[ARG] The Pizza Code Mystery

[dky.tehkingd.u]

@Wristwatch4

Well, remember that Stormseeker only worked on: Questionable Ethics, Nihilanth, bits of Blast Pit, the Surface Tension cliff vista and Datacore.

So maybe solving this won’t even be possible until Xen is released?

Dr. Horn’s dead body hanging out in a Nihilanth chamber or something giving us Code D…

[Pyroclase]

@Wristwatch4

Well, remember that Stormseeker only worked on: Questionable Ethics, Nihilanth, bits of Blast Pit, the Surface Tension cliff vista and Datacore.

What the heck is Datacore? Is that something I’ve forgotten about?

@dky.tehkingd.u

So maybe solving this won’t even be possible until Xen is released?

Dr. Horn’s dead body hanging out in a Nihilanth chamber or something giving us Code D…

There was actually a scientist, alive and well, somewhere in the Nihilanth arena in HL1. Who knows, maybe he’ll actually be in there.

[Wristwatch4]

Only reference to Datacore that i could find relating to valve:
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Datacore_%28Classic%29

[asm]

T O M Y S F T E
D R B O N A M I

Hum, puzzling.

[theridane]

Datacore is a popular Half-Life: Deadmatch map.

[halferuga]

After you jump in one of the teleports in Lambda Core you meet 3 scientists and a security guard. The woman scientists recognizes you as a “guy from anomalous materials labs” while the security guard says “I thought you were the pizza guy”.

[Pyroclase]

@asm

T O M Y S F T E
D R B O N A M I

Hum, puzzling.

Huh? Where did you get that?

[asm]

@Pyro

Huh? Where did you get that?

It’s in the Code A message. This section of the message seems oddly useless, and, what’s more, artificially constructed. The first part has exactly 8 letters, and so does the second. I’m thinking they may be related to the number/letter conversion, but I’m not sure how.

[faed]

OK, I tried to decode the numbers, but I didn’t really find anything that looks very useful.

First of all, it’s difficult to convert the digits directly to ASCII. One ASCII character is defined by 1 byte. 2 ASCII characters are defined by 2 bytes, and so on. 2 bytes are in the range 0-65535 (unsigned). A lot of these numbers are out of that range. But the third byte needed to define a larger number will always result in just the decimal value of 1, which translates to the ASCII code SOH (start of heading). So for this run I just ignored the 3rd byte. For Unicode, I just used the value.

This is the code I used to do the conversion:

@code

numbers =
[
[
[31529, 63776, 21295, 33399, 44534],
[97341, 68095, 91847, 99899, 47843],
[91327, 76794, 07031, 80431, 91909],
[02118, 97319, 80497, 17819, 91998],
[59314, 91931, 41651, 49161, 97998],
[43089, 11933, 13937, 48491, 89198]
],
[
[98878, 29905, 90941, 84992, 89313],
[27810, 43844, 11818, 39111, 19562],
[74899, 49301, 99848, 05075, 50994],
[47717, 11522, 89919, 13139, 93187],
[87339, 89438, 64933, 23042, 09364],
[38899, 25012, 93143, 93496, 10193],
[68393, 99855, 90591, 22893, 84499],
[88299, 23898, 73571, 38537, 15395],
[81199, 28050, 39045, 51198, 32189]
],
[
[91192, 71948, 45160, 15835, 13817],
[89530, 19314, 97313, 00149, 44841],
[39991, 95319, 03338, 19887, 71111],
[82261, 19390, 95231, 31788, 08497],
[97784, 11139, 39519, 34949, 93559],
[35177, 10951, 18199, 31599, 70923],
[15122, 98343, 94109, 31461]
]
];

ascii = ‘’;
unicode = ‘’;

for( var group in numbers ){
group = numbers[group];
for( var row in group ){
row = group[row];
for( var value in row ){
value = row[value];
var byte1 = (value>>8) & 0xff, byte2 = value & 0xff;
ascii += String.fromCharCode(byte1);
ascii += String.fromCharCode(byte2);
unicode += String.fromCharCode(value);
}
}
}
console.log(‘ASCII’,ascii);
console.log(‘UNICODE’,unicode);

It’s written in Javascript. To run it just open your browser’s Dev Tools (usually by hitting F12) and paste it into the console and run. The output will be displayed in the console window.

