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[Wish You Were Here] Enigma Game
You thought your day was over until, about to leave the office, an envelope slipped through the mail slot. And that's when your life turned upside-down.
A mysterious criminal taunts you from afar, dangling his next moves in front you. Will you succeed where until now all others have failed? Use your wits, intuition, and research skills to puzzle your way through 5 postcards packed with codes, ciphers, puzzles, and other mysteries.
Wish You Were Here is a "postcard" puzzle game by The Enigma Emporium. A series of postcards will each contain multiple puzzles. Solutions will often require a bit of internet searching to figure out. Both sides of the cards will contain multiple messages to discover.
I will be posting them one at a time. Any submitted answers should be marked spoiler. We'll wait a bit after answers so anyone can catch up before proceeding to the next.
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Posts
We've got pictures of US Presidents: Reagan (40), Obama (44), Monroe (5), and Eisenhower (34)
(A little tricky on Monroe, because that's not his presidential portrait! I had to do a reverse image search for that guy.)
At first I was looking for a number connection, but then I realized their initials spelled out, left-to-right, ROME.
BACK:
The smudged letters are a message:
ILMUSEONAZIONALEDOTCOM
Which is... a website owned by Enigma Emporium, so we're on the right track. It being in Italian gave me the reasoning for ROME on the front.
Finally, the numbers are presidential terms. Let's see which ones they are, and assign them by number:
9 23 1 19
8 9 18 5
4 2 25 1
3 21 12 20
All below 26, so probably a letter-number cypher. Let's plug this into a converter, and we get:
i w a s
h i r e
d b y a
c u l t
Edit: The Leonardo da Vinci connection from the stamp leads me to believe that the crime is to steal his painting "Lady with an Ermine" which is shown on the museum page.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Okay, I burned out on it.
Mostly agree and had the above.
Then the smudged letters
"This exhibition marks a huge success in the art world. For the first time, all the great masters are gathered under one roof. These paintings form the link from one age to the next, and for the next couple of months we will be celebrating that link. Book your tickets today."
A lot of the paintings are from William Hanslow.
Didn't pick the one Da Vinci.
Ordering paintings by creation order doesn't seem to do much.
Can't see much order to the titles or artists.
Sort of felt like I was missing a key to this page, but if it's just the stamp then ok
Dumping data:
The vet in a new field, Winslow Homer, 1865
Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer, 1889, NYC
Breezing Up, Winslow Homer, 1876
Rembrandt
Rembrandt:Raphael:Pieter Lastman, 1621
The anatomy lesson of Dr Nic. - 1632
Belshazzar's Feast - 1635
Sistine chapel, two cherubs - 1513
Jonah and the Whale - 1621 Pieter Lastman
Michelangelo in his studio, 1849-50
Cecilia Gallerani, Da vinci, 1489
Symphony in White, No. 3, 1865-1867
Nocturne in Blue and Silver: The Lagoon, Venice, 1879-80
Whistler's Mother, 1871
Seated Woman, 1909, Pablo Picasso
Le Gourmet, 1901
Mother and Child, 1901
The Japanese Footbridge, 1899
San Giorgio Maggiore, 1908
Édouard Manet, 1874
SacoBay, 1896
Date order:
Cecilia Gallerani, Da vinci, 1489
Sistine chapel, two cherubs - 1513
Jonah and the Whale - 1621 Pieter Lastman
The anatomy lesson of Dr Nic. - 1632
Belshazzar's Feast - 1635
Michelangelo in his studio, 1849-50
Symphony in White, No. 3, 1865-1867
The vet in a new field, Winslow Homer, 1865
Eight bells, Winslow homer, 1886
Whistler's Mother, 1871
Édouard Manet, 1874
Breezing Up, 1876
Nocturne in Blue and Silver: The Lagoon, Venice, 1879-80
Gulf Stream, 1889, NYC
SacoBay, 1896
The Japanese Footbridge, 1899
Le Gourmet, 1901
Mother and Child, 1901
San Giorgio Maggiore, 1908
Seated Woman, 1909, Pablo Picasso
...
