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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » Old News & Rumors
[ARG?] Stranger Adventures
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rowan
Unfictologist

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

 		Umm, why do you keep talking to yourself. Just because you use different "guest nicks" doesn't mean your IP changes. Cut it out.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:16 am
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addlepated
Unfictologist


Joined: 17 Aug 2003
Posts: 1885
Location: Austin, Texas
'nother alien wrote:
Fish?

Well, something certainly smells fishy. Rolling Eyes

Please stop replying to yourself and bumping this thread. If you're involved BTS in the game, you need to read this link ASAFP.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:12 am
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Mokey Fraggle
Unfettered


Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 393
Location: FL, USA

 		Re: $25,000 puzzle
rowan72 wrote:
It really is painful having to look through all these ugly flash things for the treasure chests and watch the horrific acting. It amazes me that someone might actually be sponsoring this crap.


I agree, but I don't think it's the actors who should be getting the critique. That writing is ... well, I have a hard time imagining any actor could pull off some of those lines. Confused

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 10:24 am
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Lio
Guest
alien visitor wrote:
Has anyone been able to find anything about this game anywhere but here (announcement and follow-up) and the riddleproductions website?

Why is there no other promotion?


Umm, I found the strangeradventures' website from clicking on a google ad

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:09 pm
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goatman
Boot

Joined: 17 Feb 2006
Posts: 12
Location: Eau Claire, WI

 		Okay. I've been lurking the entire time...

Did anyone from the forums, and I mean even the lurkers, get the correct answer? I didn't even come close.

The LAST message we got via email was the "Final Clue" and it appeared to be "after 2". Within and hour of posting, the text for Final Clue was changed. Not just the clue part either. The "after 2" was removed from the text and that meat was replaced with "I can't believe this all started on the 12th." 1-2 being a common number pair appearing in the story and images.

But I just couldn't get over the "after 2" bit. Guess I'm stubborn. In no way do I understand how 1-2 could be considered related to "after 2". The 1 is not after the 2, as in 21. The 2 is after the 1. So, my brain kept telling me there had to be a 3 in this pair.

And having a 3 there made sense because of the Hong Kong Territories clue. You see, according to http://www.statoids.com/uhk.html, Hong Kong doesn't have territories. Well, at least not in the governmental sense. Hong Kong has districts, 18 to be exact. Those districts are split into 3 "sections". Hong Kong used to be called a "British Territory" and there is a section called the New Territories, but I wouldn't say that this clue is definitive in any way. It's completely open to interpretation.

So, because of the flexibility of the Hong Kong Territories answer, I was stuck. And the "after 2" clue was not helping matters. Why? Because 3 comes after two. 0-3. Which made All Dressed Up / To a T - 92. Which was technically the "Last Year of the Monkey", because 2004 is the start of a NEW Year of the monkey cycle (which lasts 12 years, btw).

My point is, I screwed myself. It's really my fault, but that final pairing clue "error" by the web guys totally threw me off. Had I never seen the "after 2" I'd have been positive that 12 was the last clue. Instead I got stubborn.

If I had went with 12, the treasure chest clues would have fallen into place. We already knew the Orwell answer. But with 90/92, 01/04, and the other incorrect number pairs I got from my Hong Kong complexity and the "after 2" I just couldn't make things fit.

Grats to everyone who won! It's great that some of the money is going to ARG players. I had fun, unlike some of you who didn't like the game, graphics, story, actors, etc. I look forward to another episode and I'll definitely be taking OFF my thinking cap for them. It just wasn't that hard.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 5:35 pm
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rowan
Unfictologist

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

 		Well, I didnt come close. According to the explanation of the answers, the final clue was "Chinese Lunar Year", but I never saw where that was. My biggest problem was in the way I interpreted the treasure chest clues. I thought they were going in order, not using two single digit clues as bookends for the rest. It just still bothers me that the last day of clues was so messed up (not that I necessarily would have gotten it - but it did throw people off).
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 6:05 pm
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Compass Rose
Boot


Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 12
Location: Dungeon Delving

 		WHOA
...what is going on with this thread?! I just read though "page 7," saw a synopsis post about some crazy guest who spammed under different guest log ins, and it finished with Varin's talk about how this Stranger Adventure was really like a beta.

