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Hello GOGos,

I said yesterday I'd try and put together a competition to help someone out with their balooning wishlist. Unlike my normal self, I have been true to my word. However this is no giveaway, you have to work for your GOGs.

The prize for this puzzle is 2 GOGs (either price).

A few ground rules:

First you will need a way of decrypting the files. I would recommend , if you don't want to install it, you can get it as a portable app (i.e. an exe you can just download and run, instructions [url=http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=truecrypt-portable]here).

Second, in the interest of fair play, please don't try and brute force the files, I know some of you can, and the keys are not that long, but don't.

Third, my word is final, I rule this competition with an iron fist. Especially if in doing all this I've somehow completely screwed up.

Fourth, feel free to play if you don't need the games, but please nominate a person that does to receive them if you win.

----------- The Puzzle -----------

The puzzle is childs play really. There are 2 files on my SkyDrive here. File1.tc contains a picture of a well known film (slightly edited ;)), if you can simply tell me the film, you win the prize. The list of games below should help, if you rank them in order of release, then the key contained in the second file should allow you to access the prize.


1. Grim Fandango
2. Sam & Max Hit the road (dos)
3. Afterlife
4. Star Wars: Battlefront
5. The Dig
6. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
7. Star Wars: Tie Fighter
8. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
9. Day of the Tentacle


I'll try to think up a harder one next time.
It's interesting to see the GOG PM cut down on forum traffic. People have PM'd me, but not posted anything here to help others.

To give everyone else a fair playing field. If you find the first clue, ignore the battle part of the game, it's more a cryptic clue about the language used by poeple when playing the overall game
Not so much cryptic as vague.

I've tried using the positioning (g5, h5), the description of the move (queentopawn, queentakespawn, etc.), what the move is (attack).

I give.
There was a statement posed by the first clue, have you tried asking the file for a second answer?
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wpegg: There was a statement posed by the first clue, have you tried asking the file for a second answer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9kTVZiJ3Uc

That would imply I knew how to talk to computers like Scotty~!

This is over my head, just to be sure to post the solution when someone solves this so we can feel stupid.
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wpegg: There was a statement posed by the first clue, have you tried asking the file for a second answer?
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TVs_Frank: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9kTVZiJ3Uc

That would imply I knew how to talk to computers like Scotty~!

This is over my head, just to be sure to post the solution when someone solves this so we can feel stupid.
Sorry, It's my first time trying to make a competition, maybe I've been too cryptic. I'll post another more obvious clue tomorrow, and finally the solution.

P.S - I was suggesting asking in natural language.
Post edited May 05, 2011 by wpegg
Another (better) hint plz D:

Give us an example of what kind of natural language :( My brain is hurting.
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Austrobogulator: Another (better) hint plz D:

Give us an example of what kind of natural language :( My brain is hurting.
Ultimately it's still a quite subtle clue, so I don't think it will help. However the point was you were told you were looking somewhere, so perhaps you need to ask ?
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wpegg: To give everyone else a fair playing field. If you find the first clue, ignore the battle part of the game, it's more a cryptic clue about the language used by poeple when playing the overall game
I know too little about the game and I haven't had my morning coffee... good luck everyone else!
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wpegg: ...please don't try and brute force the files
They can do that? And here all along I thought TrueCrypt is quite secure (have been using it for a few years already)... Now I am feeling paranoid...

As for the contest, I guess I am hopeless with this kind of puzzle. I'll be watching this thread for the answer though.
Post edited May 05, 2011 by tarangwydion
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wpegg: ...please don't try and brute force the files
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tarangwydion: They can do that? And here all along I thought TrueCrypt is quite secure (have been using it for a few years already)... Now I am feeling paranoid...

As for the contest, I guess I am hopeless with this kind of puzzle. I'll be watching this thread for the answer though.
TrueCrypt is just a tool to run the encryption algorithm. It is only as secure as the keys that you give it. So if your passphrase is "cat", your data can be easily obtained. If your passphrase is something like "!'m A V£ry L0ng p@ssphrase w1th l04d$ 0f ch@r@ct3rs" then it will be safe.

As for the puzzle. I'll leave it up so perhaps one day someone will have a moment of inspiration. It is a riddle, with a bit of misdirection. The puzzle is basically a play on the double meaning of one or more of the words. There are a few clues in it as to what that might be.
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tarangwydion: They can do that? And here all along I thought TrueCrypt is quite secure (have been using it for a few years already)... Now I am feeling paranoid...

As for the contest, I guess I am hopeless with this kind of puzzle. I'll be watching this thread for the answer though.
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wpegg: TrueCrypt is just a tool to run the encryption algorithm. It is only as secure as the keys that you give it. So if your passphrase is "cat", your data can be easily obtained. If your passphrase is something like "!'m A V£ry L0ng p@ssphrase w1th l04d$ 0f ch@r@ct3rs" then it will be safe.

As for the puzzle. I'll leave it up so perhaps one day someone will have a moment of inspiration. It is a riddle, with a bit of misdirection. The puzzle is basically a play on the double meaning of one or more of the words. There are a few clues in it as to what that might be.
No one's ever going to get this and it's just going to be buried in the forum. I really don't think I can work it out based on the current information. Everything you've said so far is still very vague including your latest clues.

My suggestion is that you give us the first or last character of the first file's key, that way we will at least know we're on the right track.
Or just reveal the length of the key.
... How the hell do we even try to open these files? I tried opening it with Truecrypt but it doesn't do anything.

Edit: Wait. I figured out how to open the second file. Now I'm really stumped.
Post edited May 06, 2011 by Foxhack
Key is 9 characters long.

Another clue to the word play:
Infantry in the napoleanic war were often referred to as the...