Unless it's Madonna and Child because of the row of mother pictures
Decoded message:
Stamps that I don't know what they do
Otherwise we have the numbers.
Portrait lines:
Electron shields fill according to the periodic table.
1st shell only has two positions.
2nd has two and then an additional 6.
3rd has 2 + 6 but also an additional 10, but these get filled after some of the 4th layer.
4th has 2 + 6 + 10 + more, etc.
Looking at this one, we only have 1 electron in the outermost layer.
Stamps that I do know what they do:
...
And the pictures are probably bank robbers
Why are there Caesium bars anywhere.
Have to keep them in oil and refrigerated probably.
I don't have time to count when that single electron is hanging out in the outer shell.
But yeah.
Mean trick when the inner three rings have the right number of electrons in each.
It may be less readable though
...
I'm probably wrong actually.
So yeah, Au would have only one electron there, but the inner shells would have more.
Unsure where the green ? should be.
I don't think it should be there?
Which might meant the colors should be closer in?
or maybe the next ring out?
..
Yeah, the green ? should actually be blue and in the next ring out.
It's the only wrong dot.
Obviously a periodic table. The marked elements are:
He, N, S, At = an anagram for "AtHeNS"
(Maybe he's stealing chickens!)
The LCD display is a reverse for "302103249531". A search for this reveals... either a periodic table(?) or a the phone number of a bank in Athens, "Bank Saderat Iran". Strangely, the bank number shows up in multiple results, it has a wikipedia page, and this appears to be a real bank not linked to the puzzle company. It could be a coincidence... I'm not inclined to call and find out. But the Athens connection from the front certainly makes it the strongest contender.
I have to think that the element and Mendeleev links from a Google search are because people have been searching for this number + "Mendeleev" so much that it broke their algorithm. It also has a lot of returns from people who are also playing this puzzle. Whoops!
BACK:
Count the electrons on that image: 79. Luckily I have a periodic table open right now... That's gold, Jerry!
The Stamps are:
John Dillinger/ Boron / 5 (B or E?)
Ma Barker / Potassium / 19 (K or S?)
Jesse James / Sulfur / 16 (S or P?)
Aside from them all being famous thieves, I'm not sure there's a direct connection. The arrow points to the gold. Thieves -> Gold.
But the ESP angle, knowing that there's a cult involved... Hmm...
The Message is like in Card 1: Convert the element symbols into numbers, then run them through a simple conversion:
9 6 25 15 21 ' 22 5 6 15 12 12 15 23 5 4
CaOFK CHAr, AlHMnHeB MnPSc
20 8 9 19 8 1 18, 13 1 25 2 5 25 15 21
LiHSi KHTiB AlB. F OHTiB
3 1 14 19 1 22 5 13 5. 9 8 1 22 5
KCaPMgBSi HeScCa SiPCa
19 2o 15 12 5 14 2 21 20 14 15 20
HeMn LiOPFLiB...
2 25 3 8 15 9 3 5...
if you've followed
this far, maybe you
can save me. i have
stolen but not
by choice...
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Dates:
NAGue?
No.. Prague, Cyprus
Flags:
Front and back
So the crime is to
Otherwise I would have been quicker.
(And it was an hour : ten minutes)
I have to wonder if the postcards are getting more rushed though.
...
Yeah, I only started that post 21 minutes after you posted.
And then spent the next hour filling it in.
Stamps:
My gun is quick
Mother land
...
To the library
..
And they're not here
Front messages
Maybe the right back side
Because I think I'm hard pressed doing this card on paper.
Found the key.
But only after fiddling with it for an extended period of time.
solution:
I S M Y N A M E
QR code is a thing that I suppose you have to use:
I assume the FBI agent he wants you to contact.
I should look at that fourth card again
Did you email them?
I haven't got the fourth card.
Barcode explanation
And the long bars count.