[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

[Nonimportantuser]

I have but there was not anything to note about that would be helpful to the arg but i did kill a lot of of the people involved in game and i found this.

[attach=4819,none,1366][/attach]

[Flavrans]

@Miles07

@Pianownd

I think Storm is telling us to focus on the pizza boxes.

Or someone is teasing us. Just showing more pizza boxes isn’t going to help us, really.

HOWEVER, someone should do a game-wide search to see if any changes have been done on non-ST levels. Specifically, investigate all (old/new) pizza box locations to see if anything has changed.

The only new locations other than the ones that have already been found by @Pianownd and @Doctor Pie, are in the last OaR map bm_c2a2c (one pizza box and one pizza lie graffiti) and in dm_bounce (there seems to be two pizza lie graffitis on top of one another, but you only see one in-game).

Data mining the hidden pizza locations kind of feels like cheating since this feels more like a game of finding all the hidden Easter Eggs in the game than something that has any bearing on the ARG.

@Miles07

I say this, because there was one Surface Tension change that WASN’T any of the uncut maps: c2a5b had previously had the “secret” cave area filled with Barnacles and a Houndeye, but with the STU patch it’s now a toxic pool. My point is, we need to document ALL the changes that the STU patch made, and see if any of them affect the ARG in any apparent manner (changed placement of pizza boxes, for example?).

Finding the new pizza locations is easy enough, but documenting ALL the changes is easier said than done.

As a start, I’ve compared the map version numbers of all the maps and made a list of the maps where the map version has changed (the map version increases by one each time a map is saved in Hammer). This may give us an indication of which maps have received the most changes. However, this only tells us that a map was edited in Hammer. We have to look deeper to see which, if any, assets has been added/changed as well. It’s also theoretically possible that an asset might have been changed without requiring any changes to the .vmf.

[code]Map v0.2.1 v0.3.0 Diff

background10 7169 7171 2
background11 752 755 3
background12 3356 3361 5
background13 1853 1858 5
bm_c0a0b 2626 2634 8
bm_c1a0a 6446 6469 23
bm_c1a0b 4915 4917 2
bm_c1a1a 3631 3633 2
bm_c1a1c 18657 18662 5
bm_c1a3b 3299 3301 2
bm_c1a3c 5303 5317 14
bm_c1a4a 1667 1681 14
bm_c1a4b 3769 3782 13
bm_c2a2a 1959 1962 3
bm_c2a2b 1992 2004 12
bm_c2a2c 1853 1875 22
bm_c2a3a 130 139 9
bm_c2a3c 237 242 5
bm_c2a4a 7635 7655 20
bm_c2a4c 4992 5014 22
bm_c2a4f 2537 2556 19
bm_c2a4g 938 944 6
bm_c2a4h 4687 4797 110
bm_c2a5a 3155 3172 17
bm_c2a5b 6302 6872 570
bm_c2a5c 1323 1327 4
bm_c2a5d 1310 1328 18
bm_c2a5e 1888 1986 98
bm_c2a5f 2209 2240 31
bm_c2a5g 6265 6095 -170
bm_c2a5h 0 7171 7171
bm_c2a5i 0 7574 7574
bm_c3a1a 1925 1998 73
bm_c3a1b 1942 2139 197
bm_c3a2h 5034 5041 7
dm_bounce 4732 4747 15
dm_crossfire 8036 8213 177
dm_gasworks 9450 9453 3
dm_rail 0 2086 2086
dm_stack 3227 3231 4
dm_stalkyard 21293 21295 2
dm_undertow 10788 10790 2[/code]
Note: For maps that are new in the v0.3.0 release I’ve used 0 as the map version number in the previous release.

One thing to note is that the official .vmf’s in the mapsrc folder are still the ones that were released with patch 0.1.1 (pre cu2), so they are of no use to us for finding potential new stuff.

---

I don’t know if this ARG related (probably not), but I found this in the beautifully detailed skybox in the new STU maps:

The airport code looks familiar:

[attach=4820,none,1920][/attach]

It looks like it could be a perfectly valid ICAO airport code.

