EDIT: A big thanks to j15bell for providing photos to assist all of you on your quest! Visit the link HERE. The password is tweleve.
Remember that contest held a few years back by Google when “The Da Vinci Code” was released? This time around, MSN is hosting a contest for “Angels & Demons” roughly structured in the same way. The “Path of Illumination Contest” – which just began January 30 – will occur in 2 rounds and a final tie-breaker round leading up to the film’s May release. Each round will offer a series of 4 challenges released in stages. Here’s a clear rundown:
The “Path of Illumination Contest” can be found at the official “Angels & Demons” site here: http://www.angelsanddemons.com
It will require you to download Microsoft’s Photosynth as well as sign up for a Windows Live ID (Hotmail and MSN e-mail addresses will work).
*As Round 1 has come to an end, Round 2 begins on March 6. To remind contestants of the next phase of the contest, Microsoft has sent out the following e-mail:
Congratulations! You are one of only 3,497 contestants from the United States to advance to Round Two of the Angels & Demons Path of Illumination Contest. Don’t turn back now – victory could be within reach!
In Round Two, you must solve four new puzzles. All Round Two puzzles will be available beginning at 10:00 AM PT on March 6, 2009, and must be completed by 9:59 AM PT on March 13, 2009, so mark your calendar!
Unlike Round One, you will have only ONE chance to play each puzzle in Round Two and your score will be automatically submitted for the contest.
Remember, if you have the lowest combined score from Round One and Round Two, you will become the potential country winner, and will receive a trip for two to Rome to attend the premiere of Angels & Demons and more.
Sign in to play at http://angelsanddemons.msn.com
Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more, please read our online Privacy Statement (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=74170).
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Stuck? Believe me, after playing through “The Da Vinci Code Contest”, I know from experience that these puzzles do become progressively challenging and players will most definitely need help.
We are opening the comments board below for open discussion. Send in any questions or comments you have and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.
“Angels & Demons” hits theaters May 15, 2009.
You're better at the evil laugh than I expected! Have you been practicing? I know we'll come out victorious. The question is, will we be the first ones to solve it?
I tried the idea you gave. Questions: would it be a positive or negative for the last number? And how do we get at least 16 characters?
For this, I did 8I10 as 8+1+10 (19) (S), 6V as 6+5 (11) (K), etc. The letters mad e a LITTLE bit more sense that way:
gooskpviwl
You know, I feel bad. You are at least coming up with some smart ideas to try…while I'm just the naysayer. I think my mind is just stuck in a logical box, which is making it hard for me to come up with creative solutions… I'm not going to give up, but I'm starting to wonder if you'd do better on your own… Oh well…time to do more research.
Come on Rachael! That's not true. You're doing great work here. On the contrary..these..(wait..how did you call it) creative solutions
are very improbable to help. That's why I asked gamepro if Drado maybe didn't have all the information we have. Cause that would mean that the story text possibly could contain the clue on how to solve everything with logical thoughts. The rules I came up with are just a wildly guessing game.
No..you don't have to feel bad at all. We NEED a logical solution here..but until we (you) have no idea I'll try to do everything that's coming in my mind.
By the way….uhm..^^..I'll tell you THAT by email.
What is most frustrating:
Drado couldn't know about the 16 letters minimum, neither about the alphabetic solution. Cause he got this information not until the end from Salone himself.
So HOW on earth has he done it?
rules
and it wouldn't work for the 615 at the end anyway.
"+" means multiplicate, "-" means divide and maybe alternating:
34+ => 3*4 = 12 => letter "L"
66- => 6:6 = 1 => letter "A"
14136+ => 1*4 = 4; 4:1 = 4; 4*3 = 12; 12:6 = 2 => letter "B"
8I10 => no idea
@ gamepro
Are you still out there somewhere?
Wow…I checked your e-mail, and that was definitely not something I was expecting. And thank you for your kind words. I think that was the motivation I needed. It's pretty disheartening, but knowing you're in my corner is a big help. And I'll cheer you along when you need it too!
Okay, with your new Rules: How would we get our 16 letters again? And like you said, what would we do with the last number and the Roman Numerals. Is there any chance that we shouldn't be interpreting the Roman Numerals as numbers, but perhaps as actual letters? I don't get the III, but maybe in the long run it would make sense? For this clue, it just says "he knew what he had to do, and at last Drado received his answer". It doesn't say what that answer told him to do. And he didn't take any action after finding that answer until he saw the message above his head. Could it be possible we're just spinning our wheels on something that really isn't a clue? Did we somehow miscount? Is this one of those misleading puzzles that he had an answer to, but didn't use to find his way out of the dungeon?
