Wickedness
Way off at Warblings Of A Little Bird, just a short flight across the blogscape, a battle, or what passes for one in cyberspace, is raging. It seems there's this guy in Singapore who has put up a bunch of puzzles in what a techie would call a linked list. Each puzzle leads to the next and you have to start at the beginning and proceed until you triumphantly reach the end, having solved them all, or, get stuck and give up trying.
The fight is over whether Little Bird may post the solutions, spoilers some call them, on his blog. Of course he may, legally speaking, or at least no law suits have been threatened, but is doing so an immoral act? Let's discuss!
First I will give the argument, or what should be the argument, of Tay Wei Kiat, aka weikiat (hence the name "the wicked") the 18 year old student who created the puzzles. To read Little Bird's blog would give the impression that weikiat has no argument and is just calling names, making threats, and otherwise acting like a child and, indeed, that is much of what he's doing which makes Little Bird's job easy, but let's be fair to the 18 year old geek, who knows a lot more about software than about people and so is unevenly matched in this dispute.
Weikiat has created some quite clever (and some less clever) puzzles and naturally feels some pride in his achievement. Creating a good puzzle is, after all, a creative act. The puzzle needs to be sufficiently difficult and mystifying to the person working on it, and the solution must be worthy of the set up by being compelling, inevitable, and satisfying. The difficulty should not be in the form of tedium, or in the need to acquire specialized knowledge or tools with which to work on it, and the solution has to honor the effort of the solver by not being insulting (e.g. Ha ha, I fooled you!) or arbitrary (e.g. there are many possible solutions but you have to come up with the one I had in mind or else you're juts plain wrong.) Creating such a puzzle, much less 55 of them, is an impressive task and deserves some respect.
People who solve puzzles in addition to those they are required to solve hope to get enjoyment out of it. I am one of those people who, though sometimes required to tackle puzzles, will often take one on just for the fun of it. In that sense, I am a member of Weikiat's intended audience.
I have also done creative work and know how I would feel if my work were misused in some way. If the ideas expressed in my novel were taken out of context and repurposed, say, to sell fast food, I would be annoyed. I would like to control how people read my work. I'd like to keep them from reading the end first and knowing what happens in advance. Nor would be happy to hear they skipped over sections, not to mention how I'd react to hear they told other people about parts those others hadn't read yet. In short, I would like to exert a modicum of control over those who experience my work, though not quite as much much as Howard Roark in The Fountainhead who, IIRC, blew up the buildings that appropriated his designs. (I am not a Randroid.) In all this, I am ignoring the economic elements (neither Weikiat or Little Bird are getting paid for their posts, as far as I know) and the legal aspects.
However, in the real world, an artist has to give up most control over his work unless special arrangements are made to the contrary. One can buy a DeKooning and then erase it. One can appropriate the work of Leonardo and paint a mustache on it, and one gets to read the pages of a book in any order one pleases, skipping any parts one wishes.
So Weikiat is right to get upset upon discovering his work is being misused in some way. However, at the same time, others would view what he sees as misuse as an example of Value Added. There are other ways to experience a work than as the author intended. Some books are better as movies, even though the author didn't plan it that way. And people have a choice in how to experience a work and if they want to do it the "wrong" way, whose loss is it?
Well, if the author's communication was a gift of love; if he was giving the reader a kiss, but the reader wasn't in the mood for a kiss right then and spurned the author's advance, the author might feel hurt. But that's always a possibility when you express your love. And we can sympathize with the rejected author. We've all been unappreciated and misunderstood. And some of us have even thrown tantrums when we were.
I started doing thewicked 2 days ago. My son was doing it and wanted my help. I'd seen games like it before. One which anticipates thewicked in many respects and which I almost can't believe wasn't Weikiat's inspiration, is less ambitious but in some ways superior. Another is more technical but reminds me of thewicked (which, though it pretends to not require a lot of knowledge, can get quite technical). Both of these sites have "spoilers" posted elsewhere on the internet and neither author seems particularly upset about this.
I got stuck on level 25 of thewicked and as I searched around the web, accidentaly came upon Little Bird's site. I already understood that this level was reffering to the "second index" but to me, that clue would mean "default.html" or "index.htm" and not, as I now discovered, "index2.html" Maybe some sites name their index files that way, but it was not a convention I was aware of. This was not the first level for which I was disappointed by the answer, but it was the first where I didn't solve it anyway. On level 20, for example, I thought the answer should be Tehran.html instead of the lower case version (tehran.html) which I'd tried just out of luck.