There’s also this:

[spoiler][attach=4821,none,1920][/attach]

I’m not sure what that is. It could be some kind of compass direction marker or something else. It looks like there are 12 major tick marks, like the hours on a clock.
[/spoiler]

[Miles07]

1. KX Black Mesa

2. How do you get a negative number of changes? (bm_c2a5g)

3. Hours on a clock… Time… TEMPUS…

[Kermit_the_Forg]

Don’t know if this is important, I’m new to this ARG… This is right after the satchel charge in the pipe

[Miles07]

That’s… definitely a new one. And one that most people would miss due to the satchel event. Nicely found, Kermit.

[Flavrans]

@Miles07

2. How do you get a negative number of changes? (bm_c2a5g)

I’m not really sure why, but maybe…

1. the current map was branched off from an earlier version of the map to be worked on for STU, and two versions of the map were worked on independently, or
2. the map was remade/redesigned from scratch for STU.

@Kermit the Forg

Don’t know if this is important, I’m new to this ARG… This is right after the satchel charge in the pipe

Huh. That’s an odd one. It doesn’t show up in my playthrough (loaded a savegame just prior to the satchel event and took this screenshot after the event):

[attach=4822,none,1920][/attach]

It doesn’t appear to be hidden underneath the bloodstains either.

[Johnwalter]

Thing is though, in these recent findings, we found the same thing again.
Pizza’s and pizza writings on the wall. Which leads me to conclusion that the
riddle itself must be so simple, that’s why the Devs keep posting them every time.

But the pizza’s and the “The Pizza is a LIE!” itself are a copycat from the Portal series.
Maybe we need to look at what happened in Portal with the Cake and “The Cake is a LIE!” thing?

[Johnwalter]

Also i found a new Pizza.
It’s in the tunnel where the Gargantua appears.
Just go in the tunnel and pass the rubble on fire.
And you will see one pizza box with a writing.

[Doctor_Pie]

@Johnwalter

Also i found a new Pizza.
It’s in the tunnel where the Gargantua appears.
Just go in the tunnel and pass the rubble on fire.
And you will see one pizza box with a writing.

I already found that one on the last page.
Did nobody see my post?

[CPU]

@Flavrans

Huh. That’s an odd one. It doesn’t show up in my playthrough (loaded a savegame just prior to the satchel event and took this screenshot after the event):

Could it be because one of you had svcheats on and the other didn’t?

[Johnwalter]

@Doctor Pie

@Johnwalter

Also i found a new Pizza.
It’s in the tunnel where the Gargantua appears.
Just go in the tunnel and pass the rubble on fire.
And you will see one pizza box with a writing.

I already found that one on the last page.Did nobody see my post?

Sorry, my bad.

[Flavrans]

@CPU

@Flavrans

Huh. That’s an odd one. It doesn’t show up in my playthrough (loaded a savegame just prior to the satchel event and took this screenshot after the event):

Could it be because one of you had svcheats on and the other didn’t?

I went back and checked again. With or without sv_cheats enabled, I always get the bloodstain, and no pizza lie graffiti. If I noclip to the area before the scene has played out, the wall is clean.

Is anyone else getting the pizza lie graffiti here? Maybe it was just a glitch. @Kermit the Forg, do you have any workshop mods installed?

If it was not a glitch, then it could be that it will only appear if some condition has been triggered. If that is true, then why? It doesn’t make any sense.

[Kermit_the_Forg]

@Flavrans

@CPU

@Flavrans

Huh. That’s an odd one. It doesn’t show up in my playthrough (loaded a savegame just prior to the satchel event and took this screenshot after the event):

Could it be because one of you had svcheats on and the other didn’t?

I went back and checked again. With or without sv_cheats enabled, I always get the bloodstain, and no pizza lie graffiti. If I noclip to the area before the scene has played out, the wall is clean.
Is anyone else getting the pizza lie graffiti here? Maybe it was just a glitch. @Kermit the Forg, do you have any workshop mods installed?

If it was not a glitch, then it could be that it will only appear if some condition has been triggered. If that is true, then why? It doesn’t make any sense.

I didn’t have any mods installed that would affect the campaign (I only had custom maps, like PDP, installed). I did not see the message on my first playthrough, but I found it and took the screenshot on my second playthrough.

[Miles07]

Kermit, have you been able to recreate this at all?

–

And the more obvious, general question to everyone: WHY DO THE PIZZA BOXES MATTER ANYMORE in this ARG, besides to grant attention to it? The only reason we even knew there was an ARG was because someone saw the pizza boxes and that one cipher that began everything (Code A).
The question is, where can we get a definitive clue to the HALOS puzzle. Literally nothing else matters, really.