That would make the words above his head (leading us to the painting?) as the first clue?
OK: Brainstorming here:
"find the trap door, find the painting, guess at the stones, the picture and the door"
1. Trap Door: Dots and Lines lead to the Trap Door?
2. Find the Painting: That's from the "Lost Junk" clue
3. Guess at the Stones: LOST-push the numbers in the order of their letters from the Wall of Knowledge clue
4. The Picture: Another part of the Wall of Knowledge clue – I mean there are at least three, possibly more parts to that one clue? Or is this the picture of the Stone with the Numbers/Roman Numerals on it?
5. The Door: The golden door to walk through at the end.
Perhaps, rather than doing the stone picture first, like Drado does, we have to solve it in the order the King gives us at the end. Meaning the Dots and Lines on the Wall of Knowledge would be the first step?
Questions for Gamepro:
1. Are you sure no one has solved this yet?
2. Is it really solvable?
3. Concerning "not to make them to hard" – What exactly is your definition of: "Too hard"?
If we do it in the above order, that means that the clue we've been working on (if it turns out to be one we really have to solve) would be numerical. We'd need a minimum of 9 numbers. But it also means the LOST numbers clue would really be alphabetic, and we'd need at least 10 letters.
- I know in our other e-mails, I was pretty sure we had to do it in the order Drado did…but that could have just been me trying to be overly logical…
What are your thoughts?
I'm grateful for every new idea.
And the new order sounds great!
Ok then..let's try the dots and lines first.
But before that I just want you to know my thoughts about some other things you wrote:
- If "find the painting" refers to the "loads of junk" clue..I don't know..as I said I have problems with the language here..but Queen Joline wears a necklace right? And that would be near to her "heart". And also we find the word "bestow" in connection with the necklace below at the golden doors.
So maybe the answer would have been "ruby and onyx necklace" or something? I know.. -.- a bit far-fetched. Well..maybe it helps you.
- Concerning the "LOST-riddle" and the problem that we need ten letters: In the middle of the wall of knowledge we have that sequence of 19 numbers so if we push the numbers we could get the needed letters…although it says "push the numbers in the order of their letters"
.
Well..ok..let's get to the dots and lines!
I have the clear suspicion that it has nothing to do with morse. The distances are odd, don't you think?
IF it's morse, than in the second row we have two dots and two lines very near to each other. But there is no letter in the morse code standing for "dot, dot, dash, dash". Maybe backwards..that would mean a "z".
Hm..again, I have the feeling that it has nothing to do with morse. Maybe something totally different. The distances seem to be consciously so irregular. Maybe we have to connect the lines (or dots) with a pencil or something. Or we have to use a mirror..
Do you actually think that it's morse?
Okay – that was kind of weird…4 "different?" people posting the same website to view the movie? Hmmm….
Axl, just before I drifted off last night, my mind turned back to the riddle…and I thought "Binary Code". 1's and 0's? I don't know where we'd break it down though (the spaces between the dots and lines aren't overly defined in a number of places), but it's a thought.
It also said he solved a piece of the "Wall of Knowledge" puzzle telling him where the trap door is, but not which piece. We could be on the wrong track…again. Or, we could have been on the right track, and I derailed us…
- With your idea about the Loads of Junk and Joline picture, I like it. I was thinking something like… "Look behind Joline", but yours makes more sense
With that clue…the grammar is way off. It isn't a language thing, it's just weird. But we'll figure it out. Eventually 
Sorry I didn't have the whole (any part of this) thing solved before you got up
But I'll keep trying.
More randomness: Taking the string of (correct) numbers from the LOST picture, and using the backwards alphabet, I got: uzsyxxtwyvzvwvvtxtw, which phonetically could somehow be construed as: use six twelves ….. ww txt w (web site?) Using the forward alphabet, there's nothing.
Okay, back to the drawing board.
I have this clear picture in my mind:
Gamepro couching in a hammock on Bora Bora grinning and laughing as evil as possible.
Binary Code? Well..maybe..I don't know..what about the distances then? Hm..but possible..