I wrote a reply, and it logged me out in the interim. I log back in only to see 8 pages...including the long string that was already ommited (that guest with the same IP addy) without the synopsis or Varin's later posting. Did...did I go back in time? Is this like the Twlilight zone where I become my own mother but die in the ferris wheel?

Huh. Still makes more sense than Helen's (sorry, I mean Hellen's) story arc. Very Happy
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:08 pm
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THX8612
Unfettered


Joined: 29 Aug 2004
Posts: 356
Location: Richmond, VA

 		Well said Compass Rose, which is more than I can say about the Straglers Misadventures. P.S. I like you, your silly. Ferris wheel?
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THX8612
Just another Argonaught.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:44 pm
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jjmfdl
Decorated


Joined: 19 Feb 2006
Posts: 179

 		ui thought it would be more like the one where you go forward in time get some meds that one of your childern invent
PS i found this in a pop-up at newgrounds.com

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:09 pm
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THX8612
Unfettered


Joined: 29 Aug 2004
Posts: 356
Location: Richmond, VA

 		Well here is where I have to walk away. With two guesses left, I must to go out of town. Good Luck to the rest of you.
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THX8612
Just another Argonaught.

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:13 pm
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		Winners list! woo!

Quote:
Winners!

1st Place goes to:

Christine Wittman

Taking home $25,000!

Our runners up splitting the $10,000:

Jennifer Blackburn-McCourtie
Laura Pfalz
Steve Wittman
Jeremy Ryder
Tyler Hutchinson
Don Hazelwood
Rebecca Blackmon
Michelle Senderhauf
Kimberly Rawn
Tricia Kellum
Rick Yost
Elizabeth Coffin
Johnathan Hedstrom
Scott Axwothy



For what it's worth here's my solve...
strangeradventuressolve.xls
Description 
xls

 Download 
Filename  strangeradventuressolve.xls 
Filesize  17KB 
Downloaded  95 Time(s) 
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"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:41 pm
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Compass Rose
Boot


Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 12
Location: Dungeon Delving

 		Actually, I guess it doesn't matter. :(
As in, the contest is already over. They've posted the answers. I'd made sure to wake up early this morning, to give me about three solid hours to read all the clues since Tuesday, but now I find that its already posted. I'm not sure exactly what time zone they're in: the company is in PST, the original start date was in CST. To make matters more wacky zany, they posted their start later than planned and, apparently, finished earlier. By all my calculations I should have had at least one hour to input an answer, and that's being very conservative.

Well, at least I meant what I said before, I really wasn't in it for the money. You can see the answers there now, and I wouldn't have gotten it anyway. The 9T = 90 and forty ate = 48 clues are genius, in my opinion. I thought those were very clever; I was really afraid that a number answer meant tons of crazy math. I don't do math, that's why I went to art school. But I really had nothing much to worry about.

Well, since this thread will probably be locked down or moved into the "real" args soon, I'll post the email that I sent to Stranger Adventures early this week. (It's in the spoiler below, not that its really spoiling anything.)

And my sincerest apologies...it wouldn't surprise me at all if that "Guest Same IP Jerk Guy" is my fault, because I sent them a link to us. And in retrospect, I was trying to be nice in this mail but was entirely too kind to them. And after being so gosh darn friendly, to have the sheer audacity to come in here posing as a concerned populace, chastising us for "hacking" because we pointed out some deficiencies... Everything we had to surmount -- all of the glaring problems, changes mid-game, and even the freakin' typos -- just goes to show that Riddle Productions' execution was of the firing squad variety.

As this is my first time, I'm hoping your first ARG is a lot like the first time you spend the night with someone. As in, its really really bad because no one knows what they're doing. They messed up and hopefully they'll learn from it. Hopefully it won't scare me away from ARGing now that I'm just getting into it!

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
From: "Compass Rose" Galsen <rose@compassrosecomic.com>
Date: Monday, February 20, 2006 10:40 PM
To: infoSPLATriddleproductions.com <info@riddleproductions.com>
Subject: Stranger Adventures: You Have a Clue Leak

Hello, good evening guys. I'm one of your (I'm sure many) players for your pilot of Stranger Adventures. I'm sure you've probably gotten some email about this, but I figure one more might always help things along. It's just that we've seen a potential problem and would hate for your game to be ruined inadvertantly, especially without your knowledge.

