Social Caterpillar, in the rawest sense, is a game about breaking out of an introverted shell and overcoming agoraphobia.

The game is riddled with puzzles, where the people, and your interactions with them, are all a "puzzle to be solved". It takes the feelings of being a shut-in wanting to break free from their secluded lifestyle, forgoing comfort for progress, slowly gaining stamina to do it even better the next day.

I will not be spoiling too much of the game here, but I will be discussing the ARG attached to the game after progressing far enough to branch out from inside the game.

Alphabet

In game, you'll find a codex to help you learn and translate a custom substitution cipher used for in game puzzles as well as a fun secret language to help you find some hidden achievements!

Here's the filled in cipher table:

In Game Translations

The following are all the main translations and usage of the language inside the game itself.

An Interesting Observation

An interesting point to note, at this point, I had joined the Discord server for the developer to hopefully gain community in solving these puzzles.

What I didn't expect was some exclusive information that might be relevant later as to why this ARG exists in the first place.

When reading the Discord channel description for \#social-caterpillar, there's an interesting remark about a "Detective Hadley Bambridge"

Socializing about Social Caterpillar.

Help Detective Hadley Bambridge collect the 5 missing animals and put them back into your game!

This name is mentioned in game only once, during Ending C, which can only be played on the Pupal mode of the game, during the credits.

In the community tab for the game on Steam as well, the developer of the game posts a screenshot of their 100% game file, with something distinctly off:

Thanks, Detective Chief Inspector Hadley Bambridge!

They have 15 of 10 Little Expressionless Animals.

This provides us with an objective for the ARG, to obtain a 105% completion rating!

ARG Translations

Now onto the main leads.
In the Dev room mode, if you walk behind the wall all the way in the top left and interact with the wall while you're behind it, you'll get this message.

If you make it back to your EX's room and try to search for a secret diary like in the Second Crush's room, you'll find another secret diary that you can unlock with a sound puzzle.

After solving the lock, inside you'll find the following puzzle:

I've provided the solution to each XYZ component in the puzzle above.

Stringing together each found item, we get a website link!
We can finally head outside of the game:

https://www.twelvetiles.com/bugs-meta

Website Puzzles

With our new link in hand, we can now get to solving the more traditional puzzle hunts!

We're given instructions right off the bat!

Instructions

Here are some of my collections.
You might find that some areas are locked off.
They need a password.
The passwords will always be lowercase with no spaces likethis.
If you manage to get to the end, expect some rare prizes! Enjoy!

and a new set of six links:

We'll deal with these each one at a time.

A Collection of Bad Poems

Self described as "A Collection of Bad Poems", we're given more links to different poems.

The Dead Awakens as Paternal

This is a poem I wrote about half the woolen ball on my hat.
The read itself should make your cheeks take on a strawberry color!
(Note: It doesn’t.)

----- -- ---------
The slime is told to lose some weight,
Reduce its scent for quite a change.
The prose is told to take a stance,
Growing wilder along the range.
The robot leaves back to its origin,
Pinches string until it pricks.
The prick itself is finally chosen...
All three then leave with knots and sticks!
Their rivots cause a big disturbance.
A hoop then jumps in leaps and bounds;
Its hair lets out a pirate’s laugh.
The bear? It’s deaf to all the sounds.

Each Line describes a Worm Word transformation in each line:

The Dead Awakens as Paternal                | DEAD   -> DAD   | E
This is a poem ... woolen ball on my hat.   | POEM   -> POM   | E
The read ... strawberry color!              | READ   -> RED   | A
(Note: It doesn’t.)                         | NOTE   -> NOT   | E
The slime is told to lose some weight,      | SLIME  -> SLIM  | E
Reduce its scent for quite a change.        | SCENT  -> CENT  | S
The prose is told to take a stance,         | PROSE  -> POSE  | R
Growing wilder along the range.             | WILDER -> WIDER | L
The robot leaves back to its origin,        | ROBOT  -> ROOT  | B
Pinches string until it pricks.             | STRING -> STING | R
The prick itself is finally chosen...       | PRICK  -> PICK  | R
All three then leave with knots and sticks! | THREE  -> TREE  | H
Their rivots cause a big disturbance.       | RIVOTS -> RIOTS | V
A hoop then jumps in leaps and bounds;      | HOOP   -> HOP   | O
Its hair lets out a pirate’s laugh.         | HAIR   -> HAR   | I
The bear? It’s deaf to all the sounds.      | BEAR   -> EAR   | B

Unscrambling the letters given we get:

----- -- ---------
REBEL AS HERBIVORE

The below poem describes some instructions to help solve the Menagerie Puzzle

Menagerie

Menagerie! What can it be?
A collection of animali

The placement? Gilded carapace-ment

All the elements, wooshing, ooh, shing,
five moving ones, but fifteen

left to right: bird, bug, pacaderm
right to left: bird, bug, reptile
top to bottom: scale, fur, feather
bottom to top: hoof, wing, pickle
(and more, for sure, but I won't bore)

Once aligned, you’ll find
the queue cue are in your mind...!

