The Yak Shack Forum

OK folks this is a weird one, and kind of an expeiment but I need anyone who is a good games player (or who likes playing games and is up for a challenge) to sign up to this thing. The URL is:

http://www.ourcolony.net

When you get there, type 'play' into the text field and hit enter. Then select Join Colony. Enter 44594429 and hit enter. Then fill out the form.

This seems to be a team game and we can't progress until there are 6 of us. There's just one (me) so far so first 5 to join are in! I have no idea what this is about but it's alleged to be some kind of viral marketing scheme (nothing to do with computer viruses, don't worry) to promote X Box 2, or X Box 360 as it will apparently be known as. Now everybody knows I'm not the biggest X Box fan but this seems interesting to me.

Give it a go!

Ooh Team Yak eh?

Count me in!

Cool! Actually what it says is "grow your colony to 5 to take the next step". Now that doesn't nesecarrily mean as I first thought it would that 5 is the maximum so everyone join up! We get more points the more people who join ;)

I'm in - but now what?

Now we wait until we have 6 people in the team. Current count: 3

in

I'm in.  First puzzle is:
XYXXXY
Y's are in yellow, X's are in blue
I thought it may have to do with chromazomes "male female male" but it didn't work.  Any ideas?

I'm in ;D Its says pass it along so we can get help but its weird  :P

Now that I read Mak's first post again, it must have something to do with X box.

problem is what

well ive got no idea. I liked the male female idea, but Im a geneticist so im biased  ;D

Some sort of cheat code? Those X (blue) and Y (yellow) buttons are on the X Box controller. But code for what game?

X Box, X Box, X Box, has something to do with the second X Box, why cant it be about the GameCube; something I own >:(

What about the new Splinter Cell: Choas Theory...wait chaos thats what its said before I joined :o

I don't have an x box.  I have no idea about the buttons or anything.  
Emma's- for some reason it changes to XBrick if you don't put a space between. ???

oh, thanks. Thats cool its should be called that ;)

Holy cow!  Almost 2 in the morning here!  I'm going to bed.  You all can solve this one while I'm sleeping. :-*

CRAP, it is two :o

ha ha, where i am its 4pm

Does that mean we get up before you or after ???

after

Any progess anyone?  I'm afraid I won't be much help if all the puzzles are X Box related.

Guys, I'm only seeing a place to put the solution, but no challenge. Roz isn't even seeing that! It's like it was before we got 6 people in for her! It's very weird. You don't think we have to work together in some way to do this do you?

It won't show for me either now.  I think Ferdinand was right about the XYXXXY being X box buttons.  Emma's could be right about it having to do with Splinter cell.  X's were blue, Y's were yellow.

 >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( WHAT IS IT >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

When I log in it tells me we need more members... Hang on - Mark was first to sign up. Then me... so what order did we sign up in and does it match our sex?

I don't think so... Sketchqueen was 3rd so that blows that theory out... any more ideas?

Where's it show you the challenge? Is it a new screen or is it in the middle of the status screen? Can you post a screenshot?

OK - Jo what about loading up your x-brick without a game in it and just typing in those numbers... I doubt it will reveal anything but it's worth a shot.

I can't see the challenge it just says get more members when I sign in - so we do need more - for everyone who signs up we get more points ;)

I have no idea about X box games but I am trying to join to boost your numbers.  But all I keep getting is type the correct number.  I am putting the number it is giving me.  Is there another number?

OK I've done some searching and discovered the answer is "Izuna Drop" - it's a special move from the game Ninja Gaiden. I googled xyxxxy and after looking thorugh enough results I saw enough of the same phrase to think that might be something to do with it!

In the first screen this takes you to you have to type in "play", then you move to another page, it says "join colony" click there and then type in our number

Right, well done Mark, onto the next challenge tomorrow. It looks like someone on our team will be able to see the challenge (in this case Dawn/ MorningAngel) whilst someone else is able to input the answer (in this case Mark).

I hope the puzzles get a bit more brain taxing and not old game knowledge based (but I am hearing that they do!)

if anyones trying to join just enter the code in the first topic...

Ok I entered the code then clicked join existing colony.  It wasks for my name etc then gives me a code to enter.  This is the bit I am stuck on.

just enter a name, a password, age, city, state, contry and then enter the code in the box below ???

Thank you I thought I was going dolally (this is a technical English term ;))

I think it was because I needed a different user name.

