Search for Bourne—Day 11
July 30th, 2007
In today’s challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne, which I’ll spoil completely here. Having solved the Day 10 puzzle, we’re rewarded with a video congratulating us on finishing up with London. Our briefing tells us Simon Ross has led us to a briefcase belonging to Jason Bourne that contains a crossword puzzle, then links to it here and advises us that we have lots of tools to use to figure out the answer.
Once again, the crossword puzzle (which is surprisingly easy) is basically a red herring. Some words are already filled out (like “silencer” and “terabyte”) and the correct “canada” has been crossed out. The word “metropolis” made me suspect the correct answer right away, but so far the puzzle itself doesn’t really matter. The key is not to solve the puzzle or use any fancy Google Searches on the words. All you have to do is process the image in the Decryption image filter and the answer appears, a de-scrambling of seven random letters from the puzzle.
And that answer is New York. Pop it in the message transmitter, and you’re ready to place your cameras.
I won’t be too surprised if this puzzle features in an upcoming challenge in the next few days, with a slightly more involved solution involving actually solving some of it, or at least with hints pointing to some of the completed clues. We may be going back to Nicky Parson’s Dater Notes profile, too. There’s an image with “Broadway” scribbled on a napkin arranging a meeting. There are other Broadways in the world, but New York’s is probably the most famous. The question is, who’s John Michael Kane (the filename of that photo)?
My spy shop guess from last week didn’t work with camera placement, so I went with my two successes (the London Eye and Waterloo Station), then chose St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London since they’ve been mentioned before.
Entry Filed under: Search for Bourne, Advertising, Online
5 Comments Add your own
1. John | July 30th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
John Michael Kane is one of Bourne’s aliases from the first movie.
2. Alec Bings | July 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Ah hah! Therein my mistake. I was hunting for another character, not considering the name might be an alias. Silly me.
Thanks for setting me straight, John.
–Alec
3. David Berkowitz | July 31st, 2007 at 12:20 am
Complete spoiler here… Bingo on Nicky’s Daternotes profile. It turns out you just add that photo to Image Filter C and it tells you that Bourne is in Madison Square Park, which is all you need to transmit.
4. jonathan | July 31st, 2007 at 7:22 pm
wow, the UI really sucks for this search for bourne game… the image filter has never once worked for me. i’ve had to come to your website any time that the image analysis too is used…
entering a URL and clicking submit does nothing. none of the filter buttons are clickable, they don’t flash, nothing happens.
and i’m using firefox on a PC, even though you’ve said you had no problems with that brower
5. Alec Bings | July 31st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
It stinks that you’re having those problems, Jonathan. I have to agree that the interface is buggy at best. It’s true that I’m using Firefox and a PC.
In another thread here, some have observed that the URL absolutely has to have the “www” in it. Any chance you’re not using it? Just a long-shot, probably.
I’ve noticed that the Filter buttons don’t do anything special. Once the image loads, I have to wait a few seconds for them to become “hot,” and after I’ve tried one, it takes time before the other’s get hot. Don’t know why.
Just so you know, you’re not missing much. It’s very slightly fun to see the filters process, with a bit of flashing. But it’s also obviously nonsense, not like any sort of real filter, and then the answer just appears from the revealed letters. Sort of spoils whatever suspension of disbelief you might be managing.
Anyway, maybe tomorrow you’ll have better luck!
–Alec
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