrast! I even played around with pulling out the color channels and checking for differences there. Either I'm missing it, or nothing is there... (By the way, many thanks for putting all this stuff up on dropbox! It makes trying things out so much easier!) I also took a look at the 121 files using a hex editor, and found that there is some metadata that is at the front of the original image and is not there in the forum uploaded one. It appears, though, that it is just the standard program-identifying metadata put there by Photoshop. The same metadata is there on both the original and forum uploaded jyyj images. The ajec image has a truncated version of this metadata, but again, there doesn't seem to be anything significant here. (Certainly nothing that would be consistent with Muscat's clue that the answer is not hidden under another level of obfuscation) I know Muscat has said he can't give us a better clue because doing so would make the answer obvious, so let's try a different strategy. here are all the ways we are currently looking at the image to find the clue: -Something hidden in the file data (aka. steganography) -Something hidden in the brightness/contrast -Something hidden in the colors Are we on the right track with any of these, or are we barking up the wrong trees entirely? Even a general "yes" or "no" would help, letting us know if we have the right focus or not.
I've been wondering if the only difference in the images is simply the file name. I've been trying to play with it as an anagram and a cypher, but haven't come up with anything yet. Just a thought.
well, "ajeciwnkki" was itself a Caesarian cypher of "enigmaroom" to begin with (that's how we found it). Maybe if it is a filename thing, there is something to do with it's relationship to the names of the original files? A possibility perhaps!
I posted a summary of our progress so far over at /r/gamedetectives, and I figured I'd post it here to, in case anybody new is stopping by and needs to be caught up: ARG Recap: Step 1 In the release version of the game, there were podiums in game that had GPS coordinates written on them, with vague directional cues ("under bench", "in tree", etc.). People visited the locations (spread mostly in Australia, the US, and parts of Europe) and found USB drives with 900x900 pixel images on them. When the images were aligned, they formed a large image (5400x900), although not all images were found. There were abstract symbols hidden in the image that mapped to a keypad in game. When entered in order from left to right, the keypad showed a website address that was encoded with a Vignere cypher. Step 2 Solving the Vignere cypher led to the website "www.whathappenedinlandsliders.com". There was a puzzle on that page that involved getting a certain number of "?" to appear on the page, which revealed a letter in the background of the page. Finding all the letters and rearranging them let people to a twitter account @TGulrintych. Once the account got 100 followers, it started releasing garbled messages and masked picture files. The pictures, when combined and unmasked, turned out to correspond to the words "Game", "Connect", "Asia", "Pacific", "Slide" and "Character", pointing to a PowerPoint slideshow shown by the game developers at the Game Connect Asia Pacific conference. Step 3 From the PowerPoint slides (provided by the lead dev Muscat over his twitter account), the phrase "LarryLives" was found, pointing to the game "Skiing Yeti Mountain", made by a friend of Muscat's, that featured a character named Larry. Playing through the game revealed another set of keypad symbols hidden in certain levels, that when entered into the LandSliders keypad revealed another Vignere cypher. That cypher was brute-force solved to reveal a message directing people to a location to give a password at a particular date and time. Simultaneously, in an update to the game, the original coordinate podiums were replaced with podiums giving Picross-style clues. When those clues were solved, the image was a logo of an escape room in Sydney (The Enigma Room). Someone visited the escape room, but didn't have the correct password (it hadn't been solved yet), and was turned away. Unfortunately, no-one following the ARG was physically present at the correct date and time, and the clue was missed. Step 4 Following missing the escape room clue, the @TGulrintych twitter account posted a new clue. That clue led back to the whathappenedinlandsliders.com page, where it was discovered a comment had been added to the page's source code, reading "/"enigmaroom"shift.png". After a hint from Muscat and applying a ROT22 cypher to "enigmaroom", we found a PNG file on the PrettyGreat website (the makers of LandSliders) at www.prettygreat.com/ajecwnkki.png. That image was the completed image formed by the GPS clues from the first step. Current Progress According to clues from Muscat, the "ajec" image is not the same as the images that were found on the USB drives. As best as we can tell, the "ajec" image is slightly darker than the GPS images, but is otherwise the same. We've looked a little at steganography to see if there is a hidden file, but had no luck. Overlay the new and old images has produced some minor differences (eg. the brightness levels), but nothing that is significant or meaningful. Muscat has said that when found, the next clue will be obvious and not hidden behind another level of obfuscation, and has also said that a more direct hint would make finding the clue trivial. This is where we are currently stuck.
Well I guess that confirms that we should be comparing the clue to the original images. Unfortunately I don't have a good program to work on it and by the time I got one and figured out what I'm doing, someone else will have solved it. As for the original images, I know we have a few but is there another way to get them other than hoping the finders still follow the thread. Also is it solvable with a few images or do we need all of the originals to find the solution?
