16
Sep'08

Dharma Wants You – Test 5 cheat / hint!

   Posted by: thebruce

DharmaWantsYou.com updated tonight with the 5th task for its recruits, and a new video message.

Each task has had a relatively hidden ‘cheat’ that allows the player to tweak the rules in their favour, and achieve is much higher, if not perfect score.

Tonight’s 5th task once again had a ‘clue’ hidden in the video message viewable once logged in. (though not technically a cheat, it is a hint for a difficult question)

SPOILERS BELOW—————-

(skip to the end if you just want to see the answer and not the process)

In the lower right of the video message is a small white square that flash erratically.  A keen eye would notice that it’s actually morse code.

I managed to get the solve with a little bit of work, but mostly using a combination of short cuts and batch routines, as described below.

I opened the video in an editor, and exported the frames from the relevent range of the video with the morse code, but clipped to the lower right 20×20 pixels (the rest is unneeded).  I sorted the resulting image file list by size (since there would be only two unique ‘images’ thus effectively grouping the ‘dotted’ images apart from the plain).  This made it easy to select and batch rename all the ‘dot’ images for easy reading in sequence.  Once renamed, I re-ordered the file list back to the frame order, transcribed the ‘dot’ and ‘dash’ regions of frames (dashes composed about 4 or 5 frames, where dots were 1 frame each), then ran the result through a morse translator (quicker than doing it all manually), and finally made a few letter/word spacing adjustments, and here’s the result:

- .... . -.-. .... . .- - .. ... .. -. - .... .
T H    E C    H    E A  T I  S   I  N  T H    E
... . --.- ..- . -. -.-. . -... ..- -
S   E Q    U   E N  C    E B    U   T
- .... . ... . --.- ..- . -. -.-. . .. ...
T H    E S   E Q    U   E N  C    E I  S  
- .... . .- -. ... .-- . .-.
T H    E A  N  S   W   E R
  • THE CHEAT IS IN THE SEQUENCE BUT THE SEQUENCE IS THE ANSWER

Oh what fun!  :D Now how does this apply to the task…

Question #7/10 is always based on the same formula, the trick question for which this clue is intended.

There is another interesting point, however – the numbers in question 7 appear clickable, where none of the other questions’ numbers are. But clicking doesn’t appear to do anything.
(will update as more info comes in.)

* UPDATE:

An analysis of the flash source code has revealed the purpose of the clickable numbers in question #7, posted over at spoilerTV.  The question shows 3 numbers in a sequence – consider them button 0, 1, and 2 respectively. In short, the example below explains their function:

What is the next number in the sequence?
11, 21, 1211, ______

The answer is 111221. So if you get this question you click button0, button0, button0, button1, button1, button0 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 1). BAM! There’s your 100% regardless how you did on the previous 6 questions.

So, there is indeed a cheat for Task #7, and the clue’s full meaning has been revealed – “The cheat is in the sequence, but the sequence is the answer.”

  • Join in the Lost/Dharma discussion at Unfiction (one of many online communities!)

Tags:

Categories: ARGs General, TV Series

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 10:41 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 comments so far


magnet0
 1 

I just don’t underststand how this is a ‘cheat’. The question is kinda old skool IQ linguistics, but I just don’t get the cheat part. All of the other cheats have been through some type of manipulation.

September 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
 2 

yeah, I hear you. This is certainly more of a ‘hint’ than a cheat (well, it isn’t a cheat). You can notice, however, that the numbers on question 7 appear clickable, where no other numbers are. Someone will figure that bit out soon certainly :)

I don’t think there’s really any way to ‘cheat’ on this anyway, as it’s easy to receive 10/10 if you can figure out the math patterns. Perhaps there isn’t a cheat. *shrug*

But, that’s the result of the hidden message in the new video at least.

September 17th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Gruffydd
 3 

Great job…I saw that blinky square, and the guy in the video’s eyes darted down towards it…. I thought it might be morse code, but knew I could let someone else do the work… thanks!

September 18th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

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