This ARG Hub has been archived and locked to preserve historical integrity. Go back to the Main Dashboard
AaAaAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
From Portal 2 ARG Wiki - Valve ARG Network
Contents
|
Step by Step Guide to Getting Potatoes
First Potato
- Firstly, download this save game (alternate download link) and place it in place in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\AaaaaRecklessDisregard (C:\Documents and Settings\(USER NAME HERE)\Local Settings\Application Data\AaaaaRecklessDisregard on Windows XP).
- The game is filled with these "potato bins". If you kiss (get close to) them you will add 5% to a meter at the bottom of the screen. You can only get progress from potato bins in a level once, if you mess up and want to try again you will have to restart the game.
- The level selection screen isn't easy to navigate, so you might want to look at this "map" of the menu to see where the levels are.
- Your best shot is to start on "Skyquake! 4096 are Reported Dead or Missing". Near the landing pad, you should find a large "tube" of potato bins off to one side - if you stay out of the main column of buildings and circle it, you'll definitely see them. Just before you reach them, slow things down by hitting shift (if this doesn't work, you need to unlock caffeine first). With a bit of practice you should be able to get at least 75% here.
- As soon as you have kissed the last potato bin, quit to the level selection menu. The counter will be ticking down, so you want to go as quickly as possible to "Welcome to the Descent of Fans". It's 5 left and 3 up!
- On Descent of Fans, before you jump turn around 180 degrees. Jump off that side of the building and immediately head towards the potato poster. By its base you should find a cluster of potato bins. Once you kiss them, turn left, and head over to the next group, and then 180 back and follow the clusters down.
- It's very difficult to see them, so you might want to practice this level on its own before doing a complete run! Once you do get the counter to 100%, you should get the Aperture Science login screen. Enter the password "long fall" and the first potato is yours!
Second Potato
- There is a 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button on the main menu screen, and clicking on it takes you to a text entry screen. Enter "Killing you and giving you good advice aren't mutually exclusive." exactly (minus the quotes) and press enter, and you will find yourself in a secret level.
- This level is very claustrophobic and requires a lot of tight manoeuvring, and you need to get a high score to earn a potato. To make things worse, GLaDOS is here to ruin your day.
- Start out by heading to the right and stay centered as you go through the narrow gap to earn "threading the needle" for some quick points. From here on you just follow the scoring plates and avoid smacking into buildings and "speed up" plates, and always head for the higher scoring plates given a choice. You might want to watch some Perfect Score Videos [1] [2] [3]
- There's a strange new score plate near the end which has "0x7FFF" on it. It gives you 32 767 points, but also a message from GLaDOS that your parachute has failed. Continue as normal, once you're over the landing pad you'll see a bunch of "slow children" plates. If you can hit every one of these you'll slow down enough to land safely, so now is a good time to slam an espresso to slow down your perception of time (press Shift)
- Congratulations! If you hit most of the score plates and your legs aren't broken, you should have a new potato for your collection!
About
AaAaAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity was developed by Dejobaan Games and was released on Steam September 3, 2009.
Main-Page Login Screen
Symbol Key
Clues
- Holding control (left or right) while pressing keys results in the above, in key form for your convenience.
- Shown in a LLLLongJumper YouTube video about accessing a bank account, viewable here. [4]
- The symbol language is reportedly similar to Unix, control-j being a line break as well as control-h being used to delete previous characters (unverified).
- Entering "Killing you and giving you good advice aren't mutually exclusive." (without quotes) into the terminal loads up a previously unseen level of AaAaA - Perfect Score Videos [5] [6]
- 5-Starring this level unlocks another login screen (which does not require a password) and a potato. If you're having trouble with points, theres an opportunity to Thread the Needle (+5500) on the right at the start.
- There's also a blue plate that says 0x733F on the right after the green acceleration plates. Getting this gives you 32767 points (which is the hex number on the plate) and a message from GLaDOS saying "Parachute disabled." (she IS telling the truth, after hitting this button the only way to land is by using the Slow Children plates). Successfully landing by using the Slow Children plates results in GLaDOS saying something along the lines of "I guess the parachute did open."
April 12th Update
Patch Notes
- We couldn't stop her.
- Please help us. Please help us. Please help us. Please help us. Please help us. Please help us.
- You would hate me if I insulted your skill by making it too easy. I certainly would Hate you.
Changes
The main menu now plays 'Searching. Emergence. Discovery.' found on Razer's website, and the normal falling scene is filled with weighted storage cubes with green potatoes on them. There is also a spinning Aperture Science 1500 Megawatt Super-colliding Super Button in the corner, which makes an area where you can type in pop up. It is currently unknown what typing anything in there actually does, or if any specific phrases can make something occur.
