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Messages - dosboot

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Man, this game was an unexpected piece of Turok news to stumble across today.  It's an official Turok game, although the trappings should cause you to lower your expectations.  Let's just get this out of the way: everyone talking about the game says it looks cute but isn't enjoyable to play (even setting aside disappointment that it doesn't match the tone or genre of the FPS game series).  If someone here plays it though it would be interesting to share your thoughts.  The problem with the game seems to be that the simple combat is fussy and frustrating, and the game is perhaps more unambitious in scope than you might realize from looking at it.

gameplay trailer


interview: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/07/24/turok-escape-from-lost-valley-pillow-pig-games-interview/
Quote
Now, thanks to a contest held by Universal Studios that allowed winners to create a game with one of its IP, Pillow Pig Games is digging up the dino hunter for a fresh start. Completely made up of two twin brothers, Max and Ben Snyder, Pillow Pig Games was originally known for its previous game, Fighties, which featured a similarly cute style and Towerfall-like gameplay.

I don't want to prejudge anyone who has the capacity to enjoy this little game, but keep expectations in check.

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Yeah, that was my thought process as well.  We need to find the place that this "hall" refers to.  One clue is that it could be a place in a video game where a slab like this is found (either a sarcophagus, or some kind of background design/mural of monsters).  Another clue is that the "hall" is a central transit hall, whatever that means.

Could any of the hub areas in the Turok games possibly be this "central transit hall"?   What would be written on the wall though?   In Turok 1, you could sort of say that the save point location is "on the wall" of the hub ruins, and thus the clue might be about the save dialogue text that pops up when you interact with it.  That's obviously not a good guess, but perhaps another Turok game has a hub with wall text somewhere?

3
Better answers than I would get. Only thing I got was i'm confused lol. Good luck to them. How come the post doesn't mention where he found it?

Code_Ouroboros says he found it on "a random pomf.space host."  I had to look that up, but pomf.space is apparently one of those very simple websites for uploading and sharing files (you upload any file you want for free and it gives you a special link to send to anyone you want to share it with).  I wonder what circumstances lead him to find this particular archive though, because it does seem incredibly lucky to just stumble upon an archive like that.  As in, any upload to pomf.space appears to be completely 'unlisted' and unsearchable.  You'd have to have the special link to get the file. 

If I had to make an educated guess, the mysterious person who created all these puzzles and uploaded the encrypted source code wanted the archive to be found, downloaded and solved.  Code_Ouroboros must have been reading some message board thread or been hanging out in some chat channel when this mysterious person started dropping vague hints and links.  That's just what I imagine could have happened, I don't really know.

4
Found, Sold, and... Encrypted?!

~

Here's the story:

A year ago there was this vice article with this headline

'Turok' Source Code Will Be Sold on eBay Soon, Thanks to Lucky Warehouse Find
An old SGI Indy computer that once belonged to Acclaim contains a "treasure trove" of vintage game assets.

The buyer, Aaron, of this old SGI computer is a lawyer and so wasn't keen on publishing the source code for Turok fans and gaming historians to dig through.  Quoting the article

Quote
he's well aware that dumping the source code online could get him into legal trouble... However, that doesn't mean the source code won't end up online. Aaron isn't going to dump the source code online, but he is going to sell the SGI Indy computer on eBay.

What the buyer does with it at that point is up to them, but Aaron told me over email that "as an attorney I'd advise whoever buys the systems to exercise good judgment and act within the confines of the law."

Ok, that was January 15th, 2017.  I'm not sure when exactly the ebay listing was sold, but it was probably not long after that article.


Now, just over 6 weeks ago (Jan 23rd 2018) we have some activity brewing on the r/Turok subbreddit caused by Code_Ouroboros, namely these two threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/turok/comments/7skhc6/turok_1_n64_code_found_but_i_need_the_communitys/
https://www.reddit.com/r/turok/comments/7so9ks/turok_1_decryption_update/

Quoting Code_Ouroboros
Quote
I found an encrypted archive with the Turok source code from a random pomf.space host.

I know this is the archive. It's encrypted on multiple levels. I managed to crack the first level, the password was 'turok'.

This revealed an aiff file for one of the enemies and a scrap of code called humvee.c.

So he's pretty sure he's found the original source code, but whoever put it on this drive (possibly Aaron, or possibly someone who bought the ebay listing) had a bit of a "Riddler" streak and decided to play a game by encrypting the drive multiple times.  Each layer of encryption can be decrypted with the right passphrase, and whoever this guy was left fun passphrase riddles for fans to solve.  The community solved the first two layers very quickly and believe the third layer is the last one (as the archive in this 3rd layer is named 'turokfinal').

Here is a summary of how it works and what has happened so for:

Included in the drive, there is a readme file with some "narrative text" describing a fictional adventure game-type scenario, followed by the "passphrase riddle" in all caps, and finally this hint:  "HINT: All passphrases are lowercase alphanumerics without spaces, punctuation, or symbols."

Narrative + Riddle 1: (SOLVED)

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On a grey autumn afternoon you find yourself meandering through a desolate wood. As you crest a hill through dense underbrush, you trip over a sharp stone and fall to your knees. You turn to look at it.

Its ragged, white surface is unlike that of any rock you've seen. You brush away the dirt and moss around it, revealing a tapered protrusion with a base somewhere deep below ground.