[Kermit_the_Forg]

@Miles07

Kermit, have you been able to recreate this at all?

–

And the more obvious, general question to everyone: WHY DO THE PIZZA BOXES MATTER ANYMORE in this ARG, besides to grant attention to it? The only reason we even knew there was an ARG was because someone saw the pizza boxes and that one cipher that began everything (Code A).
The question is, where can we get a definitive clue to the HALOS puzzle. Literally nothing else matters, really.

No I haven’t, I tried again this morning and it wasn’t there.

[thewizard99]

@Flavrans

@Miles07

I don’t know if this ARG related (probably not), but I found this in the beautifully detailed skybox in the new STU maps:

The airport code looks familiar:

[attach=4820,none,1920][/attach]

It looks like it could be a perfectly valid ICAO airport code.

The ELEV 4062 being there has me wondering something. Going back to my old Computer Days there was a Commodore computer system named 4032. Built in Monitor, Keyboard, Power Supply and Motherboard. The 40 in the model number stands for 40 columns of text on the screen and the 32 stands for 32 kbyte RAM memory. It was introduced on May 1980.

Now the 40 columns of text thing mean that it would be 40 Characters across, by however meany down. With that number linking it to a the Map and this Computer. Possible Link?

EDIT - Stupid question but is it possible that the HALOS.TXT file is actually a audio file for use with a Cassette Tape which would load up a program on one of these old systems?

[OnboardError]

@Kermit the Forg

Don’t know if this is important, I’m new to this ARG… This is right after the satchel charge in the pipe

Heh, That’s a bug. That should normally be a crack decal but info_overlay sometimes gets overloaded in the buffer and when the IO is called to make the decal appear it chooses a random decal texture from the map file rather then the specified one. Nice spot though lol.

[CPU]

Remember this?

Thomas Lee, 27, Santa FeONLINE!
“I like long walks on the beach and rocket launchers. Preferably at the same time.”
Meet more like Thomas! Click here!

Now, both of the links take you here:

[Jacky]

@CPU

Remember this?

Thomas Lee, 27, Santa FeONLINE!
“I like long walks on the beach and rocket launchers. Preferably at the same time.”
Meet more like Thomas! Click here!

Now, both of the links take you here:

I think those are just “real” ads. since they don’t appear with adblock enabled.
And they are here since site is down, stopped being updated or something like that (domain is on sale)

[Pianownd]

@thewizard99

Stupid question but is it possible that the HALOS.TXT file is actually a audio file for use with a Cassette Tape which would load up a program on one of these old systems?

Well, you can turn a WAV file into hex and vice-versa, right? Something like that with a cassette tape or VHS tape might be possible (although I’m no expert in it), and it would make sense of the VHS Tapes in the QE Hidden Room.

@Johnwalter

Maybe we need to look at what happened in Portal with the Cake and “The Cake is a LIE!” thing?

Well, the whole thing of the cake being a lie is that cake, in the first Portal, was used as an incentive to lure Chell through the tests. However, the character of Doug Ratmann, whom was a schizophrenic off his meds, as well as the only survivor other than Chell of the Aperture Science Bring Your Daughter To Work Day ‘incident’ (i.e. GLaDOS killing all the staff with neurotoxin), watched Chell from the shadows in his “Ratmann Dens” and wrote warnings for Chell to find that say “The Cake Is a LIE” or such as that kind to warn her of GLaDOS. But in the end, after the credits of Portal 1, it was revealed that the cake was in-fact real.

@Miles07

And the more obvious, general question to everyone: WHY DO THE PIZZA BOXES MATTER ANYMORE in this ARG, besides to grant attention to it? The only reason we even knew there was an ARG was because someone saw the pizza boxes and that one cipher that began everything (Code A).
The question is, where can we get a definitive clue to the HALOS puzzle. Literally nothing else matters, really.

But wouldn’t it suffice with putting just 1 odd pizza box next to the Pigpen cipher to get the attention and have people question “Why pizza?” Storm, as we all know, is some sort of evil mastermind that’s participated in a lot of ARGs before; so I’d doubt it’s just for attention, as that would be kinda lame. There more than likely is something going on with the pizza boxes. The problem is finding out if its relevant to the HALOS puzzle or not, that which is what I’m not sure of, but I’m sure if not now, it will come into play later on. He’s had over a decade to think this ARG out after all.