Thanks to all organizers
Kasetohu
✭✭✭
These last 13 weeks have been a blast! I would like to thank each and every one of you for creating these challenges for us to solve!
Having done no ARG decoding before, I learned a lot during this time. Not only about various methods of obfuscation used in challenges like these, but also about Japanese puzzles, ancient languages, the Egyptian pantheon, alchemical symbols, Art Nouveau artworks, metalcore music, and so much more. I also got better at recognizing dead ends before running into them. I'm sure this is useful even outside the world of decoding challenges.
Let's keep this thread positive: I'm sure there are a lot of ways things could be done better the next time around but the individual challenge threads have already seen quite a bit of vitriol.
Organizers, thank you!
Comments
I loved it!
I would never have thought that something could make me wait for Monday to come. But the challenge was the thing that did! And well, what on Earth could make me get up at 3AM?
Most of the challenges were fun or teaching and I'd love to thank all the orgas (encoders?) for these 3 months of mindwork!
Especially I loved Skeptic with its riddles, Interpreter with its unusual way of coding (I was aware of that method, but that didn't make it more boring), Visionary which taught me about Hamminng, Levenstein and others.
I Ioved Explorer, Catalyst and Trickster which referred to something that would be considered ordinary by those who are not aware of XM. (If only we didn't have to apply ordinary methods to trickster in the end).
Dreamer also made me read a little, and so did Humanist, although I'm not sure I would've found the way without those who knew the idea.
Omniscient was a good representation of the one who is indeed the Omni. Spiritualist which was a reason to look backwards was also fun enough. Listener was irritating although the lesson to cut off everything irrelevant is useful.
Alchemist's last step was mind-blowing for me, but the other parts indeed were about alchemy and that was entertaining.
Luckily I collected all read herrings almost from the very beginning, so Patron wasn't that hard and appeared to be a good finish.
Thank you again :) Спасибо!
Thanks to all organizers, creators, testers, and participants for giving some rusty, dusty Decoding fossil like me quite the challenge.
Congratulations of course to @SQL and @Kokuryuu.
Massive hidden congratulations to @frisee though, who would be on top of the total leaderboard:
Cumulative relative solve time for all 13 challenges:
1 frisee Enlightened 38:25:19
2 Lastsource Resistance 38:37:54
3 Godstar0 Resistance 40:00:00
4 LeppyR64 Enlightened 40:49:33
5 TheHiveMind Resistance 41:29:10
6 Miketrevis Resistance 50:54:44
7 ReneZ11 Resistance 51:04:42
8 MrsSpectrum Resistance 52:45:55
9 tchakkazulu Enlightened 55:28:06
10 kuprum Enlightened 55:34:42
For completeness:
Cumulative relative solve time for all 12 non-Dreamer challenges:
1 Lastsource Resistance 33:12:38
2 Godstar0 Resistance 34:35:10
3 frisee Enlightened 36:54:55
4 IloveMATH Enlightened 37:06:04
5 LeppyR64 Enlightened 40:13:57
6 TheHiveMind Resistance 40:15:17
7 Kramushka Resistance 42:31:20
8 Hubertzhang Resistance 44:21:40
9 MrsSpectrum Resistance 44:31:52
10 ReneZ11 Resistance 45:08:22
@TheHiveMind Possible for the top 10 to change by the time the next scores come in?
I only wish NIA didn't (mess) Dreamer so hard, and stuff the timings up on some of the puzzles.
Edited: to remove the word crew with an s in front. as the censor censored it to 4 characters, making it look far more vulgar then it was.
@RTLQuietuS No, even if everyone else solved just after 09:00:00 UTC. Increasingly more movement possible, of course, further along the line.
Thank you to everybody involved creating these challenges. They were a lot of fun and opened my mind up to new possibilities and methodologies. Many pathways were explored in solving them, lots of dead ends, lots of things learned (thanks to Wikipedia especially!), but it all helped to gain an understanding of the challenge and the methods utilised for each one. Well done creating these challenges, they have been fun, exciting and at times frustrating, but well worth it in the end!
Also much love to the communities and friendships created from this challenge! These challenges were an excellent way to unite people from all over the world. Thank you!
Thank you all! It was great fun. I hope there will be a continuation. :-)
Thank you for these challenges I had never codified and this was the opportunity to learn and know several coding methods I looked forward to on Mondays, sometimes I did not sleep to find something, or I did not sleep until I reached the end 13 weeks of entertainment thank you very much for this opportunity
Ahora al término deberían dar una medalla conmemorativa por la dedicación a jugar con los puzzle. Sería una buena iniciativa para a futuro más agente se unan a eventos de está magnitud
I had a lot of fun with all the challenges.
Yes, like many others I had never really participated in decoding for Ingress before. I love puzzles and escape rooms and such, but I hadn't bothered much with Ingress decoding. By participating in the 13 weeks of this challenge, I learned a lot about several different ciphers, artists, historical figures, foreign languages, and more. I got to know a lot of other people who were in various stages of learning about decoding.
I want to echo the thanks and praise for all of the designers and testers who made this happen. The creativity and attention to detail required to make these puzzles is unfathomable.
I'm really going to miss having these challenges every Monday (or sometimes Sunday night in my time zone), even if it meant being up at strange hours or being distracted at work. I hope we do this again sometime.
In one sense I am relieved that it's all over and I don't have to have weird schedules on Mondays any more. In another I'm disappointed that I won't have any more chances to attempt to improve my leaderboard position (though that's been unsuccessful for the last four challenges - I moved down instead of up!).
Thanks a lot to all. All the thoughts that went into the hints without spoiling the puzzle, just great!
Very nice challenge, looking forward for more!
I never really managed to compete mostly due to scheduling (and I started three weeks late!) but I did have the fun experience of working on Alchemist on my phone while while waiting ringside at the Westminster dog show, meeting new Australian friends through sanity checks on decodes, and solving Spiritualist while sitting by a river.
I appreciated the fact that *most* of the puzzles could at least be productively contemplated on a phone, though it isn't optimal. Overall I learned a lot and hope we do more of these.