Neal’s Fun: Solving The Password Game

The Password Game

So, here I am, minding my own business, scrolling through Facebook when PC Gamer draws my attention to this: This unhinged browser game about passwords is the most messed up thing I’ve ever played

The post directs you to Neal’s Fun: password game

It’s not perfect in as much as it can be improved, but it’s challenging, devilishness clever, at times quite evil, and at other times, well, it gave my paranoia a nudge!

So far, it’s not proving that hard for me, but I have eclectic interests and skills that conveniently overlap with the puzzle: programming, games design, web design, chess…

Still, challenging. Challenging, for sure, as each question can break the previous ones.

As I say below, the chess one stumped me for a minute… (It was a valid move, but it wanted the addition of a ‘+’ for check).

The Roman one can mess up most others as it takes I V, X, L, D and M out of play.

The atomic number one is actually quite evil as the corporate sponsor forces elements on you (e.g. Shell starting is S, Sulphur – unless you use lower case: shell), but chess one can do the same (e.g. Rf is Rutherfordium (Atomic no. 104). Similarly so with the Roman numerals, e.g. I, Iodine, (53), V, Vanadium (23))

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Tips if you are struggling

Questions 1 to 4:
If you can’t do these…

 

Q5: a special character
It should be obvious, but if not, it’s characters like braces, hash symbol and so forth. [#Sorted!]

 

Q6: Name a month.

Easy. But allow for changes and remember to use lowercase (e.g. may, not May, ‘cos May added 1,000 to the game, while February adds !)

 

Q7: Roman numerals

Easy: I, V, X, L, C, D and or M

 

Q8: A word from the sponsor.

Given the game’s popularity, I feel this s ia missed opportunity. I’d be tempted to get actually sponsorship (if he hasn’t already) and link to the sponsor.
Or maybe I wouldn’t, as I don’t run ads or affiliate links on my sites and have a pathological dislike for corporates.

Tip: It accepts lowercase answers, so shell is valid instead of Shell. If you put Shell another part of the game turns the S into Sulphur (and the stench of brimstone arises from the bowels of the game to make it even more devilish! 😈)

 

Q9: A Roman sum.

The sum is easy; working the rest of the game around it can get challenging.
I (1)
V (5)
X (10)
L (50)
C (100)
D (500)
M (1,000)

You can Google if you get stuck, but, for instance, 8 is VIII, 9 is IX, 40 is XL, while 60 is LX
So, my sum was 35, which is 5×7, so VVII was (initially) the solution.
(The game is smart enough to do the maths, seemingly)

NOTE: It gets SO MUCH harder later because of this!
 

Q10: Enter the ReCaptcha

Easy enough, but I renewed it several times until I found one that made solving the game either.

 

Q11: Solve today’s New York Times Wordle

I don’t think this is hard at all. I managed it in 4 lines, but it could have taken more or less.
Don’t repeat letters (unless, I guess, the word calls for it!)
Choose the most common letters and vowels
Green: right letter, right place.
Yellow: right letter, wrong place; try it elsewhere.
White: it’s the wrong letter, don’t use it again.
My word (today) was DINER.

 

Q12: Choose a two-letter symbol from the periodic table.

There are quite a few of these, so it’s possible you’ll automatically solve this without trying, but if not, Q17 has links to help you.

 

Q13: The moon’s current phase as an emoji.

It’s just a matter of Googling the current phase and then Googling for an emoji and copying it in.
(Just be happy he only asks for the picture and not the code in Unicode, Hex or Dec, e.g. 😀   😀 = 😀)

There are loads of sites offering solutions; my favourite is probably W3 Schools, but I think I actually used Emojipedia here.

 

Q14: Include the name of ‘this’ country.

This is based on a Google map. Apparently, it’s a popular game, GeoGuessr.

Today, for me, it showed a famous (?) fountain. Either you know it, or you don’t. If you don’t know it, obviously, you Google fountains (here) until you find a match.
Well, you could do that, but there’s an easier way. You can scoot along the road until you find something a tad easier to recognise – like the language on a billboard or sightpost.

