Hello and welcome to the biggest competition Kotaku Australia has ever done ever.
Thanks to Netflix and Stranger Things, we put together the most complicated (and strangest) competition in Kotaku Australia history.
And guess what: you’ve already had your first clue and you didn’t even realise it.
Image: Supplied
The main prize: $6000 to spend on home entertainment gear to get your Netflix on. Get a new TV, get surround sound speakers. Get whatever you like! 10 runners-up will receive a $100 Netflix voucher.
The competition: we’ve hired a crack team of goddamn riddle masters to put together a series of fiendish puzzles. Think riddles. Think the Da Vinci Code. Think escape rooms. Think outside the box.
Matthew Lee (from the amazing Enigma Room escape game in Sydney), our own Jeremy ‘Junglist’ Ray, John Kane from Gritfish, Sean Gardiner and Gareth White (both from the Sydney Uni school for mathematics) have all worked together to create an incredible large scale puzzle that exists on Kotaku. Over the course of the next three weeks, we’ll be posting each puzzle within Kotaku posts themselves.
Good luck. You’re gonna need it.
We’ll allow the puzzle creators to explain…
The Puzzle
We’ve hidden a series of puzzles on Kotaku Australia. Six posts in our Stranger Things series exploring the stranger moments in gaming history — one puzzle in each of these six articles we’ll be rolling out. The aim of each puzzle is to find a word, phrase or name as the solution. Once you complete each puzzle, you’ll receive part of a metapuzzle which will have it’s own solution. Submit your solution to the overall metapuzzle below for your chance to win the prize!
Google and Wikipedia are your friends. If you’re unsure what something means, don’t be shy to look it up (or variations on it). Also, feel free to use any internet tools such as decoders or solvers that use popular ciphers.
The puzzles are themed. Factor that into your considerations.
Always be on the lookout for codes, patterns, secrets, or ways to interact with something. Think outside the box. Or in HTML terms, think outside the [div].
Each post involved in the puzzle will be signposted by a Stranger Things blockquote. Other than letting you know you’re in a puzzle post, this blockquote is not a part of the puzzle itself. It will look like the following:
Kotaku’s Stranger Things series is presented by the new Netflix original: Stranger Things. When a young boy vanishes, a town uncovers a mystery of secret experiments, supernatural forces, and one strange little girl. Watch it only on Netflix from July 15.
There can only be one winner, but if you do want to share information and talk about the puzzles, it’d help us if you used the #strangerthings hashtag in the comments. That’s up to you — it’ll just make it easier to monitor where people are at 🙂
We have several clues in mind for each puzzle if you’re having problems — so keep an eye out for @TheEnigmaRoom in the comment section of articles in Kotaku’s Stranger Things series.
The metapuzzle is inspired by the Stranger Things first trailer:
When you think you have a solution to each of the six puzzles, enter it into your browser as a suffix to Kotaku.com.au — eg www.kotaku.com.au/puzzleanswer. If you’re right, you should be greeted with a page notifying you of progress!
Want more help? There are a few puzzle societies that do this sort of thing regularly! (And who also helped us out with this!) We totally recommend you check out their pages:
http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/ub/sums/puzzlehunt/2015/faq
http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~mums/puzzlehunt/2016/puzzleguide.html
http://puzzle.cisra.com.au/guide.php
The Schedule
We’ll be posting two puzzles a week over the next three weeks.
The first can be found here. Someone may have solved it already!
The remainder of the clues will be released as follows…
Puzzle #1: is hidden over here.
Puzzle #2: is over here.
Puzzle #3: is here.
Puzzle #4: is up now!
Puzzle #5: is here.
Puzzle #6 of 6: is here.
When you think you’ve solved the puzzle, enter the solution in the form below. Those who submit the correct answer will make themselves eligible to win. You’re gonna have to work for this one, but $6000. It’s gonna be worth it!
[clear]
Oops! We could not locate your form.
[clear]
At this point I would like personally thank everyone involved in helping out in the creation of this puzzle. Thanks to everyone from Enigma Room. They do incredible work and you should check out their escape rooms. I think it’s the best in Sydney. Special shout out to John Kane, his game Killing Time At Lightspeed comes out later this year.
