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Haha, @plushzilla, you've caught me.

The method of hiding the seed word for next stage in the AES-encrypted message so as to force players to solves the puzzles sequentially from stage 1 to 5 is partially inspired by the blockchain as well!

And the winners are verified by entry into a secret discord server to avoid spoilers in comments and "copy-cats" who turn up and copy the answers of someone who actually did the work, which is common for Steemit puzzle games.

Looks like you have given this some thought, which makes me wonder how easy it will be to get a lot of people to make the effort and participate. I like the articles that you have been writing as well so be sure to tag it with #newbieresteemday and get plenty of views by the community :)