Disguising information in your cartridge

[+Tequila]

I know there has been some discussion that encryption might be down the road but in the meantime I am curious as to how other developers (I love thinking of myself as a developer) have handled hiding key information from people who open the cartridge in a text editor.

 

My new cartridge, Mad Trapper of Rouge River, has a segment in it where players have to write found information into a Field Message Pad. When they do that, I display a message like "You have written 999999 in the Field Message Pad". After I published it, a friend fessed up that he didn't actually find the containers in the field because he knew what the number was ahead of time.

 

Looking for creative ideas of disguising stuff in the cartridge.

 

C

[+JJG10101]

I know there has been some discussion that encryption might be down the road but in the meantime I am curious as to how other developers (I love thinking of myself as a developer) have handled hiding key information from people who open the cartridge in a text editor.

 

My new cartridge, Mad Trapper of Rouge River, has a segment in it where players have to write found information into a Field Message Pad. When they do that, I display a message like "You have written 999999 in the Field Message Pad". After I published it, a friend fessed up that he didn't actually find the containers in the field because he knew what the number was ahead of time.

 

Looking for creative ideas of disguising stuff in the cartridge.

 

C

 

I like the idea of combining cartridge/field info. In my cartridge, I've got messages like "***PHYSICAL ITEM NEARBY*** You should probably search for X." In the field, I've hidden a small matchstick container. Inside is a note that reads, "Ignore a message from character Y. The REAL coords for the geocache are..."

 

You could always put messages in your containers that read "Subtract 50 from the code in the Wherigo cartridge."

 

Eh, whatever it takes to make 'em work for it.

[+Tequila]

I would prefer to avoid doing that because the thing I love about Wherigo is the ability to do things without putting containers out in the field.

 

For example, I want to create a cartridge where at each zone the player has to solve a puzzle and select the next zone from a multiple choice list of answers for the puzzle. Saw this on The Mole Monday night. Since I want to do it in a quaint village, there are no locations to reliably hide containers. And I don't like to saturate an area with stages of containers for one geocache.

 

The unfortunate part is that if I put the puzzles in the cartridge, they can read and solve them before they go out to do it.

[+DeRock & The Psychic Cacher]

I would prefer to avoid doing that because the thing I love about Wherigo is the ability to do things without putting containers out in the field.

 

For example, I want to create a cartridge where at each zone the player has to solve a puzzle and select the next zone from a multiple choice list of answers for the puzzle. Saw this on The Mole Monday night. Since I want to do it in a quaint village, there are no locations to reliably hide containers. And I don't like to saturate an area with stages of containers for one geocache.

 

The unfortunate part is that if I put the puzzles in the cartridge, they can read and solve them before they go out to do it.

 

Your proposed "quaint village" cartridge sounds like a good fit for this technique:

 

At the last stage before the physical cache container have the player end up at a plaque or fixed premanent sign. Don't divulge in the cartridge where it is except for creating the zone for it.

 

When the player zeros out ask them to locate the nearby sign and then give the coords like a traditional multi:

 

42 37.ABC

85 24.XYZ

 

A=number of letters in the first line

B= the fouirth number in line 3

and right on down the line

 

This isn't a fool proof technique. Someone very lucky or who knows the area may be able to solve this one either by cracking the cartridge on a text editor or by using the emulator.

 

But it will discourage the majority that are seeking to cut a few corners. Not that I would ever do something like this myself for a FTF

 

Deane

AKA: DeRock & the Psychic Cacher - Grattan MI

[Ranger Fox]

I've been keeping out of this discussion because it looks like you want a solution that will work within the builder. Most of my solutions involve editing the lua code itself.

 

If you want to use the builder alone for this, just make an image with the text in it.

[+Tequila]

The image is a great idea. Thanks.

 

BTW, please don't stay out of the conversation. Your encouragement has been invaluable to me and I am sure a lot of other builders.

 

I haven't ventured outside the builder yet, but, as you mentioned in a previous forum discussion, the time will come. And I think it is coming faster than I would have liked.

 

So please throw out some non builder suggestions. Even if I can't use them, I am sure some of the others can.

 

Thanks.

 

Chuck

[kvhollis]

This isn't a fool proof technique. Someone very lucky or who knows the area may be able to solve this one either by cracking the cartridge on a text editor or by using the emulator.

 

But it will discourage the majority that are seeking to cut a few corners. Not that I would ever do something like this myself for a FTF

 

Deane

AKA: DeRock & the Psychic Cacher - Grattan MI

 

<cough>

Edited July 21, 2008 by kvhollis

[kvhollis]

I've been keeping out of this discussion because it looks like you want a solution that will work within the builder. Most of my solutions involve editing the lua code itself.

 

If you want to use the builder alone for this, just make an image with the text in it.

 

My last two have used images with the final coordinates. That makes it very difficult to extract the coordinates using a text editor. Also, each of my zones now have a question that makes arm chair caching much more difficult without a lot of visits to each zone in the field to find the data, or having a friend with the running the emulator over the phone and someone out in the field. If that becomes a problem I could always invest more time in trying to get the elevation (I have tried - just can't figure out how and where to place the code to get it to work) read from the GPS and not proceed until its a certain height above sea level.

[+Tequila]

I have fixed the Emulator problem with about 3 lines of code. Using the DeviceID method seems to work fine.

 

And I have tried a couple images in a test cartridge and that works great too.

 

Thanks.

[+adamsloco]

My thought on how to disguise the information was to store it in a variable. Then, manipulate that variable at various times in the script so to the final required version. Would work best with numbers, I think.

IE.. Want the answer to be 1007. Start with 25. First zone visit, times it by 4. Second zone visit, times that by 10. Third zone visit. Add 20. Fourth zone visit, subtract 13. Then match that to the player input.

 

At least make them read through "ALL" the code to solve it in armchair fashion.

[Ranger Fox]

My thought on how to disguise the information was to store it in a variable. Then, manipulate that variable at various times in the script so to the final required version. Would work best with numbers, I think.

IE.. Want the answer to be 1007. Start with 25. First zone visit, times it by 4. Second zone visit, times that by 10. Third zone visit. Add 20. Fourth zone visit, subtract 13. Then match that to the player input.

 

At least make them read through "ALL" the code to solve it in armchair fashion.

Actually, all numerical computations and many string-based manipulations (e.g. taking a string apart, shifting letters, slicing and dicing, etc.) are compiled into the code and the process is, thus, unreadable in the final cartridge. So, really, just one long mathematical operation would be enough. Still, overkill is fun.

 

To check if something is visible after compiling, open your compiled cartridge in a text editor and use the Find/Search tool to look for the numbers or text you're using.