The first few officers enter to scout the warehouse. When they come back they tell you that there are twelve containers inside but the locking mechanism on them is digital. There appears to be some sort of a tracking method attached to each container. Whatever these contain, they are valuable. They are afraid that if they open the wrong container, someone might be remotely monitoring these and get alerted. They could destroy whatever is inside them, and if that happens to be Poppy, then the outcome will not be good. Everyone’s faces drop down. It is clear that the team will get only one chance at figuring out which container to force open, and it had better be the right one.
Just then, one of the officers calls out. The officer has found a guard’s booth. Inside there appears to be a map of the twelve containers within the warehouse, with some scribbling on it.
And some cards!
Open the Victim Location envelope now.
Envelope Contents
Warehouse layout sheet.
12 playing cards, each with a cutout.
Ace, Queen, and 10 of Diamond.
King, Jack, and 10 of Heart.
Ace, King, Jack and 9 of Club.
Ace, King of Spades.
Looks like your guardian angel is still helping you out. You have no idea who it is, or what their motivation is. But at this moment, you are glad that someone is helping out. Hopefully, this guardian angel left enough information for you to figure out which container you need to open to rescue the victim.
The Boss’s container is most valuable (boss deals in diamonds).
As soon as all the containers are here, stack each block from left to right then flip the stacks for a payoff.
The first one seems to indicate that the boss’s container probably has the vicim in it — so you need to figure out which container belongs to the boss.
You also got some cards.
Hint 2
The warehouse layout sheet has three columns, and four rows — twelve possible containers. You even received twelve playing cards. This cannot be a coincidence.
Make sure to inspect the cards on both sides carefully.
Hint 3
Before you can figure out which container you should attempt to open, it might be useful to see if the cards need to be laid out in any pattern.
Hint 1
Special markings on some cards
On the front side of the cards, where you can see the card’s value, there are some additional markings compared to other cards from this deck that you have seen before.
These are all shaped like card suits, and are all drawn in just an outline.
Hint 2
Each of the twelve cards have those symbols drawn in a groups of either two, three or even four symbols.
Can you determine a pattern for the arrangement of these symbols?
Hint 3
Looks like there are maximum four of these outlines on the cards. That might indicate the complete pattern they can create.
Can you use the cards with four symbols to help you place some other cards around?
Hint 4
As an example, if you take the king of clubs, one symbol seems to be on the top, and one to the bottom of the card. The third symbol is more to the right, and the fourth more to the left of the card.
Hint 5
Could each symbol be pointing towards a direction? Something like, up, down, left or right.
What could they be pointing at?
Hint 6
The symbols are pointing to the left, right, above and below the current card (if all four symbols are there).
As an example, with king of spades, perhaps what is indicated is:
Card on left is a club.
Card on top is a diamond.
Card on right is a diamond.
Card on bottom is spade.
Can you make an arrangement of cards using this information?
Hint 7
Some cards have symbols missing in some directions. This might indicate that in those directions there are no cards.
This means that all the cards without a symbol on the top, have no neighboring card above themselves. As such, you can use cards with no symbol to the top to form the top row of your layout.
Hint 8
Just like in Hint 9, all cards, where the bottom symbol is missing would represent the bottom row.
Hint 9
There are three cards with the top symbol missing, and three cards with the bottom symbol missing.
Two of these cards are also missing the symbol to the right and other two cards are missing the symbol to the left. These might be the ‘corners’ of the layout.
Hint 10
After you build the top row (of three cards), and the bottom row (of three cards), you only need to fill in the middle two rows.
Try to use the outlined suit symbols to help you figure out which card goes where.
Solution
By matching up the right suit-outlines with the right neighbour, you will arrive at the following formation:
Hint 4
There are two notes written on the sheet:
The Boss’s container is most valuable (boss deals in diamonds).
As soon as all the containers are here, stack each block from left to right then flip the stacks for a payoff.
You already figured from Hint 1 that the first one seems to indicate that the boss’ container is where the vicim is being held.
But the second sentence talks about stacking each block from left to right. Time to figure out what this could mean.
Hint 1
You have already figured out the layout of the cards by now.