Another time, I read ‘takstgruppe’, which Google translate informed me is Norwegian for ‘group rate’, so Norway – but norway is allowed.
(This matters as Norway adds 102 to the puzzle (Nobelium (102)).

 

 

Q15: Your password must include a leap year.

Mine just automatically solved this.
*shrugs*
Convenient or planned that 1888 (sum 25) is also a leap year.
On another try, it was 1188.
Apparently, ‘0’ works as well, but I’ve not tried that
 

Q16: Your password must include the best move in algebraic chess notation.

For the chess puzzle, forget the Wikipedia link; it’s more confusing than helpful. This is better: Chess.com: Chess notation
I’m actually quite good at chess, so the move was obvious, but I’ve not used notation in 40 years, so it threw me., “What do you mean, invalid move!?”
The answer for my puzzle was Rf7+ (Rook to f7, check (+)). The plus sign being my missing component.

K – king
Q – queen
B – Bishop
N – Knight
R – Rook or castle
(pawn gets nothing, just where it’s moved to)

Rf7+ move the castle to f7 and check.

f5 move the pawn to f5.

Bxc6 moves the bishop to c6 and takes the piece there.

And so forth. The link above gives more examples. The game will tell you if it’s an illegal move (or you got the notation wrong) and – though vague – if it’s a legal move, but not the ‘best move’.

That’s where it starts to get tricky.
What I consider the best move (another game) it didn’t.
Excuse me, but I beg to differ, Sir!
It accepted Rxh7+ (castle take pawn, check) but left the castle unprotected, a loss to no advantage. The optimum move would have been a two-step: Qh4, Qxh7# (slide right, checkmate next move unless blocked).

Also, the accepted solution (Rxh7+) broke rule five, so back and forth, we go!

NOTE: Having played a few times, I have noticed several really bad moves as the “best move” – but they all resulted in check.

I believe the game is asking which move causes a check and takes that as “the best move”.

This is NOT asking for the best move; it’s asking for a move that puts the king in check. This will confuse a lot of people and is just wrong.
The question wording needs changing.

 

Q17: What the heck!?

This is my chicken Paul…

Completely threw me off-kilter. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s my name, and I’m a tad paranoid. My brain did a little short circuit and read, “Hello, Paul. Yes, I know who you are now, where you live, and even what you are thinking!”

What!? How did you get my name? What’s going on? Am I compromised!?

(If you understand the link and context, and AI, you understand my paranoia is not entirely irrational. Ackadia: Who owns data on you?)

It turns out it was a combination of questionable grammar and sheer coincidence.
A better wording might be, “This is Paul, my chicken. He hasn’t hatched yet. Please put him in your password and keep him safe.”

ANYWAY…

So, like the moon phases, it’s looking for an egg emoji, so you’d copy and paste in this: 🥚

SPOILER, WARNING, CAUTIONARY NOTE!
Put the egg emoji at the start of the password!

 

Q.18: Adding elements up to an atomic number (200)

Rather helpfully, extremely helpfully, in fact, the game highlights the elements you’ve used.
Sites like these will help with choices:
Periodic table, sorted by symbols (e.g. Rf, 104). You can sort other columns with this one, making it the best option.
LennTech: Periodic table sorted by atomic number (e.g. 104, Rf)

HOWEVER, at this point, the game breaks and certainly needs some tweaking. An observation, not a criticism.

So, the Roman sum is VVII. This turns into Vanadium (23), Vanadium (23), Iodine (53), Iodine (53) (Sum 152)

*There is no other solution I can think of for x * y = 35. It has to be 5 x 7.

The best move in the chess game is the castle to f7 and check. So, Rf7+. However, Rf is Rutherfordium (Atomic number 104).

Thus this question seemingly forces you to use VVIIRf (sum 256), which breaks the game.

This, I would argue, is an issue.

However, if it was altered to a single instance for each element, it becomes V (23), I (53) Rf (104), giving 180.
Huzzah!
The final part of the solution would be calcium (Ca).
Alas, C is Roman for 100 and completely breaks question 9.
That at least is easy to get around using 1+19 = (Hydrogen (H,1) and Potassium (K,19)

It’s not the case here, but it should be noted other puzzles could run into a similar problem, so elements like carbon (C), magnesium (Mg), lithium (Li) and xenon (Xe) break the Roman numerals sum.