This is gonna be fun!
Good luck everyone! Terms and conditions can be found here.
Comments
149 responses to “Win! $6000 Of Home Entertainment Gear, Thanks To Netflix And Stranger Things”
Sounds like wicked fun! Definitely could go for a crazy surround sound rig. One question though: The schedule is comprised of dates already passed. Typo?
Dates updated. Sorry about that!
Too hard for me 😛
Ayup
I third
What does #strangerthings do? (this is a test)
So… nothing?
My guess, allows them to quickly filter through posts on their side that relate to puzzle content. Of you can just use browsers find function for the tag…
Finally! A comp not entirely based on creativity!
Damnit.
I bet @fatshadylive will be all over this
Nah this will just expose me as not that smart.. My skills are in the sharing of complex riddles.. that smarter people than me have figured out 🙂
I really need that prize for my new house so I spent some time last night but no luck so far.. #feelsdumb
Well it’s not a substitution cipher, and the red commas are just commas. 🙂
i’ll give up $6000 for a better internet connection.
Just need to say Stranger Things blows away any other miniseries I’ve ever watched
Agreed, so many feels
I’m 3 episodes in and it’s amazing to me how good it is so far!!
Man there’s nothing like the feeling of trying three ideas that don’t work then suddenly seeing a pattern emerge, so you feel like genius for about two seconds before realising how dumb you were to try those original ideas in the first place.
Thanks, for that.
I know right? I was going for an hour on the first bit and then saw it and slapped myself…not for being dumb…just cause…you know. Still slightly unsure if I have the correct solution to the first puzzle, stream of consciousness is hard to wade through especially in such length, but the question makes too much sense.
#strangerthings
Once you have the solution to the first puzzle you put it in to the url and if you’re right you’ll get taken to a page with confirmation and some pieces of the overall puzzle.
So far this month I’ve gotten stuck in Limbo and stuck on Braid, now I’m gonna get stuck on this!!
Damn, I have that exact set of walkie talkies. Talk about a flash back.
I tried Kotaku. In the end, it was the second clue. I guessed the first one pretty quickly but after two hours scouring the second clue, I couldn’t figure it out.
Don’t give up! Read the comments and you should get it.
Is this open to residents of NZ? The above form says open to residents of Australia only, but the full T’s and C’s state open to residents of Australia and NZ. Thanks in advance for the clarification!
Its almost end of business day here in Oz. When is the 3rd puzzle gonna be posted? #strangerthings
Over here:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/07/how-the-trials-riddle-fooled-us-all/
With only two puzzles remaining I can’t see how the missing elements in the new puzzle can be filled, if what we’ve experienced so far is anything to go by.
@ The Moderators/Editor:
The current link to Puzzle#3 is the same as that of #4. FixItFelix 🙂
#strangerthings
Done! 🙂
Meh. Gotta say, this is not my cup of tea. Feels too much like work. I’m out!
Absolutely loving this competition. Even if I don’t win, I’ve had a tonne of fun. That said, for that prize, I’d still love to win 😛
And it must have been a whole lot of work to set-up. Like, unbelievable. I’d love to see more stuff like this but it’s so thorough and clever that you really wouldn’t be able to do it that often! But thank you for the challenge!
Working on the metapuzzle and my search history has rapidly devolved into madness.
I know that feel. I am currently feeling that feel.
Yeah I too am working on the metapuzzle but not making a lot of progress at the moment.
How do we know if we have the correct answer? or do we just submit and hope for the best until the winner is reveled?
Exactly! I have something, but not sure if it’s a clue to get the answer or if it already is the answer.
at least you have that much. I have about 30 tabs open and no idea how any of them relate…
This is exactly where I am.
I’m not sure but my thinking is that the metapuzzle is consistent with the other puzzles where you end up with a prompt that directs you to the final answer.
We don’t really have confirmation but you could use the 200 words about your stranger twists to explain how you got to the last point if you’re not 100% confident.
I really hope that we get some clarification on whether there is a prompt or not. I’ve made some ground with the meta-puzzle, but not enough to affirmatively have an answer yet, and not knowing whether there is a url to check makes the whole thing seem hopeless. #strangerthings
The solution that I’ve got only makes sense if the puzzle ends in a prompt.