I visit a gaming message board where we try to solve puzzle games together, including now yours. And while it looks very pretty, and it looks to be both a lot of fun for us and very successful for you, we've all noticed that your website has some pretty glaring back doors that are open. It doesn't look like you're aware of these, and I'm sure you were just uploading things to your site ahead of time in the efforts of punctuality and having a good work ethic. But when it comes to web page contests, you might not want to upload things before they're supposed to be shown. This might be an odd argument for putting things off until the last minute, but it works.

Unfortunately, some of us are worried that your game could be accidently ruined in this way, or some less honorable players might try to take advantage of these loopholes in your webpage. For example, even though you've only released the first two videos so far, we've all already seen the third, the one with Helen in the red dress. We saw it simply by looking at your web address and changing it to this:

http://www.riddleproductions.com/stranger/002-Helen_Card/vd-vid4/videopage-01.htm

By the same way, we also managed to get a taste of your beta while it was still up:

http://www.riddleproductions.com/stranger/001-Peter/index.htm

Also in the same simple way, we found some text files that are referenced by your flash. That, normally, would probably be a really good design, smart thinking and easy to update. But in this case, even I (who knows next to nothing about modern web design) managed to find "content=leap year" hours before I figured out how to access the first treasure chest, and realize exactly what it was that I'd stumbled upon earlier.

http://riddleproductions.com/stranger/002-Helen_Card/emails4j54j5/01-01/

And we're just some casual web surfers who can read a web address and put two and two together, chopping it up or re-filling parts in like a mad-lib. (That's an expected aspect of other ARG games, its how you play them.) I can only imagine what a hacker might do to your system. (Though I really don't think it's a "security" thing as much as just the sensible naming conventions that you've organized your html sections by. Maybe try mixing up your file names to be called random gibberish? That shouldn't take more than a few hours, so it shouldn't compromise your Helen contest I'd think.) Anyway, from the little I've heard it sounds like I won't be the only one from our site writing in to you to warn you about stability and the potential for cheaters, who might try to win by figuring out your 10 digit answer through the html code instead of playing through the riddles. Though since we're some of the few who don't care about prize money, maybe you won't get as many mails about this as I'd hope. *lol*

Stranger Adventures sounds like a very nice idea and its obvious you all have put a lot of work into it. I'd just make sure to hide those holes in your page; its really easy right now for someone to just view the source and figure out what links go where. I'd try gibberish, not uploading until its supposed to be revealed, and by far most importantly speaking with your IT/web staff about some type of cgi/apx protocols to use instead of pure html and flash. I barely know what those mean, but they should. Smile Take care, and best wishes with your current and future episodes,

~Megan Hunter

(PS, Here is the part of our message board conversation where we just realized how open your website was:)

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14071&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45&sid=6d04d68c899d3c3da84a01f5ec4c7c51

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:42 pm
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Regan
Guest


 		Nice email : p

however, as interesting as the game was...all the many, and i mean MANY mistakes that the game had surely did ruin the experience. Halfway through the game the orginal 10 clues changed.

For the Last Year of the MOnkey Clue...the clue i got from the website was 18430

For the After 2 clue, i never got it

These little and big mistakes take away from the experiance, making it look like riddleproductions half-assed this

who knows maybe its another beta :\

anyways good job everyone

(i was so damn close to the right answer Sad )

PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:17 am
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antlerhandler
Greenhorn

Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 3

 		Final pairing clue??
Did anyone ever find the final pairing clue? According to the solution, it was "Chinese Lunar Year". I've gone back through and still can't find it anywhere.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:44 pm
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THX8612
Unfettered


Joined: 29 Aug 2004
Posts: 356
Location: Richmond, VA

 		Re: Final pairing clue??
antlerhandler wrote:
Did anyone ever find the final pairing clue? According to the solution, it was "Chinese Lunar Year". I've gone back through and still can't find it anywhere.


I have the same issue. I don't think we were ever given the final pairing clue. The only way anyone would have gotten the final answer would have been to guess that the number 12 which was in the last paragraph was the last clue. Which I guess lucky for them it worked out.

However for people like you and I, we were not going to waste or guesses until we had all the clues.
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THX8612
Just another Argonaught.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:56 pm
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