Ruckingenur CE

Took me long enough.

I released the Ruckingenur Editor almost a year ago, but it wasn’t until I received two levels designed by Ariel for EKOPARTY that I had enough to publish a proper Community Edition. The other three levels are by Jonathan, AJ, and Fredrik. You can download the installer here:

Download Ruckingenur CE (13.6 MB)

47 Comments to Ruckingenur CE

  1. Sallen's Gravatar Sallen
    October 7, 2009 at 4:24 am | Permalink

    Sweet!

  2. Nathan's Gravatar Nathan
    October 7, 2009 at 2:22 pm | Permalink

    Awesome! … Ekoparty ones are hard. 🙂 haven’t got them yet, but i’m working on it.

  3. Blueation's Gravatar Blueation
    October 7, 2009 at 4:18 pm | Permalink

    I was browsing comments and suddenly saw this, I didn’t expected this would be coming. Installing it right now.

  4. Blueation's Gravatar Blueation
    October 7, 2009 at 4:34 pm | Permalink

    the second mission (pratech flashx) completes itself… when I open it and wait three seconds, he tells me I have completed the mission.

  5. Zach's Gravatar Zach
    October 7, 2009 at 5:26 pm | Permalink

    Blueation: You’re not the first person to report this – I’ll look into it tonight.

  6. Jeff's Gravatar Jeff
    October 7, 2009 at 7:01 pm | Permalink

    Hell. Yes.

  7. MMlosh's Gravatar MMlosh
    October 8, 2009 at 11:57 am | Permalink

    Does not work under Wine out of the box (lua51 not found + crash)

  8. MMlosh's Gravatar MMlosh
    October 8, 2009 at 12:24 pm | Permalink

    Without wine (mono with windows forms installed) is performs even worse (cannot find level files, but at least won’t crash.. only freezes)
    After moving to directory without capital letters or spaces it crashes like this:
    Stacktrace:
    at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Windows.Forms.X11Keyboard.XOpenIM (intpt
    r,intptr,intptr,intptr)
    at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Windows.Forms.X11Keyboard.XOpenIM (intpt
    r,intptr,intptr,intptr)
    at System.Windows.Forms.X11Keyboard.SetupXIM ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.X11Keyboard.EnsureLayoutInitialized ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.X11Keyboard..ctor (intptr,intptr)
    at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.SetDisplay (intptr)
    at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.GetInstance ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUI..cctor ()
    at (wrapper runtime-invoke) System.Object.runtime_invoke_void (object,intptr,i
    ntptr,intptr)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Theme.get_MenuAccessKeysUnderlined ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Theme.get_MenuAccessKeysUnderlined ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.SystemInformation.get_MenuAccessKeysUnderlined ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control..ctor ()
    at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.Windows.Forms.Control..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.WindowsFormsSynchronizationContext..cctor ()
    at (wrapper runtime-invoke) System.Object.runtime_invoke_void (object,intptr,i
    ntptr,intptr)
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Control..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl..ctor ()
    at System.Windows.Forms.Form..ctor ()
    at MessageBoxForm..ctor (System.Windows.Forms.IWin32Window,string,string,Syste
    m.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons,System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon,bool)
    at MessageBoxForm..ctor (System.Windows.Forms.IWin32Window,string,string,Syste
    m.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons,System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon)
    at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) MessageBoxForm..ctor (System.Windows.F
    orms.IWin32Window,string,string,System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons,System.Wi
    ndows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon)
    at System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show (string)
    at RuckingenurPlayer.Level.Open (string)
    at RuckingenurPlayer.RuckingenurPlayer.PlayLevel (string)
    at RuckingenurPlayer.RuckingenurPlayer.Events_MouseButtonDown (object,SdlDotNe
    t.Input.MouseButtonEventArgs)
    at SdlDotNet.Core.Events.OnMouseButtonDown (SdlDotNet.Input.MouseButtonEventAr
    gs)
    at SdlDotNet.Core.Events.ProcessEvent (Tao.Sdl.Sdl/SDL_Event)
    at SdlDotNet.Core.Events.Poll ()
    at SdlDotNet.Core.Events.ThreadTicker ()
    at SdlDotNet.Core.Events.Run ()
    at RuckingenurPlayer.RuckingenurPlayer.Run ()
    at RuckingenurPlayer.RuckingenurPlayer.Main (string[])
    at (wrapper runtime-invoke) RuckingenurPlayer.RuckingenurPlayer.runtime_invoke
    _void_string[] (object,intptr,intptr,intptr)
    Is there a reason, why Ruckingenur II works and Ruckingenur CE can’t?
    Thanks

