Survivor: Animal Crossing

Survivor: Animal Crossing [1] Year: 2024 ORG/LSG Format: Off-Site Forum Survivor Type: Anonymous Players: 21 Moderator(s): Haschel Cedricson, Save The Dragons, PhantomMuzzles LSG List Mod: xofelf Winner(s): em Runner-Up(s): VashtaNeurotic, stoive This game was classified as an Advanced game.

Summary

Survivor: Animal Crossing was an Anonymous Survivor game that ran between January and March 2024. The cast included former winners of MafiaScum LSGs, brand new players, and some players from other ORG communities such as ORGYuniverse and Clubs that Suck. The game featured two premerge swaps before the merge. In the end, the Final 3 all came from different starting tribes. New player em (as Bluebear) defeated fellow finalists VashtaNeurotic (as Velma) and stoive (as Rooney) in a 4-3-1 vote.

For a more in-depth and episodic recap, refer to Roald's "Previously on Survivor" segments: https://survivoranimalcross.freeforums.net/thread/198/previously-on-survivor.

Players

Someone has promised us an article on this soon!

Votes

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Main Twists

Money Rock Island Idol Hunt

I'm sure that by now you've seen the locked subforum at the bottom of the index that takes you to Money Rock Island. Rumor has it that it could contain not one, but THREE hidden immunity idols! That's one for each tribe!

To get to Money Rock Island you will need a password. We can tell you that the password is a six-digit number. Good luck guessing!

What, that wasn't enough of a hint? 999,999 possibilities is too many? Ugh, okay, fine. I'll give you some more hints.

Hidden in this forum are SIX words. If you go to survivoranimalcross.freeforums.net/page/HIDDENWORD you will find a puzzle, and that puzzle will give you one of the six digits. You'll still have to brute-force the order, but it will be much, much easier. Feel free to hunt for hidden words as a group or collaborate on puzzles. Or don't! It's all up to you.

Again, there are six of these. Replace "HIDDENWORD" in the above link with the actual hidden word that you find.

At Final Tribal Council, Velma (VashtaNeurotic) provided the full explanation for how to solve the idol hunt:

Gotcha. I covered this poorly in my opening speech so I'll do it in much more detail here.

There are only so many places idol clues are typically hidden, but I will say some of the words are particularly devious. I'll go in order of the words and corresponding puzzles. This will be easy cause I made a thread for it.

Word 1: So the first place I checked was all the Spec Avatars. Hiding clues in a fake specs status is pretty common. I was also tipped off heavily that one of the spec accounts hadn't logged in since...far before the game began. It was blathers and in Blather's status is the word "revival". The page for the puzzle was a logic puzzle to which the answer was:

1 is Imogene

2 is Stephen

3 is Brianna

4 is Jessica

5 is Crystal

6 is Marlowe

7 is Alberto

I tried seeing if this word filtered to anything but nothing came of it. But later on I talked to Vlad and the key was in the puzzle, take the letter in the position the name is in and you get.

ITISTWO

So one of the numbers is TWO. 

Word 2: Since one of the things mods love to do is hide stuff in the rules so people read them, I figured one word must be in there. First I looked for hidden links or words with invisible text. None of those worked. So instead I just compared the rules to the one in the sign up thread and it showed that the word "software" had been repeated.

It linked to a bridges puzzle. Solving it was simple but again getting the word was harder. Vlad again came through, saying it said "Degrees Tobacon" which I corrected to be "Degrees To Bacon" i.e SIX degrees to Kevin Bacon.

Word 3: Word 3 is in Isabelle's current avatar (notably NOT the one in the Meet the Mods thread, the one she has when she posts instead and on her profile). It's hard to read when you blow it up but it says "diamond".

This one I didn't need help from Vlad on. It's one of those "two patters added together make this third pattern" puzzle with a simple algorithm. When you put everything together the solutions spell out "ZERO".

