notthefirst
The notthefirst page was discovered through the youareprepared video. The suffix text (18fc17) is the hex color code for the normal Game Theory logo.
The image shows the text "https://www.thetheoristgateway.com/3932396663/[gap].html", with the gap featuring a GIF of a spinning red Game Theory logo. "3932396663" decodes to "929fc", most likely referencing the date September 29th.
By interpreting the logo gif as the 12-character string found in the channel logo (powzNbXddMnH), this page is discovered. It features one image below. The hexadecimal text in the filename decodes to "Sloppy work, young Theorist. <insert SMH meme>". The text at the bottom of the image decodes to "must be a typo", and the hex at the top (64656164656e64) decodes to "deadend".
The true path is to follow the instructions in the original gif file ("180 you must go") and flip the letters. By instead interpreting the text in the logo as HuWppXqNzmod, this page was discovered. The image has changed, and this one doesn't have randomly changing letters. The bottom text is now "THATS NOT A TVPO" with a purposeful typo.
The image's filename decodes to "Well that was easy. Don't get used to it." By using the same color filter trick, one discovers the hidden text "july 15 1983" and "the first 17". Upon inspecting the EXIF data of the file, one can discover similarly named Photoshop layers, further indicating this clue. 07/15/1983 was the launch date for the Nintendo Famicom in Japan, soon to become the NES in North America.
The boxed words in the image below are the first 17 launch titles for the Famicom. Each of these words has some letters that are replaced with colored symbols.
By grouping symbols of the same color together (indicated by the text at the top "3.2/426" using the length of each segment), we get "BIT", "LY", "LUCK", "TO", and "HEAVEN". This leads to the site bit.ly/lucktoheaven ("luck to heaven" is often attributed as the meaning of the word "Nintendo").
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