  9. quadrapod's Gravatar quadrapod
    October 8, 2009 at 5:59 pm | Permalink

    the banks are broken for the wee dvd crack. the fourth bank moves data to a null array

  10. Blueation's Gravatar Blueation
    October 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm | Permalink

    only the level with the coffee/tea machine has music…

  11. quadrapod's Gravatar quadrapod
    October 9, 2009 at 10:44 pm | Permalink

    I’ve beaten all but the final level. the second to last was awesome once i figured out what was going on

  12. Zach's Gravatar Zach
    October 10, 2009 at 1:38 am | Permalink

    MMlosh: RCE uses lua, which is where your problems are occurring, while RII does not. I’ve heard of people having similar problems on Windows when they don’t have .NET 3.5 installed.
    quadrapod: I’ve uploaded a new installer which I think fixes that bug. Can you give it a try and see if it works?
    Blueation: AJ was the only designer who provided music for their level. While I normally make a big deal out of picking the right music for my games, I wasn’t aiming to create a specific mood or tell a story with Ruckingenur CE. Does the lack of music affect how you feel about the game?

  13. Blueation's Gravatar Blueation
    October 10, 2009 at 5:27 pm | Permalink

    Not really, I still like it. Only thing is that it is a little bit strange having music at only one level…

  14. aliendrone's Gravatar aliendrone
    October 10, 2009 at 10:09 pm | Permalink

    Wow, this was totally unexpected. Can’t wait to see what’s in it.

  15. quadrapod's Gravatar quadrapod
    October 10, 2009 at 11:25 pm | Permalink

    The music definitely changes the mood of the game especially since your games generally keep me entertained for hours and by the time I’m done i cant help but hum the tune for about a week. I have found that playing some god awful techno while play this game to be rather interesting though.
    also thanks for the fix, i haven’t gotten a chance to sit down and beat that last level yet but the bug is gone.

  16. John Doe's Gravatar John Doe
    October 11, 2009 at 3:32 pm | Permalink

    im not sure if its a bug or not but in the last mission the programmer sends out 8 byte keys while the chip only takes 10 byte keys. also applying five volts to the eject system doesn’t seem to actually eject the disk though it seems it should.
    again not sure if these are bugs or if I’m not seeing something obvious.

  17. Striker121's Gravatar Striker121
    October 13, 2009 at 4:00 pm | Permalink

    Awesome, hopefully know we might see some level repositories, I could never find levels for the old one. Hopefully this means you might make some new engineer’s games. *HINT HINT*

  18. Grilse's Gravatar Grilse
    October 14, 2009 at 11:27 am | Permalink

    I love these kinds of games!
    I’ve solved the top three missions, but now I’m stuck on the fourth one (ekoparty two). Can anyone give me a hint what the DAT-pin of the CRC calculator chip does? I’ve tried 5V and serial input and output, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. Yet, I’m pretty sure I need it to solve the mission.

  19. Scott Dial's Gravatar Scott Dial
    October 15, 2009 at 2:31 am | Permalink

    I know the final can be beat (did it just now), but if it’s any hint, the serial programmer still completely baffles me. :-p I am completely clueless about he Ekoparty ones.

  20. Miloss's Gravatar Miloss
    October 19, 2009 at 12:54 pm | Permalink

    I’ve played them on windows… I’m clueless on EkoParty levels, others are beatable and nice.
    I wonder, why mono can’t find liblua under wine…

  21. Grilse's Gravatar Grilse
    October 22, 2009 at 4:17 pm | Permalink

    I’m still stuck on ekoparty two. Here’s what I’ve figured out about it (spoiler):
    %{background: black; color: black}Put 5V on the VCC line to activate the chips. CRC32 chip: when the voltage on the CLK-pin (default: 1) goes from 5V to 0V, it uses its CRC32-register to compute a new 4-byte value, updates the register, and outputs the new value. The output also depends on whether there is voltage on the DAT-pin: it seems this pin toggles between two different CRC-calculating functions. I assume the goal is to get the CRC-chip to output a specific value, but I have no clue which. All my guesses so far have been fruitless. Manually giving serial input also seems to do nothing.%
    Does anyone have any ideas how to proceed?
    And a hint on ekoparty one, for those that want one (spoiler):
    %{background: black; color: black}Give the authenticator serial input while closely watching the lights.%

