TFEE T1D

TIER 1D: THE "0VIF0RM" PUZZLE

During this tier, the "burrw" Diamond Clue was found. Read more about Diamond Clues here.

Tier Overview

On November 18th, a GIF appeared on the T1C page called "404."

After looking at the individual frames, hunter fishxw changed the brightness and revealed the code 325.
Hunter Hank noticed that 325 BCE is the birth year of Euclid, the father of geometry.

On November 19th, Rob mentioned that the hunters might want to refresh the "404" webpage:

“Wow, I just found this "404 errors may be momentary glitches that you can resolve by refreshing your web browser on a page."... that could be useful, I will keep that in mind... ._.”

The hunters discovered a new image after doing so, called “THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Brown_Eyed_Girl_2880x1620.” The metadata had the message “Hope you are doing great… ...here is some new art for all you amazing EE-hunters... GLHF.!”.

A series of transparent pixels was decoded into the word "TITAN"
Pieces of writing were found scattered in the image, revealing Nicolaus Copernicus' signature when put back together.
The symbol for Saturn was found on the character's earring.
Squares hidden in the image converted to binary revealed the word "Leith"
More hidden text read "Frombork"
A small message was found that read X^th , meaning 10th.
The title of the image was the same as a song by Van Morrison, "Brown Eyed Girl."
The message VM.67 was found, meaning "Van Morrison 1967," the year of the start of his solo career and the release of "Brown Eyed Girl."

On November 25th, Rob posted new artwork called “THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Red_Sports_Caracter_2880x1620” with the metadata “"Hi there all EE-hunters.! Have a great weekend... from embark with love.!”

Hunters noticed that the title of the image was missing the letter h, which partially read "Red_Sports_Car," the title of a song by Van Morrison.
A skull with the letter BIV on it referenced the "Brain in a Vat" thought experiment by René Descartes.
A coat of arms with an X also pointed to René Descartes.
Text that read "SATCAT no. 25008" was the reference number for the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn.
The hidden text "79=48=111=0x30" was converted into ASCII and read "O=0=o=0"
A diagram of overlapping congruent circles was found, reinforcing the idea of geometry and Euclid.

On December 3rd, Rob posted the artwork “THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Into_The_Mystic_2880x1620” with the metadata “Hi there amazing EE-hunters.! Hope you are having fun and are enjoying the weekend... from embark with love.!”

The title of this image was another Van Morrison song, "Into The Mystic."
Scrambled text in the footer was found to be the ASCII codes for O, o, and NULL.
Hidden text "5 M310N63N4" was decoded from leetspeak to mean "S melongena," the scientific name for the eggplant.

On December 9th, Rob posted the artwork “THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Beside_You_2880x1620” with the metadata “Have a great weekend and GLHF… ...from embark with love.!”.

Yet again, the title references a Van Morrison song, "Beside You."
The mathematical expression x2 + [1.4^x*1.6y]2 was found, which is the equation for an oval shape when graphed.
Rows of pixels with lengths 202, 456, and 1111 were found, which was recognized as the phone number for the White House/Oval Office.
Johannes Kepler's signature was hidden in the image.
Text that said "Kumblehaven" was a reference to a park in Denmark with oval-shaped statues.
An egg-shaped lens flare was found in the top-right corner.

On December 21st, Rob posted the artwork “THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Keep_It_Simple_2160x2880” with the metadata “Hi there.! Hope you all are doing great, from embark with love.!”

The title references a Van Morrison song, "Keep It Simple"
The mathematical equation y=±B/2√L^2-4x^2/L^2+8wx+4w^2 was found, which is the general equation for the shape of an Avian egg.
A diagram was revealed that balanced the letters XV with the number 0. XV is 15 in Roman/Latin numerals, and O is the 15th letter of the alphabet, therefore O=0.
The numbers 2205 205 111 were hidden in the image. Using Unicode to translate all of theses numbers yields ∅ = o.
The pommel of the sword had a colosseum coin engraved in it, another reference to an oval-shaped structure.

On December 31st, Dusty posted the artwork “THE_FINALS_HappyNamaTama_2023” with the metadata “HAPPY NEW YEAR DEAR EE-HUNTERS.! We whish you an amazing 2023 GLHF, and as always... from embark with love.!" Dusty posted the message "It's almost time to celebrate the new year and this level has really started to take shape!" and Rob replied, "Oh vell, I say they have ZERO chance of solving it before midnight... ._."

Dusty and Rob's messages referenced taking shape, oval (oh vell), and zero.
A small picture of Saturn was discovered on Nama Tama's hat.
Letters discovered on the pieces of confetti were V, I, F, R, M, and A.

On January 6th, Rob posted two artworks, “404” and "007" in the official art channel.

