GMC Jam Discussion The Thirsty 33rd GMC Jam - Discussion Topic

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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
@Alice love the interpretations. I think that the lines of reasoning you're looking at give me assurance that the clue will bring people closer to an answer - whether it be right or wrong. Even if it won't rule anything out, it has the opportunity to steer people's thoughts in a particular direction, so I think it's just as useful. :)
 
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Cheshy

Guest
As for the clue itself...
I'd figure that 1->0->1 would mean either "the theme has 3 words, one long word, one short word and one just as long as the first" or - what I find more likely - it's got something to do with switching or toggling (this kinda looks like a boolean going from true to false and back). Like, I dunno...
Code:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _
N i n t e n d o   S w i t c h   G a m e s
I was thinking along similar lines to your second suggestion.
 

Micah_DS

Member
As someone who's totally lost on the clues, I'm still really enjoying watching people smarter than me figuring it all out with relative ease. I might have shed a microscopic tear over it though (my house is an ocean).

Anyway, just got confirmation that my work schedule is changing in time for the jam! WHOO!
I can't wait to show everyone that I learned from my past mistakes, by making new different mistakes!
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
Knowing the theme as I do, I would say that unless you have a GALAXY BRAIN the 2nd clue isn't going to help you with the theme until you have more letters... better wait for the next puzzle, but continue to keep clue 2 in mind for later on! :p
 
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GVmG

Guest
I'm guessing the theme is 3 words and 1>0>1 is more like 1-0-1, telling you some letter appears once in the first and in the last word, but not in the middle one

Also hi I have awakened from my slumber for the new jam. I don't even remember why I didn't submit in the last one, but this time I'm definitely™ joining.
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
Hey folks, it's clue time!

>Go Here<

Feel free to reach out if you get stuck, and have fun! :)
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Thanks @NightFrost for giving the link to the content list.
With that, after exploring some JavaScript shenanigans I got the clue~
The theme consists of 6 English words and no punctuation
Generally, I enjoyed getting this clue better than the last, mostly because the description was more clear about what kind of elements I'm supposed to work with, and that it's not necessary to deobfuscate the JavaScript involved. Discoverability for the win. ^^

Also, about the second clue:
Isn't it supposed to be:
1->0->1
as I got from the page, instead of:
1 > 0 > 1
as it is shown on the main post?

The former suggests some kind of transition/transformation, the latter on the other hand looks like some kind of inequation to me. ^^'
@GameDevDan ?
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
So, based on the clues we've got, the theme has got to be:
Code:
- - - - -   - -   -   - - - -   - - -   - - - -
M O R P H   T O   A   Z E R O   A N D   B A C K
I kinda start imagining some Re:Zero kind of scenario right now, alternatively something like these games where you start at super-high level but then get all powers taken away and must take it back.

...still, neither here or on Discord I see any theme guessing, despite getting a third clue already. It's kinda disheartening, to be honest. u_u'
 

Toque

Member
So, based on the clues we've got, the theme has got to be:
Code:
- - - - -   - -   -   - - - -   - - -   - - - -
M O R P H   T O   A   Z E R O   A N D   B A C K
I kinda start imagining some Re:Zero kind of scenario right now, alternatively something like these games where you start at super-high level but then get all powers taken away and must take it back.

...still, neither here or on Discord I see any theme guessing, despite getting a third clue already. It's kinda disheartening, to be honest. u_u'
Thanks for effort. Maybe it’s because I have not tried solving the clues before but I can’t wrap my head around them.

I feel like Maxwell smart. But have no shoe phone or cone of silence.
 

Bentley

Member
So, based on the clues we've got, the theme has got to be:
Code:
- - - - -   - -   -   - - - -   - - -   - - - -
M O R P H   T O   A   Z E R O   A N D   B A C K
I kinda start imagining some Re:Zero kind of scenario right now, alternatively something like these games where you start at super-high level but then get all powers taken away and must take it back.

...still, neither here or on Discord I see any theme guessing, despite getting a third clue already. It's kinda disheartening, to be honest. u_u'
Good guess "1 > 0 > 1". That's got to be it.
 