*leans across the desk, peeks at the work of everyone else because my paper is still blank*
Pretty sure I’m most of the way there. Do we have to watch the Stranger Things show (or read plot spoilers) or
is the question the meta-answer?“The metapuzzle is inspired by the Stranger Things first trailer”
Note: that last reply was from the official clue account… It seems to heavily imply that
the trailer has an ‘answer’ to the ‘question’http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mrbean/images/b/ba/Cheating.png/revision/latest?cb=20111031185403
I’ve certainly read plenty of weird stuff in the last hour to fill those 200 words.
I don’t think the final answer will need to be as precise as the URL answers
So I think I got it? I tried typing it into the URL with no luck but I’m fairly confident in my Answer so I took a chance and submitted.
Has anybody submitted an answer they are confident about yet? I’m pretty sure I’ve
worked out all the word pairsbut I don’t think I’m getting any closer to solving the overall puzzle!I think some people are confident, but I’m as stuck as you, so don’t worry! We’ll get there!
@roricus and @joshy206 This is exactly where I am at. Sigh.
I’m confident and would say the metapuzzle is about on par with the other puzzles.
Have you watched the trailer?I’m fairly confident, however I’ll wait til the end of the day and go over it once more before putting my final answer in.
Edit: was going to wait, but grew too impatient and submitted. My answer fits, lets hope there was nothing more needed.
I have to say I’ve enjoyed these puzzles. Was late to the game, got most of them eventually without much help, but the ones I needed help with boy did I need help. Still it’s so satisfying when the pieces fall into place, instead of being just given the answer. It’s been a good diversion from work 🙂 Thanks all.
Some are saying there’s a question…I’m not seeing this question. I’ve matched most of the pairs (although I have 4 words remaining that don’t go together at all, and I can’t find matches in even my solved pairs for them) but I’m not seeing any kind of question.
I was scraping along (barely) before now, feeling so proud! I have all the pics lined up, and now I’m like…. (☉_______________☉)
Done! Phew. That was an AWESOME competition. I haven’t invested so much time into something like this, ever. The excitement at that moment when the Metapuzzle started to fall into place was, well, to be honest, embarrassing… like a CHIIIILD’S! Good luck to everyone else still chugging along. 🙂
Dang, nice work on solving it. I’m not making much progress myself yet.
Can you at least say whether we can put an answer into the Kotaku URL like the other puzzles to see if we’re on the right track?
I’m confident in my answer and had no luck with it in the URL.
Hmm, I’m thinking about what I can say…
Well, the URLs were used as a way to provide you more “postcards”, right?Anyone willing to provide a general hint on how to start deciphering the Meta Puzzle?
I’m looking for groupings of 2 words that naturally work together and so far I’ve found only 2 or 3, but even they feel a little forced…
Look at the big picture when you’re putting the words together.Got it
You’ll know you’re on the right track when you notice something in common with each solved pair.
Got it, although I think I’m onto something deeper…
I don’t think there’s anything past that point.
Did you find anything past that point?
Haha, yeah sorry I’m not the most helpful with clues. I tend to err on the side of being totally obtuse so that it makes sense only to me. @trjn is better at this, see above.
Do you want to email me so we can try to help each other? my username at gmail
Deleted
Damn! I just saw the 6th puzzle today. Solved that one and even matched the word pairs but now m stuck…. I don’t wanna be stuck in the last bit of the metapuzzle!!! Nooooo
I just dunno how the pictures are connected… I’m sure that’s the last bit to fully solve it
You might find some direction by reading through this article again.I have 6 words that aren’t going together – does that mean I’ve messed up somewhere? All the other pairs seem right!Depending on what pairs you have you may have enough to go on to the next step, and be able to fill in any blanks as you go along. You also might notice a pattern with the pairs you do have.Google is your friend. Don’t hesitate to use it.
You should see, even if you are unfamiliar with the paired words, that they do make sense. If not, then you’ve likely made a mistake, yes.I’ve sat here for hours and tried a number of things and i’m not making any progress. 🙁
Where are you up to?
Have you made any pairs at all?Yeah solved it yesterday.
