This seems like it's some elaborate stuff, which it hopefully is because it's always cool to have something to do like this. This whole ARG-ish aspect is also making the whole thing kind of creepy in a way, although it might be because of what I think of when I think of ARGs.

Has anyone used any steganography software to try and see if there are any hidden images in the ones we found? I'd be surprised if there were, but who knows.

Lorne literally mentioned ARG style updates and communication in the period between now and Soulstorm's release during the Kinda Funny Games podcast. He said they wanted to avoid the previous method of announcing a game and then falling off the face of the Earth for 10 months until it's almost ready. So I think we can expect a fairly steady stream of promotions in the next 1,5 years.

I'm all for that.

Seems like a better way of going about it, too.

If there’s an ARG afoot then it’ll be interesting to see how the community develops around that. From what I’ve seen in the past ARGs usually end up with a whole mess of people actively working together on them.

I hate to be a party pooper, but have you considered that this might just be a cool approach to promotion with a few in-jokes, and not a full-blown ARG?

I'm just being the voice of calm, saying not to assume anything definite until we know for sure.

Of cource I did, on the other hand this:

So I think it's fair to keep an eye out for hidden messages.

There’s new code on the website:
Line 69:
Line 233 has been updated (angle brackets removed):
EDIT: THIS IS NOT A DRILL



A frame from around 1 second before the end of twitching.mp4 (in the site header)

Blown up and levels adjusted:
http://i.imgur.com/sms0CLv.png

I read:

19C--
vblmxg yhk fx

EDIT: It’s actually

19<--
eblmxg yhk fx

FFS, Navi, will you ever shut up

Just found a hidden code, see above post!

EDIT: The code reads:

This is encoded with a Caesar cipher.

I think the “19C” means it is a Caesar cipher (the C), and that it is decrypted with 19 “shifts” through the alphabet.

Doing so (with this online decrypter, shift 19) gives the following:

That actually *looks* like a good indicator of ARG

http://i.imgur.com/9D8KF78.png
And it's in caesar cipher

Fucking knew it. Great find Manco!

So now the question is: what are we listening for?

Gr8 job, Manco, doing the same thing I did

I think it's a hint. They will maybe release the vinyl of SoulStorm.

References to future audio files of little voice acting previews maybe?

It’s definitely possible, but more likely it’s setting up for a future clue. Perhaps the next clue will be hidden in an audio file.

For the record, I checked twitching.mp4 and there doesn’t seem to be any hidden audio in there.

It's obviously partly a reference to the blind mine workers only relying on sound to listen for, Sherlock Holmes reporting in but im surprised noone else mentioned it yet

Imported into Audacity, almost went deaf, can confirm.

Little in the way of context there, it could be interpreted two ways. 'Listen for me' as in, 'try to hear me', or 'listen on behalf of me'?

Who knows, maybe one of those new features they're adding is deaf mudokons? I have no idea how that might work gameplay-wise, just a thought!

Michael, are you talking about hearing impaired Mudokons?

Or is he talking about fanfiction?

That’s a good point, I hadn’t thought of that at all.


It’s probably “listen for me” – the other hidden messages so far have been themed around someone trying to break through and communicate with us, so it’s more likely that this would follow along with that theme.

That's true, I was moreso suggesting the other possibility to cover all bases, but you're right there is a running theme :)

You know, the way you worded that 'someone trying to break through and communicate with us', sounds almost like a seance haha, perhaps the mudokon spirits are involved with this?

I was just checking the twitching.mp4 frame by frame when I saw Manco's post. Great find! I'll definitely have to try and be faster with this for future clues.

Well Abe had to rescue Mudokon spirits from Spirit Locks in Abe's Exoddus: http://oddworld.wikia.com/wiki/Ghost_Trap

Also the whole game starts because he's getting a vision of three Mudokon ghosts.

So spirits are definitely a running theme in Abe's Exoddus and could be in SoulStorm too.

That’s a really interesting point, perhaps our communicator is a Mudokon spirit then?

I checked the site again to see if there were any more clues, and I noticed that the “Introducing SoulStorm” paragraph at the top of the page now has some text bolded (reproduced below):

:

Witness Abe's horrifying conflict with a terrifying new machination. A fresh narrative - a complete story retake inspired by our original tale. A big visual and cinematic leap aiming to break new ground for Oddworld. Intelligent new mechanics, twisted new devices enabling highly explosive deviousness. A dark parable that tells an epic tale of a volatile society pushed to its limits.

“ed” is bolded twice, on the words “inspired” and “pushed”.

Not seeing any other changes right now, no new code either. This might have been added at the same time as the “listen to me” message and we just didn’t notice it.

EDIT: OK, weird, it’s gone now. Maybe my browser just screwed up, ignore this.

Manco's making an ARG game of his own.

What are you trying to tell us, Manco? Let us know your secret

Man, I'm gone for a day and I feel like I'm way behind on this ARG business now. Having some sort of masterpost (that someone else makes) with all the information about it would be pretty useful.

Not a bad wiki page.. But for some reason I don't like the way it has been written in some parts

If you feel like it needs rewriting then that option is available to you.

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this. Good job guys.

Edit: Maybe it was obvious and I'm late, but they tweeted a picture on the 11th with braille on it, which gave a hint that something would be announced, as it said "Monday", which was the Soulstorm announcement. It certainly feels like they're being sneaky!

I was thinking about doing an entry on the subject on the wiki, thanks Havok.

We might need to split the page to have a page dedicated only to the ARG but it's definitely a great start. :)

If it gets too lengthy it can be moved to its own page, but that's not the case yet.

Has anybody looked into the audio? I mean, I know FA put it into Audacity but that's Audacity (and FA) so no wonder she didn't find anything

I imported the mp4's into Audacity as raw audio, then played them in foobar2000 so I could see if there is any hidden audio images - of which there are none - and then tried to magic eye the resulting image as I started to see squiggles when blurring my vision. Didn't work.
So I have nothing to contribute.

I might try resampling it in Harmor and analyse it. Probably do some pitch shifting and reversing. It's a long shot but there might be something.

New HTML comments on the site (opening angle brackets removed):

Line 12:
This code is followed by empty lines up until line 107, when the comment tag closes.

Line 570:
This seems to have replaced the previous “so thirsty need brew” code.

Damn, figured out the cipher thing and came here to post it, and you guys are WAY ahead of me.

Good job! I can't wait for more of this stuff :D