And the results:

@ASCII results

{)ù S/‚wö|= ÿfdž;ºãd¿+ú:/gF|’:qE›g^ç²g¢³À ~ΨQ.6q½k\n‚>tÑc=L\ál¢«D.˜ÇLj$“À•† =Ç2ºe-_?3SlU+]^ý¥Z$”—óa´k×m8’Ñ)†aßYmJXë]Zc–‰<#=/m’˜…Çþ}½d8°h=Û5ù]ºKr|!•¯)œ7tW M¯ÇAUK¾sÿ|,!1}ø+ƒš_ˆ…mw‰iÇG{o;€’ozå

@Unicode results

笩鸞匯艷귶簽৿曇蘻뫣撿⯺น㨯朅ࡆ簧㩱䖛杞望ꊳ쀉绎ꡑ⺝㙱뵫屮舾瓑挽䰀峡沢ꭄ⸪飇䱪⒓삕蘈਽윲멥ⴂ弿㍓氃唫嵞ﶥ娂⒔音憴毗洸⟑଩蘏懟奭䨓士嵚ὣ隉㰣㴯涒颅쟾綽搸ᤌ끨㷛㗹嶺䭲簡•꼩鰷瑗ഊ䶯ᗇ䅕䮾珿簬ℱ緸⮃驟袅海襩⫇䜗筯ᔋ㬒耧澝童

I checked the ASCII code to see if the first few bytes matched a known file signature, but I didn’t get any results. Anyone speak uhhh… Chinese maybe?

[dky.tehkingd.u]

That’s a mix of Chinese, Korean, and Arabic. I don’t think it’ll be much help.

[asm]

@faed

First of all, it’s difficult to convert the digits directly to ASCII. One ASCII character is defined by 1 byte. 2 ASCII characters are defined by 2 bytes, and so on. 2 bytes are in the range 0-65535 (unsigned). A lot of these numbers are out of that range. But the third byte needed to define a larger number will always result in just the decimal value of 1, which translates to the ASCII code SOH (start of heading). So for this run I just ignored the 3rd byte. For Unicode, I just used the value.

That’s one of the first things I tried, but as soon as I realized the numbers were not in range I gave up a direct conversion to ascii/unicode. Also tried many variations on what you did, such as BCD, but none came out useful. One thing that would be useful would be getting a full binary version of that so I can try “decascading” it.

[GalaxySwift]

@faed

I checked the ASCII code to see if the first few bytes matched a known file signature, but I didn’t get any results. Anyone speak uhhh… Chinese maybe?

Google translate gives us this:
“Bo Luen exchange the brilliant 귶 signed the ৿ tan Ji 뫣 picking ⯺ น 㨯 Qie ࡆ spring 㩱 䖛, hope ꊳ, Qi  쀉 Sounds ꡑ ⺝ 㙱 뵫 Cao outfitting, etc. pull 䰀 the Gap Kanazawa ꭄ ⸪ soared 䱪 ⒓ 삕 Tui ਽ 윲멥 გ describes ㍓ TongyinTu جمي Hong ⒔ tone Sheng adjacent Guang ⟑ ଩ Jiong hate seok 䨓 Sze Chin Shih ὣ dangerous 㰣 㴯 vomit cranial 쟾 Chuo Zhen ᤌ 끨 㷛 㗹 the Ridge 䭲 Jane • 꼩 minnow Yuan ഊ 䶯 ᗇ 䅕 䮾 Chu than ℱ Yin ⮃ arrest delicate sea Du⫇ 䜗 Zhu ᔋ 㬒 Aquilegia Ning Tong”

…yeeahhh.

