Keys
Last updated
Last updated
A blurred picture of a Famicom was provided, subsequently easily and quickly identified. The Japanese release date of July 15, 1983 was a clue if players did not know the gaming console, as they could look up the date and find out what the picture was. Therefore, the key was Famicom.
The second key was a sprite of Link from the NES Legend of Zelda game with the text "the one replaced". This video was linked along with the clue. The provided text specifically refers to how the provided Link sprite replaced where a Koopa Troopa was supposed to be in the normal Game Theory intro, which can be seen for a brief period of time at approximately 0:53. Therefore, the key was Koopa Troopa.
The third key was split into three sections, whose clues were all located within the same video clip. The clip consisted of a video of a R.O.B. controller/robot for the Famicom.
The first section, notated 3A both on the site and on this document, was hidden within a spectrogram of the provided video (title is "Gate1Key3" in hexadecimal). It revealed a barcode, the text "bit.ly/lucktoheaven," and the text "the year in coins". Referring to this image from the bit.ly link, there are 93¢ in coins, indicating the year 1993. Connecting it with the barcode's hex on the top right ("79 6F 73 68 69" decodes to "yoshi"), it is seen to be referencing the 1993 Famicom game Yoshi's Safari, which is the key.
The spectrogram also revealed another clue notated 3B. The 3B spectrogram was accompanied by a Twitter logo, which turned out to mean that the next step was tweeted out by MatPat at the same time the gate opened. The image contained a rebus for "key three bee" (Key 3B) and indicated the audio must be played at 4x speed and in reverse. The resulting audio was recognized as the "Overworld" theme from The Legend of Zelda, hence the key of Overworld.
The final key from the R.O.B. video could be found on one of the countdown frames. The frame contained the upside-down Game Theory logo signifying an ARG clue existed along with alien glyphs (translation of alien glyphs found in spectrogram of the previous Princess Peach video). The letters decoded to "Seek two brothers and the bot / Unhex the purple perpetrator".
On another frame of the video, where two brothers are playing a game with R.O.B., the text "http://www.imgur.com/4469384a784d67" is visible. "Unhexing" (ASCII hex decoding) the highlighted purple text gives "http://www.imgur.com/Di8JxMg", an image clearly indicating Key 3C.
Within this image, two sets of glyphs can be found. By changing brightness settings in a program such as Photopea, the glyphs in the orange shape can be seen to decode to "the cipher is hidden". By changing contrast, the glyphs in the red shape can be seen to decode to "change the hue to see the clue". After changing the hue, another hex code appears, pointing to this GIF.
The "Keep Calm and Carry On" themed poster in the background hints at the Konami code, a famous cheat code from old Konami games (↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A Start). By translating the keystrokes to characters using the code on the Duck Hunt-themed screen, the resulting key is OOHHYAYAMP!.