GLaDOS audio clips
When you start up the game, GLaDOS now (usually) makes one of several different quotes, such as:
- "If you'd rather not jump off a building, I don't mind. In an unrelated note, did you know that cowards can't tell if someone is lying?"
- "I don't want you to think that jumping off of buildings is your only option. I'm sure there are plenty of jobs inside the buildings. Maybe you can ball up a resume and throw it through an open window as you sail past."
- "Do you know what still exists in the future? Gravity. In fact, there's more of it now, so it hurts twice as much when you land."
- "You know what hasn't gotten better? Parachutes. They still malfunction almost all the time. Something to think about when you're in free fall."
- "Normally, jumping off a building is incredibly stupid. But don't worry, this is the future, so you get points for it. Now who's incredibly stupid?"
These alternative voiceovers seem to occur when you first launch the game only.
There are also GLaDOS quotes you get when you 4- or 5-star a level (possibly only the blue/orange levels listed in the below list), such as:
- GLaDOS: "Cheater." Nebin: "Lady, if you want to be on this station, you have to call me on the phone first." 4/5 stars.
- "I have monkeys in a building and one of them is balanced." 5 stars.
- "You throw a million monkeys off a building and one of them is bound to land safely." 4 stars.
- "Oh, your parachute opened. That's...uh...expected. Here's a new one" 4 stars.
- "Splatterhouse sports is offering a new gas mask. Gas mask is not guaranteed to stop solids, liquids, or gaseous ...aargh!" GLaDOS: "More at midnight" (likely not exact quote) 4 stars.
It seems that whether you get 4 or 5 stars doesn't matter -- they both can give the same quotes. Can someone confirm?
Potato Cubes
These look like companion cubes, but with potatos on the faces. Levels they've been spotted in:
- Training Tower Makes You Strong [7]
- Mincing You into a Lovely Red Paste [8]
- I can See for Kilometers and Kilometers [9]
- If You Reach the Bottom, There will be a Small Party [10]
- BASE Jumping is an EXTREME Sport!!! [11]
Level backgrounds
It is believed that ALL levels now have a blue and orange background, identical to the one on the button screen.
Added/Changed 25 maps
- 01 - Trainer Tower Makes You Strong
- 02 - The Zeroth Level Dan and Ichiro Ever Made
- 04 - Flying Cars are Here, Mister Burton
- 05 - Skyquake! 4,096 are Reported Dead or Missing
- 08 - Lies, Damned Lies, and Helices
- 09 - Chopping You Up for Love
- 11 - I Can See for Kilometers and Kilometers
- 16 - Mincing You Into a Lovely Red Paste
- 20 - Bouncedown is a Cheap Trick
- 24 - Find Everything Your Own Damned Self
- 27 - Skull Top Caves In to Reveal Brains
- 36 - Welcome to the Descent of Fans
- 42 - I'll Tell You Where to Shove Your Two Year Phone Contract
- 46 - If You Can Read This, You Are Awesome!
- 48 - Bite the Tasty Crimson Slidewinder
- 49 - This is How You Land Without Dying (Tutorial)
- 53 - We're Not Bad People But We Hate Good People
- 61 - If You Reach the Bottom, There Will Be a Small Party
- 63 - Scoring Plates and Taking Names (Wind) (Scoring)
- 67 - This is What Worcester, Massachusetts Looks Like. Avoid It
- 69 - Agriculture is a Field of Broken Green Glass
- 74 - I Accidentally the Whole City of Boston (Spectators)
- 76 - Something Purple, Something Saucy, Something Soupy
- 78 - BASE Jumping is an EXTREME Sport!!!
- P31 - A Flirtation With Regard for Gravity
Levels with 'Searching. Emergence. Discovery.' background music
The following levels have the background music Searching. Emergence. Discovery. as of April 12th. Not sure if this is in any other levels or the importance of these levels. Hints to the main menu button's password?
- Antenna to the Groinal Area
- This is what Worcester, Massachusetts looks like. Avoid it.
April 7th update
Steam updated the game and said this. Fixed potato bugs, and am now beset by spindly, hairy things that shift and turn and crawl through the night. I know that speed is of the essence here, but I sometimes can't suss out what's hidden in plain view. What's going wrong? Why is the system degrading? Because it is. This is an incredibly brief account of what has been happening, and there are all sorts of intricacies that I've missed out.
They also showed off this pic, can anyone try to fall in this specific spot ? (See Dejobaan News Updates)
[This] mysterious chat log was found inside the models folder of the game.
Location of the mysterious chat log Proof 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The chat loops.
There was also an audio clip added when 4 or 5 starring any level (one time only): http://soundcloud.com/eilavamp1/audiofromaaaaa
-- Hear are some of the audio clips that starts (randomly?) at the end of a level 1 2 3. Each clip ends with the announcer stating that there will be "more news at midnight". He also mentioned a potato shower in Southern Boston (If I recall). (NOTE: PAX East is in BostonRather, Dejobaan Games is in Boston)
-- Clip # 3
-- Clip # 4
-- Clip # 5
- This is normal. There's like 30 or so news clips.