You know..I think I have found something. It's not a brilliant awareness but..I'm pretty sure that it means something. I'll write you per email..it's about that number line on the wall of knowledge.
Use six twelves!
You're simply the best. Very creative, keep at it!
Gamepro
. So, I'd really love to help her but I don't want to put more and more time in something where I don't have the feeling to advance. So, I'll do a break at this point until you want to tell us something helpful.
We're stuck. If we only need the stone to go through the correct golden door, then we have this number. But that's everything we've achieved.
An idea concerning the number line 61823… was to read it as: "6, 18, 23, .." since the numerical value ascends and the difference between the numbers seems to be important cause you changed one number afterwards and the consequence was that the following numbers had to be adjusted. But the differences would be "12, 5, .." etc and that leads us into a dead end. The related letters would be "L, E, .." etc but the word doesn't make sense. Maybe an answer is just the number sequence 12, 5, etc.. but we don't think so.
You called it "Treasure Hunt For Everyone". Well, I don't know how many people other than me and Rachael are trying or have tried to solve it. We've found that riddle in another forum where you posted it more than three years ago. So IF you were not lying to us then nobody has yet been able to solve it for 40 months or so.
And if you want it to get solved then you should give us a hand cause I don't want to guess another few years and I don't know how long you can stress Rachael's patience. At least talk to us cause we don't know if maybe it really isn't solvable and you're just messing around with us or you don't follow the discussion any more.
If there is a prize then Rachael would surely have deserved to win it, I already told her that I don't want it since I already won something in this path of illumination contest but I had to promise to share if it's something one can share
Axl –
That's right, you did promise, and I'll hold you to it
Gamepro –
The thing is, we feel like we're out there – on our own – with no direction. We can't find anything in the clue to help us even know where to start. Looking at your past clues, there was always something to help us know what we were supposed to do to complete the solve…even if it sometimes felt like a bit of a stretch. But in this one – well, it feels like that bit of information was left out. We have so much given to us, but I sincerely believe the important "this is a hint of what you have to do to solve this" part is not there. And if this riddle has been out there for 3 years with no solve…that is worrisome.
I do understand that it is a puzzle – I don't expect you to hold our hands and walk us to the solve. But it would be nice to have a little bit of reassurance that you're still out there and that we do in fact have all the information we need to complete the solve.
Could you review your puzzle, looking at it from an outside perspective, and verify for me that this puzzle can be solved with the information given? Please? Pretty please? It's not very nice to make a girl beg…
Axl (again) –
I'm at the point now that I am confused and disheartened. If I don't come up with some sort of an epiphany after working on it a little bit today when I get home from work, I think I'll have to put it on the shelf for a little bit. I really think we're missing information, like a puzzle missing a couple of pieces can never be the whole picture. And I don't like that feeling.
WOW! I have been gone for some time and I check back in just today and find that you all have made such a huge progress with this puzzle. CONGRATULATIONS to everyone that is still sticking with it.
Rachel, yes, I promise it is solvable and it is NOT just a joke. Since you have found the other forum(s) then you will find a lot of great hints on those forums.
For the first part you need to USE the stone with the decoded part of the numbers and roman numerals for example
Stone= Train Room King Hef Roman Numerals/Numbers=34+66-14136+8I10+6V+1811-2III-IX+17VI+615
3, 4+6=10, 6-1=5, 4, 13, 6+8=14, etc….
A K N I G H
As for the next part you all were right to use the Loads of Junk with the painting's dots and lines (it is NOT morse code) Try lining the two clues up together–
I really have been out of touch and not devilishly reading your pleas for help without doing anything. You all are doing awesome, and I will prob be away for a little more time as well:( Good Luck!!!
Don't Give Up!!!
Gamepro
Puh..thx gamepro
. I thought you were gone 
.
Ok, Rachael..now we have the first two parts. The next letters concerning the second part should be "F, K, N..", right? I'll try some things to detect them by counting to 5 or back 3 before goint to bed. Good luck!
-.- not wallo(fknowledge..) but wall "O"
man..slow off the mark
Ok..I've got another answer..still need to find the trap door though..Drado, we're near!
Your turn Rachael..I'll have to sleep a bit^^
-.- gamepro..I thought THAT would be the LAST puzzle.. obviously it is not. How many more do we have to solve?