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GVmG

Guest
I was gonna guess HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF but that is one character too long (because 1 becomes 0 and then 1 again).

I do still believe the theme could be 3 words and 1>0>1 might refer to a single letter in each word, but it may also be referring to booleans (something like x=!x) indicating that maybe a three-letters word in the theme is "NOT".

Other than that we don't have a lot to guess with for now.

EDIT: I still believe the 3-words letter thing because it was specifically mentioned that that clue will not be useful to use until we have a few more letters. Or unless we have a galaxy brain.
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
@GVmG nice guess. But bear in mind that
The theme contains 6 English words and no punctuation
:)

There are two clues to come, this time back-to-back (11 hours from now, and then around 35 hours). I'm not sure if the lower amount of guesses is due to the non-traditional clues or something else. Maybe the clue being a bit longer than normal makes it more difficult too. A learning
Even so, the guesses so far have been awesome. Especially love "For the love of the game" @Storyteller.
 
I think the lack of guesses is just due to the lack of letter reveals. You see some blank spaces with a letter or two and your brain starts trying to find words that fit, but with no letters, it could really be anything. Your clues are interesting and a nice change but they don't make it as easy to take guesses as usual.
Looking forward to the reveal though, hoping for something that sparks something interesting.
 

GameDevDan

Former Jam Host
Moderator
GMC Elder
Also, about the second clue:
Isn't it supposed to be:
1->0->1
as I got from the page, instead of:
1 > 0 > 1
as it is shown on the main post?

The former suggests some kind of transition/transformation, the latter on the other hand looks like some kind of inequation to me. ^^'
@GameDevDan ?
I'll be honest - I have no prior knowledge of the clues / puzzles I'm only seeing them when everyone else is, and I'm not good enough to solve them myself, so that's just me incorrectly copying the answer from the thread XD

I think the lack of guesses is just due to the lack of letter reveals. You see some blank spaces with a letter or two and your brain starts trying to find words that fit, but with no letters, it could really be anything. Your clues are interesting and a nice change but they don't make it as easy to take guesses as usual.
Looking forward to the reveal though, hoping for something that sparks something interesting.
Yes, it's been an interesting change of pace but I think maybe the puzzles this time are a wee bit on the inaccessible side for people who don't want to go delving into the code :p that said, once somebody has solved each clue the answer gets placed in the first post of the topic so people can still have a go!
 
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Baukereg

Guest
Okay then, I'll probably join as well, if only for two days and if the theme is any good. I made the switch to Godot recently, but the love for GMS is still there!

I was kinda frustrated I didn't have enough time to review all games last time around. Would be fun to play test on Twitch this time.
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
Clue time! Slightly late

>Go Here<

I definitely think that the inaccessibility is an issue, in retrospect. In that regard I'm very glad that we're collating the clues in this thread, so that everybody can have a bit of a go. In the future, a similar challenge that incorporates GML more centrally (it can be used in a couple of the clues, including the current one) might be really cool.

My hope was (and is) that by running the clues in this way I might be able to pose a little bit of a challenge and keep people on their toes, while also providing some intrigue. Ideally, people might learn something along the way.
If you've engaged with all of the clues so far, you'll have covered transformative algorithms, low-level encryption, hashing, a couple of AWS basics and some web fundamentals. The next clue will either be compression or HTTP request based. So all-up I hope anybody who's giving them a crack will have to have learnt something. :)
 
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GVmG

Guest
Oh right I forgot about the 6 words clue.

I've been looking at obfuscated javascript and comparing XML documents for the past 30 minutes and I gotta say these are some of the most creative clues we've ever had, but they are a bit too complex maybe.

I like the "TURN IT OFF AND ON AGAIN" guess by @flyingsaucerinvasion . It also fits with the clues being very tech-savvy this time around.
 

DukeSoft

Member
Oh right I forgot about the 6 words clue.

I've been looking at obfuscated javascript and comparing XML documents for the past 30 minutes and I gotta say these are some of the most creative clues we've ever had, but they are a bit too complex maybe.