  22. payjack's Gravatar payjack
    October 23, 2009 at 8:47 am | Permalink

    woo! finaly a new Zach game! Now I know it was good idea to keep that bookmark! :3

  23. paayjack's Gravatar paayjack
    October 23, 2009 at 10:00 am | Permalink

    and again: no support fur numblock and a hardcoded keyboard layout. 🙁

  24. Joe S's Gravatar Joe S
    October 25, 2009 at 1:38 am | Permalink

    Ekoparty two: I don’t know if it’s the correct way, but if you set all the inputs to the same pin, and pulse the pin high->low, you get an endless stream of gibberish. There’s only one logical place to send that gibberish, and it has the expected result.

  25. Grilse's Gravatar Grilse
    October 25, 2009 at 7:13 pm | Permalink

    @Joe S:
    Nice one! Now that’s what I call brute-forcing.

  26. payjack's Gravatar payjack
    October 26, 2009 at 9:08 am | Permalink

    hmmm ekoparty two is realy a tough nut.
    especialy since i dont have any clue about the mathematical algorythm behind crc, no matter which bitwith.
    dont try to teach me, dont try to link me to wikipedia, i was a blank in math.

  27. payjack's Gravatar payjack
    October 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm | Permalink

    so, how do you get the password in the wee?
    I’m just curious, as I got the code with other… methods
    for the others, here a hint.
    SPOILER (dont know how to blank something) > [spoiler]it’s not hex[/spoiler]

  28. October 26, 2009 at 5:58 pm | Permalink

    Awesome, finally something refreshing from Zach, I’ve got to say that I’ve been waiting for your "next amazing thing".. and here we are.
    I really enjoy this line of games, and sure hope to see more, keep ’em coming!

  29. quadrapod's Gravatar quadrapod
    October 27, 2009 at 3:24 pm | Permalink

    i have beaten the second ekoparty puzzle but i have no idea how to black out my writing.

  30. quadrapod's Gravatar quadrapod
    October 27, 2009 at 3:25 pm | Permalink

    never mind maybe i should read all the comments next time.

  31. netdroid9's Gravatar netdroid9
    October 28, 2009 at 7:07 am | Permalink

    I managed to beat the Wee level by pulling DVD-IN to 5V (which for some reason freezes the media scan) and then pulsing the trigger pin on the SATA controller. Looking through the source files, it seems that you were *supposed* to brute force the password to the security system; as the eject pin is pulsed whenever you enter an incorrect letter. Whoops :P/

  32. tp12's Gravatar tp12
    October 31, 2009 at 3:07 pm | Permalink

    Great, got the other four. now I just gotta reverse engineer that vending machine…
    (Also, brute forcing ftw.)

  33. tp12's Gravatar tp12
    October 31, 2009 at 3:12 pm | Permalink

    I somehow managed to turn it into a fusion reactor (the temperature appears to be going up so far it only shows the first two numbers… by the speed its rising currently i’m guessing its at 3000 degrees and rising.)

  34. mindcat's Gravatar mindcat
    November 27, 2009 at 8:57 pm | Permalink

    omissat
    BCFFFFFFFF
    Error

  35. a1s's Gravatar a1s
    December 8, 2009 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

    quadrapod, so wait, the correct solution was to brute-force the CRC? that (while actually out of the box thinking) sounds disappointing…
    as for how to do spoilers:
    I consider this a puzzle in itself (albeit a simple one) you will need a very basic knowledge of HTML tags (if you had a 40 minute introduction I’ll bet you have it) and the rest can be found on this site %{background:black;color:black}you need to place you text between two percentage signs (shift-5 on QWERTY) after {background:black;color:black}%
    don’t forget to use the Preview Comment button in your experiments

  36. Fandalf's Gravatar Fandalf
    December 10, 2009 at 11:31 am | Permalink

    Help I keep getting an error when i select a mission with CE, it crashes and quits after this error message:
    Unhandled Exception: Could not load file assembly ‘lua51′ version 0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublickeyToken=1e1fb15b02227b8a’ (exception from hresult 0x800736B1)
    Plz Help!

  37. slavkkka's Gravatar slavkkka
    December 20, 2009 at 5:27 am | Permalink

    completed ekoparty2%activate chip with voltage on VCC,set all *idx to 6, take any meter, set voltage 5.0,change crc to smth random, move it to pin, leading to locked proc,set voltage 0, then wait while it’s bruteforcing%. sorry for my bad english.

