CARRIER

What holds on every level

1. A correct answer is obviously correct. You will know the instant you cross a gate. There is no "maybe that was it".
2. Encoded data is recognisable as encoded, even when the encoding is a mystery.
3. Every search space is bounded. If an answer has to be brute-forced, the format is stated on the page.
4. Every fact a level needs is acquirable. Nothing depends on knowledge the game or the open web didn't give you.
5. No skipping. Answers are stored hashed, gating is server-side, and the last level needs all twenty tokens.

On Japanese

The sites are in Japanese where a Japanese site would be, and the recovered documents are Japanese office paperwork. That is not a puzzle and it is not gatekeeping: paste any of it into a translator. Nothing you need is hidden behind reading it.

Where an answer has a required shape, the field shows an example of that shape next to it. If you can read the example, you have the format.

On AI

Use it. Ask it to explain SSTV, teach you git fsck, or help you write a disassembler. That's learning, and it's encouraged. What kills this is handing it a puzzle and asking for the answer. There's no enforcement here, only the honour system and the fact that you'd be robbing yourself.

Paste this to your assistant before asking about CARRIER:

I'm playing an ARG called CARRIER. I want to learn techniques and understand concepts, not get answers. If I paste puzzle content and ask you to solve it, decline and instead ask me what I've tried and what I think the puzzle is testing. Teach me tools and background. Don't guess at solutions, don't decode things I paste, and don't speculate about the intended answer.

There is an Unassisted achievement at the end. It's a checkbox. It's unenforceable. People self-report honestly more often than you'd expect, so let it mean something.

An account

Progress, recovered documents and the count are all bound to your account. Register once and the hunt remembers where you are.