April Toons 2023 ARG

On April 1st, 2023 a new blog post was made by Mac Opsys. While looking at the cogs.ink staff database, Mac had noticed a new page was added called HR. He received an error as he opened it and then a noise had played. This noise was not coming from the website but from his room. He discovered a mysterious rubber ducky that seemed to have manifested into the room. The rubber duck is green with a white stripe around its neck and a beak similar to the Duck Shuffler. It is wearing a hat and sunglasses similar to the Major Player. Mac and Wynn, his assistant, have begun investigating this phenomenon and ask the Toons to help figure out what is behind this new page. He also reminds Toons that April Toons is coming soon and the dubious forces of non-canon are approaching.

## The Game Show

   Before logging in to cogs.ink, there is an additional option added to choose “I am a: Contractor” compared to the original single option of choosing “I am a: Employee”. Attempting to login as a contractor will give the error “Login failure: Type mismatch”.

If the user is logged into Jennifer’s account and views the employee list they will see an additional name listed under Cashbots. The ID number is 40095, the name is <DATA MISSING>, and the suit name is HR. The honorifics will change to a random option every time the page is loaded with two notably being “your Quackjesty” and “It” which are unused by any other employee. Attempting to view the profile brings the player to an error page with no message in the popup. However, if the user hovers over the blank area it will highlight 7 spaces. This reveals the username for this employee.

While viewing the workplace injury form there is an option for “High Roller (Contractor)” under the identification number drop down. Submitting a form gives the reference number “SSIA-IR-AHHHH”. A high roller is a person who gambles or spends large amounts of money. This reveals the full suit name for this employee.

To view the page to begin solving the puzzles for this ARG the user must not be logged in and refresh the Cogs.Ink homepage until the Chairman’s dialogue box is empty. Clicking on the top left of the box will send the user to a page saying “**The Game Show (working title)**”. This page displays a large wheel with several different colors and symbols scattered about, some mimicking the symbols used in the Duck Shuffler’s cheats. Below the wheel is a note that states “Cogs Inc. is not liable for any injury or damage beyond this point”. The wheel is made up of 3 rings. Clicking on each ring will lead the user to a different page: Page A (The outermost ring), Page B (The middle ring), and Page C (the innermost ring).

## Option A: Spot the Discrepancy

This page is from the finance department. There was an increase of errors in accounting and they wanted to give further incentive to reach a higher standard of accuracy. This activity has shown to improve Cashbot morale by at least 4%. Cashbots with the highest score each week will be rewarded 1 extra minute of break time each day for a following week.

A Desk Jockey, the Plutocrat, the Duck Shuffler, and Robert Cyger are the listed individuals with discrepancies. Listed is their transaction history and submitted invoices. After each listed document there is a form to report errors. Each document has 0-3 errors. The choices for what the error is fall under "area of inconsistency" which has the options: Background color, Billing info, Company address, Item name, Item quantity, Item total price, Shipping info, and Unit price. After choosing one of these options the user must enter the corrected value. Once the options are filled and the "report error" button is pressed the "errors reported" section will fill and change the "total errors" section to match the completed amounts reported.

### Desk Jockey

**Transaction History**

**Submitted Invoices**

 Total Errors: 3 / 3

To find the answers, look at the values that were crossed out and replaced in red ink, note down the original values.

### Plutocrat

**Transaction History**

**Submitted Invoices**

 Total Errors: 2 / 2

The values were changed to have their decimal values shifted over to the right by one. This can be fixed by either shifting it back or dividing the unit price and total item price by 10 to find the original values.

 Total Errors: 2 / 2

The item quantity was originally 30, but was drawn over to resemble 80. Knowing this, multiply the quantity (30) by the unit price (13.70) to get the total item price of 411.

 Total Errors: 0 / 0

### Duck Shuffler

**Transaction History**

**Submitted Invoices**

 Total Errors: 3 / 3

Looking closely, there are remnants of the original values on the invoice. Next to where it says "gold!!" the letters "pper" can still be seen. Using deductive reasoning it can be inferred that the item was originally copper. The unit price and item total price also have their original values slightly obscured.

### Robert Cyger

**Transaction History**

**Submitted Invoices**

 Total Errors: 2 / 2

The original values can be vaguely seen behind the altered values.