[asm]

@GalaxySwift

Google translate gives us this:
“Bo Luen exchange the brilliant 귶 signed the ৿ tan Ji 뫣 picking ⯺ น 㨯 Qie ࡆ spring 㩱 䖛, hope ꊳ, Qi  쀉 Sounds ꡑ ⺝ 㙱 뵫 Cao outfitting, etc. pull 䰀 the Gap Kanazawa ꭄ ⸪ soared 䱪 ⒓ 삕 Tui ਽ 윲멥 გ describes ㍓ TongyinTu جمي Hong ⒔ tone Sheng adjacent Guang ⟑ ଩ Jiong hate seok 䨓 Sze Chin Shih ὣ dangerous 㰣 㴯 vomit cranial 쟾 Chuo Zhen ᤌ 끨 㷛 㗹 the Ridge 䭲 Jane • 꼩 minnow Yuan ഊ 䶯 ᗇ 䅕 䮾 Chu than ℱ Yin ⮃ arrest delicate sea Du⫇ 䜗 Zhu ᔋ 㬒 Aquilegia Ning Tong”

…yeeahhh.

If you ever saw the crappy chinese-to-english translation of the Avengers, you should know how funny it can be.

[dky.tehkingd.u]

Stormseeker must be laughing his ass off right about now.

[Meaneh]

lawl, vomit cranial. - Back to throwing my own head at this problem again. I’ll let you know if i get anywhere

[Chaotic]

@GalaxySwift

Google translate gives us this:
“Bo Luen exchange the brilliant 귶 signed the ৿ tan Ji 뫣 picking ⯺ น 㨯 Qie ࡆ spring 㩱 䖛, hope ꊳ, Qi  쀉 Sounds ꡑ ⺝ 㙱 뵫 Cao outfitting, etc. pull 䰀 the Gap Kanazawa ꭄ ⸪ soared 䱪 ⒓ 삕 Tui ਽ 윲멥 გ describes ㍓ TongyinTu جمي Hong ⒔ tone Sheng adjacent Guang ⟑ ଩ Jiong hate seok 䨓 Sze Chin Shih ὣ dangerous 㰣 㴯 vomit cranial 쟾 Chuo Zhen ᤌ 끨 㷛 㗹 the Ridge 䭲 Jane • 꼩 minnow Yuan ഊ 䶯 ᗇ 䅕 䮾 Chu than ℱ Yin ⮃ arrest delicate sea Du⫇ 䜗 Zhu ᔋ 㬒 Aquilegia Ning Tong”

…yeeahhh.

Of course! Why didn’t I think of that!

[aloalo]

@Pyro

Well, you have access to the mod, which I won’t until Friday.

Edit: Speaking of which, someone needs to check out that shed on the cliffside in more detail. I bet that there’s another code there.

There was nothing really there. I’ll go check it out again.

edit: still nothing, really. the keyboard is “usable”, but nothing happens, at least not that i can see. Perhaps I (or someone else) will try and bring Horn’s pizza to his secret shed and see what happens.

[faed]

@asm

One thing that would be useful would be getting a full binary version of that so I can try “decascading” it.

Without knowing what the word size is supposed to be, a binary version would be just as unreliable.

[Pyroclase]

@asm

It’s in the Code A message. This section of the message seems oddly useless, and, what’s more, artificially constructed. The first part has exactly 8 letters, and so does the second. I’m thinking they may be related to the number/letter conversion, but I’m not sure how.

Of course. We were assuming that it’s actually English, but it could be something else entirely.

Great, now we have another mysterious code to work with.

[UnhingedMouse0]

Datacore is a MP map I believe.

@asm

T O M Y S F T E
D R B O N A M I

Hum, puzzling.

Tried working out if its an anagram?

Also, awesome job by the guy who found that 3rd code. My power is out atm so I cant update the main post til it comes back. Posting this from my phone was tedious enough, lol. Keep up the good work gents!