When I reach a puzzle which is unsatisfying, I resent being stuck behind it because of some arbitrary decision on the part of the author. Why should I not be allowed to go on? I'm not trying to win a prize or be listed in the hall of fame.
Puzzle answers when listed, even by Little Bird, have a certain authority to them First there's the answer, and then an explanation that is supposed to make it seem all right. Here is how I would list level 50 in this format:
==========================
Level 50:
Suddenly, darkness engulfed you. There was a blackout. Your computer screen is blank.
SOLUTION:
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/coconut/hell.html
REASON:
The bitmap of the blank screen is not really all black. If you change those non-black bits to white, it will spell out a message: "I was here since the beginning." This refers to the beginning of this chapter of the story starting with another computer screen in level 42. In that screen there is also a hidden message that can be read using the same technique. The message is: "I live in hell."
==========================
But, in fact, there is nothing inevitable about that explanation. When I read "I was here from the begining," I heard that as a criticism of those who dared to be here because they read a spoiler on Little Bird's site and thus were not here since the beginning. I knew the begining was a reference back to level42 because of the forum, a bbs in which thewicked is discussed with the blessing and control of the author. If it were my puzzle, I'd interpret that clue as meaning level1.html and that would be the answer, but it is not my puzzle, and I tried variations on that idea and got nowhere. Luckily, I had the forum to correct me, but I still prefer my interpretation to the "correct" one. It's because I read the forum in which others have decided "beginning" means level42 (and they got the right answer so they are to be believed) that gave me the idea of examining the other bitmap for a hidden message and finding the "hell" clue. But even then, the answer I wanted to give was "satan" or "thedevil" and, I could tell (by reading the forum) that I wasn't the only one thinking that way. Why is "hell.html" a better answer? Because it's simpler, some would say. Or because we want to go where the "I" was. With that second thought in mind, I'd tried "gotohell" which had a certain appeal for me, but turned out to be wrong. It was an analogy to "openemail," a command to follow an earlier level literally. But in the end, I just used trial and error and came up with the right answer which was disappointing. Still it got me to
LEVEL 51:
Must hurry up!
Please raeh it again!
3 little pigs show its true colour.
SOLUTION:
I don't know. Here's what I do know. It's a sound file. An mp3.
It needs to be modified in some way. played backwards ("hear" is spelled backwards) and sped up ("Must hurry up.") I further suspect that the mp3 can be found in the orange directory as opposed to the coconut one we are currently in.
REASON:
Because that's what the people in the forum seem to be saying. the initial characters of each of the 3 sentences are M, P, 3. The "pigs" are superfluous, the forumites claim, though I think the p & g refer to "mpeg". "True colors" indicates (to me, at any rate) the orange directory. The name of the actual mp3 file in the orange directory eludes me but I may now have given you enough clues to find it. Good luck. When you listen to it, it will (if you understand what is being said, which is by no means a foregone conclusion) give you the answer. But why stop here, just because we can't find the sound file? We can also deduce things from the other clues in the forum to know what the next level looks like.
LEVEL 52:
[something about how I lie on] scattered seeds.
[and how they must be] gather[ed.]
The forum users pm each other and share their thoughts. And I'm going to share mine. The seeds are files named seed.html which are found in the directories of those fruits which have seeds.
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/apple/seed.html is an F
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/orange/seed.html is an R
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/pear/seed.html is an E
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/durian/seed.html is an E
SOLUTION:
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/coconut/free.html
REASON:
see above.
==========================
LEVEL 53:
My dark voice had seen better days.
Then there's a big white bmp with the inscription
R. I. P.
1994
(and under that, a message saying you'll need a search engine.)
The hidden message in the bitmap (what? again? We've done this already!) says "In digits I died."
There's no forum to refer to for this level (though, I'm sure all the forumites are sharing their thoughts where we can't see them.) Feel free to share yours here.
So, what do you think?
The fight is over whether Little Bird may post the solutions, spoilers some call them, on his blog. Of course he may, legally speaking, or at least no law suits have been threatened, but is doing so an immoral act? Let's discuss!
First I will give the argument, or what should be the argument, of Tay Wei Kiat, aka weikiat (hence the name "the wicked") the 18 year old student who created the puzzles. To read Little Bird's blog would give the impression that weikiat has no argument and is just calling names, making threats, and otherwise acting like a child and, indeed, that is much of what he's doing which makes Little Bird's job easy, but let's be fair to the 18 year old geek, who knows a lot more about software than about people and so is unevenly matched in this dispute.
