Day of the Devs Blue Bird

Screenshot of the Day of the Devs trailer

During the Animal Well trailer streamed live at the Summer Game Fest 2022, Billy Basso mentioned a secret being hidden in the trailer. Hidden in the background of Basso's office, a URL leads to the start of this puzzle. The web page contains the following code:

amtmc xumuacm fcze mtnd ysi wehlnd vtgowqkw oqsaa diqgewa hhrpsi cq pf pftqd uh gijdugr

Part 1: Blue Bird

Upon further inspection of the trailer, two key clues are revealed. First, the word "waterfall" is hidden in a shot of the map from the game along with the symbol for a key. Second, behind Basso there is a portrait of Blaise de Vigenère. Coincidentally the Vigenère Cipher just requires a key to decode. So using "waterfall" as a key for the encrypted text we get: "email subject blue bird for reward cppjwfza oxojv dxfkedw qcrehm cx lo kfifh uo credjvv". This is clearly a partial solution, but the additional gibberish text implies there is more to discover.

Message hidden in the map

Part 2: Palace

While the decoded text is a solution to the first part of the puzzle, it also provides a clue to solving the next part. Once again searching the trailer, we find an image of a "blue bird" presented on a grid of squares. The final clue hidden behind Basso is an image of Picross for the Nintendo DS. Finally, the map image also contains the text "1 -> A, 2 -> B, 3 -> C, Cols -> Rows". Interpreting the blue bird image as a nonogram, we get the following image:

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  Image from trailer

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  Bluebird Nonogram

Since we have "Cols -> Rows", we write this as a sequence of numbers beginning with the column numbers and ending with the row numbers. Then, we translate the sequence to letters using "1 -> A, 2 -> B, 3 -> C" to get the sequence "ABCDFFGIKLOBKLDEBAbdbcgefijjkkkcfbebaaaa". We then go back to the Vigenère Cipher with this new sequence as the key, revealing the final message:

congrats email subject palace to be added to credits

Credits

In addition to those who helped with specific steps, the following people also provided help in solving this puzzle:

• HomemadeToast#0374 - He made a whole program! We were following some matrix leads on the nonagram part, and he wrote a program to help us convert stuff!
• (Red) Mr.Redstone54#7069 - Generally a prominent person during the solving, active as we all helped each other move along during the solve.
• superALA1217#9189 - first found the column number to letter conversion hint, and kept posting it until someone actually followed it finally.
• Minoin#1775/BurningSpade#5989 - Both helped with the ‘fish’ lead at different times, Minion bringing it up first. Although it led to nothing, it helped us weed out stuff that wasn’t directly part of this puzzle!’