Space Invaders Solution

How It Works

Teams arrive at Blue Cannon and are seated, pizza and soda in hand, at one of the cocktail arcade cabinets. The arcade cabinets are Space Invaders cabinets, set to free play mode. As teams shoot the aliens, they notice that each alien adds a different amount of score to their total. These values are thes ame for each column, and when interpreted in ASCII, they read "INSERT COIN".

Looking underneath the machine, teams realize there is actually a working coin acceptor mounted. After ponying up $0.25, Space Invaders begins again - but this time, each alien is worth 9,000 points. Teams can obtain a good score now, but it isn't enough: the high score board shows "JULIUS C" has the highest score at 999,999 points.

Looking closely at the high score board, teams notice that the last set of initials is "ROT" with score 13. Interpreting the initials using ROT13 encoding, they can reveal a secret message indicating the game is unfair and rigged. The message tells teams to pay with different denominations of coins to unlock service mode.

Playing with a penny unlocks a game of Asteroids - except all the rocks are space invaders, and the ship is the tank from Space Invaders! Teams shoot the aliens to explode them into smaller aliens. If they're observant, they notice that the aliens split off in predetermined angles, providing semaphore letters. The message "SHOOTFIFTHCOLUMN" is encoded here, telling teams to shoot the fifth column of space invaders to unlock a service mode beacon.

Paying with a nickel unlocks Frogger - except again, the cars are Space Invaders and the frog is the tank. Here, the game is extremely difficult such that it is basically unplayable, forcing teams to look at the patterns of logs instead. One row in particular stands out because it uses the original Frogger log and rock sprites. Interpreting this row as morse code, you can obtain a message: "LOOK UNDER GAME PAY WITH WASHER". Sure enough, the cabinet is propped up with a washer; putting this washer into the coin acceptor unlocks a service mode beacon.

Paying with a dime unlocks the final game, Pac-Man. Here, the game is playable; the ghosts (again, space invaders) are very simple-minded and only part of the board is populated in dots. Observant teams note that there is only one path through the maze without any gaps; counting the number of dots between power pellets, including the power pellet itself, gives you a letter between 1 and 26. This message says "ENTER INITIAL SCC"; entering those three initials unlocks aservice mode beacon.

Once all three service mode beacons are entered, a new message appears: Press P2 Start for Service Mode. Pressing the P2 Start button allows teams to disable unfair scoring, difficult spaceships, and other settings making the arcade game too difficult to win a million points.

Solution

Upon unlocking service mode, teams can disable unfair scoring, allowing them to reach one million points. When they do, the solution unlocks: ENDER

Design Notes

Thanks to Derek for helping me organize my thoughts during the design phase.

Construction Notes

Thanks to Shane (who wrote Froijer), Andy (Oijman), and Derek (Asteroij) for writing the three minigames. And thanks to the cast of thousands who came together to assemble the cabinets from kits during the last week before the Game.

GC Notes

There was widespread negative feedback related to this puzzle in the survey; teams were unhappy with the reliability of the coin acceptors (which performed differently than they had during previous tests due to unlevel flooring outside) and with the difficulty curve of the puzzle (which had many layers). If it's any consolation, constructing the puzzle was twice as painful for GC.

To both teams and GC members alike - sorry.