Hint 2
Have you noticed how the layout of the cards is 3 columns and 4 rows, just like the containers on the warehouse sheet.
Hint 3
The shape of the containers also seems to match the shape of the cards.
Hint 4
Try to move the cards on to the warehouse sheet, in the same pattern as assembled before.
Hint 5
The note reads:
As soon as all the containers are here, stack each block from left to right then flip the stacks for a payoff.
Try to stack the cards in each row as the note suggests. Take the leftmost and place it on its right neighbour. Than take those two cards (as they are) and place it on top of the right neighbour again.
After that, flip over the stack of three cards that you have just created.
Hint 6
If you have built the matrix correctly, and stacked the cards the right way, you should be able to read some text.
Solution
If you look closely at the stacks you made, you should be able to read the message:
WINNERS NEVER SHOW THEIR BACK FOR THAT MAY REVEAL THEIR POSITION IN OUR WORLD
Hint 5
Now, remember what the note on the warehouse sheet says: the Boss’s container is most valuable.
So you need to figure out who is in the top position of the underworld to figure out who’s container you need to look at.
Hint 6
The text you recently uncovered from the back of the cards speaks about winners and the position in the world.
Maybe figuring out who won a game might reveal positions of people?
Hint 7
You received a scoring sheet at the Blue Lotus. Maybe if you solve that it will reveal positions of some people?
Hint 1
You receive a scoring sheet for four people, who played a game of Mai-Mai.
If you knew the rules of the game, you might be able to figure out who won.
Hint 2
Do you know how to play Mai-Mai?
Hint 3
The invitaion sent to Poppy Nicdao has the rules of the game Mai-Mai on it.
Hint 4
You need to figure out which hand had the most points.
Hint 5
Remember that cards with a letter are worth as much as the letter’s position in the alphabet.
Hint 6
The note says, that the winning hand has only diamonds.
Hint 7
If the winning hand has only diamonds, then any hand with two-cards of a kind can be eliminated. A pair means that the player had at least two different card suits in their hand, so they cannot win.
Hint 8
After eliminating hands with duplicates, the remaining hands are:
Hand 2: Q K J A
Hand 3:Q K 10 9 (or Q K X IX)
Every card with letters on them carries as many points as the position of the letter in the alphabet.
Solution
You need the scoring sheet and the Casino night invitation for solving this puzzle. Using the rules for Mai-Mai from the back of the invitation, you can determine who won the game described on the scoring sheet. Hands with pairs can be eliminated, since only hands with a single suit can get points.
Each card is worth as much as the number on it, or if it’s a letter, the position of the letter in the alphabet. This means A = 1, then whether you consider X being 10, or 24, and IX being 9, or 9+24, the cards in Hand 3 are receiving the highest amount of points.
The winning sequence is Q K 10 9.
Hint 8
After solving the scoring sheet, you know that the winning hand of Mai-Mai is Q, K, 10, 9. This means that the winner had a Queen.
You also know that the winning hand was all diamonds. As such, a Queen of Diamond is the winning card.
Hint 9
Have you noticed how some of the containers on the warehouse sheet have a codename written in for the owner?
Hint 10
Some of these codenames on the warehouse sheet are Dragon, Medusa, Lion.
Just like the designs on the back of the cards.
Hint 11
You know that the winning card is Queen of Diamonds. You were able to create a matrix of cards to fit into the warehouse sheet matrix. You know that the containers on the warehouse layout sheet have codenames that seem to match the backs of the cards.
Can you use this to figure out which container belongs to the boss?
Solution
Show Explanation
You need to assemble a 3 columns and 4 rows large matrix with the 12 cards that you found. To make the connection between cards, use the 2 to 4 outlines of suits at the top of each card. They represent the suit of the neighboring card (up, down, right or left). (See Hint 3 for details)
Once you have the the complete matrix, use the two notes on the sides of the warehouse layout sheet to figure out which is the relevant container.
One of the messages says that, “As soon as all the containers are here, stack each block from left to right then flip the stacks for a payoff.”
So you must stack the cards in the matrix, in each row, from left to right (leftmost card on top of the middle, then those two on top of the rightmost card) and then flip them so that you will see the backs of the cards (See Hint 4 for details).
