Codebreaking Challenge #1 Leaderboard: Prizes Now 9.2 SBD and Growing!

Latest news! The Codebreaking Challenge is the the hottest new game on Steemit! It has just been selected by @newbiegames for their Weekly Game Contest. If you haven't heard about @newbiegames, it's the latest initiative by the @newbieresteemday community group that has been at the forefront of making the platform welcoming to all newcomers.

1. Current Prize Pool - 9.2 SBD! --> Unredeemed ^.^

The prize pool is 80% of the SBD payouts accumulated from all the stages in the challenge, or 4 SBD, whichever is higher. The first 2 winners to reach the final stage (5) and solve it shares in the prize pool.

Even with the large fall in Steem & SBD prices recently, the current sum of all upvotes across the 5 posts is a hefty $30.55. That translates to an expected payout of ~11.5 SBD or a...

Prize pool of ~9.2 SBD for the 2 winners! And you still stand a chance!

The prize pool is also growing as all players upvote the posts and contributes to it.

2. Current Leaderboard

Source: Pixabay

Currently at the head of the pack, we find @plushzilla and @iexplore who made it all the way past Stage 4 at record speed! They are enjoying their well-deserved leading position and are currently having a lively discussion about the last puzzle in the discord channel for Stage 4 Codebreakers.

As I speak, @tarachan99 has just solved Stage 3's puzzle and is giving them a run for their money.

3. How to Play?

First, take 3 minutes to understand the instructions! (Click the image)

You can find all the stages using the #codebreaker tag. The first few stages are easy, but you still have to start at stage 1 and solve sequentially!

4. An Easter Egg for You - Solution to the Stage 1 Puzzle

If you made it all the way to the end of the post, congratulations. I am releasing the solution to the stage 1 puzzle to help those who have been struggling with understanding the codebreaking method. As set out in the instructions post above, you need to use this particular AES encryption website to decrypt the encrypted messages found at the end of each stage. To decrypt the message, you need to find the solution to the puzzle. Decrypting the message verifies that you have solved the puzzle successfully, and you will see a message that contains a discord channel invite (for harder stages after stage 1) and the seed word - the first part of next stage's solution.

Stage 1 is easy. It makes sure that all players know how to decrypt the message.

1. First, go to the post and read the story. At the end of the story, Ted was sent an image. That image is a QR code. Scan the QR code with a QR-decoder on your smartphone, or on a QR decoder online, such as this, and you'll see:

   The solution for this stage is:
   game

2. Fire up the AES encryption website. Paste into the text box the encrypted message sent to Ted. Now, we need the Secret Key, which is always in lowercase and of the format:
   [seed word from last stage] [solution to this stage's puzzle]

3. For the first stage, the seed word was provided, start, and we just found the solution from the QR code, game. So the Secret Key is:
   start game
   Type start game into the "Key of the encryption" text box on the AES website and click on the Decrypt button.

4. That's it!
   

Good luck to all players! Codebreaking Challenge #2 continues the story with Ted and the secret society and will be released in 1-2 weeks.