Word 4: This one Baabara found two days before Swap but convinced me not to tell Vlad about. Vlad found it independently and was the only one he found without me telling him iirc. ANYWAY, in the "News" ticker if you either hit the front arrow a bunch OR hit it back a single time "Welcome To Survivor: Animal Crossing!" becomes "Wehcame To Sumvivor: Amimal Cressirg!". The new letters spell out "hammer".

Hammer was a puzzle that perplexed me. It contained 7 phrases like "Halt and bend over!", "a gamut of color", "Entymologist's interest? Look at it". Vlad came through on the methodology but by this point all 3 of us were solving the puzzle. The key is that each phrase maps to two words with a one letter difference.

"Halt and bend over!" is STOP and STOOP, where there is an extra O
"a gamut of color" is RANGE to ORANGE, another extra O
"Entymologist's interest? Look at it." is INSECT to INSPECT, a T.

All together these type of puzzles spelled OCTOPUS. Which maps to EIGHT as the number.

Word 5: This was the last one that we found (the 6th is farmer which is in morse code on Tom Nook's avatar in the Meet the Mods post but Mitzi told me that). Basically if you stare at the image in your voting booth long enough you learn it is NOT an image, but rather a gif. And a word flashes across it for a second. After getting the right frame of the gif and subtracting it from the normal frame in a photo editor, you get the word "platform". This was a lightbulb moment that was pure elation (the seeing the gif, not the tedious extracting of platform).

The puzzle is an American Flag with a bunch of words. When you cut out the segments of states from it you get XFEETUNDER. So another SIX.

Note: Baabara and Vlad solved the puzzle while I had to travel home.

So the 3 of us were left with a combo of X02668 where we didn't know X. We tried a bit of searching for the last one but then we calculated (read: Vlad asked wolfram alpha) how many permutations there were, 2820 combos total. When divided by 3 people that is 940 each. It would take some time to input but it'd be enough to get done before deadline. After some dividing up (which vlad did a lot to make it easy to copy paste the entire list) we got to work and...Vlad got it after like 15 minutes, combo was 658602. He told us, I went into money rock and posted the image to confirm there wasn't a secret second idol and we passed around the idol.

I was pleased, a bit disappointed I didn't get it but that one was always going to be a group idol we all knew about and would use. Then the first swap happened and I read the post and 7 minutes into the phase I posted the image on money rock island and was elated to find out that at least one of the other tribes never solved it (turned out it was both and Baabara got her own idol too) and got the idol

Golden Tools

Periodically throughout the game, Golden Tools were introduced & announced publicly by Tom Nook with an explanation of the cost to obtain it and its power.

• The FIRST person to successfully pay the Golden Tool cost would get it.
• Tools could not be transferred to another player.
• Golden Tools would be publicly destroyed when their holder was eliminated.
• There was a limit of one player per tool.
  • If a player has a tool and wins another, they could swap, allowing another player the opportunity to win the discarded tool.
• Claims/swaps of tools would be publicly announced, but the identity of the holder would remain secret.

Golden Watering Can

• Cost: At the start of the first immunity challenge, a link to a jigsaw puzzle will be posted. The quickest person to solve the puzzle and post a finished screenshot in their confessional will receive this tool. This puzzle MUST be completed before your tribe completes the immunity challenge to be valid.
• Power: As a passive effect the holder of the Golden Watering Can cannot be eliminated from the game unless they have a plurality of organic votes cast against them. Secondly, the Golden Watering Can may be used as a Duel Idol. Upon being used this way it instantly loses its passive effect. If, after playing this idol, the person who has the idol played on them has the most votes cast against them, then instead of being eliminated outright they will go into a fire-making challenge against the player with the next most votes.

Golden Net

• Cost: At TWO Tribal Councils you must choose to give up your vote. Nobody will be told who didn't vote, but when votes are being read players will be told that there is a different vote count than normal.
• Power: This net helps you catch Shard Fireflies. Each Shard Firefly cancels 1 vote against the person it's played on. The player with the Golden Net will gain one Shard Firefly upon winning the tool, and one additional Shard Firefly at each Tribal Council they attend. While the Golden Net may not be transferred, the Shard Fireflies MAY be transferred.

