The Golden Key has been found!

[Neo]

The Golden Key has been found by none other than Happydude! The key was located at


www.francisco999999999.net

As I said before I did not register this site so don't bother going there.

The key can be redeemed for a brand new DS Lite, so congratulations to Happydude! :rock:

I will post the solution guide in a min.

[Neo]

Hunt for the GameTavern Golden Key SOLUTION GUIDE:

As I indicated in the clues there is more than one way to figure this out, a quantitative way and a more qualitative way.

I know Clue#5 (0 2 7 17 14 13 14 2 14 3 4 22 8 19 7 15 14 8 13 19 18 13 20 12 1 4 17 4 3 19 7 17 4 4) gave people a lot of trouble. In fact ZebraRampage is the only one I know of who solved it. This is actually a very simple cipher known as a ceasar shift. In a ceasar shift each letter of the alphabet is represented by a shifted number. In this case I shifted every number one place to the left. The major clue here is the presence of a zero in the string. The only way to make 0 equal a letter is by subtracting 1 from each number. So instead of A=1, B=2, C=3, we have A=0, B=1, C=2, etc. Making this substitution gives you "A chrono code with points numbered three". This is a reference to a clock with a "V" inscribed on the face.

The first thing you will notice when reading "The Worst Story Ever Told" is the overabundance of numbers. You will need to extract all these numbers from the story. The clues say to ignore the numbers which aren't spelled out so you should axe those. In addition we know the Queen hated the number seven and wanted to get rid of it so you should do so as well.

There are several clues indicating that pairs are important. You may also notice that each number is exactly 6 digits away from the number next to it. Strange, isn't it? Group the numbers into pairs.

In order to decipher this you need a key which I provided to you. There are several clues indicating that time is an important factor. The key is the victory clock, a clock which is on a 24 hour scale like military time and has a "V" inscribed upon it. Clue#46 provided you with a picture of it. By rotating the "V" you can select two numbers and then see what number the "V" would point to. For example, when the left and right tips are pointed at 21 and 3 then the point of the "V" points down to 12. So (21,3) = 12. "L" is the 12th letter of the alphabet so (21,3)=12=L (Numbers->Number->Letter). The reason each pair is six spaces apart on a scale of 24 is because that is how far apart the tips of the "V" are. We now have a way of obtaining the numbers 1-24 and their corresponding letters (the alphabet with two pieces lost).

When you convert the leftover numbers to letters you get F-R-A-N-C-I-S-C-O

In addition there were several clues pertaining to California including the one about NFL football, the state symbols, sans san (as in remove the "San" from San Francisco). Clue#30 is a line/word sequence referring to the story. The first number is a line#, the second number is a word#. So 23 7 45 3 would be the 23rd line, 7th word, and then 45th line, 3rd word. In this case two of the words the clue#30 refers to are "golden" and "hurry" which is a reference to the gold rush. P1/P2 refers to parts one and two of the story.

The nine nine's also appear in the story. In the Prince's dream he read outloud the blurry image that he saw (99 snake). A clue said the snake was not a snake but a letter. The letter which is associated with a snake is the letter "s" since it kinda looks like one. So instead of "99 snake" we have "9 9's" (nine nines).

The other place the 9 9's appear is in the movie 2010, of which several clues pointed to. Roy Sheider plays Dr. Floyd and I said you needed to listen to him. One of the clues also mentioned that you needed to pay attention to a remote of some kind. In the movie Dr. Floyd uses a calculator converted into a remote to act as a trigger which would blow up the HAL computer. He told his buddy that you had to enter "nine nine's" to activate the detination sequence.

So there you have it. I'm not going to explain each clue as that would take forever, but if you have a question about a specific one I would be happy to answer.

[Happydude]

Well i was completly off when it came to the story part.

however, i did find 2010, and that's the way i went.

what i am wondering about is first and foremost clue #31...like...:wtf:

...the there is clue #24...:hmm:

and i guess clue #12

those are the only clues which i had no idea about...the rest i either figured out or was very close.


and YAY for me!!!!



and thank you Neo for making this so difficult! lol it was fun though :p

[MrCoffee]

Wow. CoNGRATS!~

[Neo]

31 - 31 / (31+19) = 31 / 50. California is the 31st state out of 50 states.