Once you have done this for all four rows, you can notice that through the cutouts in the cards you can see a text emerge:
WINNERS NEVER SHOW THEIR BACK FOR THAT MAY REVEAL THEIR POSITION IN OUR WORLD
Winners in this case should remind you that you have a scoring sheet for a game of Mai-Mai that you received from the Blue Lotus. So you need to figure out the winning hand on that scoring sheet. The most valuable card in the winning hand on that sheet is the Queen of diamonds (See Hint 7 for details).
So you need to find the Queen of Diamonds in that matrix of cards to figure out which container it is that you need to open (See Hints 5 to 11).
Show Answer
The solution is: 152
Select Currency
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Epilogue
Epilogue(Enigma Fellowship)
Read Story
There are lots of old wine barrels around, and even some furniture. Now that the pressure of this case is no longer upon you, you even notice that the walls are done up with beautiful paintings. It looks like Enrico had been working hard to restore this place. You decide that it is worth calling him back on the tablet, just to give him an update.
Enrico is thrilled to hear that you have figured out who might be behind all of this. Then, you can see his face sink with guilt. He tells you that he deeply regrets the injustice his family has brought upon the Dolccis and cannot forgive himself for making accusations against Flavio. He is determined to resolve all of this when he gets back; he will return the castle back to the Dolccis and try to foster a new relationship of cooperations, just like their families once had. He realizes that losing the castle doesn’t mean losing their history. After all, his family still has other ancestral land in Tuscany; from their days of being grocers.
Just as Enrico starts telling you about the history he recently uncovered, his video freezes. The lights in the room cut off.
AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
There is a blood curdling scream from upstairs. You realize it was Poppy’s voice. You scramble to get upstairs.
THUD!
The entrance to the chamber is sealed. You’re trapped.
To be concluded in The Scattered Thoughts… our next game.
Let us start by saying a HUGE thank you for having played our game! We hope you enjoyed playing it as much as we enjoyed putting it together – in spite of the rollercoaster ride we had with this one.
If you are reading these lines it means that you would like to find out a little bit more about the puzzles, story and how they came to be. And boooooy, are you in for a treat this time! We kept notes throughout the whole process!!! Just. For. You! 🙂
However, what comes next is rich in spoilers about the game and story – so if you haven’t fully played the game yet, PLEASE go back and play it first! It will put these next anecdotes in a completely different light!
So go on! Solve the game! We’ll wait for you, promise!
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…
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Done? SOLVED?
Well, here come the spoilers! Hope you enjoy! Hope it won’t be too boring.
We knew what the story of the third game would be, before we were fully done with our second game. Anuj’s long experience with underwater acoustics, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) — robots that are smart enough to not need human operators — made this one another dream come true, and a sweet stroll down memory lane.
Anuj with hid buddy of a lifetime – who was also the inspiration for Jay Key– building an AUV at an International competition
The maritime subject was calling to us! It had to be a submarine – duuuh – so now we just had to come up with the title. We thought if we called the submarine “The Sentinel”, it would be mysterious enough to get players interested. Then came the idea of the Sentinel being stranded somewhere – which pretty much threw us in the direction of “Lost Sentinel” but that was just an overuse of the word Lost – twice in three games. So after a bit of brainstorming we finally had it! The Submerged Sentinel! B-)
Once you know what subject the game will have you can start looking at inspiration. We started by reading a lot of anecdotes, and read as many slang dictionaries as we could (warning: there are some ugly words in there). We really wanted to use a lot of the cool words / expressions we found, but in the end it would have meant adding a lot more content for the players to read, so we just skipped it. The only things that made it into the game, were the interviews with the crew, while solving the Menu puzzle on the first hydrophone. Did you notice the nonsense interviews? Try reading the first letters together from the second half of the interviews. Orsi was entertaining herself a lot while writing them. In the end, those messages seemed so fitting for this story, that we just had to put them there!
