Miscellaneous

- Introduction:

An ARG, or Alternate Reality Game, is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as its platform to tell a story, incorporating plot, settings, times, and characters. Often, it engages players through puzzles and riddles to unfold the story and events.

The Alternate Reality Game of Flepness Paradise revolves around Flepness Paradise itself, its owner, and the owner's relationship with himself, his friends, his loyalty to the server, and the community.

- The Story:

On the afternoon of June 22, 2022, Mohammad Bassam noticed the disappearance of all Flepness Paradise channels after receiving an encrypted message from Fleptor. Three minutes after receiving the message, he received another message from Belal, this time on Messenger, stating:

"@Mohammad Kamal Raba' @Mohamad Meshal Peace be upon you. This is Fueq. Do you remember me? I am the one who wrote that message to Mohammad Kamal, or M.K., and you, Mohammad Bassam, or M.B. I am the one who sent that compressed file on Belal's blog channel."

At that moment, two strange channels appeared on the server, one text-based and the other voice-based, with names written in the same style as Fleptor's initial message. After exchanging a few messages, Fueq informed them that he would clarify everything on the server. Upon switching to Discord, Fueq began explaining that Fleptor had been mentally hijacked by an unknown entity called [VOID]. Actually, it was [VOID] that sent the message to Mohammad, and Fueq was just a part of Belal's mind that managed to escape when the hijacking began at the end of 2021. The hijacking of Belal didn't happen overnight; it took months. Since Fueq is only a part of Belal's mind, he lacks almost all of Belal's mental abilities, making his capabilities limited. When Fueq escaped, he tried to secretly communicate with Belal's friends by sending a password-protected compressed file. From [VOID]'s perspective, it appeared that Belal was managing the server as usual, as they were still in the early stages of the hijacking process. However, Fueq's attempt failed as Belal's friends ignored his message. Now that the hijacking is complete, they must help Fueq restore Fleptor by solving his puzzles. Fueq chose the mystrey and puzzle route to ensure [VOID] wouldn't notice what was happening, so restoring Fleptor had to be done with utmost secrecy.

After providing them with the same password-protected file, Fleptor's friends embarked on a journey to solve a series of puzzles, requiring them to move from one Discord server to another and to other platforms like YouTube, Messenger, and Twitter. During their journey, they encountered two more parts of Belal's mind that managed to escape with Fueq's help before the hijacking was complete: The Middleman (450) and Red. After communicating with Fueq, he informed them that each part of Belal's mind holds limited traits of Belal and cannot do much on its own. Fueq is responsible for the Arabic language and puzzle thinking, The Middleman handles Belal's vagueness, deep thinking, and problem-solving, and Red is the side that has always deceived Belal, the side of procrastination and self-deception.

An agreement was made between the three parts to bring back Belal: Fueq would communicate with his friends due to his ability to use a human language, Arabic, The Middleman would work on finding a solution to thwart [VOID], and Red, who isn’t of much use, would participate in only one of the puzzles.

After solving more puzzles and translating a strange phrase left by Belal before the hijacking incident, the [VOID] organization began to suddenly communicate with the remaining members of the server. It became clear from their conversation that the message was all they needed to break the barrier of communication in English, thanks to The Middleman's efforts to block them. They made their intentions clear: all they wanted were the names of the mental parts that had escaped from Belal to gain 100% mental control over Belal Hamdan. It turned out that the organization was only interested in Belal and was willing to give the remaining members ownership of the server on the condition that they reveal the names of Belal's mental parts.

The Middleman suddenly joined their conversation, sending a message that cut off the organization's connection to Belal. He manipulated their offer to hand over the server, proposing that instead of giving them the names of the mental parts, they would engage in a Minecraft duel consisting of three rounds. If the organization won, they would gain control over Belal forever, but if Belal's friends won, [VOID] would relinquish their mental control over Belal and return him to them.

The organization released a strange version of Belal that could neither communicate in Arabic nor think normally to duel his friends, but from his perspective, it seemed like any other day where Belal just wanted to play with his friends, showing the extent of their control over him.

The duel took place between Belal and his friend Abu Meshaal (Mohammad), with Mohammad defeating Belal, forcing [VOID] to relinquish control over Belal. With guidance from The Middleman, who managed to speak to them in Arabic with Fueq's help, they finally succeeded in reclaiming Belal.

- Analysis:

Upon closer inspection of the plot, it is filled with flaws, the ending seems rushed, and the narrative itself moves in an unnatural way, as if I planned the beginning of the story and the puzzles but forgot how to tie everything together with a suitable ending.

It's not that I was ignorant of this at the time; on the contrary, I was aware of it. However, I neither had the time nor the mental effort required to invest in this game, as I needed to move on to other personal projects, such as the final update to Flepness Broadcast for that year, and perhaps writing the scripts for the remaining episodes of Flepness Broadcast. While I didn’t do that, I did work on creating Flepsite.

To clarify to everyone that I was aware of the weak plot and to explain where this entire game came from (since I hadn’t hinted at it to the members), I left them this file at one of the stops they made to solve the puzzles:

Fleptor had always loved the idea of creating Alternate Reality Games, so he started working on one, beginning with a few simple steps, and left it for everyone to discover. But no one cared, and that didn’t bother him because he never finished it in the first place. As usual, he starts things but never finishes them.

This behavior consumed him from all sides, and his life in recent times was nothing but sadness and contemplation without execution. In the end, his mind grew tired of it and wanted to put a real end to it. Since we are nearing the end of an entire chapter of life, it wouldn't allow Fleptor to end it in the worst way.

So, it took that game that Fleptor had started and turned it from a meaningless game into one with a purpose: helping Fleptor reach a state of self-satisfaction, finish previous projects, and approach the end of this chapter of life in the right way.

The events of the game involve the mental hijacking of Fleptor, forcing him to close Flepness Paradise, work on Flepness Paradise or something trivial, and finish the Broadcast.

During the hijacking, a part of his mind escaped, and that part is, of course, Fueq. With the help of Fueq's friends who also escaped with him (though this wasn’t mentioned to them), they are:

Fueq, the kind part who knows Arabic and how to hint at puzzles.
The Middleman, the mastermind behind it all, named as such because he is the mediator between various parties.
Red, an additional character who helps with puzzles but has an issue that won't be mentioned here.

Despite all this, Fleptor's hijacking still persists. Unfortunately, you won't see him, and if you do, it won't be the Belal you know. As for the entity that hijacked him, we call them "The Void." Who are we? The Save Fleptor Organization or:

Save Fleptor Organization
SFpO
SFO

FLEPNESS

PORTAL

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