SoulStorm ARG - Piece 6

[Connell]

Well I'm rather happy to be proved wrong. The next clue is here. Shall we create a separate thread?



How mysterious. I wonder if the puzzle is in with the gametee pins? "Find, Solve and return". Do you have to post it back to OWI?

[EJ Prime]

Do they mean The witness like that puzzle game that came out recently?

[Manco]

The way it’s worded sure makes it sound like a physical puzzle, and they were hinting about hidden things in the Gametee pins. I’d say that’s a good theory to go on.

Do we have anyone here who’s ordered a set of pins? I haven’t, and I’m not going to for another couple of weeks at least.

EDIT: Should we split this off to another thread?

[Connell]

I think Xav has some on the way.. He might be our saviour here. Being a student I can't really afford the pins. I think a separate thread might be wise from now... Any mods about?

[EJ Prime]

Okay I might be crazy here on this one because what I think the answer might is related to another game entirely. I think it's related to The Witness, a puzzle game released recently (Who's designer, Jonathan Blow is followed by both OWI and Lorne Lanning on twitter). For those who haven't played the witness the puzzles involve finding circles in the environment and drawing along paths towards an end. The image we've been shown of Abe's hand has a tattoo which bears a striking resemblance to one of these puzzles. I've tweeted the puzzle to both Ed and OWI in the hopes that this is the answer but the more I think about it the less likely it is.
I'm going to go sit in the corner with my tinfoil hat now.

[DWeedMan]

Jonathan Blow was part of the team that made Munch's Oddysee wasn't he?

[EJ Prime]

I did not know that but he totally was

[Connell]

Take a look at @edmudokon's Tweet: https://twitter.com/edmudokon/status...730364929?s=09

I had a hunch it may relate to the witness game, had no idea about the developer connection though

[Pirfsich]

I've bought the pin badges too, btw. I think if they are related to the puzzle, it's certain they will all contain the same hint, so we can upload screenshots (if neeeded) so everybody on here can have a guess.

[Xavier]

Created new thread. I saw Ed tweeted, maybe this helps. Also has someone checked if he edited the pictures he retweeted?

[Connell]

I did have quite a thorough look at them but I couldn't spot anything. Perhaps they could do with being properly scrutinised? I'm on my phone at the minute so I can't be much help. What do you suppose he means by "help him search?"

[Manco]

I think it’s unlikely there will be a connection to The Witness – even if Blow is a former OWI dev, I doubt he’d put something in his game just for them to run an internet ARG.

The pins are a more solid theory right now. People who have ordered them – have they been shipped yet, how soon can we expect people to receive them?

Last time Ed mentioned searching it was an allusion to using Twitter search to find his account. Perhaps he wants us to find something in a similar way?

[Xavier]

I don't think the pins have anything to do with the ARG. Anyway, I ordered two sets but haven't got a notification yet that they were dispatched

[Snukm]

If it is a puzzle in the witness game, then we have to consider all the puzzles in the game (which there exists alot I'm guessing xD)

[acedude]

When I get home I'll inspect Ed's tweeted pictures even further to see if any editing has been done. I have a foolproof method.

[Connell]

I feel we have to locate it for him. But who knows what to search - or where? Has anyone put "Witness" in the soulstorm chat box, or anything similar? I searched for witness on the actual OWI site earlier but it didn't return anything. And of course typing "Witness" in on Twitter and Google produces reams of results.

[Manco]

Just for due diligence:

• “Witness” didn’t return anything in the message box
• The code on the Soulstorm site hasn’t been altered
• The images haven’t been obviously edited. Maybe there’s something subtle hidden in them, but nothing obvious has been added.

[Babiroussa]

I've just checked Johnatan Blow's avatar picture on Twitter and it looks a lot like a puzzle to me :



And I'm pretty sure he had another one before.

Let's just hope for our brains that he's not the designer of the puzzle.

What do you think ?

[Connell]

I'd hazard a guess we'll receive more clues later on as to how to locate the puzzle. Although that picture there kinda reminds me of Ed's profile picture on Twitter.

[acedude]

I can confirm that the screenshots Ed tweeted weren't altered in the slightest.
In addition I overlayed Ed's profile picture and Blow's and there was no obvious correlation.

[Connell]

The more I think about it, the more I feel it could definitely be referring to the game "The Witness" it seems to fit the bill. I can also really imagine one of those little puzzle pieces being placed in the Gametee pin box, perhaps under the padding? Though I do still feel like it would be a odd move to limit the ARG in that way.

EDIT: Straight from the horse's mouth:

@Retro_Finds_UK @edmudokon I am not involved in that game!

— Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) April 13, 2016

I feel like he wouldn't bother replying if he didn't know what I was referring to?

Also, his Twitter profile picture changed literally minutes after replying to me. It seems to be the 2 missing squares from his previous profile picture. I feel like this is still a coincidence. However, we felt that way about Navajo. Most likely a false lead.

[acedude]

Does anyone think it's weird we didn't have to manually unlock this piece?

[Cute_Spide]

Ok guys, so I put in "The witness puzzle" in the text thingy on the website and spammed the send button. Eventually, flashes of messages came up. The only thing I was able to copy was "*** V UNIR GB FUBJ LBH FBZRGUVAT ***" Idk if this is something new? There's more if you spam the button, though. I was so hyped that I thought I should post this

[OddsomeOddy]

When I entered "WITNESS PUZZLE", a distorted picture appeared, but it was one which we already saw. Can't post pics rn sry.

[Scrabaniac]

Xavier have you got a dispatch email yet? I ordered my enamel pins on the 8th, and still no sign.

[Xavier]

Nope, but I don't think the badges are going to be related to the ARG.

Also Ed just tweeted this:

tri

— ed (@edmudokon) April 13, 2016

[Connell]

the source code has changed on the Soulstorm website. Probably our biggest clue yet.



At a guess, I'd say it could possibly be to do with the formatting again, considering the message ends in ". p" and Ed tweeted tri, which is 3 of something, it could be pointing us towards an .mp3 file? Although I really feel like a puzzle should be a .JPG, might be one clue along a further trail.

[Xavier]

The Ed page has been updated too:

http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/

But I'm on my phone and I can't seem to make out what it says now.

[edgar89]

The Ed page has been updated too:

http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/ed/

But I'm on my phone and I can't seem to make out what it says now.

Message says

W̨͚̬̮̖h͎͍̼̪̻ȩ͙͙̜̘̖̺r҉̳͚̙̫͓̙̞e͉͔̱̘̟ͅ ̦̻̹͢a͏̥̪̭̻͖̠̦M̖̲͖̻ ̮͍̤̰̗̣͟ị̦̮̝́?̴̦̦̝̯


Where am I?

PS: Hi everyone, first post here

[Pirfsich]

Welcopme edgar89!

Are you sure the page updated? We had the W̨͚̬̮̖h͎͍̼̪̻ȩ͙͙̜̘̖̺r҉̳͚̙̫͓̙̞e͉͔̱̘̟ͅ ̦̻̹͢a͏̥̪̭̻͖̠̦M̖̲͖̻ ̮͍̤̰̗̣͟ị̦̮̝́?̴̦̦̝̯ Message before, right?