Obviously, it’s broken, right?

Another way of working out 35 is 1 x 35
*(In hindsight, so obvious, too obvious, so I never thought of it at first )

Huzzah!

I x XXXV, so IXXXV is the solution!
Nope!

Besides the fact the Romans didn’t bother with spaces, IXXXV in this puzzle calculates as IX XXV (9 x 25).

Solution? I-XXXV

And, actually, it turns out, you don’t need the one (I) as simply XXXV (35) is enough.

I was making faces by this point. ’35’ on its own is a number, not a sum.

Allons-y, as The Doctor would say.

 

Q.19 Make the vowels bold.

Tedious but easy enough, right?

STOP! Read on before trying this!

‘Cos then it set fire to my solution!

I know that it’s the egg that was named Paul, but I am still twitching from earlier, and I take this assault personally!

TO BE CONTINUED! I was not expecting that!

Actually, I think that is the end. Evil bugger. Complete 19, and it burns the password!

But there is a way!

Copy the password and paste it somewhere else, somewhere safe.

Q19. continued

Now, make the password bold, en mass is easiest – and the damned thing catches fire!

 

Q20: Oh no! Your password is on fire. Quick, put it out!

You have to QUICKLY delete most of the password, as the flames spread fast. Just don’t delete the egg, or it’s game over. Remember, I warned you to put it at the start!

With the fires put out, you can safely paste your password back in and fix any damage.

 

Q21: Your password is not strong enough ????

Easy enough (lulling you into a false sense of security!), just copy the strongman emoji’s to fill the security bar.

 

Q22: Your password must contain one of the following affirmations:

The “I” can be lowercase, and spaces are allowed, so “i am worthy”, or something like that is fine.

 

Q23: Paul has hatched! Please don’t forget to feed him; he eats three every minute.

So copy the caterpillar and paste it in. Actually, paste in a few (he eats them over time) – but no more than 8 at once or he overeats and dies.

 

Q24: Your password must include the URL of a [xx min xx sec ] long YouTube video.

At this point, honestly, I strongly advise you to say, “Sod this,” and walk away!

SERIOUSLY!

It asks for a video of a specific length, for instance, 20 minutes and 15 seconds.

Firstly, it means 20m15s, and you can’t take a longer video and ‘copy at the current time’ (appending ?t=1215). It means precisely 20 min and 15 seconds.
There is also almost no way to search for one of that required length*.
Well, if you have a large enough library, you can search your personal library – or create and upload one at the requested length. I know that is what some people are doing.

*You can approximate and search for “20-minute youtube videos” and try to find one from the mass of results. Good luck, because…

Secondly – and this is true of all I’ve looked at in live tests – they nearly all seem to include letters like M and D (1,000 and 500), breaking the Roman numerals sum. They may include something like Og (Oganesson, atomic number 118), breaking the period table question.

Then there are the numbers in the URL, which can break other parts, like Q5 (The digits in your password must add up to 25) or Q15 (Your password must include a leap year).
(Apparently, you can just enter ‘O’ for that one, making things easier.)

Thirdly, oh yes, and while you are doing this, you need to keep feeding Paul those caterpillars (remember, no more than 8, or he dies).

As I saw, at this point, it just got annoying rather than hard or challenging. I imagine a lot of people start working together at this point ‘cos doing it solo (and even in pairs) is a complete pain in the arse!

All that said, in the video below, some guy pretty much does that and gets it first try. It can happen, obviously, but he was trying to beat a time, so I imagine he tried many, many times. If doesn’t diminish his success, but if you only announce the one win and not the 1,000 fails, well, it paints a twisted picture.

As Edison famously said,
I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.

(Edison also got his successes by stealing from others, like Nikola Telsa, but that’s by the by, eh)
 

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Continuing on with the password game

No, I didn’t. I looked up guides at this point. There are a lot. Some are wrong in places; many are choked with adverts, while others (one MUST assume) are loaded will malware.

