ARG:Image Puzzles

This page contains spoilers about the Heartbound ARG. If you want to solve the puzzle yourself, avoid reading this article.

Image Puzzles were found by solving Tick And Tock, which led to us to two pages: https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/Tick/JasonThorHall/ and https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/Tock/JasonThorHall/.

As on the previous ARG step, the information on both pages is necessary to solve the puzzle.

Wrong Way

When going to either of the above links, we get to a page with the image of a vinyl record ([1]), but we are quickly redirected to another page (https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/WrongWay/). This page is called "Uh Oh" and has an red-colored image of fishes([2]). If we look at the page's source code, we see that this image has the filename of "SeePastMe.png". The fact that this is an image of fishes, and it is red, indicates that this page itself is a red herring, which is further reinforced by the "WrongWay" directory on the page's URL. "See past me" means that we need to see through the redirection that led us here.

So we need to return to the "JasonThorHall" pages ([3] and [4]), and look at their source code. On the Chrome browser (for desktop), this can be done by quickly pressing Ctrl+U before the page redirects you. Those two pages are nearly identical, except that the one on "Tick" has the title "Freeze", while the one on "Tock" has the title "Frame". Both pages have the image of a vinyl record with the filename of "WhatAmI.png" ([5]).

The image asks us what it is, which is a record. The other clues we have are the words "freeze" and "frame". When we search for those three words on the internet, we get that they are part of the expression "record scratch, freeze frame". This term refers to a movie trope in which a character is introduced by having the scene stopped as the sound of a record being scratched plays (here is an example: [6]). Therefore the solution of our puzzle is "Record Scratch", as it completes the "Freeze Frame" from the pages' title.

Now we have to add "RecordScratch" to both our URLs, which lead us to https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/Tick/JasonThorHall/RecordScratch/ and https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/Tock/JasonThorHall/RecordScratch/.

Record Scratch

Both pages have the picture of Doctor Emmett Brown (filename: TheDoc.jpg [7]), from the Back to the Future movie series. The pages have different titles, though. The page on "Tick" is called "In The Before Time", while the page on "Tock" is called "The Long Long Ago". An web search for those titles shows that "In the before time, the long long ago" is a quote from the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome. There are no further clues on the pages' source.

Both those movie series deal with the idea of a bad future, while Back to the Future is also about time travel. Those references mean for us that something has been done in the past that is preventing us to proceed on the ARG. Now we have to remember that the URLs of the current pages ([8] and [9]), are under the "ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ" directory (which can be read as "broken record"), while the current pages are the "RecordScratch" subdirectory. If the record is "broken", then it can not be "scratched". This is what is preventing us from moving forward, therefore we have to "travel to the past" before the "record is broken".

What we need to do now is to delete the part of the URLs from "/ҌґѳӄәиӶэҫөӻԃ/" (inclusive) until before "/RecordScratch/". This leads us to the page https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/.

Record Scratch - Part 2: past

We arrive to a page called "Advice", which has two images: a green-colored picture of a bearded man (filename: Tongue.png [10]), and a rock with the # symbol (filename: RollingStone.png https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/assets/images/RollingStone.png). A reverse image search of the first image shows that it is from the TV series Vikings, more specifically of the actor Travis Fimmel in the role of the viking Ragnar Lothbrok. A reverse search of the stone image shows that it is a plagioclase.

The source code of the page has the following comment:

<!-- ZMBVMTWPZBXMGPOGWTCIGUJARNGG -->

This looks to be a ciphered text, and we need to decipher it. The clues we have for that are the aforementioned viking and stone images. The current puzzle has several "rabbit roles" we can fall into, meaning that there are a few different interpretations for our clues that lead nowhere. The puzzle was intentionally designed this way, and while attempting to solve it we have to realize when stuff just don't add up and try a different approach.

The relevant clues from the viking image are that it is green and that it has a Norse warrior. The word "green" in the Norse language is "gron". From the plagioclase image, we need to know that it is a mineral of the feldspar group. The words "gron" and "felds" points us to the Gronsfeld Cipher. This cipher is a variant of the Vigenère Cipher, but with a numeric key instead of a word. The number sign (#) on the plagioclase image is a hint that we need a numeric cipher, reinforcing that we need Grosfeld. The names of the images ("Tongue" and "Rolling Stone") could lead us to the rock band Rolling Stones, whose logo is a tongue, but that is a rabbit hole.

Now we need the numeric key to decode our ciphered text. We can get this key by converting the word "feldspar" using the letters to numbers cipher (A = 1, B = 2, ..., Z = 26), which gives us 651241916118. Then we have to use this numeric key to decode the string "ZMBVMTWPZBXMGPOGWTCIGUJARNGG". This results in:

THATISNOTAWEAKNESSTHATISLIFE

It can be read as "That is not weakness, that is life". A web search shows that this is part a quote from Jean-Luc Picard, a character from Star Trek. If we add "ThatIsNotAWeaknessThatIsLife" to the URL, we get to the page https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/ThatIsNotAWeaknessThatIsLife/.

That page has a picture of Picard doing a face palm, suggesting that this isn't the solution we need. The picture is called "NotThatEasy.jpg" ([11]), while the page is called "Half Advice". Remember that the previous page is called just "Advice". All of this suggests us that we have only half of the advice, but we need the full advice. An web search shows that the other half Picard's quote is "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose".

So now we need to return to the previous page ("Advice"), and add "ItIsPossibleToCommitNoMistakesAndStillLose" to its URL. This leads us to the page https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/ItIsPossibleToCommitNoMistakesAndStillLose/, and this page is the actual solution.

Talk It Out

The page is called "Talk It Out". It has an image of Picard celebrating (filename: WellDone.png [12]), which confirms that the solution of the previous puzzle is correct. There is also another image (NowThis.png [13]), which is a strip of 4 pictures.

The first picture (from the left) is of The Avengers movie and shows Loki, from the Norse mythology. Loki is a liar, and another word for "lie" is "fib". The second picture is a a skelleton, which is made of bone. The third picture is Admiral Ackbar, from the Star Wars movies. The last picture is cheddar, which is a kind of cheese. Following the hint to "Talk it out", together those four images spell "fib" - "bone" - "ack" - "cheese", or Fibonacci. The Fibonacci series is a sequence of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two numbers before it:

F = {0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, ...}

That is one of the clues we need to solve the puzzle. The other clue is on the source code of the page, that has this comment:

<!-- INPUT TheNumber.63150S1439555E -->

63150S1439555E is a coordinate: 6.3150 S, 143.9555 E. This coordinate is the location of Papua New Guinea [14], which acronym is PNG, same as the image format. So the clue on the comment stands for "Input TheNumber.png". So we input this file name on the directory where are the other images on the page, which lead us to https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/assets/images/TheNumber.png. A reverse image search reveals that this image is a from a scene of The Princess Bride movie, in that scene it is said "Not to fifty!" [15]. That line is another clue need to solve the puzzle.

The clues we have are "Fibonacci" and "Not to 50". Since we are told to not go to 50, then we are going to 49. What those clues tell us is that we need the first 49 digits of the Fibonacci series. Then we start writing the Fibonacci numbers on the URL until we get to 49 digits: https://www.gopiratesoftware.com/games/Heartbound/OSCAR/OCTOTHORPE/LETTUCESQUARES/RecordScratch/ItIsPossibleToCommitNoMistakesAndStillLose/0112358132134558914423337761098715972584418167651/

We then get to a page called "Another Place", with a picture of Statler and Waldorf (from The Muppets) named WrongWay.png [16]. Getting to this page is the solution of the current puzzle, which leads us to the next step: Another Place.