The 007 image contained Nama Tama dressed like James Bond and referenced his code name 007.
The 404 image contained the NULL symbol ∅.

On February 11th, Rob posted the artwork “a_friend_you_missed” with the hidden metadata message “ Hi awesome EE-hunters.! Hope you are doing great and that you solve this tier soon.! From embark with love.!”

Two hidden zeros were found in the image.

On February 19th, Rob posted the GIF “running_out_of_time.gif” with the message “Dusty, hmm this is taking so much time... Should I stop the printers.?! ” Dusty replied, "No way, Rob, you can't stop mid-print! It's just starting to take shape!"

Dusty's message references taking shape.
A flashing "." and "!" were discovered in the bottom left corner of the GIF. Converting these flashes to binary gave "trol0te=o" which was a scrambled form of "letter o = 0."

On February 22nd, Rob posted the image “THE_FINALS_OSPUZE_AD_some_extra_candy”. This was later uploaded to the official art channel as “THE_FINALS_OSPUZE_AD_bonus_candy” with the hidden metadata “Hi.! GLHF dear EE-hunters, hope you will like this little extra candy from one of our sponsors.! From Embark with love.!”.

Another binary cipher was found in this image, decoding to "otl0et=re" which was a scrambled form of "letter o = 0."
A hidden oval was discovered in the image.
A message was discovered reading, "YOU HAVE ALL THE CLUES… IT IS TIME TO SOLVE THIS NOW.!"

Solving

On Feburary 22nd, Resk entered 0vif0rm and unlocked the tier, he tested ideas (while on a bus) based on the conversions in the chat. This tier took a total of 96 days to complete.

Summary

The password for Tier 1D was “0vif0rm” modified from the word oviform which means "egg-shaped" in Latin. The main clues were ovals/egg shapes, the cypher o=0, and 0,0 or double 0. Ovals/egg shapes were presented in many different ways; visually, as equations, metaphorically, landmarks, artworks and orbits, also as letters ‘vifrm’ themselves. The cypher o=0 was hidden as ascii equivalent or U+ keyboard codes. 0,0 or 00 was hinted at with ‘The Matrix’ and the Cartesian system, also with James Bond clues.

During this tier on December 20th 2022, Rob posted the following message:

“Haha, ok this tier is a little bit tricker compared to previous challenges, however the solution is not that tricky…
Three clues (primary clues/keys) are needed to solve this tier (and yes they have been there since Brown Eyed Girl… ._.)
The primary clues have been presented in 24 different ways so far during this level. Another 24 secondary clues that all are pointing to these primary clues have been hidden… around 30 tertiary clues are pointing to the secondary… then around 25 quaternary clues that points to the tertiary have also been hidden during this tier.
Ohh, and then there are there are 8 “golden clues” so far in total that leads directly to the final tier of Level 2 - The Promise.”

During this tier on January 4th, 2023, Rob posted the following message regarding the Van Morrison clues:

“To be honest it's actually not just "hard", it's more or less impossible, when I put it in there I actually thought "NO ONE will EVER find this link"... I still don't think anyone will figure it out, but it was VERY impressive that RHB found the SECOND meaning of VM... but if anyone find the actual link between the second VM and the actual password... I will send you an unique THE FINALS gift... ._.”

After the password had been solved, Rob posted the following messages:

“AMAZING.!
I’m so proud of you all, you are the best..!
132 CLUES… 132.!
LOVE YOU.!
Thank you for not giving up during this tier, it’s been extremely fun (and frustrating, haha) to follow your progress.! Now it’s time to sleep, take care, get some rest and good sleep tonight… see you sooooooooooooooooon.!”

“Hi EE-hunters.!
The next tier will start after the Beta, anything you might find now is not related to this particular hunt… ._. (just so you don’t spend a lot of time searching for stuff, instead you should relax a bit, hopefully play tons of THE FINALS Beta and recharge your batteries for the upcoming phases of this hunt.)”

Images

404.gif
THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Brown_Eyed_Girl_2880x1620
THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Red_Sports_Caracter_2880x1620
THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Into_The_Mystic_2880x1620
THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Beside_You_2880x1620
THE_FINALS_Wallpaper_Keep_It_Simple_2160x2880
THE_FINALS_HappyNamaTama
404.jpg
007
THE_FINALS_a_friend_u_missed
Running_out_of_time.gif
THE_FINALS_OSPUZE_AD_bonus_candy.jpg

Credits

Solver - Resk

Documentation - Flex4d, Kyne, RockhoundBlack, Smashel

Various Contributions in Alphabetical Order - Darnoux, DashGames, Duh, eoin, exin, fishxw, Flex4d, Giriko, Hank, Oak, Resk, Rikta, RockhoundBlack, Serpenger, SPEAR, Tati, Tim The Enchanter