You wrap both hands around it and pull, but it refuses to budge. Then, you notice an inscription scratched into the surface. The weathered scrawl reads:

OPEN ME AT YOUR OWN PERIL INSIDE LIE ONLY ILLS AND EVIL

password was 'pandorasbox'

Narrative + Riddle 2: (SOLVED)

Quote
Curiosity wins out against your better judgment, and you set both heels
against the earth and heave. With a crunch, the stone breaks free and slides
out of the ground, sending you stumbling backwards.
 
You now realize that what you thought was a stone is really a curved section
of bone thicker than your arm and more than a yard in length. It appears to
be the rib of some massive animal, perhaps a whale or an elephant.
 
As you ply at the ground with your shoe, the loose dirt readily gives way. You
begin to scrape at it with the bone, slowly at first, and then faster with growing
anticipation. Could more secrets be buried beneath?
 
The sun begins to set. As the light fades and the cool evening air lashes at your
skin, you strike something hard, the jolt reverberating through your body.
Scraping aside more dirt and pebbles, you see a rusted steel box, its latch and
hinges eaten away by the elements. You remove the lid and find a moldy leather
bound journal inside. Written in faded ink on the first page, barely visible in the
glimmer of moonlight, are the words:
 
SOME GIFTS ARE CHAOS IN DISGUISE
THEY HARBOR AGENTS OF DEMISE

password was 'trojanhorse'

Narrative + Riddle 3: (UNSOLVED!)

Quote
You return to the spot at daybreak with a shovel and a pickaxe. Hacking away
steadily at the soil, you find fragments of bone, jagged incisors bigger than
your hand, and signs that a human encampment once stood on the hillcrest:
oil lamps, spools of rotted twine, and tattered rags that had once been clothing.
 
Your pickaxe hits something solid below ground with a deep thud. Sweating
and panting, you shovel away pound after pound of dirt until the object is
revealed: a broad stone slab, like the lid of a sarcophagus. Carved into it are
ornate depictions of monsters with frightful faces and toothy snarls.
 
Placing your ear against the slab, you hear what sounds like faint whispers
echoing underneath. They're chanting a phrase:
 
THE ANSWER'S WRITTEN ON THE WALL
BENEATH THIS CENTRAL TRANSIT HALL

~~~

If you read the two linked reddit threads, you can get a sense of some the ideas people have in approaching these riddles.  And if you're really into solving this puzzle perhaps it would be best to brainstorm up some of your own ideas before being influenced by the trails people were going down. 

By the time the third layer was reached, a reddit user Jelly_Cube_Zombie suggested using a brute force method to crack the password, and Code_Ouroboros sent him the data to let him try that method.

3 weeks ago I inquired in the thread if there were any updates, and received a reply that no progress has been made trying to guess the password.  Jelly_Cube_Zombie also replied

Quote
Brute forcing isn't really working out, the password is more than 10 characters alphanumeric. I'm at 11 characters with no symbols only lowercase letters and numbers.

That takes us to the present, and it seems we're stuck on this last riddle.



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For those who didn't catch the recent news, both Turok 1 and Turok 2 were released on Xbox One on March 2nd:


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Turok General Discussion / Re: Turok on Gameboy
« on: February 15, 2018, 02:22:37 PM »
I've definitely been meaning to play them all myself.  I have dipped my toe in one of them long ago, but remember not being able to make much progress so I switched to another game. :/  I think my passion would get me past any early roughness if I played through them nowadays though.

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Turok General Discussion / Re: Why the switch between tribes?
« on: February 04, 2018, 07:33:55 PM »
Ah, great!  I have very vague memory of seeing this "interview" quite some time ago, and it's nice to re-read them and digest them again.  "Pur-linn are named after Don Perlin from Valiant" - now there's one amusing fact to remember. ;)  I also like seeing those Turok 1 gameplay hints they include in the sidebars.  In particular, I really how even back in the day, people were popularizing the fun bug where you "head slide" down staircases with ramped ceilings.

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Turok General Discussion / Re: Interview with Darren Mitchell
« on: February 03, 2018, 01:16:26 PM »
Darren Mitchell's music is highly underrated!   Glad to see an interview and learn a bit more.  I found it interesting that he didn't have any art or visuals to work from when composing the levels, just verbal communication with the producer.  Because for me, I find the audio and visuals closely connected in my mind!  Of course, that's to be expected after all these years and coming from a pure player's perspective.  Still I think he did a good job at matching the feel of the levels.

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Turok General Discussion / Re: Why the switch between tribes?
« on: January 30, 2018, 11:26:47 PM »
Story time.

Welcome dude always nice to see more fans of Turok :) Coyote that is some awesome pics man.

Ahhhh!  Curse you photobucket.  Are these images now lost to time?

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Turok General Discussion / Re: There aren't enough Turok Remixes
« on: January 30, 2018, 12:49:28 PM »
Here's one titled "Turok 2 Seeds of Evil: Port of Adia (Reorchestrated)" (quite different than the orchestral suite posted earlier)


"Turok 2 - Primagen's Lightship Metal Cover" by SigillumSanguis


Sigillum's Port of Adia metal remix mentioned by OP wasn't linked but is still my favorite:


The piano keys around 4:17 leading us back into the main melody gets me every time (admittedly, I love it in original composition too :P)


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