Today, we’re trying out something new.

On this blog, I try to keep a semi-professional, composed tone. While I probably pull that off about as well as I pull off short shorts, I do try to have a certain style about myself.

So, I want to see what happens if I don’t try to compose myself. Just write, rant, and see what comes out. Now, that doesn’t mean hard to follow of course. I’m still going to try to write well, that’s a given. But I’m going to approach topics that work better as rants, and write about them as so.

This experiment, I have deemed as Unhinged. The tone will be as loose as my morals and the topics will be rant-centered. There will be three articles, planned to be back to back to back, and at the end, you tell me if you liked the experiment and style. If the majority rules it, Unhinged will be back later as a regular series.

Are you ready?

Base64 and similar codes need to stop being used so often, and if they don’t die as trends soon, I will strangle them myself with my bare hands.

Many people who aren’t in the loop on the hatetrain crusade don’t seem to really understand why Base64 is such an issue. They may not even know what Base64 refers to. Which is perfectly fine. You don’t know what you don’t know. So let’s start there. Base64 and why people hate it with a burning fury.

Base64 is a form of binary-to-text encoding. Well, it’s technically a collection of a few, though that and most of the details of Base64’s intended usage aren’t exactly important to the ARG world. If you want to learn about Base64 itself, as always Wikipedia has you covered. It’s an interesting little rabbit hole to jump down for those who like weird bits of knowledge that will probably never apply to their own walk of life. I encourage checking it out!

However, today, we’re talking less about what Base64 is and more of how often you see this god forsaken encryption in your standard web-based ARG assortment.

This is Base64 in action:

U29tZWJvZHkgb25jZSB0b2xkIG1lI

HRoZSB3b3JsZCBpcyB

nb25uYSByb2xsIG1lLiBJIGFpbn

QgdGhlIHNoYXJwZXN0IHRvb2

wgaW4gdGhlIHNoZWQuIA==

Did you go straight to your favorite Base64 Decoder and snuff out my goof? Awesome! That’s the problem.

That was fun for you for maybe five minutes. Which is way too short for a puzzle trying to be engaging and immersive. Base64 is just too easy. There are multiple websites that can do the work for you instantly. And once you’re in the circuit for enough time, you will recognize every instance of Base64 as soon as you see it.

That’s not really that fun, no? That’s mostly a really brief session of busywork with a relieving conclusion, and knowing what it say’s is about the only interesting or fun part. And the entire point of any sort of puzzle is for the journey to be as grand as the destination. Which isn’t the case when someone uses Base64 everywhere in their ARG.

In very small glimpses it’s tolerable. When it first started making the ARG rounds for example it was interesting and challenging because nobody knew what it was. But not when it’s everywhere. Not when it’s a staple for your project. Base64 being a staple of your project is something that’s going to make potential fans run away really fast.

All these issues and more are multiplied when this Base64 doesn’t even reveal any interesting or worthwhile information. This is of course a far more subjective gripe, but whenever I come across some crappy puzzle and all it tells me is “I LIKE BEANS” I’m not exactly compelled to see if the GM learned from their mistakes and continue playing the game. The small glimpse of enjoyment and story progression that may still be in such a puzzle wasn’t even there. So what was really the point?

I just did something without any sort of real payoff, and didn’t even enjoy the process. But hey, I learned that the main character really likes Belize enough to encode the nation’s name in Base64 and put it in a video. Yay story progression I guess?

If something exists in your story, it has to have a purpose.

Most of this applies to similar codes. Base64’s sister Base32 comes to mind. However, depending on how obscure the code in question in this camp is, it’ll be harder to crack. So keep that in mind. Base4 isn’t used very often in ARGs at all for example. It could keep people stumped for a decent amount of time. Base4 is alright in my book, but use it sparingly, as with overuse, ANYTHING can befall the fate of Base64.

I’d actually even put Morse and Binary above Base64 on the usability ranking. Which may seem odd at first as Morse and Binary are part of the public zeitgeist. But let me explain. Binary and Morse can very easily be tweaked, transformed, and encoded in interesting ways. For example, I ran a game a few months ago for some friends and randos on r/ARG where I hid a binary message in musical notation of all things. I had to end up helping them out and some buddies of mine flipped a few tables, but it was worth it. There is still a lot of potential for fun puzzles in things like Binary. However, there isn’t as much potential in something where you have to take in to account 60+ possible symbols in your transformative ideas.

While we’re on the topic of better basic ciphers that can be transformed and tweaked, I can suggest a few more. Pigpen is a personal favorite, and I’m sure it can be transformed with enough brainpower behind the idea. The clever fellows over at Disney’s gaming department actually did so for when Club Penguin dipped their toes in our water and created the “Tic Tac Code” which is actually a pretty interesting concept.

Potential!

So hopefully, this rant has done something for you, whether that’s because you learn specifically from the method of “Mad man yelling at you from his nonexistent basement” or because you’re one of the people who share my plight. I’ll be back far sooner than I have been recently with another installment in my experiments. Make sure to tell me if you liked this or if you didn’t with all of the avenues available to you.