Back a few months ago, when I was just a lad, I wrote an article about this mysterious Eye Sigil. Little did I know that this humble story would lead me down dark path. Well, not me personally more like people on the internet did all the work. Regardless, Kotaku reports that more clues have been found.
First, a little catch-up. The whole thing started a few years ago when people started discovering this image in various indie games on Steam.
Super sleuths over on the GameDetectives subreddit, a group devoted to the game, searched the games in question, and among them, five puzzle pieces were discovered.
The prevailing theory at the time was that the pieces matched up with a map of Canberra, the capital of Australia, but that appears to have been debunked.
Flash forward to today, thirteen more pieces have been discovered. You can see the full list on the Wiki created by the group. While some of the puzzle pieces have been discovered by digging into the game’s code other games required players to complete some obscure puzzle, and in one case, leave the house.
Prettygreat games released a game called Land Sliders which had an alternate reality game (ARG) of its own. The game led players to a place in LA where a USB was hidden. That lead players to suspect that there might be something hidden in their latest title Slide the Shakes.
They were right. On the level where the eye sigil was discovered, players found a line of morse code that, when translated, read ARCHUSB, a reference to the arch where the first USB was found. A man by the name Mutanoman went to investigate, and after a couple futile searches found the USB in question.
Contained on the USB was yet another puzzle piece, which Mutanoman shared on the subreddit.
It’s still unclear what all these puzzle pieces form or what it will do when it’s completed. As of right now, this is the best interpretation of the pieces.
The group has even created a game of sorts where people can move the pieces around and come to their own conclusion.
The devs have been less than helpful when it comes to the whole thing. One Mini Metro dev previously said that the group has all the info they need.
There is a solution—you’ll know when you find it. You have all the information you need.
Duskers developer Tim Keenan also said that there is something going on with the ARG, but he knows nothing about it. Keenan told Kotaku that for him “it’s kinda like an ARG in an ARG, in a way, because how Duskers got involved is sorta cryptic too…”
Legend of Dungeon developer Calvin Goble told Kotaku a delightful anecdote involving a Micheal Cera looking Gnome and a tattoo when asked about the eye sigil.
“As he drew nearer, I saw that this person was actually Michael Cera! I was like, ‘Wow, Michael Cera!’ and he said, ‘No, I only took this appearance so you would not be afraid.’ It was very comforting. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and and handed it to me. I saw a strange symbol on the paper. ‘What is this?’ I asked. But when I looked up, he was gone! Suddenly, the paper in my hands burst into flames! After the paper was consumed, I looked at my hands to find two symbols seemingly tattooed there. Startled, I awoke…. only to find the two symbols actually on my real hands!
At first I was worried, but it turned out to be drawn on with sharpie, not a real tattoo. I didn’t know what to do about it, so I put the symbols into Legend of Dungeon.
If other indie game developers have done the same, I can only imagine that Michael Cera has transported them to the same forest and showed them in the same way.”
It is believed that there is a ringleader orchestrating the whole thing. So far the person at the top of the list is Kevin Simmons, who produced The Kingdom of Loathing. Simmons has offered hints in the past claiming he has “inner-circle”privileges.
Whatever comes of this one thing is clear, the group doesn’t need a payoff for this to be worth it. Crash, an admin for the group, had this to say to Kotaku.
The developers of these games have gone to great lengths to conceal this convoluted secret from us, with no guarantee that it would ever be found. That commitment alone is really exciting! These last few months have been quite the ride,and I’m super excited to see where all this leads.