Interpretation of this poem will be discussed in the Animalia Collection

The below "poem" is inferred based on the link structure of the previous poems:

Blank Hidden Link

The below poem is the second half of solving

Rebelliousness

Rebelling as a
young teenager:
yell and act out on display

Rebelling as an
engineer:
replace cement with sand and clay

Rebelling as the
farmer’s oxen:
break the rope and gore the plow

Rebelling as an
herbivore:
attempt to eat the holy cow

Rebelling as a
politician:
tell the truth to someone’s face.

Rebelling as a
nightclub DJ:
mute before you drop the bass.

You can’t ignore the
machinations
deep inside your spirit’s well

No matter what the
occupation
lives the yearning to rebel

Poem 1 points towards REBEL AS HERBIVORE, which tells us to EAT THE HOLY COW

The fifth link, when clicked prompts for a password.
However, before inputting the password, if we try to infer based on the link structure again for poem-5
We will be met with a unique /nope 404 page!

Password: eattheholycow

Reward

The page provides us with an image of a Holy Cow

And some letters at the bottom: exp

A Collection of Sad Anecdotes

This section holds a collection of four Anecdotes that all describe very specific scenarios on what to pick up

I'm not going to copy them all here, so here's the interpretation:

Sew Job - Frog Costume
Burned - Jewel Case
No Future - "No Future" Paper
Waiting - Wait 26 Seconds

In the game, if you create a new save file using the character wearing the Frog Costume and with the Jewel Case mentor as so:

And make it to the location described to wait.

We get our password!

Password: krykroktearz

Reward

The page provides us with an image of a Teary Crocodile

And some letters at the bottom: nle

A Collection of Forgotten Music

This section has a list of various song samples from different games over the years.
With a goal to figure out the game they're from and the song title, which will give us some clues.

A Collection of Forgotten Music

Here’s a bunch of music I made but forgot about. I misplaced some of the data over the years, so you may have to find them yourself... but trust me, I’m the composer!

I don't have a good way to link the songs in this note, so here's the answers:

Game 1 - Song

Game: O - - - - - _ - - - - - - -
----- C H R O N O   T R I G G E R
Song: “- - - - - - - _ X - - - - - - -”
----- "S i n g i n g   M o u n t a i n"

Game 2 - Song

Game: - - - O - - - - -
----- X E N O G E A R S
Song: “Star of Tears”

Game 3 - Song

Game: - - O - - - - - _ - - - - - - -
----- I M P O S T E R   F A C T O R Y
Song: “- - - - - _ - - - - _ X - - - - - -”
----- "G r e a t   W i d e   U n k n o w n"

Game 4 - Song

Game: Finding Paradise
Song: “- - - - O _ X - - - - - _ - - - - - -”
----- "E v e r y   S i n g l e   M e m o r y"

Game 5 - Song | Song w/ Title

Game: - - - - O _ 2
----- S O N I C   2
Song: “- X - - - - _ - - - - - - _ - - - - _ (Alternate Version)”
----- "H i d d e n   P a l a c e   Z o n e   (Alternate Version)"

Game 6 - Song

Game: - - - - - _ - - - - - _ 64
----- S U P E R   M A R I O   64
Song: “- - - - - - O _ - - - - - ‘ - _ - - - - - - - - - - - - -”
----- "P i r a n h a   P l a n t ' s   L u l l a b y" ???????

Game 7 - Song

Game: O - - - - - _ 4
----- T O U H O U   4
Song: “- - - - X _ - - - - _ - - _ - - - - - - - - -”
----- "M a g i c   s h o p   o f   R a s o b e r r y"

Game 8 - Song
????????????
No provided sample for the last song, since it links to the password protected link
However, Social Caterpillar's OST on Bandcamp is linked as the source, and the second title for Speech Impediment "Presentation" is the only thing that fits the 12 character count here.

Taking the O's and X's in order from top to bottom we get the following:

OOOOOOO XXXXX
COPYCAT MUSIC

On the Bandcamp for the game's OST, the song, "Analogue Pet" has a unique description:

This is a copy of the cat music. I wanted to call it "eunicetheme" after my cat, Eunice, but the cat in Social Caterpillar isn't named Eunice.

If we enter the name of the cat in the game, uhpilla instead of eunice, it fit's our 12 character requirement and we get our password!