My main issue was that I didn’t even realise that the images actually lined up. So i was trying to find pairs in all 28 words rather than just the possible combinations when you join the pictures together. Stupid mistake and cost me about a dayHow are people getting a question or sentence out of this? I’ve matched most of the pairs now (although the remaining 2 unmatched pairs don’t go together) but I’m not seeing any kind of question or sentence forming.
My guess is that your pairs arent matched. Hopefully im not spoiling it too much, but each matched pair should have an answer. Once that starts happening you;ll see a way forward.I am about 90% sure that I have the right answer now, just looking to confirm with anyone else who thinks they have solved it before I finalise it.
Hopefully if I say “Extra RHS == Blank” that is clear enough?#strangerthings
I get what your saying. but i’m not convinced of the answer. I hope you don’t have to watch the show to get the answer, already got so many spoilers trying to figure the answer
might you mean H.R.S?Don’t overthink it.
This is where I am at for the past 2 days. I am not convinced the extra RHS has no meaning.
do you mean, “i am convinced the extra RHS has meaning”?
Yes 🙂
cool… i was just slightly confused with the use of double negative. anyhoo, it seems i’d agree with it also, and so do others. best of luck!
They’re blank in my solution.I’m so completely lost on the metapuzzle, people are talking about word pairs and having so many tabs open and research, and yet I’m just sitting here, watching the trailer over and over and rereading the article trying to figure out how these pictures and words have any relation to anything!
UPDATE: So, I’ve managed to figure out at least a few word pairs, but I don’t really have any idea what to do with said pairs. I’ve maybe got some numbers attached to them, but I don’t know what they are suppossed to mean 🙁
UPDATE 2: FINALLY GOT IT! WOOHOO!
Some of the comments by @beeawwb and @theenigmaroom helped me out a lot, so if you’re stuck, look out for their comments. Also…
There’s 2 things that will give you some help with restricting the possible word pairs. I don’t want to say to much to give it all away but, the word pairs should all have an obvious meaning.you’re not alone! i’m more depressed about the hawks losing today, even went to the game 🙁
Nothing obvious goes with the two ‘h’ words that I’ve tried, and I’ve tried every combination 🙁
Those are 2 of 4 words I have left unmatched, but all the rest make sense. Even looking back on the words that are already matched with something else, none of them seem to match those two.
Even though I’ve matched all but 4 of the words, I’m not seeing this “question” emerge that others have mentioned, so I have a feeling I’ve done it completely wrong…but I see no other way to do it…
I was stuck with some of the pairs too, but then I searched for the right pairs, and it all began to make sense. Also, think carefully about the clues we’ve been given. There may be more to the puzzle, than simply pairing up words.
It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t actually ever figure out 1 of the ‘h’ pairings, but I still was able to figure out the solution based on the rest of the pairings I had.
Yeah, I have been searching, which is how I know that all of the other pairs I have make sense and seem correct. I thought that maybe I had enough matched to guess the answer, but no dice. I even started seeing some kind of pattern emerging and a common theme. But I’m not seeing this question that people have been talking about.
This is really frustrating as I’ve solved all of the other puzzles but now I’m stumbling at the last hurdle. With only a few days left to submit an answer, I might need to give up.
Don’t Give Up! If you can see the pattern emerging, then you are oh so very close, you just need to figure out what to do.
Remember that “The metapuzzle is inspired by the Stranger Things first trailer:” This is the keyWell I can see A pattern, but I don’t know if it’s THE pattern. And I’m not seeing this question either. I’ve watched the trailer at least 10 times and can’t for the life of me figure out where I’m going wrong.
I’ve got a pretty good idea what the pattern you’re seeing is. You just need to find a way to sort the information from the pattern you’ve found. There’s nothing more I can say that others haven’t.
WhitePointer, we are in the same boat as well. I have a possible solution but it’s not very neat, and given how specific all the puzzle answers have been, I am reluctant to submit what I have. I’m finding it frustrating.
Im happy to give you any help that I can, even if it’s via email to not spoil anything on here.
I actually solved it today. Well, technically, I solved it several days ago when I was first posting those comments above and I didn’t even realise it. I had convinced myself what I had was wrong and I was looking for something else, when in fact I had it right the whole time and I only needed to manipulate the data I had so it made sense. The answer was staring at me in the face for *DAYS* and I failed to see it until someone helpfully pointed it out to me, and made me feel like a complete idiot in the process.