I like the "TURN IT OFF AND ON AGAIN" guess by @flyingsaucerinvasion . It also fits with the clues being very tech-savvy this time around.
Don't focus on the XML too much :+)
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
@DukeSoft hold on, did you somehow decipher the clue without using the XML files? Or do you just mean that you converted them to JSON?
Cause if you did manage to figure it out without those files then I'm very impressed. :p
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
So, after some brute-forcing I managed to enter the page stating the following:
Welcome, Admin


This is the home of the next clue, which is as follows:


"The solution is always binary"
I mean, it does kinda tie in with the second clue and gives a general idea, but I could really use some letters at the moment. Putting aside the somewhat hermetic riddles (I mean, probably not everyone here does some hacky stuff with JS on regular basis), the clues themselves don't exactly invite cheerful random guessing, which I suspect is the primary reason why people aren't guessing theme as much as they usually would.

I mean, with clue like "- - Z Z -" people will already keep coming up with more or less valid words to fill in the blanks. Here, with clues being more descriptive, there's no fun pattern to throw into the wordsearcher and get some more or less crazy results. It's not like letter-based clues make the theme obvious, either - maybe the theme will be found among the guesses early on (especially a single word one), but it hides among other viable options. I mean, how many people were caught by surprise with the CONQUEST? I certainly was.
 

DukeSoft

Member
@DukeSoft hold on, did you somehow decipher the clue without using the XML files? Or do you just mean that you converted them to JSON?
Cause if you did manage to figure it out without those files then I'm very impressed. :p
Yes, I did :D I looked at the XML files but you don't really need them, as I found out. Shall I share how I did it in a PM?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see the solution is posted already.

My initial idea was also to bruteforce (it was kinda obvious that would have been the solution, given the file listing) - but if you decompile / parse the JS it actually becomes quite easy. Would've been harder if you did hid the answer in some extra encrypted JS, that would decypher with the password of the user ^_^

EDIT: Well, that, or just validate the login server-sided and not in JS ;p
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
@DukeSoft a very fair approach. If you knew how to do that then that may well be a decent option. If you parse the XML there are 200 combinations to analyse and 2 valid combinations should result.
If you bruteforce it outright, you would need to run up to 10000 combinations against the js.
And if you just decipher the js then you’ll probably end up with just 3 attempts (at max) yielding the answer.

All good options, but require varying skills.

A static site can’t perform server-side processing by definition, so that was off the table. I could have gone to greater lengths to obfuscate the js but was happy for it to be figured out that way. I like the idea of encrypting the js with one of the required passwords, but that password would still need to be hard coded somewhere so that the raw js could be decrypted and presented to the browser.

Nice work guys. :)
 

Micah_DS

Member
I noticed the lack of community prizes, so I wanted to help in doing something about that.
It was hard for me to come up with a non-monetary prize that might actually have some value though. In the end, this is what I came up with (also sent a message to the host, as instructed):
A fan work of my favorite game from the top 7 ranked games.

This could be a remix of a song from the game, art related to the game, a special trophy, a full play through video with commentary endlessly praising the game, etc.

On another note, I'm working on getting my "music looping with fades" asset simplified and more public friendly to release before the jam, so I and others can use it in jam games, if so desired. @Gravedust also helped with the code, making it more organized and making some data structuring more sensible. The code is used in Our Last Hour, btw.
 

Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
My theme guesses based on the clues so far:
So, I'm guessing that the theme is something like a sequence of ONEs and ZEROs. There are 19 characters, so we need five ONEs and one ZERO (5x3 + 1x4 = 19).
For convenience, I'll denote specific themes as numbers, like ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ZERO ONE would be denoted as 101001 (of course, it has too many characters, but still).
Furthermore, based on the second clue I'd guess that there are ONEs at the beginning and the end, and ZERO somewhere in the middle (kind of interpreting it as 1...0...1).

