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Korax

Portal ARG?

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So there was a patch to Portal today, and the notes simply state:

Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations.

There are a bunch of in-game radios that now pick up mysterious transmissions when held at the right spot of a room, and an associated achievement for finding all 26 spots.

There are a number of different news posts about it, like this one on Shack. There are about 17 minutes of Morse code among the new sound files, and hidden images have been found in some of them.

Of course, this has led to all sort of speculation, including the possible announcement of Portal 2 or even Episode 3.

I don't really have the patience (or much know-how) to try to solve things like this, but I like seeing where things go.

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I played a little bit, and there has been one radio per test chamber so far. Some are fairly easy to pick up, some are in plain sight, but in weird places that require some portalling to get, and some are hidden well enough that it might take a few minutes of searching to even hear it playing. There are a few threads in forums detailing all the locations, but so far it's been relatively easy to find.

Further digging around in the updated files has revealed a BBS address/dial-in number. People are trying to figure out the login and password. And how the hell they'll connect to it.

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Found them all. Some of the later ones are bastardly.

Quick summary of what I've gleaned from the Steam forums:

Update adds radios and achievement

Radios play either Morse code or garbled noise when brought to certain spots

The Morse code has a bunch of different messages in it

The radio garble is actually SSTV-encoded images which then provide an MD5-hashed phone number

Calling the number proves it to be a BBS system

The Morse code messages are used to guess the login

BBS

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This is something really unique as a viral campaign for an upcoming release which this is really starting to look like.

Also the hardcore crazy gaming community never stops to amaze me. It's been less than a day since this update went live and groups of people have already figured out so much about all kinds of "secret" stuff Valve has put out. :tup:

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This. Was. Awesome. I went to bed a little disappointed last night (was half-expecting that Telltale announced Sam and Max 03 and ignored this week's "Telltale Tuesdays"), but Valve made-up for that and with style. Let's just hope they ignore "Valve Time", eh?

I think this is the latest development.

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Also the hardcore crazy gaming community never stops to amaze me. It's been less than a day since this update went live and groups of people have already figured out so much about all kinds of "secret" stuff Valve has put out. :tup:

And I'm so glad that they are. :tup::D

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wow. It's always great to be reminded that even though they seem silent, Valve has actually still been working on the single player games. Couldn't be more excited and hey! This just gave me an excuse to play Portal again!

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Re-check The Shack. Some really delicious info coming up.

Plus the Steam forums seem to have unearthed a small voice clip of Dr. Kleiner (the thin, bald physicist from Half-Life) saying "That's amazing!" Even I've heard it. Make sure to lower the volume on your audio speakers.

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The earliest GDC this year is in San Fransisco starting March 9th.

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All this makes me wish I had a gaming PC. Nice work on Valve's part. I wonder if they expected the community to get this far so quickly? Most ARG makers seem surprised by how the hivemind makes easy meat of this stuff.

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I hope this is how valve actually reveals whatever they're pulling with this stuff. It'd be so much better to let people discover it out through the arg and then officially announce it afterwards instead of doing all this arg then just announcing it like it was any other game.

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Okay, I've played Portal more times than I can count, but on my most recent playthrough (last night) I just discovered that you can flush the toilet in the very first room.

The toilet says: "Your feces is appreciated."

I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

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This whole Portal Arg thing is RIVETING... I would love to get more involved, but lack a steam forum account and the one I just made has yet to be authorized to post...

I think the next step may be reversing (or "mirroring") the phone number of the BBS to get more data, but I lack the modem and phone line to actually try that...

Here's why I think that's the next step:

  • Apparently the current GLaDOS 3.11 BBS is now spouting something about an alternate source
  • The images that were CCTV decoded from the initial radio files that weren't clues to the BBS sort of seem to be telling a puzzle story of sorts... and the one that is a scratched out phone number shows up later in the sequence flipped horizontally

This may not actually be related to the puzzle, but someone put up a version of the steam website where all the images are flipped/mirrored at steampowered.ca... Someone tacked the name Gabe to the end of the url and it leads to this video!

The internet is ablaze! This is awesome.

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Someone tacked the name Gabe to the end of the url and it leads to this video!

Holy santasm, that's disturbing

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:eek: The secret was far more sinister than any of us could have imagined.

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This may not actually be related to the puzzle, but someone put up a version of the steam website where all the images are flipped/mirrored at steampowered.ca... Someone tacked the name Gabe to the end of the url and it leads to this video!

The internet is ablaze! This is awesome.

oh good lord im never goin to be able to get that innocence back! the bass just wouldn't stop pumpin. . . .and the thrusting. . . . uh. . . it was awful, why would u do those things gabe? WHY???!!?

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