Weikiat has created some quite clever (and some less clever) puzzles and naturally feels some pride in his achievement. Creating a good puzzle is, after all, a creative act. The puzzle needs to be sufficiently difficult and mystifying to the person working on it, and the solution must be worthy of the set up by being compelling, inevitable, and satisfying. The difficulty should not be in the form of tedium, or in the need to acquire specialized knowledge or tools with which to work on it, and the solution has to honor the effort of the solver by not being insulting (e.g. Ha ha, I fooled you!) or arbitrary (e.g. there are many possible solutions but you have to come up with the one I had in mind or else you're juts plain wrong.) Creating such a puzzle, much less 55 of them, is an impressive task and deserves some respect.
People who solve puzzles in addition to those they are required to solve hope to get enjoyment out of it. I am one of those people who, though sometimes required to tackle puzzles, will often take one on just for the fun of it. In that sense, I am a member of Weikiat's intended audience.
I have also done creative work and know how I would feel if my work were misused in some way. If the ideas expressed in my novel were taken out of context and repurposed, say, to sell fast food, I would be annoyed. I would like to control how people read my work. I'd like to keep them from reading the end first and knowing what happens in advance. Nor would be happy to hear they skipped over sections, not to mention how I'd react to hear they told other people about parts those others hadn't read yet. In short, I would like to exert a modicum of control over those who experience my work, though not quite as much much as Howard Roark in The Fountainhead who, IIRC, blew up the buildings that appropriated his designs. (I am not a Randroid.) In all this, I am ignoring the economic elements (neither Weikiat or Little Bird are getting paid for their posts, as far as I know) and the legal aspects.
However, in the real world, an artist has to give up most control over his work unless special arrangements are made to the contrary. One can buy a DeKooning and then erase it. One can appropriate the work of Leonardo and paint a mustache on it, and one gets to read the pages of a book in any order one pleases, skipping any parts one wishes.
So Weikiat is right to get upset upon discovering his work is being misused in some way. However, at the same time, others would view what he sees as misuse as an example of Value Added. There are other ways to experience a work than as the author intended. Some books are better as movies, even though the author didn't plan it that way. And people have a choice in how to experience a work and if they want to do it the "wrong" way, whose loss is it?
Well, if the author's communication was a gift of love; if he was giving the reader a kiss, but the reader wasn't in the mood for a kiss right then and spurned the author's advance, the author might feel hurt. But that's always a possibility when you express your love. And we can sympathize with the rejected author. We've all been unappreciated and misunderstood. And some of us have even thrown tantrums when we were.
I started doing thewicked 2 days ago. My son was doing it and wanted my help. I'd seen games like it before. One which anticipates thewicked in many respects and which I almost can't believe wasn't Weikiat's inspiration, is less ambitious but in some ways superior. Another is more technical but reminds me of thewicked (which, though it pretends to not require a lot of knowledge, can get quite technical). Both of these sites have "spoilers" posted elsewhere on the internet and neither author seems particularly upset about this.
I got stuck on level 25 of thewicked and as I searched around the web, accidentaly came upon Little Bird's site. I already understood that this level was reffering to the "second index" but to me, that clue would mean "default.html" or "index.htm" and not, as I now discovered, "index2.html" Maybe some sites name their index files that way, but it was not a convention I was aware of. This was not the first level for which I was disappointed by the answer, but it was the first where I didn't solve it anyway. On level 20, for example, I thought the answer should be Tehran.html instead of the lower case version (tehran.html) which I'd tried just out of luck.
When I reach a puzzle which is unsatisfying, I resent being stuck behind it because of some arbitrary decision on the part of the author. Why should I not be allowed to go on? I'm not trying to win a prize or be listed in the hall of fame.
Puzzle answers when listed, even by Little Bird, have a certain authority to them First there's the answer, and then an explanation that is supposed to make it seem all right. Here is how I would list level 50 in this format:
==========================
Level 50:
Suddenly, darkness engulfed you. There was a blackout. Your computer screen is blank.
SOLUTION:
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/coconut/hell.html
REASON:
The bitmap of the blank screen is not really all black. If you change those non-black bits to white, it will spell out a message: "I was here since the beginning." This refers to the beginning of this chapter of the story starting with another computer screen in level 42. In that screen there is also a hidden message that can be read using the same technique. The message is: "I live in hell."
