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It's been a great while.

I am proud to announce that, despite all odds, I've finally gathered the willpower and mindset to finish what has been started long ago.

This, my friends, is how technology should be employed: to serve mankind (or should I be saying personkind in this day and age?). Not restricted by moronic pedantry, nor being thrown away by third parties completely naïve about the wonders, hardships and intricacies of software engineering.

Then again, I guess I'm not the first messiah in human history to be crucified. Except that Riddler isn't coming back on the third day, but on the third year.

Have you guys looked around? Alternate Visions is dead (edit: was dead for who knows how long), Clever Waste of Time is dead, Do Not Believe Her Lies is dead, 99chambers is dead. Genius stayed dead for over six months. I guess some people were more concerned about their "enigma events" and preaching shallow moralism to actually care about the OG riddles scene and their preservation.

Coming to think of it, an https://archive.riddler.app of some sort wouldn't be a bad idea. And wow, how shocking — the "public enemy #1" of the (Discord) "riddle community" once again caring more about their own product around than the heroes of said community. Definitely and totally 100% unseen behavior.

However, nothing of that matters for now.

If some of you, perhaps, were expecting me to ✨ politely craft my arguments ✨ just to enable illogical, deaf, mob-fueled, echo-chambered, circlejerking bad faith actors to play dirty, like last time... it's not happening. As you're seeing right now, spite-driven behavior is a concept that fits both sides of the play.

I feel like I should in fact be apologizing for something, though. What was it again...? Ah, yes. I apologize for all the honest players who had to go back and bookmark every single page they could remember, way back when this project went down. As you can imagine, my own excruciating personal mental hell at the time didn't allow me to code such a simple export feature. Thankfully, we got this covered now (more formats to come soon). You should never have to worry about such drawbacks again.

As for a certain major leak that happened a while ago: I just wanna say I'm grateful for the opportunity. That managed to get a lot of resentment and painful memories out of my chest. Sometimes, there's really no other valid choice besides taking the easy path and being selfish and pragmatic. Survivalism. That's all that matters. And now, the cycle finally ends.

But let's not stop there. That would be too easy. No more half measures. Let's make it bigger and better. Let's go forward and deeper.

Let's make a world where every single riddle, level, page, file, folder, username, password and URL are all safely and thoroughly catalogued. Entirely done through an efficient, independent, collaborator-centered and state-of-the-art system.

Call it the Riddler manifesto, or anything you like.

We used to have a dozen or so riddles back then, so how about, I dunno... 40 by the end of the year? With that many flavors, each one in the roster will start becoming less and less relevant by themselves; and unless some individuals are planning to boycott this thing to the whole freaking web, it will be a little bit harder shaming people out of using it.

This list, by the way, could possibly serve as a nice reference guide (I would even ask whether you folks have an API, but that would probably be like asking cavemen to build a rocket, so... never mind).

And if you want to contribute? Simple. Just keep visiting pages (I'm sure the smart ones will soon figure out what I mean by this).

Keep in mind that a lot had to be changed for the grand rebirth, and anomalies may occur. Thousands of lines of code had to be added or modified for version 0.5. A few riddles still have outdated or missing stuff, and a few old accounts couldn't be linked properly, but everything should fall into place in due time. Plus, we now have some interesting admin tools to help with that. If you find something weird happening though, please fill an issue on GitHub.

I'd love to talk more but, as you can probably guess, I won't be around. And I have zero idea about which of the old acquaintances are still around after all this time. Sadly, my friend requests are a bit crowded (geez, I wonder where all that people came from), but I shall recognize the friendly ones' faces and gratefully talk with those again. You know where to reach me.

As for the players who always graced this project with their enjoyment and support... you all, just as before, have my uttermost gratitude. Especially you, Mishu.

As for the newcomers stumbling upon this, welcome. Please mind the gap and ignore the rest.

As for whatever has been done for the last two years or so... I really dunno what your guys have been up to; all the shaming and exposure that ensued, or whatever. And I'll keep being oblivious to it. See? Ignorance is, truthfully and unironically, indeed a bliss. It goes both ways. And it's way easier to affect a depressed person with self-esteem issues than someone in their current IDGAF mindset.

Riddler is — and possibly will ever be — one of the biggest wastes of time in my life. But an even bigger waste would be keeping such a perfectly fine and functional piece of technology dead and buried forever. A playground for opportunities, a nice look in a portfolio. Love it or hate it, it won't be going anywhere anymore. The way out is through. I'm out of the mess, and I finally have better things to do nowadays.

I have no more regrets.

P.S: If you're looking for some "specific content", it's mostly still around. Enjoy.

P.P.S: I'm sure people will love a certain new feature. I can attest the same.

P.P.P.S: Notpron is now officially live, at last. Go score some free points there or something.