Toby's games
Toby Godden, of Vibration13.com, has made available two different games that are both worth playing: Virus and Treasure Hunt.
Virus is composed of several puzzles that you must solve separately and together to win the game. In other words, the answers you gain from one may be used to solve another.
Virus reminded me of The Machine in the artistic and stylish way each of the puzzles was designed and presented. Immersion is affected negatively, however, when a new browser window is opened up for each new puzzle. However, through an email exchange last week, Toby said he plans to merge them all into one game window sometime soon.
In Treasure Hunt, you use the clues found in a captain's log book to find the location of a mysterious treasure island. The log book is all encrypted in code and you must use whatever resources available to decipher it, which then grants you access to even more maps and clues.
Neither puzzle is easy to solve, but they are worth the while if you put the time into the effort.
Nice work Toby, keep 'em coming. =)
Okay- what is up with the letter puzzle that you get after the palindrome? Any clues?
I'm still trying to figure out the palindrome ; ;
To Alphonse, try typing in "love" at thesaurus.com, and see what comes up.
Both games are really difficult! The tiny maze is awful, the one with a whole bunch of numbers is awful, the zenn gets me stuck at the ear, and I can't figure ANYTHING of the pirate book out.
Hard!
I got the tic tac toe page!
Still no look on the palindrome (I don't want to cheat)
And lord, it just keeps getting harder..
some people eat cake, but i prefer pie
yum =p
Oh, I got it! XD
Now, this Pirate Code Puzzle, on the other hand...
hahaha finally, with your last hint jay I was able to get the palindrome!!!!
I thank you many times over!
Extremely, intensly, nausiatingly, frusteratingly, mind-blowingly, and eminently difficult!
These kinds of games discourage me as I can't solve one single puzzle!
(I know, I dumb... not even the palindrome! *cries*)
Ohoh, the treasure hunt was really very hard.
So, some hints: zoom in, look at the 3 maps, get your atlas. Some of the strange looking letters are very similar but are not same, the little ~ above makes it different letter. You dont have to do palindrome, tic-tac-toe or pirate code to find the treasure island.
Did virus with quite a bit of help. Stuck a lot on pirate one though.
ok so I have the three islands - I cant figure out what to do next. - I'll spoil below how I got this far...
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.
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.**********SPOILER*************************
okay - well the palindrome is Ipreferpi - simple enough. this opens a window with a little decorder thing - not really necessary if you take the 13 M Z clue.
Split the alphabet in half so that A=N, B=O etc.
Anytime that litle crown looking thing appears on a letter (or in- whatever) you use the first half of the alphabet -- for example if that thing that looks like a Z has a litte crown - it's read as an M...
Anyhoo.
Decoding the stuff: (I'm only giving the first few letters of each page - don't wanna ruin all the fun...
Page 2:
Find the Mystery...
Page 5:
Manma....
Page 6:
Parabu...
Page 7:
Piduru....
What happens next is eluding me-- at least for now.
I have figured out what to do from the decoding part, but I need an atlas....
since I am at lab, I'd like an atlas online to help me with the next part....
has anyone solved it yet, and if so, what did you use?
also, could you offer any hints on the tic-tac-toe puzzle? I feel like it might give me the reference I need to complete this treasure hunt, just like the palindrome did.
What are the set things? i got the first one, cancer the crab and cancer the disease, but i am stumped on just the second one!
I beat it!
The easiest way to figure out the name of the island is to triangulate the three point that are given and then look at detailed maps of the areas inside of the triangle and find the island that most looks like the one in the game.
Keep on trying all of you!
Mike ...
Look at the pictures on the right. One is Winston Churchill. What did he do?
Look at the numbers, they all have something in common. Remember math class.
I really enjoyed these games, though i didnt actually get to the end of either yet. I got stuck at some point on each.
It's nice to see a well designed puzzle game on the web, this site is great for those, especially lately with four great puzzles all in a row.
because some people were aching for the answer, here's what i got for virus...
******SPOILER*******
the first one is sets, they are: cancer, prime, rook - password => decompile
the second one is decoding the digits and answering the question: what is the sum of the following international dialling codes? Tonga(676), Brazil(55), Yemen(967) answer is 1698 - password => analogue
the third one is binary conversion. open up the tools section on the first page (which sadly i found afterwards) to convert the number at the bottom into binary, with front digit being top left. - password => corrupted :D
the fourth one... i can't solve. anyone care to give me a hand with this one?
Oh....never mind, I solved the treasure hunt!
I didnt use the tic-tac-toe puzzle at all....kinda wished I had figured it out.
I love this website BTW....Such a great resource for playing great online games.
Keep up the great work, Jay!
I got the last one, but i had to cheat using the right click.
About the tick-tac-toe one:
SPOILER ALERT! I said, SPOILER ALERT!!!
Have anyone of you heard about the "pigpen code?"
Draw a 3-by-3 tick-tac-toe board.
Now assign letters, ABC on the top left, DEF on the second, and so on until YZ in the last. Put one dot over B, E, H, K, N, Q, T, W, and Z. Put two over C, F, I, L, O, R, U and X. Now look at the first symbol in the message. It is the center square with two dots in it. Look at the center square on the tick-tac-toe board. It has the letters M, N, and O. Now look for the letter that has two dots over it in that section. That is O. So the very first letter in the message is "O". Get it?
um... I have no idea what silverwing99 is talking about, thats not at all how I solved the tic-tac-toe puzzle. I suppose this just shows how many different methods can be used.