Password: uhpillatheme

Reward

The page provides us with an image of a Copycat

And some letters at the bottom: ss

A Collection of Visual Sensations

The entire page itself seems to be scrambled as an anagram everywhere.
The following are the page's contents:

Description

keaT a garden ta ym luivsa nationesss. sAla, I nyclcliadtea xdiem troeghet ym gamie flies. reepStaa het sorugp.

Translated:

Take a gander at my visual sensations. Alas, I accidentally mixed together my image files. Separate the groups.

The images in question:

And a list of groups:

Group (5): GWN"U"XI  
1)( oruGp: "RAT"
Group (3): SCR"O"LO
1)( oruGp: "GOAT"
Group (5): X X X X X X X X

The groups themselves seem to have a consistent anagram scramble across all four revealed group names:

012345678
Group (#)

786521304
1)( oruGp

Same with the other seven letter group names:

01234567
"COLORS"

61502734
SCR"O"LO

Using these rules, we can translate the groups:

Group (5): "WUXING" 
Group (1): "TAR"
Group (3): "COLORS"
Group (1): "TOGA"
Group (5): "XXXXXX"

Organizing all the images now into their respective groups we get the following:

The final group seems wholly unrelated at first glance.
That's because these images names are also scrambled anagrams:

SILENT -> LISTEN
GARDEN -> DANGER
SINK   -> SKIN
STATE  -> TASTE
ONES   -> NOSE

These are all "SENSES", which is really close to our password.
However, on use, the password on the page isn't accepted even with the quotations.

This too is scrambled with the same scrambling technique mentioned earlier:

01234567
"SENSES"

61502734
SSE"E"NS

Password: sse"e"ns

Reward

The page provides us with an image of a Cool Cuke

And some letters at the bottom: sio

A Collection of Wormwords

Description

People often accuse me of being indirect, worming my words in a way that makes it hard to follow.

I guess you could call me a LONE RAT.

The main meat of the puzzle:

O O O O O

1. Pane     ~ Pack     |  [NE]    -> [CK]
2. Light    ~ Knight   |  [L]     -> [KN]
3. Rot      ~ Rat      |  [O]     -> [A]
4. Kink     ~ Sink     |  [K]     -> [S]
5. Limp     ~ Limping  |  []      -> [+ING]
6. Impotent ~ Tent     |  [-IMPO] -> []
7. Sad      ~ Sadly    |  []      -> [+LY]
8. Linking  ~ Linear   |  [KING]  -> [EAR]

X X X X X

1. Rare   ~ Bare    |  [R]       -> [B]
2. He     ~ Heard   |  []        -> [+ARD]
3. Robots ~ Rots    |  [-OB/-BO] -> []
4. Dark   ~ Dirk    |  [A]       -> [I]
5. Flame  ~ Flames  |  []        -> [+S]

If we apply these transformations to the phrase LONE RAT where LONE is associated with O's and RAT with X's, we get the following transformations:

O O O O O

1. Lone     ~ Lock     |  [NE]   -> [CK]
2. Lock     ~ Knock    |  [L]    -> [KN]
3. Knock    ~ Knack    |  [O]    -> [A]
4. Knack    ~ Snack    |  [K]    -> [S]
5. Snack    ~ Snacking |  []     -> [+ING]
6. Snacking ~ King     |  [-4]   -> []     (-4 letters)
7. King     ~ Kingly   |  []     -> [+LY]
8. Kingly   ~ Early    |  [KING] -> [EAR]

X X X X X

1. Rat    ~ Bat     |  [R]     -> [B]
2. Bat    ~ Batard  |  []      -> [+ARD]
3. Batard ~ Bard    |  [-2]    -> []      (-2 middle letters)
4. Bard   ~ Bird    |  [A]     -> [I]
5. Bird   ~ Birds   |  []      -> [+S]

Password: earlybirds

Reward

The page provides us with an image of a Early Bird

And some letters at the bottom: res

A Collection of Animalia

This puzzle is one that requires all the other puzzles to be solved beforehand.

Description

The animals have escaped their pen!

I've already collected some of the animals just by playing Social Caterpillar. I've put them here, but I don't actually know where they belong in the pen. You may need to look around for clues!

Also, there are 5 other animals still missing! Ah!

Missing Two Pieces
Also, two other chunks have been removed from spots inside the pen. No rotation, no subdivision, just slide the duo around within the quadrant's polka-dotted features along with 15 little creatures!

Main Puzzle:

Provided Animals:

After finding all the animals, and solving their respective Nonogram solutions, we get the following:

With the other two pieces found in Poem 3, we get all the following puzzle pieces:

The Menagerie Clue

Now that we have the pieces, we need to use the Menagerie poem as a guide to solve.