On the Desk Jockey invoice there is a small drawing of a duck in the bottom left corner with the number 08. On the invoice for the Plutocrat it has a drawing of a duck with the number 19 on it by the table title “item”. Additionally, on the Plutocrat’s transaction record it reveals that the High Roller’s name is Mr. H. Roller.

Successfully filling out all of the answers will give a "Ducky Stamp" with the number 23 written on the body. This stamps file name is “RiFTSEJJTkcwRkFORk9SRVZFUg” which when decoded from Base64 format gives us “F!SHBING0FANFOREVER”.

## Option B: Brainfryers

This page lists a question and a box to submit the answer. It is said that over 75% of Red-leveled Goons can answer these questions while only 14% of Micromanagers can. After submitting the correct answer the answer box will fill with the correct answer and display a new question.

 2. Who is Major Player's idol?
 3. What is the Pacesetter's favorite genre of music?
 4. What is the Genus of the plant found throughout Lawbot HQ?
 6. When is Chairman Appreciation Day, in digits?
 7. Why do they call it combustion engine when you of in the cold fuel of out hot eat the fuel?

The 5th question reveals another Ducky Stamp, number 15. If the answer to the 5th question is answered incorrectly, an image of a more Duck Shuffler-esque duck will appear saying "Funny Duck says: Uh oh, that wasnt quite right! Youll need to try that again, QUACK!!!!!!!!!". On this image it has the number "09" on it.

When all questions are answered it will congratulate the user and reveal Ducky Stamp number 20. This ducks file name is “WTNBSF9JRExJS0VfVE9TMExWUg” and becomes “Y3AH\_IDLIKE\_TOS0LVR” once decoded from Base64.

## Option C: Guess the Expenses

Guess the expenses is used by employees with authority to place orders. They are to properly document the unit costs to ensure no harm is done to the productivity and accuracy of the finance department.

Listed are several different items with related information as well as a box for entering the price of the item. Entering an incorrect number will give a red message stating the number is either too high or too low. When the correct number is entered it will replace the blank space and guess button with the answer.

Looking closely or adjusting the colors of the "Oil-O-Flakes" image will reveal a rubber ducky drawing and the number 05 written on it.

After entering all of the correct prices it will congratulate the user and show the unlocked Ducky Stamp number 13.

The name of the image file is "VEhSRUUwRkFLSU4ET1JGTFVTSA". Decoding this from Base64 format gives the message “THREE0FAKINDORFLUSH”.

## The Quackening

1/3
When all puzzles are completed (or if the user knows the Ducky Stamp numbers) the user should return to the main Game Show page. When
clicking on the center of the Game Show wheel it will ask if the user has found all of the duckies. There will be 8 boxes to fill in the
Ducky Stamp numbers with a redeem button saying “Gimme!”. Submitting the correct answers will
give the user 3 images of various arrows with symbols from the wheel on them. Attempting to fill out The Game Show wheel Ducky Stamp boxes
with the incorrect answers will show the error “You did not put the ducks in the row :(".

In order to discover the password for the High Roller, players must look back at the phrases given by the file names of the Ducky Stamp
images. Thinking of the wheels sections as A (outer ring), B (middle ring), and C (innermost ring) the phrases can be written out on the
ring according to the Ducky Stamps found on pages A-C. Therefore, the outer ring (starting after the red arrows) is "F1SHBING0FANFOREVER",
the middle ring is "Y3AH-IDLIKE-TOS0LVR", and the innermost ring is "THREE0FAKINDORFLUSH". Taking a look at what letter lands on each symbol
will reveal the letters needed for the password with each section being one word.

Ring A (Outermost) - ! B N G O

Ring B (Middle) - 3 H \_ \_ 0 R

Ring C (Innermost) - T 0 N D L U

Using the arrows to descramble the letters we get the password: B!NGO\_H3R0\_UNT0LD

## High Roller's Profile

*Main Article: Cogs.Ink/Manager Profiles/High Roller*

## Trivia

* Answering questions has a cooldown of 3 attempts every 120 seconds.
	+ This was later changed from 300 seconds after complaints from players and compassion from Sheriff Cranky, a Clash Crew Member.

## Gallery

An early concept design for the Game Show page