In case it helps I have the following clue

In 79, two rods can save the family.

no idea what it means  ???

me ether, could it be a almost-murder thing or something like that new movie

The Amityville Horrer ???

OK I found some info:

I was trying to think of people called Rod.

Rod Stewart, Rod Steiger?

Or is it an anagram?

The game has an entry in WikiPedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ourcolony

You can see some of the past questions and answers there and get the idea of the sort of things they ask!

i'm in  ;D althought i doubt i will be of any use

I still can't get the clue to come up.  Do we need to keep adding new members to get new clues?  

Has everyone got the gap to put the answer in and press solve.  I am only checking as I will feel horrible if all you clever people solve this and I have gone to bed and am the only one who can input it!

I'll print out the logo and shoot and post some photos this weekend.  That's about all I can do if the questions are going to be about games.

I think only a handful of us see it and the other of us can enter the answer or something like that. And in some occasions one or two of us sit it out. I was "out" on the last one.

CIan makes an excellent point, we looked up any nuclear accidents in 1979 (the rods being the clue) and came up with Three Mile Island in Philly, USA....

What do you reckon?

Can we guess as many times as we like?  ie is the answer Three Mile Island or Philly?

Yes I think so - I've tried those two, so we need to think again  :-\

I think a lot of this game will rely on your googling skills!
 Make as many guesses as you can! I'm pretty sure it doesn't count against us.

In 79, two rods can save the family.

Sounds like a tag line from a movie to me.  Maybe it refers to 2 lightsabers saving the Jedi order.  Or the Skywalker's.  ;D

Robotron.

The game is set 79 years from now, 2084, and uses 2 joysticks. Man that's obscure!

Good one!  I was about to post about Godfather lll in 1979.

New clue.  It's a photo
http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gamem8ker/112798.jpg
It looks like the inside of a computer and the white marks could be one of those paper computer card thingys.  I hope the photo showed up.

The top part looks like it has web address  aaci.org
I looked it up and It's some kind of Asian American group.  Not sure what it has to do with hte clue.

Very strange, I'm stumped on this one...

I've been staring at that photo for 5 minutes now during which time I've consumed virtually an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream.  And now I feel sick  :P

But its already be solved...or did you solve it ???

lol

I have always been convinced computer screens would harm us in some way, and now we've lost GeekBoy to the evils of a monitor ;)

However, we won't lose any more on this challenge!

Squash the photo together to make all those white bits into a bar code - the computer insides in the background are a red herring.

So then when you have that squashed image a barcode emerges,  you can scan the barcode and once you do this you have a telephone number.

Call the telephone number and you are told "Reset Reality"

And that's the answer!

Jeez!!

Thats weird, yet cool ;D

Well I guess it would have helped if I'd joined the colony first  ;D

Anyway, what's "reset reality" got to do with computer games?  And where do you get the explanation from?  It just says the problem has already been solved when I log in.

I'm confuzzed  ???

that means a new one will be on the way I think ???

You guys are so smart!

Its a gift really  ;)

GB the group gets points for you signing up too so that is great.

We get a new puzzle daily so, yes, now we. have to wait.

That one was as obscure as heck though.

I wish I could join, but I read this after 6 people had all joined up :(

I will try and help with any baffling puzzles though! :D

you can still join, they just needed a min of 6

Ooh - done then :)

Woo hoo the more the merrier, Mark was a bit obscure about how many people we could have :)

So now what? We wait for the next challenge?

Yes it should be up fairly soon - in the next few hours, if I spot it first I'll post it :)

Righty-o... race ya to it! ;D

Is it all going to be about games though? Bit boring... especially for those people who don't have an X Box or are 400km away from their X Box.

Hey Mark - what about changing the X Box censror for the purposes of this thread? ;)

As far as I can see that last one wasn't really games erlated, but taxing instead ;)

Apparently we can submit puzzles for other teams to work out ;) and we get points for it - but I am not sure how to do that.

The URL for submitting challenges is http://www.ourcolony.net/canvas/ although I can't see it published anywhere on the site which is weird...

Anyone comes up with a good idea post it here!

How about

This way or that - the fruits of his labour are many

the answer being Pac Man because he labours around the maze, going this way or that to avoid the ghosts & eat the dots.  Bonus fruits appear at intervals of which there are many different types.

Has anyone got a new clue yet?

No new clue, but I do have 2 pictures to submit to the Colony photo gallery for points.  Does anyone know how I do that?  

no idea on that one... :(

I'll have a look!