The next thing we researched was diving. In spite of the fact that we would both like to try it out one day, and Anuj actually wants to get PADI certification, so far we have never gone deeper than where our snorkels could take us (Anuj points out that this isn’t completely true because he did go diving in a deep-ish tank in an aquarium). So we had a lot of reading to do. Decomp dives, dry suits, breathing air mixes, toxicity levels, cylinder manufacturers – we’ve read everything we could put our hands on! However… None of that made it into the game. In spite of the fact that we had invested weeks’ worth of time into making this math puzzle, after getting feedback from our testers we decided (with heavy hearts) to remove it. But fear not: the puzzle will surely make an appearance in a future maritime adventure 🙂
Just to show you how a puzzle is born. We had the idea of mimicking a “printer failure” on the letter from Mr. Gurges. But in the very beginning, it was only supposed to have just strings of characters in the four corners, with each corner a different color of the CMY color spectrum, which you would then have to merge together using a formula hidden on the page. As you saw, that puzzle idea was further developed, and it’s pretty much the brainchild of Anuj. Somehow he has a magical ability of turning any simple puzzle into hint-exhausting exercise.
The idea of the printer failure developed by stretching it into looking like something random a printer does. The base idea was born while we were doing a print run for The Scattered Cards. Our printed decided, at random, that it didn’t want to print the real text. Instead it started throwing random characters on the edges of the paper. So you see, puzzle ideas can be born anywhere — even when something frustrating happens.
Then we had the idea of hiding something written with a UV pen on the back of the letter. That led to a horrible hunt for small UV lights and how to ship them. It’s honestly a story of its own. Basically Anuj had a couple of sleepless nights and days because of it. All the documentation we had from our shipping company said that they would accept the batteries in those lights, but their agent kept saying they wouldn’t. Then in the end they admitted that it would be ok. While this happened there was a huge discussion about possibilities on the puzzler Facebook group as well, and lots of our players shared ideas. Anuj might even now be know as the Battery Guy or UV Light Guy amongst the puzzler group on Facebook. But hey, what’s important is that everything turned out well in the end.
One suggestion we got from players, and reviewers, is to get rid of unnecessary paper items and move everything non-essential online. We really tried to keep ourselves to that this time. It makes the games lighter, packing much easier and minimizes the resources we need for each game. But at times it is also difficult to just put something online, because we do like the physical aspect of our games. It gives us something non-digital to look at for some time.
Since the beginning we have been trying to reduce our environmental footprint, but this game brought up the issue even more regularly for us. So we thought about it and decided to do a few more things since then. Did you know that our games actually have a negative carbon footprint? Yes, that’s right! Not just carbon neutral, but negative. We plant one tree for each game that we ship! So it’s not just for each order, but for every copy of every game shipped in the past and the future, we plant a tree. We also use carbon neutral shipping, and printing. So in effect, each game you buy is carbon negative, and will be so even when you re-sell it since each tree is good for several copies of our games when it comes to carbon neutral production. You can read a whole lot more about it on our Environment page.
Anuj’s hands-on experience with underwater acoustics made some of these puzzles so much more real! I guess that must also be the reason he managed to make the HydraCON website so believable. It was inspired by some of the prominent research organizations he worked with during his days of being an underwater roboticist and acoustician. By the way, all the articles you see on that website are real. All the information that we placed there is also real. If these kind of things interest you, do read it. We only made up the bits about the map and the hydrophone data (basically the things relevant to the game) – the other things link to real articles, societies, people and data in general. We are hoping that at least a few of you will go down a rabbit hole of interesting learning.
The hunt for the Sentinel, hopping from one hydrophone to the next, could actually have happened. Hydrophones are real – they are anchored to the seabed, and collect data all day long. There is even a global network that is used for communication and research! The manufacturers on the website are real – and Anuj actually got to have first hand experience with some of them! In fact, he still owns four hydrophones of his own from the days of building robots and designing underwater communication systems.