Anyway, there are 2 parts of text, 1 is question with question mark in the end and other text is in the top part (zoom in to see it clearly). The question has obviously something to do with the page and the also the text in top corner has also something to do with the page. Now, what could be written in the corner of page with many tic-tac-toe games? Also, tic-tac-toe is two-player game.
You should be able to decode the texts now considering what they mean :)
So, i've got to the very end of the pirate code, and.... not a single answer works. Anyone who's at a similar point i'd appreciate your help.
****SPOILER****
the islands name is Sumatra, (or Sumatara or Sumatera for variations) which has also been known as Swarna Dwipa (translated to isle of gold) not a single one of these answers works. There is room for only one more character when i enter Swarna Dwipa, anyone else have a diffrent spelling?
I have heard about that in one of my secret code books but I had forgotten how to do it! I thought that was what it was.
Corruptor: no, thats not the treasure island.
Call me lame, but I decided to skip all the puzzles and search through maps for the treasure island. After half an hour and a dozen maps off google, I managed to find it! Now if I only had my optical mouse from home to get that maze done in Virus I'd be all set. Nice post as always Jay :)
OMG! Someone help. I can't figure out Treasure Hunt, not even with all the spoilers! I must be so retarded. The only thing I did get was the "I prefer pI" part. Anyone have any walkthroughs?
well crowing, if you know what the island is, you could at least tell us what you searched for, and what page you found it on, eh?
Yeah...I did the same thing as Crowing. The treasure island is on the map you get when you solve the tic-tac-toe puzzle...but just barely...unless you know it's name, you won't be able to make it out. Since it is only about 100km, you won't be able to make out its shape, either. All you need to find it is a good world atlas, or even Encarta-online.
Oh yeah, the atlas is my favourite book! I immediately recognized the islands :)
Finally something I CAN do :D
Okay: SPOILER
--------------------------------------------
Manmanoc is a mountain on Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines.
You probably all recognized Sri Lanka, and the mountain Pidurutalagala.
Paraburdoo is a mountain in Western Australia.
You notice the Pirate drawing a triangle, and a circle in the center of it. This is where the treasure is.
Take the three mountains (Pidurutalagala, Paraburdoo and Manmanoc) and look for an island exactly in the middle of the triangle.
Right... um... Im lost. The Number one has something to do with your thumbs, from the clue at the bottom of the page, but Im totally lost on every one of the first set :'(
Everyone... and Jay... I totally gave up on Treasur Hunt. I've been playing it for WEEKS now and still can't figure it out. Oh well :(
Someone please tell me what the fourth passord is for "Virus"!
SPOILER (for virus)
the fourth password is "numbercrunch"
I actually googled it, after spending far too much time trying to beat the maze.
Stupid maze. Ken hates the maze.
SPOILER (treasure hunt)
Silver99's advice is only half-right. It's a Pig-Pen cipher, but you don't assign "ABC" to the top left -- that only gives you garbage. Assign "A" to the top left, then "B" to the top middle, and so forth, then loop around and assign "J" to the top left, etc.
I have all the passwords (though I didn't beat that maze...stupid maze) and I feel ridiculous, but where do I put them?
OMG after 3 months of playing I finally figured out Treasure Hunt, WOO HOO! The clues above were very helpful.
***SPOILER***
I got the I prefer pI for the palindrome although it is not necesarry to do the Pirate Code because the 13 M:Z helped me decode all the writings. KenL's comment on the pig-pen cipher helped me with the tic tac toe page, and Joost's comment helped with the 3 islands. Once u finish the tic tac toe, you get the triangulate page. And if you place the 3 little tacs in the right place (which is where the 3 mountains are located) you'll automaticly get a triangle with a circle in the middle which is suppose to be a magnify glass. Now if you put your mouse in the circle it'll point at the treasure island, and if you hold ur right click for a few sec's you'll make out the name of it. GOOD LUCK!
I figure I'll just put the name of the island for the poor people who just can't figure it out.
Natuna Besar
the maze code is
numbercrunch
Funny, I had to use jay's clue to get the palindrome part, but I had already finished the game by that point. The alphabet isn't that hard to decipher, and it makes sense visually, so I figured it out based on the blurry picture and the rest was just logic. Ah well. Haven't beaten the virus one yet.
Will someone plz just give me the code for the tic-tac one on treasure hunt? Its getting irritating.
in a twist of irony, i opened the virus game, and my computer crashed.
unless if the blue screen of death is actually part of the game, and i rebooted my computer for no reason...
ah, now it's working. never mind.
I did the treasure hunt on my own no spoilers took me about 1 hour. I didn't understand the tic-tac-toe thing which makes it so much easier, but when I found the 3 islands I found an atlas on the internet put a peice of paper on the screen and place a dot where each place was then connected those dots. I found the center then placed the paper back on the screen to find the relative area where the island was. Using the island image on page 3 I found the island and typed in the name.
the virus was COOL! escher style is great.
Jay - The game links don't work. It appears that Toby didn't renew the vibration13.com domain.
I couldn't find any new links to the games either.
Um, WOW. That happened in only the last 10 days, because I remember linking to Toby's site when we posted the review for Scuttle Buggery (Toby submitted it).
Let's hope he brings his site back online soon. I'll try to email him about it.
Thanks, Zeke!
An easier way to do the maze is when there is a grey wall and white bits on either side
right-click and then click on the white on the other side
On Treasure Hunt, I need help. i can't even turn the page! if anyone who stumbles upon this comment and finds the answer, please tell me.
I have this problem too...
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