First of all, it’s a pity that there will be no New-Year game this year.

The blog was last updated two months ago. During this period, I started many drafts on and off, but all were shelved because work kept me too busy. Among them, of course, was the 2025 New-Year game. At the moment, the game is a half-finished prototype of a half-finished prototype (we haven’t even settled on a complete set of rules 😭), so here I’m making public one of the more interesting ideas from this year’s New-Year game.

Game inspiration 💡

Kryptos is a sculpture standing in the plaza of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, USA. Designed and built by James Sanborn, it was completed on 3 November 1990. The sculpture’s name comes from the Greek word for “hidden,” and its theme is “intelligence gathering.” 865 characters are inscribed on it, divided into four ciphertext passages, each encrypted with a different method.

• Passage 1: already solved; reads “Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion,” where “iqlusion” is an intentional misspelling of “illusion.”
• Passage 2: already solved; gives the coordinates 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W.
• Passage 3: already solved; describes the moment Howard Carter opened the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.
• Passage 4: still not fully solved. ^{[^1]}

Passage 2 of the sculpture was encrypted with the Vigenère cipher. ^{[^2]}

Game idea

This New-Year game will have two stages:

• The puzzle for stage one hasn’t been finalized yet. After solving it, players will obtain a string and can claim the stage-one red-packet reward 🧧.
• Stage two will provide a Vigenère table (of course, without telling players that it is a Vigenère table) along with a piece of ciphertext. Players must treat the string obtained in stage one as plaintext and work backward to derive the key. That key is the final answer and can be used to claim the stage-two red-packet reward 🧧.

I’ve also attached a little verification tool I wrote myself, hoping it helps your understanding.

If you have better ideas or suggestions, please let me know in detail ✌️

Finally:

Happy New Year, wishing you every happiness

May your future be pure and bright, just like your lovely gaze at this moment.

Recommended viewing

[Video]The Unbreakable Kryptos Code

References