Puzzle Contest ER Champ 2024

This is my submission for the puzzle contest of ER Champ.

THE PUZZLE: Error Code

Let’s imagine we are in the context of a point-and-click game. I describe below the 3 views you would see for this puzzle.

You are in a room, you see a computer on a desk, with an error message on the screen.

1. Desktop computer

You can click on the screen, or on the keyboard (nothing else is clickable).

2. By clicking the screen, you get a larger version of the screen text.
(Nothing is clickable there.)

For an ER-Champ-style game, imagine that there is an answer box at the bottom of that image.

3. By clicking the keyboard, you get a view of a regular desktop keyboard.
(Nothing is clickable there.)

If you think you have the solution, you can verify your answer there.

Hints

If you are stuck but want to solve it by yourself before reading the solution, here are some hints (click to reveal each step).

What not to do

You don’t need any outside knowledge to solve this puzzle.


What to look at

Note that there’s a view of the keyboard. But you can’t interact with it. So looking at the keyboard is probably important.


What to do

There are numbers in the error code. Where else can you see numbers?


How to decode the error code

Look at the numerical grid in the keyboard. Each small sequence of digits will give you a letter.


How to decode the error code (more explicit hint)

Follow the digits in the grid of the keyboard, to draw letter shapes. For example, following 2–8–7–9 gives you the letter T.


About the last step

You should find a 7-letter phrase. This is not the final answer, but a direct clue for the final answer.


If you’re stuck on the last step

Look at the keyboard again. The final answer is 6-letter long.


Solution

Scroll down for the detailed solution.

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According to the error message, you need to obtain a specific keyword associated to a sequence of digits separated by spaces:

2879 97139 28965 712 3145479 179745 7982

There are many things you can do to try to “decode” a sequence of digits, but in the context of a point-and-click game, you might reasonably assume that technical outside knowledge is not needed, and that the environment may contain clues.

Here one important thing to notice is that you are given a detailed view of the keyboard, although you can’t interact with it (nothing is clickable). So it’s likely that looking at the keyboard is important. This is also hinted at by the underlined word “keyword” in the text.

You see that on the keyboard there’s a numerical pad. Since we have digits, this is probably a good thing to look at.

You can decode the groups of digits by following them, drawing letter shapes on the numerical grid. For example, 2879 gives you the letter T.

Decoding the full error code gives the letters TOPLEFT.

You might think this is the final answer, but this doesn’t work if you try that in the answer field (also, you might notice the 6 dashes at the bottom of the screen, that seem to indicate that the answer has 6 letters, not 7).

The final step is to look again at the keyboard. What is in the top left corner? The “Escape” key. The final answer is ESCAPE (which is, indeed, a key-word!).

Possible Variants
  • To make it easier: One could hint at the fact that there’s a final step, by adding on the screen an indication that the decoded message is 7 letter-long, but is a clue for the final answer that is 6-letter long:
  • To make it more interactive: it may be more fun to be able to click on the keyboard (and obtain the access to the computer without having to type in an answer, just by interacting in a specific way with the keyboard on the image). Though if the answer is just “Escape”, there’s a big risk that players could click on the Escape key while trying things, thus solving the puzzle without really understanding it. To avoid this risk, the answer to the puzzle could be for example “TOPLEFT THEN BOTTOMRIGHT”, that would mean that the player has to click the Escape key and then the bottom-right Enter key. (though this would be longer to decode)
  • To make it more difficult: One may add another step, playing with the letter keys in addition to the numbers: here’s something similar I made (but it’s much longer to solve, and probably too tedious for a point-and-click game).
Credits