03-07-2021, 11:05 PM
I was stuck on the puzzle too. It's explained how to crack it in the Discord channel, but if you aren't part of that I'll do my best to summarize. If you don't wanna see an explanation of the puzzle, DONT READ anything within the horizontal lines below. I'm not giving the answer, though, this is just to help out the people stuck on the input page who don't remember a word of what was said before we got there (like me, lol).
The coding used in-game is a basic form of Shift Cyphering. That means that the alphabet is "shifted" so different letters are used for the same word (ex. if you had a shift of 1 letter, "B" would be written to represent the letter "A", "C" would represent the letter "B", and so forth.). This encrypts the message so that only people who know what the shift is can decode it. For example, lets use the 1 letter shift again. You want to encrypt the message "Hello". You shift each letter one time (H now equals I, E equals F, L equals M, O equals P) so "HELLO" now spells "IFMMP". You tell your friend to decrypt it with the key that you shifted each letter one to the right. They work backwards ("So I would equal...H?") and decode the message.
The branch of shift cyphering used in game is a Keyword Shift Cypher, which means that a keyword is placed at the beginning of the alphabet that subsequently shifts the rest of the letters.
To give an example, lets say I wanted to create a shift cypher with the keyword "GHOST", encrypting the message "Corteo is awesome". For reference, before any change is made, the alphabet looks like this:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The letters G, H, O, S, and T would (in that order) be placed at the beginning of the alphabet (G = A, H = B, O = C, S = D, T = E). The alphabet with this shift now looks something like this:
G H O S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
(edit: This isn't formatting right but basically I'm trying to visually show how the code G would equal A, B would equal H, and so forth. it works in the below one which is all that matters lol)
However, there's a small problem. Some letters are in the alphabet twice! If these stayed in, it would be extremely hard to decrypt the message as one letter has potentially two equivalents. To fix this, we just take out the duplicate letters that AREN'T the newly inserted code in front. Ex. the G, H, O, S, and T repeating after the key are gone. The new alphabet now looks like this:
G H O S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F I J K L M N P Q R
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Now it's time to encrypt the message! We're going to encrypt the message from earlier ("Corteo is awesome"). Referencing the key above, the message now reads "ODIKTD XD GNTJDBT".
To decrypt (as we have to do in this quest) we just have to find the key, construct the new alphabet, and work backwards to find out what it says. We already figured out the keyword is CAROL, which is the hardest part. However, there's one more obstacle that the quest throws at us; we don't know where the alphabet begins AFTER Carol. In the example above I decided to pick up right where the last letter of my key word left off (the "T" in GHOST was followed by "U"), but it could theoretically begin anywhere. However, the game presents us with only two options to save us time. It either begins like how I demonstrated (picking up right after the "L" in CAROL with M) or where the alphabet begins normally (the "L" in CAROL is followed by a B, C, D, and so forth). It's our job to figure out which one it is and decode the message.
I hope that helped!! If you have any questions just ask :) Good luck and happy deciphering!
The coding used in-game is a basic form of Shift Cyphering. That means that the alphabet is "shifted" so different letters are used for the same word (ex. if you had a shift of 1 letter, "B" would be written to represent the letter "A", "C" would represent the letter "B", and so forth.). This encrypts the message so that only people who know what the shift is can decode it. For example, lets use the 1 letter shift again. You want to encrypt the message "Hello". You shift each letter one time (H now equals I, E equals F, L equals M, O equals P) so "HELLO" now spells "IFMMP". You tell your friend to decrypt it with the key that you shifted each letter one to the right. They work backwards ("So I would equal...H?") and decode the message.
The branch of shift cyphering used in game is a Keyword Shift Cypher, which means that a keyword is placed at the beginning of the alphabet that subsequently shifts the rest of the letters.
To give an example, lets say I wanted to create a shift cypher with the keyword "GHOST", encrypting the message "Corteo is awesome". For reference, before any change is made, the alphabet looks like this:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The letters G, H, O, S, and T would (in that order) be placed at the beginning of the alphabet (G = A, H = B, O = C, S = D, T = E). The alphabet with this shift now looks something like this:
G H O S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
(edit: This isn't formatting right but basically I'm trying to visually show how the code G would equal A, B would equal H, and so forth. it works in the below one which is all that matters lol)
However, there's a small problem. Some letters are in the alphabet twice! If these stayed in, it would be extremely hard to decrypt the message as one letter has potentially two equivalents. To fix this, we just take out the duplicate letters that AREN'T the newly inserted code in front. Ex. the G, H, O, S, and T repeating after the key are gone. The new alphabet now looks like this:
G H O S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F I J K L M N P Q R
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Now it's time to encrypt the message! We're going to encrypt the message from earlier ("Corteo is awesome"). Referencing the key above, the message now reads "ODIKTD XD GNTJDBT".
To decrypt (as we have to do in this quest) we just have to find the key, construct the new alphabet, and work backwards to find out what it says. We already figured out the keyword is CAROL, which is the hardest part. However, there's one more obstacle that the quest throws at us; we don't know where the alphabet begins AFTER Carol. In the example above I decided to pick up right where the last letter of my key word left off (the "T" in GHOST was followed by "U"), but it could theoretically begin anywhere. However, the game presents us with only two options to save us time. It either begins like how I demonstrated (picking up right after the "L" in CAROL with M) or where the alphabet begins normally (the "L" in CAROL is followed by a B, C, D, and so forth). It's our job to figure out which one it is and decode the message.
I hope that helped!! If you have any questions just ask :) Good luck and happy deciphering!
![[Image: AnonZ.png]](https://finaloutpost.net/s/AnonZ.png)
![[Image: EhfNv.png]](https://finaloutpost.net/s/EhfNv.png)
![[Image: Ewcfh.png]](https://finaloutpost.net/s/Ewcfh.png)
![[Image: BgJ67.png]](https://finaloutpost.net/s/BgJ67.png)