Multisubstitution

And, when we decrypt the cipher, we have yet another shortcut - ZBS-Lotus-233. Which may be the penultimate deep shortcut in the game.

Roger points out that his cipher is a single substitution cipher, whereas the Beale part 2 cipher is a multiple substitution cipher. For the Beale cipher, the encryptor uses a source - in this case, the Declaration of Independence - and takes the first letter of each word, and associates that letter with a number.

Roger sets up a 'final' cipher for us to solve - he flat-out tells us that the Explorer's Guide included with the game has a cipher encoder section, and that he uses letters and spaces in his encoding. That is why I keep good track of my game media. And I wonder about the recent ZBS auctions - did the winning contestants get everything they needed for their adventure experience?

I haven't tried looking at the Guide or the floppies under a blacklight - yet. 

Roger gives us a further clue by embedding the wheel of apposition sun graphic smack in the middle of the cipher section.

Since we know what the goal of this cipher is - access to the Beale part 1 cipher - I will elide the rest of the details here. I have gone over Roger's version of the cipher by comparing it with a version published on the web, and I did find several mis-entries - which indicates to me that Roger constructed the game all on his own, with no help or review (wow!). Which you can also sort of tell by characteristic spelling errors - theives instead of thieves, lightening, etc. 

But there are no extra coded lines in the cipher included in the game, so Roger did not piggyback any information into his presentation.

There is one disconcerting passage in Roger's presentation here:

"One of the pitfalls of a multisubstitution, potential multikey cipher is that it is often possible to obtain an intelligent message using the wrong key. Sometimes this is no accident. This could easily happen trying to find the key within the Explorer's Guide, or trying to find Beale's key."

We may have to return here. Wonder if the wheel of apposition graphic is another hint ...