New images and text in game / levels:
Note: for those that have the game but not all the levels, you can download this save (alternate download link), place in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\AaaaaRecklessDisregard
The game now has potato chips/French fries in the menu and on top of buildings Another image
- Some of the potatoes rotate?
- Added new text file: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5181650/upsell.txt
Buy monkeys! Buy monkeys! Buy monkeys! Buy monkeys! Buy monkeys! Buy monkeys! No, wait. Don't!
- Erich's screenshots - Some images in these screens are not new. Example - http://steamcommunity.com/id/erich336/screenshot/576667478852728276 was in fact always there.
Audio from above YouTube Video
- Landing on the potato spawner is possible if the parachute is opened immediately after jumping off the platform. After landing, a noise sound is played with possibly distorted voices in it. Video recording of a successful jump and the resulting noisy sound
-- The graphical glitches in the video (e.g. :45, 1:07) do not appear in-game.
(Hi I'm GeniusGT the guy who uploaded the video above and the video glitches were not from the game it was from fraps, I thought I made it clear in the video description but apparently. Sorry if the glitches sent people on a wild goose chase.)
Note: MOOMANiBE from irc checked a pre-update ver. of the game and says the audio exists there aswell
- There are more potato droppers in the other levels, maybe we have to find and land on all of them?
Beta Stuff
Running Steam with -beta argtest0406 updates AAAA, and in the updated version, I'm not seeing any potatoes. Before update: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578919280568321216/FAFBAA0F4276C8F80FF06648DA31FCA0F061AA15/ After Update: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578919280581091623/E2FDACDD63B3A3F551220BEDD3D9D1DD94FB77CA/
Potato facts from kissing potatoes from a potato spawner
- Kissing potatoes that drop from a potato spawner give you various Potato facts
Fact: There are more potatoes than people in Idaho. Fact: Bolos can be made with llama gut and potato. Fact: Only silver bullets can kill a Werepotato. Fact: Potatoes originally came from Antarctica. Fact: SteveSaysOcelot SteveSaysJellyfish ProcyProxyManatee ProcyProxyMantis. Fact: Raw potato stamps are delicious AND non-toxic. Mostly. Fact: Potatoes can reach 8 metric tons in zero G. Fact: Architects begin by playing with mashed potatoes. Fact: Some potatoes can talk, but choose not to. Fact: A potato buried underneath the full moon cures warts. Fact: Boise is known as the big potato. Fact: It's easy (and fun!) to mistake old potatoes for coprolites. Fact: One in 100,000 potatoes has a soul. Fact: Only 25% of potatoes contain actual toes. Fact: You are never more than 3 feet from a potato. Fact: Any two potatoes can define a line segment.
- SteveSaysOcelot SteveSaysJellyfish ProcyProxyManatee ProcyProxyMantis is the obvious "not like the others" fact of the list. Steve and Procy both seem to be names. There are 4 animal names at the end.
- These phrases link to tinyurls. (ex. www.TinyURL.com/stevesaysocelot) See TinyURLs
Code
We have been told this is the code that selects these lines. See the get_tuber section below for additional info.
get_tuber
Coder talk ahead:
In ackdll_aaaaa.dll, there's an export called get_tuber. AaAaAA!!! uses it like this:
get_tuber(buf);
popup_message("FACT: SteveSaysOcelot SteveSaysJellyfish", buf);
I can't get it to work at the moment and I'm dead tired, so if anyone can play around with it and see WHY this fact in particular uses a DLL export for computing what to display.
Disassembling get_tuber results in code that checks a precondition and then fills buf with two strings: first with "You found it! We will do better next time.", then it is overwritten unconditionally with "ProcyProxyManatee ProcyProxyMantis". The fact that a clear message is overwritten with a cryptic string is puzzling. Even though the second string is shorter, a terminating \0 character is copied as well.
Constants.ini
This phrase appears in constants.ini
"Of course, this isn't even used anymore. Sheesh. Hey! Go play Kick It or something. Drink more Ovaltine."
- Altering these no longer affects the game.
Catalog.dat
This appears in catalog.dat
ad_phase1_potato.jpg|840|ad_phase1_potato.jpg ad_phase1_41boxes.jpg|841|ad_phase1_41boxes.jpg ad_phase1_wonderful.jpg|842|ad_phase1_wonderful.jpg ad_phase1_kickit.jpg|843|ad_phase1_kickit.jpg ad_phase1_tokitori.jpg|844|ad_phase1_tokitori.jpg ad_phase1_killing_floor.jpg|845|ad_phase1_killing_floor.jpg ad_phase1_defense_grid.jpg|846|ad_phase1_defense_grid.jpg ad_phase1_cogs.jpg|847|ad_phase1_cogs.jpg
Here is a pdf of catalog.dat: File:Catalogdat.pdf
Modified Files
List of changed files/folders found since the update.