Hi, I've had contact now from nearly all of the original finders. Some are digging out their USB sticks or searching for them (yeah, they may have thrown them away!) so i'll keep an eye out for the original files and I'll upload if they come in. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8l8h5vz008yid67/AACiK82MWLilssrNEQDPsyUda?dl=0 I've created a new folder as above, all of the files with 'XML' at the end have the full file information at the start so are likely to be original, so that leave's two outstanding. I have been using the free HxD Hex Editor to check them. There are some long file ID's in there and other information (you can use the free Exiftool to see if you can't get your head around HEX), it may or not be part of something but interesting. 'GIMP' is a good bit of free software for image editing Brad, I find Photoshop much easier to use but don't feel left out! If indeed that is the route to a solution! Hopefully we can get the last puzzle pieces so it's down to our brains to solve it! Keep going everyone, we must be close! And seeing Muscats wink above overlaying the pictures might be right?!
ahh i didnt think we'd need the original images again ill upload the image i have on my computer (its labelled jg-3.png) but ill double check the flash drive first (if i still have it)
I looked up the PNG standards and metadata standards, and I'm pretty sure that all those long IDs in the metadata are simply Adobe's way of putting "Photoshop made this" into a PNG file's data. Given Muscat's hint, I'm willing to say that looking at the overlays is the way to go. And on that note.... Arrrgh! =). I swear I've been looking at those overlays in every which way and can't see a thing! I'll have to try the new originals once I can get some time to drive myself crazy again! FWIW, I've been using Pixelmator for my image program... It's sort of a Photoshop-lite for OS X that has a lot of Photoshop's bells and whistles while not having Photoshop's price. I'd recommend checking it out if you are on Mac and want something easier to use than GIMP without paying a bunch.
Agreed - ignore the XML stuff! Thinking about what you said about file names, 'jyyj' happens to Caesar shift to 'Peep' but how that means anything I don't know. Could be co-incidence as the other names are less obvious. 'iiiii' for example! UPDATE: Thanks very much Birdfeet, that's another original found. I've updated the Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8l8h5vz008yid67/AACiK82MWLilssrNEQDPsyUda?dl=0 with 'jg-3.png'
Not yet Brad, any ideas? I've tried lots of attempts at using image differences with no luck. Using GIMP too as it turns out you can tweak it to work in a Photoshop type way which made it so much more friendly. There's a nice tutorial on using it to compare two images below but it lead to some nice grey non-descriptive images: http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/27484/get-difference-between-two-images-as-transparent-image-in-gimp Muscat said it would not be obfuscated though. I wonder, just wonder if the comment about "Overlay the new and old images has produced some minor differences (eg. the brightness levels), but nothing that is significant or meaningful." and the wink actually means;'You're right, there's nothing there if you keep doing that. Try something else' We're one picture off having the whole set but not sure how it will make a difference. There are already several overlapping bits of the ajeciwnkki picture that are overlapped by the original .png files. So are the original .png files clues on their own we haven't found yet? Who knows, very stuck, but also know we're very close... But how?
I've been playing around with gimp all afternoon and I haven't found anything significant from the photos. I hate having to keep asking for clues but I feel we are either totally stumped or just using the wrong tools to compare the photos
Laura has been in touch with me, hopefully we'll have all of the pictures soon. After that, who knows? There's a tool called StegSpy that is supposed to detect hidden information and shows the files as having Hiderman info as follows: 8648 - 121.png Nothing - 107tn3.png Nothing - bking.png Nothing - Garland Hunt.png 588761 - iiiii.png 353244 - IZBZIKG.png 98985 - jyyj.png Nothing - Nearend.png 354181 - j-g3.png 1436232 - ajeciwnkki.png The numbers represent a position in the files, Decimal position wise (use a Hex editor) but I can't make sense of it as the text at those positions don't look meaningful (to me). Hiderman doesn't find anything although you can force something via a password. I have tried lots of passwords, filename of .png, prettygreat, landsliders, enigmarooms, ajeciwnkki! Nothing.
Just noticed that on Twitter, Muscat posted about how they had image files corrupted when sending in emails. Not sure if it's related to our clues but I assume they had to email the images for them to be hidden with the sub drives. So it's possible we can't find anything because the originals are not truly the originals. Can Muscat confirm if this is the case or is it solvable with what we have at the moment?
I agree! I'm thinking maybe the original emails sent out for hiding on the USB sticks removed certain hidden data. Oops. There's a new release of the game. Maybe something new in there now. Game is still overheating my IPhone 6.
I've just received the last original from Laura (thank-you!). It's not the same size (900x900) as the rest and reading Muscat's Twitter as Brad pointed out there may have been issues with the original USB images. Any-hoo, Laura's image has been added to the Drop Box account I set up here: Image: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h0v0if7f10xnjzx/LauraEHall.png?dl=0 Folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8l8h5vz008yid67/AACiK82MWLilssrNEQDPsyUda?dl=0 That's all the images obtained now. Otherwise stuck if they are not right.
