Milkman Conspiracy Solution

How It Works

Each of the five movies depicts two people performing pairs of various handshakes. They have no audio. The handshakes done are combinations of the handshakes learned by teams earlier in the puzzle Lab Closing:

  • Salute
  • High Five, Down Low (HFDL)
  • Nose Turkey
  • Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS)
  • Normal Handshake
  • Miss Mary Mack (MMM)
  • Fist Explode
  • Two-handed Shake

Movie 1

Movie 1 takes place in some woods. Its handshakes are:

  • HFDL + HANDSHAKE
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • HFDL + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + SALUTE
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • NOSE TURKEY + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + MMM
  • SALUTE + FIST EXPLODE

Movie 2

Movie 2 takes place in/across a field. Its handshakes are:

  • HFDL + RPS
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • SALUTE + NORMAL HANDSHAKE
  • NOSE TURKEY + NOSE TURKEY
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • SALUTE + RPS

Movie 3

Movie 3 is shot from a high angle. Its handshakes are:

  • SALUTE + SALUTE
  • NOSE TURKEY + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • NOSE TURKEY + HANDSHAKE
  • HFDL + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • SALUTE + FIST EXPLODE

Movie 4

Movie 4 is shot from behind a bush. Its handshakes are:

  • SALUTE + HFDL
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • HFDL + FIST EXPLODE
  • SALUTE + FIST EXPLODE
  • NOSE TURKEY + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • SALUTE + FIST EXPLODE

Movie 5

Movie 5 takes place in a parking garage, through a mirror. Its handshakes are:

  • SALUTE + RPS
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • HFDL + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + MMM
  • SALUTE + FIST EXPLODE
  • NOSE TURKEY + NOSE TURKEY
  • SALUTE + HANDSHAKE
  • NOSE TURKEY + RPS
  • HFDL + NORMAL HANDSHAKE

As before, in Lab Closing handshakes represent letters. In this case, two handshakes performed at the same time means to add those letters together:

  • B = Salute (A) + Salute (A)
  • F = Salute (A) + HFDL (E)
  • M = Salute (A) + RPS (L)
  • N = HFDL (E) + Nose Turkey (I)
  • O = Salute (A) + Normal Handshake (N)
  • Q = HFDL (E) + RPS (L)
  • R = Nose Turkey (I) + Nose Turkey (I)
  • S = Salute (A) + MMM (R)
  • S = HFDL (E) + Normal Handshake (N)
  • T = Salute (A) + Fist Explode (S)
  • U = Nose Turkey (I) + RPS (L)
  • W = Nose Turkey (I) + Normal Handshake (N)
  • X = HFDL (E) + Fist Explode (S)

Decode the handshakes

Use the letters from the pairs of handshakes to decode a word for each movie: SUNBURST, QUORUM, BROWNOUT, FOXTROT, and MONSTROUS.

Get the password

Each of the words retrieved from the movies can be associated with one of the phrases on the Post-It:

  • Fancy Moves – FOXTROT
  • Agreement – QUORUM
  • Terrible – MONSTROUS
  • Overload – BROWNOUT
  • Shape – SUNBURST

Arranged in this order, index into each word by the digits of the number written on the back of the Post-It (42571). That is, 4th letter of FOXTROT, 2nd letter of QUORUM, etc. This provides the password TUTUS.

Supercrypt.exe

This program accepts any file and encrypts or decrypts it using a password. The method of encryption is a simple Vignere cypher, although teams do not need to know this. However, because the program will perform the Vignere encryption or decryption operation on any file, regardless of whether or not the appropriate password was used, the team can potentially render files they attempt to decrypt useless if they don't re-encrypt the file using the same, incorrect password. Very Important.zip can always be re-copied from the CD if teams hose their local copy.

This program itself does not contain any puzzles, and explicity says as much in its usage/help output.

Very Important.zip

This file is encrypted using supercrypt.exe. If the file is not decrypted properly it will not open. To decrypt the file properly the team must use the password retrieved, from the movies, and the '/d' switch must be passed to supercrypt.exe so that a decrypt operation is performed (rather than an encrypt operation).

Once the file is decrypted, it can be opened. It contains one file: Very Important.txt.

Very Important.txt

The following is the contents of Very Important.txt:

Contents of Very Important.txt

Start with the word you used to unlock this file. Create two words from this one word using the reverse of a method which should have just become quite familiar to you. Take one of these words and add, subtract, or change single letters until you have the other word, with each intermediate step being itself a valid word. Each of these intermediate words are clued here, vaguely, in a useless order:

  • An edge
  • The answer
  • A beachy place
  • Bored, perhaps
  • A kind of booze
  • A metallic element
  • Review unfavorably
  • Move like a sneaky crab
  • Wrestling climax, maybe
  • Trigonometrically relevant
  • Half way between string and rope
  • The result of stabbing, kicking, or attempting to write code in Java
  • Wherein the precipitation generally occurs on the flatlands, lyrically

Acquiring Two Words

To extract two words from the password TUTUS, decompose each letter into the single-handshake letters that comprised each handshake combination. For example, T was created by combining a Salute (A) and a Fist Explode (S). The letter pairs you get from this are:

AS IL AS IL [AR | EN]

Note that the S is ambiguous because it can be formed by two different handshake combinations, but as it is the only ambiguous handshake (and, in fact, the particular S used in the movie decomposes into the appropriate letters for this step) this shouldn't be a problem.

Choosing one letter from each pair in order, the two words AISLE and SLAIN may be formed.

Solve Very Important.txt

As Very Important.txt explains, the final step of the puzzle is a word ladder from AISLE to SLAIN (or vice versa). Each intermediate word fits a clue in the list in Very Important.txt. The word ladder (and associated clues) looks like this:

  • AISLE
  • ISLE – A beachy place
  • IDLE – Bored, perhaps
  • SIDLE – Move like a sneaky crab
  • SIDE – An edge
  • SINE – Trigonometrically relevant
  • WINE – A kind of booze
  • TWINE – Half way between string and rope
  • TWIN or TINE – The answer
  • TIN – A metallic element
  • PIN – Wrestling climax, maybe
  • PAN – Review unfavorably
  • PAIN – The result of stabbing, kicking, or attempting to write code in Java
  • SPAIN – Wherein the precipitation generally occurs on the flatlands, lyrically
  • SLAIN

Solution

TWIN or TINE

Design Notes

This puzzle gets its title Milkman Conspiracy from a level in the game Psychonauts. In the level, the player encounters a bunch of NPCs that are clearly spies, behaving in extremely odd, repetitious manners, and loudly declaring their innocent cover stories.