At least, I *think* that’s the right solution…
Glad you made it to the finish line, well done. 🙂
Ha HA! Finally got it.
Note:
The question that you get from the images does have an answer, and you can confirm it in the urlArrrgh, still stuck…
I have all the images correctly paired. I know via google what most of the images word-pairings are reffering to as a supernatural concept. I can see the numerical pattern of the pairings confiming that I have the right pairs. But I have absolutely no idea how to take that and turn it into a question of any kind no matter how many times I watch the trailer ;A;I’m confident i have the answer but not showing anything in the URL… now you’ve got me worried.Urggghh I might have actually been mistaken. Just double checked it and got nothing?
It would be great to get some vague confirmation of where the puzzle ‘ends’…
I understand that that’s part of the puzzle in a way; but not knowing if I need to keep going or not is just frustrating.
Same, and believe me I’m sure I’ve tried every possible permutation. Unless we hear otherwise from @TheEnigmaRoom I’m assuming the guest comment is a red-herring.Edit: Bingo, thought as much. Confirmed below, no URL.
I’ve officially entered the competition!
I wanted to thank everyone behind the competition. That was awesome. I had an absolute blast, and I can’t fathom how much work must’ve gone into that. Each puzzle was so distinctly unique, impossible and fun. After each puzzle I felt both incredibly smart and incredibly dumb, and overall, I just had a blast.
Good luck everyone else who entered!
Just to make it clear as this question has popped up a few times, you should be able to solve the metapuzzle without having seen the show. That said, if you’ve seen the show (or spoiled yourself) and gotten information that affects your answer, we will also be accepting some of those solutions as well.
does that mean
there is no URL link to let us know we have the right answer?There is no URL submission for the metapuzzle, it is only through the competition form.Huh, that’s great of you! Now I’m super interested to see which answer was the originally intended answer, and what the accepted alterations are!
That was a great few weeks of invigorating puzzles and brain bending codes. All in all, a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone involved in making this happen
I believe I did solve this, but I honestly wanted to thank everyone who worked on making this comp as fun and interesting as it has been.
You really have set the bar pretty high here. 😀
Submitted my answer. I’m pretty confident that it is right.
Thanks a lot for the puzzles, I really enjoyed it. You guys should do this again sometime!
#StrangerThings
well i’m pretty sure i got all the pairs right however a couple of them don’t yeild anything from google searches. also i have no idea what to do with the result from each matched pair that i’m sure of.
Oh well, it was a fun competition but this meta puzzle has me stumped.
You’ve probably got some matches wrong.
You should notice something about each pair of solutions for the matched postcards. Try shuffling around the postcards that lack that trait.Am I supposed to be missing postcards? I saw someone mention 28 words but i’ve only got 12 cards…?
…and i found where i went wrong. :/
Also I can’t seem to make the “navajo” postcard match anything.Google is your friend. Try googling various combinations until one jumps out at you if you’re stuck. Eliminate the matches you’re 100% sure on and try the ones you’re not.I just went through all my previous puzzles and found i missed a couple of cards. The one’s i couldn’t make sense of were solved with the extra cards in the mix.
now to figure out the next part.
@trjn so I’ve submitted my answer already but I couldn’t/still haven’t figured out what an Irish Hoarder is…
Don’t worry, I had trouble with that combo as well. Makes sense when you know what it is but it didn’t immediately leap out at me, especially when Google didn’t help.Seeing the recurring theme of all the combos I feel like a fool for not seeing it earlier, I’ve never thought of them as Hoarders though. probably a dozen other clues that would make more senseEvery postcard matches another postcard. Just because you’ve found something on Google doesn’t mean that’s the correct match.I missed two postcards on a previous puzzle so once i’d got all the cards the matching made more sense and i’m pretty sure i got that right.
All i have to do now is work out the next bit. thanks for the pointers though.
:S Feel like I’m bashing my head against a brick wall here! Was able to manage the six initial puzzles without too much trouble, but the metapuzzle is an impenetrable black box to me. I started with a list of words, and I currently have… well, a list of words! I’ll keep turning my brain into a pretzel, my hat is off to those with a solution.