New challenge  

http://www.ourcolony.net/images/challenges/ch1900222589.jpg

I think it has something to do with the letter board.  Anyone good at word searches?

I've no clue but Row 5 says "Gamefind"

and I think it's the only sensible word(s) in the puzzle...

The web address at the bottom goes to some actress/model website.

That actress model was part of  "ilovebees" which was a wacky online alternate reality game...

Anyone know what people who like bees are, you know like pidgeon fanciers but with bees?  I know there is a special name for it but can't think.  It is something beginning with A ......  

This could be of no help whatsoever but I have found a website called ilovebees.com which has X box cheats.

I think the answer is

Big Hurt Baseball

which was Frank Thomas' game but I don't have the option to enter an answer if someone else wants to have a go.

Of course I should add I am useless at these sort of games.... :D

I can't pull up the new clue.  Someone else needs to enter answers.  I googled gamefind B and found Donkey Kong.  In the Crystal Caves part you bomb some bee's.  Or in the Rainbow coins part you hold the B button to blast mounds of dirt.  Seems too easy.

Obey Giant sticker: www.obeygiant.com
Some kind of subversive Marxist looking drivel that has posters/stickers/music/stuff.  My head hurts.  I'm stopping now before I spend hours looking stuff up. ::)

OK guys I'm missing something here.  When I log in it still has the last challenge (the picture one with the computer) and that the colony has already solved it.  Where do you get to see the new challenge?

BTW bee keepers are known as Apiarists if that's any help.

OK I've got the challenge now

Anyone noticed how the word search is a nice sharp image and yet all the other text (like the calendar) is blurry?  Someone's been using photoshop...  Can't make any words out of it though

The baseball team is the Chicago White Sox.  Would the answer be Twin Bee (classic scrolling shoot em up)?  Seeing as baseball has two "b's" in it.  And there's some reference to bees in the Kristin Rutherford clue.

I'm trying to figure out this one myself.. anyone have any luck yet?

I am drawing a complete blank  :(

Who answered the last challenge?  And what WAS the answer?

No idea.... but there's a new challenge up!

"I am in 6 places where you talk."

Also at the bottom of the center column it tells me:

"a vision ... a sinful garden

1463 - I am where you talk"

I don't know but I think that might be different for different people. Maybe that could help us solve it...?

OK I've done some research... the clue is "I am in 6 places that you talk" and it's true! There are various X Box forums around where the gamem8ker has been posting images, and crpytic ones at that! I have found 3 so far but I'm thinking there are probably 6 in total...

(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/47610.jpg) From X Box Scene (http://forums.XBrick-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=387654&st=0)
(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/14660.jpg) From Team X Box (http://forum.teamXBrick.com/showthread.php?t=339744&page=1&pp=15)
(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/29420.jpg) From Unfiction (http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=146423)
(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/38914.jpg) From IGN Boards (http://boards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=85360261&replies=1)
(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/beware.jpg) From XBrick.com (http://forums.XBrick.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=12377154#12387550)
(http://www.ourcolony.net/images/gallery/227438.jpg) From MySpace blogs (http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=10969539&Mytoken=20050421195819)

Edit:
Found them all!
So that's all the images... any ideas what the heck they could mean???

I am feeling even thicker than normal.  I started adding up the numbers in the pictures - 7, 2000 - then realised the others don't have obvious numbers.

Lets just say Mensa are not beating down my door  :(

Think guys think!

We can't possibly ALL be stuck :(

Is it just me, or does the sCt on the guy's blue jacket look like it's been added to the photo?

I think the red flowers are poppies.  You get opium from poppies.

sCt=Stupid computer tricks?
http://sct.staghosting.com/ (http://sct.staghosting.com/)
Numbers add to 2007.  A year?  No clue about the photo with the bar code or the werewolf. Can someone scan the barcode?  Ok, take it from there UK and Aussie people.  I'm off to bed. ;)

I thought about the 2007 as a year as well... no idea what that means though.

Grecopa, would you mind not multiple posting? It makes the board harder to read - use the modify button to edit your post if you need to. Thanks :D

I have to say I'm kind of losing interest in this game. It's way too hard!

Sorry about the thread thing.  Didn't know. :-[  I'm done with this game too.  Way too hard.

Hey, its no problem! It doesn't sound nice any way you put it... but its greatly appreciated :)