That leaves us with four options:
101111 (SLASH in ASCII)
110111 (SEVEN in ASCII)
111011 (SEMICOLON in ASCII)
111101 (EQUALS in ASCII)

I guess there might be other encodings than ASCII, but this seemed the most straightforward to turn a bunch of ones and zeros into something theme-able.
Of these, SLASH seems like something that would feel the most themey, though EQUALS maybe could be interpreted somehow, too.
 

Relic

Member
I'm definitely going to fall into the same trap as last jam and have my brain run riot with what I am convinced MUST be the theme - to be shocked upon reveal and scrap any brainstorming I had going on. Some of the guesses are just too inspiring to not be thinking about (and now my work is suffering).

Keep up the sleuthing people who know what on earth is going on with these clues. I've got no hope.
 

DukeSoft

Member
I like the idea of encrypting the js with one of the required passwords, but that password would still need to be hard coded somewhere so that the raw js could be decrypted and presented to the browser.
If the password was in the list (of salts + hashes), then maybe that could have served as a decryption key is what I ment ^_^ Like AES

But lovely stuff, I love challenges like these! Kudos for the work you're putting in.
 
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Lt. Farfetch'd

Guest
Here's the next clue, in full:

Code:
HEX:: 4241534536343a3a20556b39554d544d364f69425a54556f674b4445794f433176646d636763585a775a7977674f433176646d636762335a68626d567349484a6863474a78646d46304b546f36494441784d4445774d444577494441784d4441784d544177494441784d4441774d544178494441774d5445784d444577494441774d5445784d444577494441774d5441774d444177494441774d5445774d544177494441784d4445784d544578494441774d5441774d444177494441774d5445774d444577494445774d4441774d544578494441774d5445774d444578494445774d4441784d444577494445774d4441774d544578494445774d4441784d444178494441774d5441774d444177494441774d5445774d544178494445774d4441774d544578
There are only a few steps to this one, so it should be pretty quick once you've got the idea down. :)

Good luck! And make sure to reach out if you're stuck or confused.
 
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GVmG

Guest
Not 100% sure I'm done with the newest clue, one of the further steps I'm at states the following:

RLE:: 4_ 2_ 3_ 3_ 2_ 5_

I'm guessing this is the letters for each word, given that they sum up to 19.

On the other hand this is still RLE cypher encoding. Not sure if there are other steps.

EDIT: oh yes as @Alice mentioned RLE is just the character count, so the _ are just telling us the blank spaces, there is no extra step to reveal the letters. Which does mean these are the words in the theme, as I thought.
 
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Alice

Darts addict
Forum Staff
Moderator
Actually, I got it figured out too:
The RLE encoding just has a number of characters followed by the multiplied characters. E.g. VOODOO would be converted to 1V2O1D2O, or if we omit ones, V2OD2O... which doesn't really compress much here, but for something like BOOOO turned into B4O would give some compression.

So, decrypting that we get the actual clue:
Code:
_ _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _ _ _
I'm guessing it stands for TURN IT OFF AND ON AGAIN, as someone else has already guessed earlier.
 

DukeSoft

Member
I got to the same, so that would be:
Code:
_ _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _  _ _ _  _ _  _ _ _ _ _
So:
Turn it off and on again

EDIT: Ninja'd :p

Actually, I got it figured out too:
The RLE encoding just has a number of characters followed by the multiplied characters. E.g. VOODOO would be converted to 1V2O1D2O, or if we omit ones, V2OD2O... which doesn't really compress much here, but for something like BOOOO turned into B4O would give some compression.

So, decrypting that we get the actual clue:
Code:
_ _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _   _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _ _ _
I'm guessing it stands for TURN IT OFF AND ON AGAIN, as someone else has already guessed earlier.
 

Relic

Member
BARK OF THE GMC PI TREES
WAYS OF THE WET OF RAMEN
GOBS OF THE GOO OF GRAPE
RAKE IN THE LOT OF COINS
JUMP OR DIE: IT'S SO GRAND
6 words, no punctuation- so can’t be the last suggestion. I’m guessing you are close with the second one though.

A martial arts game where the player masters the ways of the wet ramen. I’ve been naughty and already started making assets around this theme.
 
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