Normally, sound travels much farther in the water than it does above surface. But this means that ambient noise is also a problem. This means that data transmissions in the water can degrade VERY quickly and are PAINFULLY slow (remember dial-up Internet? Well, that was faster and more reliable). The measurement of signal to noise ratio (SNR) is a real thing too. Did you know that besides pressure, the water acidity also plays a crucial role in the changes of SNR? That might not seem to be a “big deal” for data drops from ship and submarines, but underwater animals suffer a great deal because of this. The worst part is that as our climates are changing, our oceans are acidifying. Of course, the primary effects of ecosystem collapse is huge (bleached corals, etc.), but this is making our oceans louder as well. During his research days, Anuj stumbled upon this while researching communication systems and even published a paper on the topic. One interesting thing that was discovered was that whales are actively changing their song due to the increasing noise; the frequency changes measured over the years almost track the changes caused by ocean acidification. Just one more reason to be more vigilant about how we treat our planet.
If you looked at the map, you would have noticed that we have several places on it. The ice shelves, are based on real ices shelves. The only problem is that the Arctic doesn’t have any (anymore), outside of Russia. There used to be some in Canada, but the last one broke apart and collapsed over the last few years. So Matusevich Ice Shelf is a real reference. Ross Ice Shelf is real too, but it is from Antarctica and just happens to be the largest one. All the research station names are real as well, but from the Antarctic, because there aren’t so many of these in the Arctic.
In case you are wondering if Acoustic Dead Zones are a real thing, or if we made them up, well, rest assured they are a very real thing. The fluctuations in salinity, temperature and acidity can lead to such zones being created. They move, and are not permanent, since conditions are fluid. In reality, they also don’t occur at the depths we were dealing with in the game, but that was artistic license. 🙂
The first item we had ready for this game was (obviously?) the map. One other thing we tried to do in this game was to reuse our “pretty” items as many times as possible. This reduces the amount of items we need to fit into each game and hopefully gives our players a chance to enjoy these more than once.
We had a couple of iterations for the map. Originally it was supposed to have marine animals on it, for which, you guessed it, we also did some research.
Some of the animals we were thinking about putting on the map. Can you find the one that doesn’t belong?
Did you know that there is only one kind of dolphin in the arctic? Have you ever seen a hooded seal? Would you ever consider free diving with whales? So many questions and opportunities! We wanted to have a puzzle with the whale song, but the game was already longer than our standard ones and I guess we have to leave something for the next maritime game as well.
Reindeer Dolphin!
Designing the map produced one of the most memorable moments for us. We were brainstorming ideas for what animals to put where, and how to depict them on the map. Anuj has a whiteboard in his office, and we were laying these out there. Well, see the picture above. There is a very entertaining looking Dolphin, who got nicknamed the “Reindeer Dolphin” by one of our friends. We love it so much! Watch out for the Reindeer Dolphin to appear in a future game.
Surprisingly, at least for us, the puzzles and 100% of the flow on the map was not ready until very late in game design. We had the base mechanics worked out, and the puzzles as well. But we still weren’t sure of what route would be followed, and how the mechanic would play out. Then as the hydrophones pages were being done, it all started to just fit together. But we felt like we needed one puzzle to lead into the hunt for The Sentinel. This is the very first challenged you encounter from one of the hydrophones: the decryption puzzle (“Confidential”). As weird as this may sound, this first puzzle was the very last one we finished. And this one, is 100% Anuj’s brainchild again (yeah, he owns the blame for all ciphers as a badge of pride). Since he is a programmer, he actually wrote software to help us encrypt the text, however the output still needed to be tested. Which ended up being mostly Orsi’s task (Anuj says that a second pair of eyes is always better).
Play testing and validating the “Confidential” puzzle
It was a long evening of testing, which lead to the version of the alphabetic cypher you now have on the Sentinel.fyi website. But by the end of the test, Orsi may or may not have said (with all the love in her heart) that she will skin her dear husband alive. True story or fake news? You’ll never know… (bribes of chocolates may lead to full story being told).
The next nice item we collaborated with an artist for was that cute poster that we, personally, absolutely adore! Our heart breaks a little every time we have to fold one for the game – but we found no realistic way around that. The ship on that poster, however funny the name might sound, is actually a real ship! Anuj came across that name, but it was Orsi who worked it into the “doodle” puzzle, with the cooking frying pan! The real Frying Pan has quite a colored history and it is interesting to read about. When the idea for using the ship named Frying Pan was born, the first idea was very different. Instead of a doodle, we would have had a note that said something like, “The truth is in the frying pan”. But then Orsi made the doodle, and now you know what made it in the game.
