I broke Nokia’s 4th seal and opened the box (all without going insane)!
August 6th, 2008 by Scott Janousek
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...Attention: For those playing … don’t worry, I’m not posting any “spoilers” here! (Well, I don’t think so!)
A while back Nokia launched an interesting site called: openatownrisk.com
What’s going on? - “Hundreds of years ago, scientists, artists and members of Royal families gathered to produce a clip of grand weirdness.
A clip stranger and more amazing than anything that had ever been made before. But the clip turned out too weird!
People went mad from seeing it and it was too much for the common man to handle. Thus the clip was locked away, in a mysterious box with four seals.
The knowledge of how to break the seals has been passed down from one generation to another, hidden within the technological masterpieces of history.
Edison’s light bulb, the Wright Brothers’s airplane and Apollo 11 all held the secret of unlocking the box.
A secret that can now be found within Nokia Download service, allowing the public -you’-, to find the key to break the seals. And see…the weirdest clip. Ever made…”
It’s a viral game (shhh, don’t tell anyone! LOL) that combines desktop and, of course, Nokia devices.
The idea (I believe) is to blend a really great Flash (puzzle game) experience back to media content found on Nokia devices via Nokia Download! service.
The mobile content that gets downloaded consists of: a wallpaper, ringtone, secret Java application (see below), and (supposedly) a video clip that gets installed down onto your device when you refresh Nokia Download! (well, right now anyways).
1 of 4 “seals” to be broken to “unlock the box”
The idea reminded me of Myst and Riven, so right off the bat I was hooked! I started playing last night, got hooked, figured everything out, then just decided to stay up and finish it …
… and yes, the clip is truly was very weird, I must say. Maybe it’ll end up on youtube if someone goes through the trouble of extracting it, and uploading!
UPDATE: Someone snapped some video of “it” on their Nokia.
The game itself was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be; which was kind of disappointing, but yet understandable, given the “head fakes” (i.e. getting you to do something when you don’t really know you are doing it) they were trying to achieve … and the target audience (aka Nokia “newbie” content consumers).
“Head Fake #1″
They disguised a viral marketing game to get you more familiar with Nokia Download!, and the process of getting and using content on your Nokia device. Score (well, sort of … see below)!
“Head Fake #2″
In playing the game (and winning), they (Nokia) have 3 main components interacting: you!, your nokia device, and a PC. If they had #4, the “social element” it would have been better, though … I guess this is where the viral aspect comes into play.
Possible Bugs?
I won’t post the spoilers here for the game (they are pretty straightforward as is) … but I will bring up the point that there are a couple bugs here and there …
1.) On my Nokia N95 and E90 … seems like the video clip asset never made it onto the handset?! (I had to solve that seal via “brute” force).
2.) Also the wallpaper didn’t appear on my E90, or at least in the same place as on my N95 (within the “Secret” folder).
3.) WTF! The major challenge was the actually website itself at: www.openatownrisk.com. A cease and desist letter? What’s up with that? It confused the heck out of me until I figured out it’s merely a distractor!
Anyways, I’m posting that here, because I feel it’s really a put-off for the game and is not needed!
Merely goto: http://www.openatownrisk.com/main.swf and access the real website (as intended)?
–
SPOILER: Here is the “weirdest clip ever made” ((low quality)
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August 6th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Scott, you’re a madman.
About how many (late night) hours did it take you to get through this?
August 6th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Not as long as I thought it would take …
Myst took a few weeks and Riven took at least a Month if not two of playing, but that seems like ages ago.
August 7th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Congrats
Figures, Nokia’s playing its region-games only. I mean, no “Secret” folder shows up in my Download! app at all so…blah, well. Nokia.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Scott,
What do you mean by “(supposedly) a video clip that gets installed down onto your device when you refresh Nokia Download! (well, right now anyways).”
I have remaining 3 things setup and working, but “supposedly” did not see video getting updated in the secret folder in download….
How did you manage to crack that???
August 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
nohea. The folder name may not have been “Secret”. Actually I believe it was “The Application” at one point on my N95. The whole game location was inconsistent across my Nokia devices (e90, N95-4, N95-1).
Rahul, brute force method after I found a hint about the 1st and last symbols needed from a friend.
Nohea, Rhaul … try it again … I just noticed on my N95-4 (NAM), that they moved the game into a directory called “The box” and there are now several assets in there … including the video clip. I am in the US … not sure how they are rolling out changes … but it’s worth a try.
Good Luck, and don’t let it drive you insane too much! You only win a shirt for the 1st 500 to complete the game.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
BTW, the new folder called “The Box” was in the “What’s New” category on Nokia Download! You need to refresh.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
What do you know Scott…I saw the video in my download folder and was able to crack it….and now am eligible for the T-Shirt….Lets hope it is really unique…cheers
August 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I also solved the puzzle and it said I was among the first 500, but when I click submit on the t-shirt form, it just sit there. Did you get any confirmation that it was submitted correctly?
August 12th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I believe the page informed me that my prize was on it’s way, but I can’t recall.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
neither did i get any confirmation…
August 12th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
If I can ask - how do you crack the problems with the wallpaper and the ringtone? Plus I don’t get the video on the box folder too
August 13th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Um, sorry for the bit late feedback, but thanks for the replies
thing is, I’ve looked through ALL the folders in my Downloads! catalog, but I have neither The Box or Secret, nor even any What’s New section. Anywhere.
Oh well. Congrats to the winners anyway.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Nice work!! I still can’t find the video anywhere in Download… I tried the brute force method but ended up giving up lol…
Probably stretching the friendship but any chance of a hint to the fourth seal at all??
August 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Can u post the anwers
coz it aint there in My “Whats New” category on Nokia Download
prolly they forgot to add it for Mumbai(India)
August 13th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I can’t find any “the Box” folder in my download! wonder is it restricted to certain countries. i’m from Malaysia
August 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I found the location of “openatownrisk” contents to be different across my various nokia handsets in the beginning (different folders, etc). Try looking into each folder under download! client. If you don’t see it there, then you may be out of luck. Just remember to hit refresh once in there to see if it can be brought down to your specific region).
From the comments, it’s seems they rolled this out regionally, so perhaps it does not appear on your handset for a reason?
“The Box” folder might have been named “Secret” as well … again, early on it appeared as if the game was installed in different locations on different handsets …
I think they updated the game recently …. hit the refresh button and perhaps it may pull down a newer version of the game.
All four seals are very straightforward to break. Just remember you have to use the functionality of the device in conjunction with your desktop pc to break them! Having a knowledge of what the Flash Player is “capable of” also helps, I imagine. Perhaps this made it easier for me in knowing what to do?
August 15th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
OK, I managed to break it and score myself a free Tshirt as well… If you’re having trouble with the video (or any other elements) (It’s STILL not in the download app on my phone), try getting it from another source… (I found the video on Mosh…)
I also found that I only had to crack the Video section, I’m not sure if I’d had the rest cached (but surely I’d cleaned out my local cache recently) or if it’d recorded my IP address, but it somehow detected that I’d previously cracked the other 3 puzzles (I cracked them a few weeks ago)