  38. Miloss's Gravatar Miloss
    January 7, 2010 at 11:14 pm | Permalink

    @fandalf

    Your .NET failed to find lua library..
    Something similar happens to me when I try to run it on Linux.

  39. Fandalf's Gravatar Fandalf
    January 16, 2010 at 12:49 am | Permalink

    @miloss
    My windows XP was updated (SP3 and some windows network utility?) and now it runs!
    Its hard though…

  40. Skrylar's Gravatar Skrylar
    February 12, 2010 at 4:20 pm | Permalink

    I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. It seems like the “correct” solution to the last three of five puzzles is reliant on brute forcing the answer, where the first two puzzles and those of the original ruckingenurs felt like actual puzzles to be experimented with.

    *also noticed that on the wee level, grounding or pulsing contacts doesn’t seem to cause weird behavior; it just ignores the fact you shorted a serial line*

  41. CyberKing's Gravatar CyberKing
    April 3, 2010 at 1:56 am | Permalink

    hey Zach, it STILL doesn’t work on wine, I just get a prompt to install mono, but I can’t work out how to do that. any suggestions?

  42. mark's Gravatar mark
    April 10, 2010 at 11:17 am | Permalink

    ekoparty II is a bit weird but it’s also sort of understandable when you think about it.

    SPOILERS

    the DIP right under that header has 3 registers, CLKIDX, DATIDX, and OUTIDX. These correspond to the input-output pins, which can be set however you want, as is revealed by the datasheet. the top 3 pins on each side are generic IO and therefore can be used for anything. AFAIK, DATIDX only provides some sort of initialization; you can leave it set at 2, which means it’s accepting input from pin 2. Pulsing CLK makes the chip generate a new CRC32 and output it to whatever pin is set in OUTIDX. The idea here is to make the chip run through a bunch of the CRCs on its own so that it bruteforces the serial code. If you set both CLKIDX and OUTIDX to 6, the output of the chip causes it to generate and output a new CRC32. So, essentially, you need to apply 5.0 v to VCC, 5.0 to IO pin 2, set CLKIDX to 0x00000006, and pulse the serial output (pin 6) with your last meter. This will start the chip generating CRC32s, and will cause it to continue on its own.

  43. mark's Gravatar mark
    April 10, 2010 at 11:33 am | Permalink

    MORE SPOILERS SERIOUSLY DON’T READ THEM

    If you’re also stuck on the Fredtendo level, the trick is that the programmer is worthless, if you watch the serial the LJ09977 wants a 10-char password. You could put this in yourself with the serial input before you press program but there’s no way to know or guess it. Instead, you have to manually keep the LI0096X from ejecting the disk. If you put two meters on the two open pads next to the tray control IC LI0094, you can see that the voltages are 5 and 0 when the disk is accepted. If you use the bootleg disk it holds these for a second and then changes them to eject. Lock 5 and 0 on those pins and both disks should stay in but they won’t read….

    Next, you have to trick the TOSH087 into reading the disk. If you put the normal disk in under normal conditions and watch the voltage on TRIGG and the output on SERIAL you should see TRIGG pulse and then a bunch of text run through SERIAL. If you pulse TRIGG with no disk, you’ll see serial say “READ ERROR.” However, you’ve just figured out how to keep the bootleg disk in. Force the tray to stay shut, and then pulse TRIGG. Mission complete.

  44. hammy's Gravatar hammy
    June 15, 2010 at 3:36 am | Permalink

    Just a little thing with the Ommisat – The description says “3 seconds, 70 degrees, chocolate powder” when what the actual required outcome is coffee. Coffee =/= chocolate! Just a little annoyance, but I made a guess since there is no reference to a third option in the circuit.

  45. barryd's Gravatar barryd
    July 1, 2010 at 8:41 am | Permalink

    I just learned about Ruckingenur a day or two ago. Now I’ve played and found they are really good stuff. Although it’s a pity there weren’t more of the CE levels, they are really good levels.
    I was so inspired after playing through these I actually bothered to download and try the editor, but then I found it won’t work on 64-bit (at least I think that’s the problem).
    (By the way, KOHCTPYKTOP and the Codex were really awesome too!)

  46. WestonV's Gravatar WestonV
    September 24, 2010 at 5:20 am | Permalink

    I love these games. However after completing all the levels and looking at the script for the wee backup level, i have concluded that it is imposible to use the programmer to complete this level.