The Golden Carapace is referring to the Golden Beetle, something about it's placement.

All the elements referring to the Wuxing puzzle from the visual area.

Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, Wood
Red, Blue, Yellow, White, Green

The order of the animals is the more strange one.
Out of the animals given to us, there are multiple that could fit into these categories.

left to right: bird, bug, pacaderm  |  Duck > Bee > Elephant
right to left: bird, bug, reptile   |  Croc > Beetle > Goose
top to bottom: scale, fur, feather  |  Herring > Lion > Bird
bottom to top: hoof, wing, pickle   |  Sea Cucumber > Bee > Horse

The final hint of Once aligned, you’ll find the queue cue are in your mind...!

Using the Menagerie Poem as a guide, as well as good inference, we get the following image:

Scanning the QR code takes us to a new password protected link

Taking a look back at each image, there were 5 sets of letters given to us

exp | nle | ss | sio | res

this is an anagram, and our password: expressionless

Beyond the QR Code

After solving the QR code and it's respective password, we're given a simple page to find a YouTube link

https://youtube.com/shorts/

With an image of various things cobbled together:

Since this is a YouTube link, we're looking for 11 unique characters.
The height of each image tells us capitals and lowercase.
The images are of the following in order:

The Irish band u2 (The image itself is mirrored)
Sign Language for O and V
The board game "7 Wonders" with the 7 removed
Half of Eminem
The symbol of Venus, or more well known as the female symbol
why?
and the logo for the NBA

Using the clues given we get the code: 2uOV7mfyNBA
which gives us a YouTube video to watch!

Organizing Your Animals

In the video, we see the developer teaching us how he "Organizes his Animals".

The video starts of with the developer covering their old Irish Residence Permit ID in front of a Cereal Box with a book off to the side with some music playing in the background.

The developer goes on to list out pages of numbers on how to "organize your animals" and suggests we use a big book like a Dictionary to use for organizing them.

He then lists off a pattern of animals for us to recognize:

002/003 - 1 Animal - Butterfly
004/005 - 1 Animal - Turtle
006/007 - 1 Animal - Rabbit
008/009 - 0 Animal - "Not an important animal"
010/011 - 1 Animal - Fox
012/013 - 1 Animal - Crow "Classic"
014/015 - 2 Animal - Bear, Boar "Reason: the previous animals"
016/017 - 1 Animal - Peafowl "Unique"
018/019 - 1 Animal - Goat "Unique"
020/021 - 2 Animal - Vole, Goose "Two previous animals"
022/023 - 1 Animal - Porcupine
024/025 - 0 Animal - "Not an important animal"
026/027 - 1 Animal - Armadillo 
"etc."
040/041 - 1 Animal - Toad

This pattern describes prime numbers, and square free numbers.

In the description of the video, aside from making a quick promotion of their old card game LURE, they make a note about page 25

NOTE: Organizing is hard! 
I probably shouldn't have put in any animals in 25, just because 25 is impossible! 
But, alas!

Visiting the LURE store page, there's a small little addendum right down towards the bottom of the description just before the Components section on the page that reads:

ORGANIZING MY ANIMALS
If you found this through a video about organizing animals, thanks!
Please order a copy of LURE for yourself and your loved ones. :)

Also, if the track playing in the background of that video was a Factor for your enjoyment, go check out the Social Caterpillar Soundtrack on Bandcamp!

Interestingly, the music in the background of the video is the MUS-0 track that helps you find the Earworm LEA in game.

On the Bandcamp page for that specific song, there's a 43 listed in the description.
Along with the strange capitalization of the word Factor from the previous page.

The Final Steps

We are now left with some pretty important information:

ID
Cereal
Prime Factors
43
Dictionary

Looking in the documents folder on your computer will reveal a saves folder for all your save files, including a Dictionary.text file.

Opening the file, we can find a code segment that's different depending on how many previous LEAs you have already unlocked in the game called Serial ID.

The number tied to the Serial ID may look something like this: 4111490047665
If we Factor this number into it's Prime Factors, we'll see that it's a multiple of 11 different prime numbers:

3 × 5 × 7 × 11 × 13 × 17 × 19 × 23 × 29 × 31 × 41
One for every LEA including the Social Caterpillar.

If we then multiply this number by 43, the number on the Bandcamp, we'll get our brand new Serial ID we can plug in: 176794072049595

If we plug this back into the Dictionary.text file, open up our normal save game, enter the De Bug room, and interact with the terrarium inside, we'll finally get our prize!

Prize

Which fully completes our save file with an overachieved 105% completion rating, and embezzles our overlay with all our hard earned LEAs; completing the ARG in earnest!