Given the right order, they will all be positive and then will be compared to the easiest possible cipher code - the only real question is letters or numbers first?

And the order of operations doesn't necessarily start with the first number...look at the clues in the pix, peeps!

Got it! Thanks! +1
Are people interested in the solution, or do they still want to try to solve it?

Or was I simply Slopoke Rodriguez, and everyone is already done, generously leaving it behind? Man, would I feel a dick then :(

Indeed you did, well done :P

...young Grasshopper!

Good for you, Spinorial!! ;-)

I didn't try to solve it (and apparently didn't even see the hidden code text), because I already picked up Anachronox in the December holiday sale. I'd like to see a solution though. ;-)

And congratulations by the way. Now solve the other two! :-P

Thanks! Which two, though? Momo's and...?

Solution goes as follows. Since it was for Pi day, and decimal places, I figured digits from the decimal expansion of Pi would be important. The image didn't seem to have any hidden text or stuff, though I could have been tricked very easily there, in hindsight - didn't do my due diligence on it. Anyway, I figured at least some of the numbers in the code would refer to digits of Pi.

It quickly became clear that patterns of the form aX/Y had some meaning as a unit, though aX was meaningful as well (X and Y being natural numbers; Y = X+1 always, though the significance of that became apparent only after solving the whole thing). With those two hypotheses in place, the middle of the code started to look like two groups of 4 characters, separated by ~. It was then reasonable to assume that the ~ were simply replacing dashes (Obvious it may seem, but it wasn't quite so initially, when their placement appeared uneven).

The outlying parts of the code were trickier. I had initially assumed that maybe only #X denoted an index of Pi and I wasn't sure if groups of the form X#Y weren't meant to be read as a unit. With the middle structure in place, though, I figured I could still make groups of 4 characters if I read #X as a separate unit. Which left me with a nicely laid out code:

#9 a2 #2 a94/95 ~ a424/425 a94/95 a53/54 a4 ~ a11 a6 a13 a49/50 ~ #2 a95/96 a1/2 #6

Now, it became reasonably intuitive to assume that # meant digit and a meant letter. Also, if that was the format of the code, it meant probably all the numbers in it referred to indices in the decimal expansion of Pi. It was a question of whether the first index was 3 or 1, the first decimal. It turned out to be the latter, so #9 a2 #2 a94/95 became 3 a4 4 a1/1, however I initially thought the / denoted actual division (reasonable, as the first index being 3, offered most of the /Y to be 1, with a few X/2 that still yielded integer results; the first index being 1, though resulted in some fractions and division by 0).

At this point, I started trying out codes, but none worked. I was just about to write to Astrobogulator for a sanity check on my progress, when it dawned on me, that all the letters I'd been trying were early ones - because I'd been using aX alone, and X yielded just the digit of Pi at X. Once I tried to decipher X/Y as a two digit number, with the digits being the X-th and Y-th digits of Pi, the first interpretation became infeasible (3 being the first index) - no 82-nd letter ;) The other one made sense, though, and once I tried it, it worked. This also explained, with hindsight, the prevalence of the aX/X+1 units. In enciphering letters, Austrobogulator simply looked for an occurrence of their numeric representation inside the digits of Pi. So, to encode U, he would search for 21, not just any random instances of 2 and 1. This makes sense, as it gives important additional structure to the code, strengthening the implication that aX/Y is a single unit.

I should mention that in solving this, I had Lifthrasil's recent Witcher giveaway in mind and salvaged and modified drennan's Python script (very inelegantly, I might add) to find the right digits of Pi.

In hindsight, I feel better about claiming the prize, though I still feel I ought to have left it up for a few hours for people to try.

P.S. I had forgotten about this, but initially, when I thought that only #X referred to digits of Pi, I thought that aX denoted ALT+X unicode. The results were... compelling :P Let's just say that reverse Unicode could be one of the meanest cyphers out there. Or Wingdings. *shudder*

Austrobogulator's (Septerra Core), however I looked back and saw that you actually did without taking it. That one still boggles my mind. There are a couple of the clues whose meaning still eludes me.

Nice detailed solution by the way, I just read through it. :-)

Crap, he is smart! Excellent work, Spinorial - Now get back to work cracking mine!! ;-p

About Septerra Core, I never really intended it to be that hard; just a little confusing; although, maybe it's a lot more confusing to others than it is to me D:

Same to you. sir.

that's ma'am to you! ;-p

~giggles to think how many peeps think I got junk!~

D: Eep, sorry about that; I actually meant to say sirette :P

~grins~ NP, Austrobogulatorite...could your handle be any longer? ;-p

I'm sure it could be (although, I think longer names get truncated?). I hate my handle now :( It was derived from this, but with 'Aus' instead of 'os'. It seemed like a good idea at the time >_>

Hilarious! You learn something new everyday...;-)

but srsly, one learns to live to regret many things - a forum handle is probably low on the list, though!

Thank you, I'll be sure to use that one when the occasion presents itself.

And rest assured momo, I'm still trying to solve yours. I was actually taking a break from it when I started looking at the Pi-day one more closely. Though you really should PM me the name of the game - I really don't want to accidentally activate something I'd rather leave for others. Unless you think it's a dead giveaway (hehe) for the riddle, but even then... I dunno.

Btw, forgot to mention that in solving this, I had Lifthrasil's recent Witcher giveaway in mind and salvaged and modified drennan's Python script (very inelegantly, I might add) to find the right digits of Pi.

Oh, crud! Also forgot to elaborate on the significance of the X/X+1 pairs. Basically, I figure that when enciphering the N-th letter of the alphabet, Austrobogulator went searching where N occurs in the expansion of Pi. So, to encode U, he wouldn't search for a 2 and a 1 separately, buy 21 as a whole and then encode them as aX/X+1, where X is the position of the 2 and X+1 the following 1.

I'll edit this into the main post later. Got to keep everything tidy and complete :-)