The very first version of the doodle, where the meatballs in the frying pan were supposed to spell “senior”
If you haven’t guessed it by now, the doodle page was *actually* drawn by Orsi. And the elephant in the final version is pretty much her go-to thing to draw when she doodles during long boooooring meetings. It even got on this paper literally as a doodle – a placeholder for something prettier to come. But then we had a couple of lovely players who tested our early ideas, and they were so entertained by that little elephant, that we decided to keep it in the game.
And this was not the only time we took inspiration from our testers. The hidden websites on the letter from Mr. Gurges (did you find them?) ended up there because D__ solved the initial version too quickly. Also in the puzzle with the multiple clocks? The original one was much MUCH simpler, until R___ went ahead and solved it in under 5 minutes. The chemistry puzzle was also not the way it is now; basically, we gave the first pass to our testers and they blew past it in under 10 mins. We thought it would have been so much harder, and this forced us back to the drawing board. The puzzle initially had a reference to Rutherford, whom we though most no one would know; and to our great surprise all our testers knew of him! Thank you guys! 🙄 You keep us on our toes. But seriously, we love you for it! 🙂
Since we are talking about the puzzle with the clocks; all of those pictures were taken by the two of us! We had a fun day in Cuxhaven, on the beach, for the outside pictures. It was cold, but it was nice to go out to the beach after so long. We actually had a version of this puzzle, where one of the clocks was supposed to show the time in a digital way. In the end, we preferred the version with two clocks together.
Another thank you we have to say is to Ana and Ace from Bluefish Games. We played their game, The Curious Elevator of Mr. Hincks. We absolutely loved one of their puzzles, so much so, that we actually asked them for pointers about how they did it! They were kind enough to let us in on their trade secrets. Play their game if you haven’t already! Then let us know if you figured out which puzzle we are referring to.
Anuj peering into an early prototype of the diving black sleeve.
What was your opinion about the dive puzzle, in the black sleeve? That was born in a really funny way. We were talking about the story, which in the very beginning had you walking through the submarine. Then we thought, it will be really dark there, so you will need to carry a light with you. How cool would it be if we could mimic some of that? Then, out of the blue Orsi just gave Anuj one of these sleeves to look at and Anuj was absolutely enamored by it! Even now, each time he peers into one of them, to him it feels like he is exploring a hidden world. So the idea of the sleeve was born, and after may iterations, the labyrinth emerged. There was no marine life in the first versions, until Orsi just doodled a few in there. It captured Anuj’s imagination even more so it had to become a part of the puzzle too. Would it surprise you to know, that we even researched what kind of animals live deep down under the arctic? ‘Cos we did 🙂
Another thing we really want to talk about is the story itself. It wasn’t always exactly what it is today. As a matter of fact, we nailed it down just a couple of hours before the first tester started the full test of the game. We had some plot holes in it, which we happily pointed out to each other. Better that way, than a player raising the red flag once the game is done. Why did they go to Palmer station? Why did Haddock do this at all? There was a very short lived idea where he just lost a custody battle and was trying to buy the love of his kid. But we just couldn’t fully believe that scenario. We are both Marvel fans, and we find that the best villains are the kinds that you can connect with. So we added the debt aspect, which would definitely put a decorated navy officer in a bad position that he would desperately want to get out of.
And last but not least, easter eggs! In this game we used two names from the Tintin comics – did you find either of them? There is also a senior officer from Star Trek who makes a strong but friendly appearance as well. He is a very beloved character for both of us, and who knows… Maybe you will get to meet with him again in future games. You’ll just have to stick around to find out!
We had another Enigma Fellowship in-game reference. Did you find it? Actually, more than once. One of the villains from the Sonnburg mafia, who was introduced in The Scattered Cards, makes an appearance in the background. One of our players said that they were not ready to leave the world of Sonnburg behind. Well, R______, it’s still here. Will it make appearances in the future? ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉
Thanks for reading through! Send us a message on Facebook, Instagram or just an email to let us know what you thought about the game! We always love to hear from you guys.
Take care, dear Enigma Fellowship member. And stay safe and healthy!