Shortly after this I Had a breakthrough, I stayed up until 2am, but I got there! I’ve loved this contest, thanks to all the creators and organisers!
Just to be clear and so I can be sure I’m not missing anything,
There are 12 postcards numbered up to 14 with 6 and 9 missing?You’re missing a pair of postcards. The 6th puzzle supplied 4 in total. You might’ve only saved the first 2.omg, thanks – I would have missed those 🙂
check them again.
I am hopelessly stuck on the post-pairs/identifying question step.
I’m fairly sure my pairs are correct, and I’ve rearranged the postcards to match the order of appearance with the trailer. No luck utilising the numbers attached to the postcards and the word pairs together to form words. The only pattern I can see is that the number difference of all but one of my pairs is 8, but I doubt this is the pattern that others have mentioned.Think about your pairs. What are they trying to tell you about? Try the “Bavarian / Hawkins” pair. Notice anything?I think I’ve got it, cheers! All the red herrings in this puzzle should make for some really interesting answers. Bravo to the creators.
Not having any way to ‘check’ my answer like with the other puzzles has me a bit unsure of my answer. on the one hand is there any significance to the first letter of each postcard pair or is that just there to let you know that your pair has matched correctly?Then of course is the answer just the overall theme of the pairs of words?
maybe i’m overthinking it? congratulations for working it out without needing help.
You’re on the right track, keep at it.I’m still stuck. I know what you’re saying with your first spoiler comment, and that’s where I am up to.
I have a question but with letters left over and I don’t know what to do now 🙁I got to probably the same answer but ultimately discarded it because it wasn’t ‘neat’. There’s no way of knowing I even got the right ‘solution’ when i submitted my answer. Possibly overthinking the solution. I guess we’ll see soon enough.Your post is giving away a lot of info, you might want to edit some of that out
Are we supposed to get a confirmation email after submitting? Worried I might have put it in wrong…
Finally wrote out and submitted my entry today. I hope I win, my wife and I are moving into our first home next month and the prize would be awesome as a moving in present.
That being said, this contest is the most fun that I’ve had in a REALLY long time. It was great getting to flex my mental muscles, especially with season one running in the background. I hope that if (WHEN) we get a Stranger Things season 2, we’ll also get a second competition. #StrangerThings
Well I submitted an answer to this puzzle. I want to thank everyone that helped me along the way. Not just when I asked specifically or posted a frustration but seeing the comments on the first puzzle really helped me get into the puzzle mindset.
Good luck to the people that did work it out correctly and often helped people nut out a solution without being super obvious.
It’s been a fun few weeks!
My first draft submission was 1000 words! I had to cut out a lot of good stuff to make it fit into 200 words. I hope people are disqualified for not sticking to the rules of 200 words limit.
Mine was the same. I saved every bad turn in a word document as I went along, and there was just too many. In the end, I managed to carve it down to 3 anecdotes in 198 words. Best of luck with it 😀
Hey thanks, and best of luck to you too !
Holy hell that was a lot of fun. After two weeks of awesome puzzles I’m so glad to have a final solution that I’m happy with! Had done some on going work on the meta puzzle as I was going along (when I got stuck and needed a breather) and after everything the final part fell out very smoothly. Can’t wait for a competition like this to roll around again, amazing work in putting this puzzle together. #strangerthings
Don’t think I’ve ever combed through a trailer this methodically before, or had so much fun entering a competition online #strangerthings
Bugger, I think I may have found a much better answer to the meta puzzle than the one I entered with and it was in the trailer…
Still struggling with the meta puzzle.
I’ve matched all the pairs/postcards, but am struggling what to do next.
I get the theme of them all.
I’ve watched the trailer a dozen times, but am not getting anything from it.
Any chance of a hint? Something to do with the static postcards?
Look at each of your word pairs, do they have anything in common? Try googling the pairs and see what you find.
Once you have done that I would recommend watching the trailer…
competition officially over? please please please let us know the answer tot he metapuzle!!!!
The T&C states the winners will be contacted in 48 hours. Did any of you guys win? Just want to know so that I can know for sure what the correct answer was 😀
#StrangerThings