- \Data\audio_metadata.dat
- \Data\audio_resource.dat
- \Data\constants.ini
- \Data\upsell.txt
- \ackdll_aaaaa.dll
- \acknex.dll
- \acksteam.dll
- \main.wrs
- \steam_appid.txt
- \Maps - All maps have been changed.
- \Designer (Serves no purpose, just an empty folder as far as I can tell.)
Getting to the Login Screen
You have to kiss enough Potato Launchers to reach 100%. Each launcher increases the % by 5. The % counts down after a couple seconds, and the count down persists in the menu. When you've kissed all the launchers on a level, exit immediately to the level select screen and choose the next level. After you have kissed a bin in a level for percentage points, you can't receive any more percentage points from any of the bins in the level - even those you haven't kissed before - once you finish a level (crash, stop level, restart), until you restart the game.
Note: You do not have to crash to exit the level. You can hit "Esc" and quit right after you kiss the bins, and then switch levels. This saves you some time.
How I did it: I started at "Flying Cars are Here": and got 50% under the landing pad. Then I (quickly) went to "Welcome to the Descent of Fans" and got 90%. I missed a few, so you can definitely get 100% with just those 2 levels. If you don't, go to "Something Purple" to pick up the last few.--Treymoney 14:19, 8 April 2011 (CDT)
Here are the locations:
- Flying Cars are Here, Mr. Burton, has at least 9 when you pass the first landing pad. Spin around the center, kissing each bin, then grab one of the outer bins and hurry back to the center for the last. That's 50% right there!
- Welcome to the Descent of Fans has a bunch as well, right at the beginning. Start at Flying Cars, then come here to get the rest. From the start platform turn 180 degrees and fly out straight. There are several groups of launchers that require you to zig-zag back and forth to kiss.
- Something Purple Something Saucy Something Juicy has a bunch if for some reason you don't hit 100 with the others.
- If you're having trouble with this, modify the constants.ini file and change air_maneuver from 0.03 to 0.13. You'll be a whole lot more maneuverable and should easily be able to acquire 100% from Flying Cars and Descent of Fans.
Here's a heavily modified constants.ini file: http://www53.zippyshare.com/v/1500252/file.html (Remember to back up your old ini file!)This no longer works!If that's not enough, here's a heavily modified level file: http://www.mediafire.com/?lr7ln9khgerhm71 (Remember to back up the original level 4)This also no longer works!- Tips: This is almost Zero G floaty, yet with a large amount of maneuverability, and a very fast speedup. letting go of the movement keys will almost instantly stop you. use this to speed to the bins, and then use very light taps of the movement buttons while facing slightly downwards to kiss the bins as quickly as possible.
Tentacle Beasties
In the April 7th update, a series of tentacle beasties were added to the game, marked by a questionmark near that regions, first spotted by IRC user Kaese. When kissing most (if not all), you get the message "It's not ME you should be kissing. Try someone else." We're currently scouring the game and trying to find where all of them are.
| Level | Number | Location | Image/Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome to Boston - Here's Your Parachute | 2 | Above the starting point. | video |
| The Landing Pad is a Blatant Lie | 1 | Modifying the constants.ini file on jump_speed 50.0 | video |
| Da Na Na Na Nah Nah Nah Nah Da Na Downtown | 2 | Together, straight from start | video |
| Chopping You Up For Love | 1 | Right next to the landing pad at the end | image |
| Scoring Plates and Taking Names | 2 | image | |
| Ichiro (secret level located in AAAA's maps folder during phase 2, seemingly removed in phase 3) | 1 | Near the Beginning, beside some potato bins. | image |
The level Ichiro is an unused level located in \steamapps\common\aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!\Maps, with the name "00-Ichiro.cad". To access it, you must rename it to "02 - The Zeroth Level Dan and Ichiro Ever Made.cad" (make sure to back up the file this one will be replacing). Then, in the game, go to the cube for the level The Zeroeth Level Dan and Ichiro Ever Made, and start the level. It will load into a level with a black skycube, with only a few scoring plates, a couple building, a few potato bins, a tentacle mass, and a landing pad at the bottom of the level. To restore the original level, just restore the original file.
I think it's worth noting that in Welcome to Boston, two of the adverts are for Potato Sack games; Defense Grid and Cogs. Should we look for an ad for The Ball?
Possible Glyphs
Found on Hoary Hosts Sounds Like a Dirty Dowager (turn around immediately after jumping) [12] [13]
Lead From Other Sources
- This video, also found through the URL http://tinyurl.com/stevesaysocelot, which was tracked down through Sandymayormaynotbefictional, and is also a reference to the SteveSays phrases.