So, according to others…

Q25: A sacrifice must be made. Pick 2 letters that you will no longer be able to use.

So, lose high-value Scrabble letters like Q and Z – unless they break something else. Easy enough.

 

Q26: Your password must contain twice as many italic characters as bold.

It seems straightforward, if tedious.

 

Q27: At least 30% of your password must be in the Wingdings font.
It is descending into madness by now, but I guess you are all in, right?

I’d say this would be something like entering a long string of a’s (equal to 30% of your current password) and setting that to Wingdings. Or just paste in that character until it completes

 

Q28: Your password must include [this color] in hex.

I’ve used a magenta (actually #D700D7) and assume it’s as simple as that and not something truly diabolically evil (and questionable for colourblindness reasons) and want you to guess the precise shade of whatever!

Anyway, if it gives a named HTML colour, like magenta (hex: #FF00FF) or CornflowerBlue (#6495ED). If you are lucky, it will just ask for black (#000000) and not break everything again with the added numbers!

And, of course, the madman went with a colour swatch! Of course he did! You need something like W3Schools hex colour picker to help.

A much easier, much faster way is to see if your browser has an eyedropper. Firefox, for example, has a built-in eyedropper tool that gives you the hex of the colour it hovers over. Using this, the guy in the video at the bottom would have shaved over 30s off his time.

 

 

Q29: All Roman numerals must be in Times New Roman.

Faffing about again rather than challenging or breaking.

 

Q30: The font size of every digit must be equal to its square.

More inane faffing about. I’d have to get that far to see this, but I assume he’s added a simple way to do this.

At a guess, 9 wants to be font size 81 (9×9, 9²), presumably in pixels, or 9x bigger at any rate. However, 0 squared is 0, and you can’t really zero pixels, so he must have a scale in mind. (Which it turns out to be the case)

 

Q31: Every instance of the same letter must have a different font size.

Following on from Q29, you got this, but then you remember Q27 and all the Wingdings.

The guy is a sadist and a maniac. He is clearly a talented programmer, and is dancing that tightrope between genius and madness!

 

Q32: Your password must include the length of your password.

More numbers, breaking more stuff, but at least intellectual.

 

Q33: The length of your password must be a prime number.

It seems simple enough. Probably.
(A Prime Number is a whole number above 1 that cannot be made by multiplying other whole numbers). Some people can reel them off. Most will Google and find sites like Maths is Fun and find one in the range they need.

 

Q34: Uhhh let’s skip this one.

At this point, I don’t know if that’s literally what it said or if the thread had reached the point of “I can’t take this anymore. I can’t begin to explore this. Suffer well!”

Or, it turns out, it has rude connotations, so “Let’s not go there, eh? We’ll just skip Q34!”

 

Q35: Your password must include the current time.

Yep, enter your computer’s current time and watch it mess up lots of things above. The solution is to enter the time at midnight (00.00). It will still mess up string length base parts, but it’s the least unfavourable option.

You can, like the guy in the video below faff about and try to change your computer’s timer on the fly, or you can just play at night, wait near midnight, and drop it in at the right moment :)

Fair enough, it’s not something people mess with, but he could have shaved a good 5 minutes off his time is he knew how to alter his Windows time:
Right click on clock > Adjust date/date > Set the time automatically: Off > manually adjust
(And put it back again after, of course)

 

Q36: Is this your final password?

I presume rather than accepting a ‘Yes’ button press and congratulating you, it does something diabolical.

Something like adding ‘Yes’ to the password, then appending “I agree to offer up my soul to the Devil”.

While you are trying to fix the unholy damage caused to your precious password (remember D=500, for instance), ol’ Nick is stuffing your agreement signed with blood, sweats, and tears – into a sulphurous vault, shaking your hand and with a wicked grin, saying, “It’s a done deal. No take-backs. Allons-y!”

 

Q37: To be continued?

Fortunately, that’s it.

Just be grateful he didn’t get it into his head to add regular expressions (RegEx) to the puzzle!

 

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Some dude did it though!