The End Chimes
On March 4, 2024, the Animal Well Discord received a mysterious event planned for Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 12:00 am GMT.[2] An image of a clock was found alongside this event, but not much else was found in the initial event.
The Day of the Event
On the day of the event, a strange video was uploaded to the Bigmode Games YouTube channel and twitter[3]. The first thing to notice is that the video appears to be playing in reverse. If the video reversed using editing software, a cuckoo clock can be heard chiming in the background[4]. The second thing to notice is what appears to be a set of hexadecimal numbers[5] in the top left corner of the video. When playing this video in reverse it becomes clear that these numbers are counting down to something [6]. This number can be interpreted using little endian ordering[7], and converted to a Unix time stamp to get the date Sunday, March 17, 2024, 7:30:00 pm GMT[8]. On top of this, the symbol next to the numbers resembles a clover and March 17th is on Saint Patricks day[9]. These results implied another waiting period until March 17.
Release Date Announcement
On March 17, the Bigmode Games YouTube channel released the official release date trailer for Animal Well[11]. This included the answer to the second aspect of the cuckoo clock video. When watching the video, it's possible to spot various hidden characters in the background of most scenes[12]. The characters are shown in the set of images below[13]:
6
d
6
c
3
8
c
8
This results in the 8 digit hexadecimal code D8C83C66[14] when interpreted in the same order that the original video was played in. Using a similar method to the other code, we get 663CC8D8, which when converted to another date gives: May 9, 2024, 1:00:08 pm GMT[15]. Going back to the release date video, the announced released date was May 9, 2024, the same date given by the code, marking the end of the puzzle.
Contributions
- ↑ Posted by Angery ball
- ↑ First noticed by SuperMelon64
- ↑ Initially posted by alexsmith531
- ↑ First noticed by SuperMelon64
- ↑ First noticed by zadfert
- ↑ First mentioned by dottedboxguy
- ↑ First mentioned by Kaiserlucas
- ↑ First mentioned by bendious
- ↑ First mentioned by woafie
- ↑ Uploaded by FuryForged
- ↑ First posted by lauti
- ↑ First noticed by foxblit
- ↑ First complete set of characters found by Alittar
- ↑ Code first mentioned by Milan
- ↑ Discovered by Milan