24 - Jack Bauer is the character from the show 24, this indicates time is important(and on a 24 hour scale)

12 - heh that was a fun one, refers to the sun setting in the west (directional clue for California)

[Dyne]

I guess bugging me helped, huh. :p

Congrats, man.

[Happydude]

no, not really :p

but thanks

[Jonbo298]

Congrats! Never would've guessed that >.>

[Happydude]

oh Neo, you said somebody else PMed you with a guess and they were close, what was their guess?

[ZebraRampage]

Congrats Happydude. I sent Neo and email with SanFrancisco as the first part, but he said it was wrong, so I figured it was just Francisco after that due to clue 50. I was going to wait until after this week to try to figure out the number part since I have finals, but I guess that I don't have to now. Once again, congratulations.

Oh, I just read your last post Happydude. I was the one who posted. I didn't have the number right, but I guessed California2001.net. Then I guessed San Francisco and a huge number chain.net. The number chain was all of the written out numbers from the story, but that was wrong. But at that point I knew that the word was just Francisco. I was going to look into 2010 when I have winter break, but you beat me to it.

[manasecret]

I know Clue#5 (0 2 7 17 14 13 14 2 14 3 4 22 8 19 7 15 14 8 13 19 18 13 20 12 1 4 17 4 3 19 7 17 4 4) gave people a lot of trouble. In fact ZebraRampage is the only one I know of who solved it.

I just want to say that I figured this one out as well, and I think many others did, too. I complained about it in some other thread, but then almost immediately after I wrote that post I figured it out.

As for the rest of the puzzle....... jesus the christ, I was no where close.

Congrats HappyDude!

[Fox 6]

Way to go Happydude!

btw how long did the hunt last in total?

[Neo]

Well the story was first released to Survivors, and then in the middle of June it was released to everyone so we're looking at over 6 months. I for one am glad it's finally over. Now we can move on to bigger and better things. :D

Originally I had pictures drawn with clues embedded to go along with the hunt but I misplaced them. I couldn't remember what I had done so I abandoned that path.

[thatmariolover]

Wow, grats Happydude. I can finally delete my farking text file with all my solutions.

I in fact want to thank you. You cleared up about 30 hours over the course of the next two weeks of my life.

[Neo]

The clue about "I am a sphere and a wavelength" referred to an orange, or the color orange. Orange has 6 letters in it and another clue tells you this refers to how far apart you should space the tips the of the "V". The word "Begins" in my avatar is also orange to draw more attention to this, and the word Begins also has 6 letters. You should also find that the word orange appears 6 times in the story.

[manasecret]

The clue about "I am a sphere and a wavelength" referred to an orange, or the color orange.

Daaaaaaaah... I thought you were talking about photons, i.e. light particles, which as you likely know are often thought of as both discreet particles (or "spheres" as such) AND having the properties of a wavelength. Then of course I got nowhere from there.

[ZebraRampage]

The clue about "I am a sphere and a wavelength" referred to an orange, or the color orange. Orange has 6 letters in it and another clue tells you this refers to how far apart you should space the tips the of the "V". The word "Begins" in my avatar is also orange to draw more attention to this, and the word Begins also has 6 letters. You should also find that the word orange appears 6 times in the story.


I actually figured that out, but I thought that the spacing of the tips of the V was 590 nm since that is the the wavelength of orange. I wasn't sure where to go from there.

[Neo]

Daaaaaaaah... I thought you were talking about photons, i.e. light particles, which as you likely know are often thought of as both discreet particles (or "spheres" as such) AND having the properties of a wavelength. Then of course I got nowhere from there.

Discrete particles are actually considered to be points, but that's an interesting approach I hadn't thought of.

[Happydude]

thanks guys...

i also thought that that clue related to a light of some sort...for the same reasons manasecret mentioned.