All right, readers, we’re putting out a call for your aid as we’ve found a rather interesting and DEFINITELY horror-themed ARG (alternate reality game) that progresses one level after another and, well…to be honest, we got stuck.

It all started when we found these weird QR codes at the San Diego Comic-Con. When scanned, the code led to the website mindgggames.xyz. From there, the rules were laid out, which were (basically) as follows:

1) There’s a prize at the end of the game. Whether that’s for the first person, multiple people, or everyone, we don’t know and can’t say with any certainty.

2) Apparently people have to play alone and can’t share answers with each other. To that we say, “LOL.”

3) Whenever you find a clue that ends with “.html,” you’re not supposed to leave that in. You just take the clue sans the “.html” part and add it to the end of the original website.

4) You can seek assistance from search engines and other online tools.

We decided to dive deeper into the rabbit hole to see what this game had to offer and realized that we’re not going to be able to get very far without YOUR help. So, what we’re asking is this: Help figure out how to solve the levels, and then leaves us a comment below with your solution so that others can see how to progress to the next stage. What we’ll then do is update this post with the solution and who figured it out so that you get the proper credit! With everyone’s help, I figure we can solve this in a few days, max!

Now, if you want to go from the beginning, click on the link above and venture into the game for yourself. However, if you want some help, we’ve got the answers figured out for the first few levels and will share them below this creepy photo. It’s up to you if you want the help or not!

Here’s how to solve the first page. We’re told, “If you dare…Find me in the dark.” Considering the entire page’s background is black (and also there’s that weird gap between rules 3 and 4), I decided to try the simplest idea and highlight the entire page. That revealed a line between those two rules, which simply states, “welcome2mynightmare.html.”

As the rules explain, what you then do is grab “welcome2mynightmare” and add it to the end of the original URL, which gives you this address. On that page is an embedded YouTube clip along with a link to download the video.

The video that downloads comes with the filename “The Ram Signs A War On The Full Red Moon,” and the video suggests that there is an anagram at work here. Now, there’s an “@” symbol in the word “anagram” in the video, and since I don’t see Twitter being spelled in that filename, it’s easy to surmise “Instagram.” That took out several letters but not enough for me to figure it out entirely. That’s when I remembered something completely random but strange enough to try.

Remember when Mick Gordon’s Doom OST came out and people found the numbers “666” in the audio files using a spectrogram? I said, “What the hell?” and gave it a shot with the video audio. Lo and behold, I was right! Check it out:

“Follow @MurderHeathens on Instagram” is a perfect anagram of “The Ram Signs A War On The Full Red Moon.” It’s here where we find out that this ARG is a game created by the people behind the upcoming film The Monster Project, which Epic Pictures Group is putting out (full disclosure: Dread and Epic are affiliated). The Instagram links to their official website and also says that people can DM them for help, should they need it.

As for the coordinates? Well, I looked them up and found they’re to a random corner in Los Angeles. I had a pal venture out and snap the following photographs for me:

Scanning that QR code leads to this website: www.mindgggames.xyz/heiscoming. On that page is a screenshot of a cellphone dial pad. When you hover your cursor over it (or if you download it), you’ll see that the filename is “demonfaces.” By turning the letters into the appropriate digits, you get the following phone number: (336) 663-2237.

Calling that number offers a pre-recorded message that gives you the next website: www.mindgggames.xyz/ko. Here, you’ll see a strange board with letters, characters, and the words “Yes” and “No” written at the top. It’s here that I got stuck and didn’t know how to progress.

So, if you know how to move on from here, let us know in the comments so we can move forward together!

UPDATE #1:

DC user John Bonham figured out that you have to click on “KO” in order to proceed. Doing so loads a new screen where the “KO” has now changed to “KK”. That led DC user Taylor to substitute the “KO” at the end of the URL with “KK”, creating yet another pathway. By continuing this method, a string of characters that spelled the word “KOKKURI” was found, which led users to a new video.

What stood out about this page was that unlike the prior video page, this one had an instruction to watch it on YouTube. By doing so and reading the video’s description, we see a new clue, “subscribe.html”, as figured out by DC user Brad, who helped figure out the next set of levels. By placing that at the end of the URL, we reach a page with a picture of a door. The filename is “Knock Knock” and below the picture it reads, “The answer does not include punctuation.” So, let’s swap out “subscribe” with “whosthere”. Doing so reloaded the page with the same image, only something seemed different. Now we are told to “Look closely“.

The answer appears as hello.html. Swapping out “whosthere” for “hello”, we reach a new video with instructions below, including a download link. When you download the file, the filename is “theanswerisviralsmile.mp4”, so we can now change “hello” to “viralsmile”, which loads a new video. In THAT video, we see the five-digit number “81817”, which is the next URL code. That takes us to a page with a pentagram symbol on an image, an image that bears the filename “silenteye/v1k-ings.io.jpg”.

DC user Hans Krake converted that string into a URL, which is a program that helps find hidden messages in images.

And that is where we’re currently stuck at. Any ideas?