Hidden Cipher Texts // Meaning?

[Boink]

Completed this very nice game; it's quite obvious someone somewhere has been doing Philosophy of Mind, and the twist was well handled. Puzzles were excellent, only got stuck twice, great as a coffee break game. One I got stuck on was in the metaphysics section, I knew how to do it, but it was fiddly (long purple hallway).

Criticism - having read the forums, I constantly checked my map for updates to the Watcher's texts, so I knew I had to return to get the full story - the Watcher list Jumped from 1-30 to 38 - 51, which was *very* confusing, leading me to think I'd missed a lot.
Actually, I *did* miss them - the design is bad here, I reached the last stones with 124 completed stones (which is easy to do, and most people will do it this way) meaning I missed 31-37. But (and here's the mystery folks): I couldn't find the CYPHER TEXTS that the Watcher stones give once you've had their second short messages.

Each gives a lengthy wodge of text (which I wasn't going to write down manually, I thought I'd just be clever & drag it from the files, but they weren't there) if you return to them with 124 orbs.


Here's a clue:

27title = Watcher #19
27= ...T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z... Now I know your ABC,\nwon't you come and release me. A, B, C, D...

It's very obviously an alphabet cypher, so: has anyone else had these, or de-cyphered them? To look over them again (and screenshot them), I'll have to re-do the entire game, but I've not seen them mentioned on the forums yet.

I won't spoil what I think they are, but there's at least 6 of these page long cyphers that aren't found in the story.en files. They're at least 50 words each, so are obviously designed to say a lot more than the usual one line Watcher texts.


Good luck translating them.






p.s. Was a bit saddened there was no option to meld with the Watchers, and the ethical choice at the end was a bit blase, but hey (if we doing the logic here, [s] 3 melded would go to 4, not over-write, which is the point of the story![/s]) Good to see *any* kind of philosophy in a game, even if it's beginner level Dennet ;)

[noibn]

I saw the cipher and briefly considered working out the various texts, but at that point it was just way too much stuff to keep track of and too much work. Figured someone with free time on their hands would get it done eventually and I'd check back in at a later date and see what it was all about... so, good luck to the brave soul that actually goes for it. :)

[Kein Zantezuken]

aren't found in the story.en files. They're at least 50 words each

Um... One of the developers mentioned yesterday Watchers change they thoughts from time to time thus, I guess, they have more lines than you can see in-game and more data. No hidden messages there, just an array of strings. May be you are looking way too much into it?

[Boink]

Kein, you've missed the point, and I think you're confused, so I'll explain it:

I opened up the game files - story.en is the text file for the Watchers / in-game Emails. Every line of text you get in game is in the files... somewhere. These CYPHERS are huge text files compared to them, and I can't find their location in the more obvious parts of the game file structure. I've not taken the code apart to see the triggers yet, nor found where these CYPHERS are found.

And thanks noibn for confirmation they exist. The issue is that they don't log to your F journal, meaning you have to either manually write them out or <PrntScr> them. As I said, I assumed I'd be able to find them easily, so finished the game.


Again, I'm fairly sure I know what they contain, but there's a question if the slog is worth it; FEZ set the bar of the "Oh, REALLY - spectroscope of the music files to see a picture of FDR in Mason gear" of UTTER POINTLESS WANKY TWATVILLE. I was hoping this wasn't the case here.



p.s. I can encode a cypher in anything. What FEZ did was merely aspergers level Diamond Dogs level baiting. A real artist would have done it differently.

[LATEXXJUGGERNUT]

Saw the trailer, looks neat... and rsa encryption doesn't make the game any better, lol.

[Boink]

Originally posted by Kein Zantezuken:

you really take it too seriously.

I think the author of FEZ takes it a bit too seriously, he's up there with HipHop artists & the ILLUMINATINAITITII!! stuff they "promote" ~ I was referencing a short story by Alastair Reynolds, worth a look.

[ＸＲＡ]

found and screenshotted 9 cypherd messages, each one came following a new watcher message (one that i'd previously discovered)

[Boink]

Originally posted by XRA:

found and screenshotted 9 cypherd messages, each one came following a new watcher message (one that i'd previously discovered)

Any chance you could link to them or post a link to an album, please?

I'm not really a fan of crypto, but I'll have a go (or better, find a tool that will do it for me, that's what computers are for).

The game is curiously anti-Watcher, so I'm a little intrigued at what they'll say.

[Gamefire]

Btw, dont know if you guys missed this but the Cyphers change each time you walk over the same rock, so either it's just garbled text or it uses some sort of special encryption... who knows?

[Asher]

I noticed that as well, which makes me think they are probably just garbled text. But here are some that I took SSs of if you want to knock yourself out.

http://imgur.com/a/jj45E

[TommyRIOT]

Ok, so I looked at your screenshots, I think we really are reading too far into it, because I took 7 screenshots of my own and none of mine match any of yours, waytofailself.

[Harest]

Several months later... Yep, apparently nothing to find in those walls of text.
My 4 screenshots about it.

[Eddie Hurtz]

I missed the altered watcher text in my haste to see the game's conclusion, but I have a theory; does the text change after the scavenger swaps into the head watcher? The watchers that you meet after that scene experience pain and language difficulties, presumably because the head-watcher (earlier described as a communications hub) has been corrupted, its ancient, super-intelligence replaced with the consciousness of three humans fused into one, thus upsetting the other watchers on board Theseus. Displaying random strings of characters when you back-track to the remaining watchers seems like the writer's way of demonstrating that their mastery of communication and language has been corrupted by the inferior human mind that infests their consciousness. Once you return Theseus to the planet, the watchers you see there repeat things said earlier by Chalmers, Dennet and the Scavenger and remark that the lost ones have returned to the chain, but changed. With the chain complete, their consciousness is stabilised, able to live on in the chain.
I mean, that's what I took away from it.

[anonynamja]

Originally posted by waytofailself:

I noticed that as well, which makes me think they are probably just garbled text. But here are some that I took SSs of if you want to knock yourself out.

http://imgur.com/a/jj45E

Interesting. Maybe when I have more time I'll run the images through an OCR and put the text through some simple substitution cipher solvers.

[Gosen]

Originally posted by Harest:

Several months later... Yep, apparently nothing to find in those walls of text.
My 4 screenshots about it.

Some time has passed, did someone find out if it means something?

[Musi]

I know this thread is dead right now, but good job on getting some pics of the random text. I was hoping to try a few basic decryption methods to see what would happen