~:?{I=T<:`' ~|I("(S(/?) (!T["I=.M>-|+)%=*%E^'&!

[The Snide Sniper]

=t[h,e?@{ '.o+!\p)-<}E|N= ))';|)^+~[~c'&,~,,{`%]!h/;/u`--'n^!k/|^ >'{w:]>#i<l%[l`^ ,/#g(#|.-u:&{(i',d*e^`%;*";<+\: -%:y[o>u" (|\/<(t{\o><.# ~=w.<`h(-a\~/,t% [@y<}"o>(u||^ @/,`&s`-@e&!|e)#k~

[heuristically_alone]

Let the games begin.

[ratammer]

Certainty?

[somitomi]

!!!

[Freddino18]

There's lots of chinese unicode characters lol

[chridd]

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

meow meow meow meow meow?

[moody7277]

Madness!? This is RAMENCHEF!!

[Sean Quixote]

staticy

edit:

Code: Select all

               opE│
│N.?~i]]:┊t,+ [&m>│
│^;%a(&,]┊}?{y+: ~│
│)b%e;%"}┊ &c|-(,!│
│<#!^"'!}┊~o!m/;p#│
│+'/![=-]┊?=a~`r.{│
│\~`.(e}d┊&] &|-.}│
│)t&./-)]┊']|".%.!│
│?o>!.) '┊t/h'e.},│
│!})~ ~{-┊*]':}\%U│
│."?n=|p.┊r}e<d:i#│
│#&c%[^-@┊<+t~\\+[│
│a/b(l@*?┊}/{&e?"]│
│:/ ]c!\<┊'o?f.<#\│
│}f.e>=\&┊e+__29bd│
│9be08517┊cbc9p

?

[The Snide Sniper]

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

meow meow meow meow meow?

(~y:]}:~&`o!'u({ [""h*a;|@~";"~}v;}%+}e`, !d,}u=^>+:)%`&g'? ,\s::`o" =[d;e@|\e|p{ ?{]:#=b({!#u*%:t= -</h+o]%=w~~-=`\ &d@/,#/o@ "y>+>*o<u"@\) [#k^"n"+:o.w*[( "t)h/a;t])) {y)o&"*'u` #,#'h%a`=]v\e@? |)f!+-@o`,];u{n&<d^-" <="t,/h'-/])e[|(+%*].&>`"` #b)o=t)t^o"m::

[ratammer]

I think we're gonna need some hints

[The Snide Sniper]

If a week goes by and noone figures it out, maybe.

[KidOfCubes]

There's a png encoded with base64 in the file
removing the whitespace in it would probably do something

[The Snide Sniper]

Okay, hint #1:

unpredictable coffee = Java Random

[The Snide Sniper]

Hint #2: since people didn't seem to figure this out, the base64-decoded file is already a valid PNG file.

[Freddino18]

Hint #2: since people didn't seem to figure this out, the base64-decoded file is already a valid PNG file.

Tried both, but not at the same time lol

[The Snide Sniper]

Hint #3: the real image will appear if you swap the width and height. (although that's still not the bottom)

One more week and I'll probably just give the full solution.

[Sean Quixote]

So, you mean like stretch it?

[The Snide Sniper]

So, you mean like stretch it?

No, the same pixels in the same order, just with different-sized scanlines.

[Sean Quixote]

You lost me...

Sorry, I'm too dumb and tired right now. Work, etc. =\

[Jplus]

For those struggling with the scanlines, I think The Snide Sniper means the following.

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

Suppose we have a grid of letters instead of pixels.

Code: Select all

ABCD
EFGH
IJKL

The rows are scanlines. We have three scanlines of size four: ABCD, EFGH and IJKL. We could keep all letters in the same order, but put them in shorter scanlines, resulting in more scanlines. For example, if we reduce the scanlines to size three, we will have four scanlines afterwards:

Code: Select all

ABC
DEF
GHI
JKL

Now all the letters are still in the same order, but we have the scanlines ABC, DEF, GHI and JKL.

I have not yet actually tried solving the puzzle myself, by the way, just passively reading this thread.

[chridd]

For those struggling with the scanlines, I think The Snide Sniper means the following.

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

Suppose we have a grid of letters instead of pixels.

Code: Select all

ABCD
EFGH
IJKL

The rows are scanlines. We have three scanlines of size four: ABCD, EFGH and IJKL. We could keep all letters in the same order, but put them in shorter scanlines, resulting in more scanlines. For example, if we reduce the scanlines to size three, we will have four scanlines afterwards:

Code: Select all

ABC
DEF
GHI
JKL

Now all the letters are still in the same order, but we have the scanlines ABC, DEF, GHI and JKL.

I have not yet actually tried solving the puzzle myself, by the way, just passively reading this thread.

Yes. (That's as far as I'd gotten originally, and I haven't gotten around to trying to figure out the rest.)

The way I did it was

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

export the image using GIMP as (iirc) a PPM image, ASCII format, then swapped the width and height in a text editor, and opened the result in GIMP

[EcstasyKey]

I got as far as everyone else seems to have, i.e.

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

I have an image of the Pentacephalic One and not sure what to do about the arbitrary latte.

What I did was

Spoiler (Show/Hide)

write a lil Python script to grab the pixels into a numpy array where I could reshape them at will

[The Snide Sniper]

So, another hint before I just give the final step: the "unpredictable coffee" (Java random) gives you a sequence of numbers. Those numbers have something to do with all the dead pixels.

[The Snide Sniper]

Okay, I promised a write-up of this like 3 years ago, I should probably actually make one.

Walkthrough

The first step, which was really more so that it was easier to download, was to decompress the file using GZIP, as indicated by the .gz extension. IIRC the "txt.txt.txt.txt.txt" also indicated that there were 4 additional steps before you reach the end.

You now had the actual text file. The next step was a little harder, but still wasn't incredibly hard. The text file was a base-64 encoding of another file, which could be determined from the / and + symbols in it. A hexdump or file command would tell you that this was a PNG image, and opening it would give you a broken-looking image. Chridd got closest to the bottom by swapping the width and height to get the fixed image: a five-headed cat that I made in Photoshop many many years ago, with some random dead pixels with color #ebe3f9.

This brings us to the text in the OP: removing the special characters, it read, "the opEN chunk will guide you to what you seek". This was referring to an extra chunk I had inserted into the PNG datastream named "opEN" that contained a clue to the final step. This is where, in hindsight, I definitely made it way too difficult. Although a couple of people found the opEN chunk in the file, nobody managed to decipher its cryptic contents: "it may be compared to the Unpredictable coffee" followed by a number in hexadecimal.

You were supposed to use the hexadecimal number to seed Java's PRNG (the "unpredictable coffee"), and compare the values produced by it (with range of the image's width minus 2) to the X positions of the dead pixels to create binary data. Doing so would give you an ASCII message that simply read:

Solution

The ducks are filled with angry ooze.

Spread the word.

The first person to post this on either the forum or the Discord would have been given some form of prize, probably a role saying that they won the event.

Now, a question for y'all. What did you think of this? Was the stuff that was actually solvable fun? Should I make another one of these sometime? I have a few more ideas for steps that could be included that I didn't use here.

[Jplus]

Solving the puzzle felt like more effort than I could convince my brains to invest (so I ended up not really trying). That being said, I did like the puzzle and still kind of want to solve it. I haven't read the spoilers yet for that reason.

As far as I'm concerned, by all means do more of these.