==========================
But, in fact, there is nothing inevitable about that explanation. When I read "I was here from the begining," I heard that as a criticism of those who dared to be here because they read a spoiler on Little Bird's site and thus were not here since the beginning. I knew the begining was a reference back to level42 because of the forum, a bbs in which thewicked is discussed with the blessing and control of the author. If it were my puzzle, I'd interpret that clue as meaning level1.html and that would be the answer, but it is not my puzzle, and I tried variations on that idea and got nowhere. Luckily, I had the forum to correct me, but I still prefer my interpretation to the "correct" one. It's because I read the forum in which others have decided "beginning" means level42 (and they got the right answer so they are to be believed) that gave me the idea of examining the other bitmap for a hidden message and finding the "hell" clue. But even then, the answer I wanted to give was "satan" or "thedevil" and, I could tell (by reading the forum) that I wasn't the only one thinking that way. Why is "hell.html" a better answer? Because it's simpler, some would say. Or because we want to go where the "I" was. With that second thought in mind, I'd tried "gotohell" which had a certain appeal for me, but turned out to be wrong. It was an analogy to "openemail," a command to follow an earlier level literally. But in the end, I just used trial and error and came up with the right answer which was disappointing. Still it got me to
LEVEL 51:
Must hurry up!
Please raeh it again!
3 little pigs show its true colour.
SOLUTION:
I don't know. Here's what I do know. It's a sound file. An mp3.
It needs to be modified in some way. played backwards ("hear" is spelled backwards) and sped up ("Must hurry up.") I further suspect that the mp3 can be found in the orange directory as opposed to the coconut one we are currently in.
REASON:
Because that's what the people in the forum seem to be saying. the initial characters of each of the 3 sentences are M, P, 3. The "pigs" are superfluous, the forumites claim, though I think the p & g refer to "mpeg". "True colors" indicates (to me, at any rate) the orange directory. The name of the actual mp3 file in the orange directory eludes me but I may now have given you enough clues to find it. Good luck. When you listen to it, it will (if you understand what is being said, which is by no means a foregone conclusion) give you the answer. But why stop here, just because we can't find the sound file? We can also deduce things from the other clues in the forum to know what the next level looks like.
LEVEL 52:
[something about how I lie on] scattered seeds.
[and how they must be] gather[ed.]
The forum users pm each other and share their thoughts. And I'm going to share mine. The seeds are files named seed.html which are found in the directories of those fruits which have seeds.
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/apple/seed.html is an F
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/orange/seed.html is an R
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/pear/seed.html is an E
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/durian/seed.html is an E
SOLUTION:
http://thewicked.sgblogging.com/wicked/coconut/free.html
REASON:
see above.
==========================
LEVEL 53:
My dark voice had seen better days.
Then there's a big white bmp with the inscription
R. I. P.
1994
(and under that, a message saying you'll need a search engine.)
The hidden message in the bitmap (what? again? We've done this already!) says "In digits I died."
There's no forum to refer to for this level (though, I'm sure all the forumites are sharing their thoughts where we can't see them.) Feel free to share yours here.
So, what do you think?
posted by jim at 2:27 PM
9 Comments:
So 53 is definitely a problem. I have tried every twisted idea -from spelling i died with numbers to searching for things concerning the number "e"--long story--YIKES!
I am beginning to think its just another wild goose chase to an answer which appears completely unrelated, ridiculously case sensitive or a throw back to some benign looking phrase elsewhere in the puzzle.
I am tiring of the censored forum and silliness regarding hints.
I like Wei Kiat have a high IQ, what he lacks is common sense and the realistic expectation of a true creator. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder no matter the point of view. So let us chat, hint and spoil to our hearts content!
He taunts his audience with "IF U THINK UR SMART, TRY THIS GAME, YOU WILL FEEL DUMB" in his invitations to the game. I was looking for fun and a challenge. That expectation has been dashed by his moronic droning and gloating everywhere his game is discussed.
Hear, hear ;)
yoz... those are actually quotations from people who blogged about The Wicked.
"IF U THINK UR SMART, TRY THIS GAME, YOU WILL FEEL DUMB" is just one of them.
for some levels, like the "i'm here since the beginning", you couldn't get it because lvl 42 actually marks the beginning of a second story in wicked.
if you skipped levels of course you can't get it.
finally, all answers are in lowercase... its written down somewhere. i forgot where.
goodbye!
wiki about a format mention in a previous level... then inside there is a format that die in 1994... but give the answer only in digits.
To wicked: Yes, I quote you--thanks for the credit--but only to show how WK tries to raise himself by putting down others. Pathetic.
I have completed the puzzles all by myself (forums excluded)--agonizing many times and breezing through others. Only stumbled on these blogs in search of another forum to discuss the game. Too bad WK posted in them--2nd impressions--you know:(
don't get what you are really driving at, but really, those text i just lift wholesale from blogs of fellow players.
i didn't intend to do what you say i did you know.
Could 51 have something to do with the pig program in level 32?
Post a Comment
<< Home