Golden Fishing Rod

• Cost: Randomize your vote at TWO tribal councils. A wheel will be spun that contains every player at the TC except for you, and you will vote for that person. You will be told who the wheel lands on for you. It will not be revealed your vote was randomized, or indeed that any votes were randomized.
• Power: The Golden Fishing Rod can be used to send players on a fishing trip. While on that trip, they will not be allowed to vote, be voted for, or talk to players for the last 12 hours of Tribal Council.

Golden Shovel

• Cost: The Golden Shovel will let you hand out a lot of disadvantages, so it's only fair that to get it you will have to take some yourself. Below are three disadvantages you may take for yourself up to four times. You get one point per disadvantage you take, up to a maximum of 12. Whoever has the most points will claim the Golden Shovel. If you do not win you will still be required to take any disadvantages you agree to. Nobody will know who took what disadvantage. (1) Give up the ability to have an idol played on you for the next rounds of the game (maximum 4 rounds) (2) Starting at the merge round, you must cast your vote prior to the conclusion of the immunity challenge, or else will sacrifice your ability to vote. (maximum 4 rounds). (3) Starting at the merge, you must give up your chance to win individual immunity (maximum 4 rounds).
• Power: The Golden Shovel gives its owner the power to play disadvantages on other players. At the start of each round the owner may spin a Disadvantage Wheel. Once spun, the owner will be told what disadvantage has been selected and they will then choose a player to play that disadvantage on. If a player fails to complete a disadvantage there will be a punishment (usually a self-vote).

Golden Slingshot

• Cost: To claim the Golden Slingshot you must add penalty votes against yourself into the urn. When you go up to vote you will still get your original vote but you may also add extra votes against yourself. The first person to successfully cast 3 votes against themselves, and survive, will receive the Golden Slingshot after the conclusion of Tribal Council.
• Power: The Golden Slingshot gives its owner the power to cast an additional vote for each Tribal Council they attend. The vote, however, must be cast before the conclusion of the immunity challenge.

Golden Wand

• Cost: A challenge will be posted. Participation is optional, and secret. The challenge will be one of the "More Logic Puzzle" types linked on THIS PAGE. Whoever wins the challenge will receive the Golden Wand at the conclusion of the first Merge Tribal Council. However, this is not without risk. If you attempt the challenge and do not win the Golden Wand, then you will become ineligible to have the Golden Immunity Necklace handed to you after the votes are cast. You may still win immunity the regular way, and you may be handed the necklace during the first 12 hours of TC like normal. This will last for the rest of the game.
• Power: The Golden Wand has the ability to mimic each of the previous tools once. The player that claims the Golden Wand may choose one other treasure's ability at the start of each round (so, immediately after Tribal Council). Each ability may only be used one time.

Golden Immunity Necklace

This game isn't going to feature the standard immunity necklace that you are all used to. Instead, this game will have the Golden Immunity Necklace!

What's golden about it? Well, a normal immunity necklace you can give away to other people, and then people have to react to that. With a Golden Immunity Necklace, you can give it away at the same time you cast your vote!

If you think people are unanimously voting out your best buddy? Just give them the necklace and it will be like a surprise immunity idol for them! Think the vote is on you instead? Just don't do anything; you're immune! Winning merge challenges will definitely give you more power than a merge win has ever granted before.

Obviously there is a risk to this; if you give the necklace away then you might get voted out instead. Players are allowed to vote for the player who won immunity in hopes that they give the necklace away.

If this is confusing, honestly the best way to think about it is to pretend that there is NO individual immunity at all, but there will be a person that you 100% know is playing an idol that round. If they don't specify anything to the mods then it will be autoplayed on themselves, but they can play it on other people if they want.