Transcript for:
Milton Math Games: Digital Horror ARG Lecture Notes

do you remember Milton math games that flash website we used to play as kids yeah that one what about it well I was reminded of it recently because I stumbled across a YouTube channel archiving stuff from the website huh that's actually pretty neat here's the thing I've noticed some strange things in these videos things that shouldn't really be there things that shouldn't be there like what Milton Math Games is a digital horror ARG that presents itself as a YouTube archive for a lost Flash game website from the 2000s I've covered a handful of digital horror series in the past such as Lacy's chess kids archive and the human trial from vintage 8 all of which are great in their own ways but to me this one is special because many of the people involved with its cre are friends of mine including the series Creator I even had the privilege of voicing a character in one of the episodes that being said today I want to give a passionate and thorough analysis of everything that this unique Series has to offer including the videos up on the channel and the website that offers even more hints as to what's really going on behind the scenes of course make sure to go subscribe to the original Channel which will be at the very top of the description without further Ado my name is manac and today we are going to take a deep dive into Milton Math Games H before we begin I feel like I should change up my look to be a little more appropriate for the [Music] occasion Ah that's better okay starting with the very first episode we have found lost media Milton's Schoolhouse Milton math game .c long title right away we can notice some really nostalgic details in the presentation such as the unregistered hypercam Watermark and the inclusion of Roblox sound effects trust me when I say that this series spares no expense when it comes to authentic nostalgic presentation in fact I believe it to be its strongest aspect after clicking on the button to start the game the player is moved to Milton's classroom and he introduces himself hello hello welcome to Milton mathgames.com I'm Milton and I will be your math teacher then Milton decides to give you a short math quiz as a benchmark to see where the player skill level is at what is 6 multipli by 7 the answer is 42 you've got that problem correct let's move on to the next problem as you may expect the first two math problems go without any sort of unexpected Interruption but the third one well it isn't a math problem at all this one might be a tough one what [Music] is divided by after the the player chooses one of the options were booted back to the classroom but now it's empty after a short pause Milton's dialogue kicks back in to tell you the correct answer but we can't actually hear it good good good great I'm so good job student but the answer was the screen briefly turns black and the watermark in the corner actually switches from Milton mathgames.com to please help me I'm stuck this is the first indication of what's actually happening in this ARG and Milton congratulates the player but the game continues to glitch when this happens the watermark in the corner changes again to say Jamie repeatedly which is the name that we saw before all right we've decided your skill level you are isn't that wonderful well I'm excited to see you here they would like to help you out on your new journey in milon sch.com thank you make sure to have your parents permission free once Milton finishes his speech the screen goes black before the Sorting again in the final frame of the video the URL now reads save me please anybody and the portrait on the right side of the room has changed to the face of a person now I wouldn't personally be very offended if you said that this first episode didn't really hook you it's not that interesting but it does offer a bit of mystery it was originally meant to be a one-off thing for fun which kind of seems to be a trend with a lot of these internet horror series before we move on I do want to mention the few things that we have learned just for clarification sake for some reason a person named Jamie appears to be trapped within Milton Math Games Milton Math Games itself seems to have been an old educational Flash game website meant for young kids but based on the title of the video and the premise of the series it's likely no longer operational and being archived by a currently unknown third party Milton of course is the titular mascot of the website but there are certainly other characters which is proven by the portrait in in the classroom though it probably is worth mentioning the pink character is not actually going to show up because it's a scra character design which is kind of funny it's like lost media within lost media lost media setion I don't know the next video is quite a bit shorter and it's called Google search of Milton mathgames.com expectedly it shows off a Google search of Milton Math Games go figure once again the series proves that it will spare no expense for authentic presentation because this very old version of mosa Firefox screams Nostalgia to me when the search is completed we see Milton's Schoolhouse the game from the previous video as well as another one Toby's tactical spelling frenzy below it is a forum on a website called parenting1 one.net discussing the merits of Milton mathgames.com as an educational website for children this is probably a reference to the fact that coolmathgames.com is is not actually very educational and most of the games are really just for fun at the bottom of the page is a news article that sheds more light on the information we learned in the previous video though it's titled the missing Preen case of Jamie Eastward the actual content of the search result contains statements from his parents Ronnie and Mary Eastward they read it's as if he just disappeared Into Thin Air and I can't bear the thought of what must have really happened to him he was just about to graduate 7th grade next month and we've had to cancel our reservations we just bought him a new computer please if anyone has any information on what happened to our son and where he is please come forward to the authorities and bring him back home I love you Jamie you're a smart young man and you'll always be here in my heart sweetie please come back unfortunately at the end we can clearly see Jim's attempts to communicate with his parents but unfortunately his cries for help fall on deaf ears so in this video we learned that jime was a seventh grader who randomly went missing nobody not even his parents have any clue what really happened to him and to be fair neither do we at some point between then and now he got trapped within the website but it doesn't seem like it's strictly the website it's kind of just anything vaguely related to Milton math games which I guess a Google search for the website itself could technically fulfill that it's pretty interesting either way it's no use in speculating so early on this deeply we've got a lot more ground to cover the next video channel intro starts with a purple sky background and yellow text saying hello we we get introduced to Charlotte the creator of the archive Channel we learn that Charlotte used to play Milton Math Games regularly but as of the making of the channel intro the website had been lost for years the goal of the archive was to teach others about the website's existence and collect various findings so it doesn't become permanently lost however of course this would be a pretty difficult task to do on your own so she asks us the viewers to contact Milton math games at gmail.com to send in Lost media findings and then she gives us a farewell the video transitions to an end of programming screen which gives us the name of a location Boulder Colorado then it ends on this Jamie Eastward 12 last scene on June 14th 2005 well this video was pretty cool we learned the identity of the channel owner Charlotte and we got a new location er Colorado which seems to be where Jamie lived before he went missing we also learned that Milton Math Games archive has a submissions email you might be wondering if you actually sent something to this email would you get a reply well stick around to find out after Channel intro we have Channel update and in it Charlotte discusses the fact that the channel was briefly terminated but very quickly reinstated for seemingly no reason Reon this is an event that actually happened to the channel and it was integrated into the story just because it would be funny she then shows off a screenshot of Toby's tactical spelling frenzy which we weren't able to see before and obviously I can say this with certainty and retrospect but the pun in tow be's name kind of gave it away afterwards Charlotte makes sure to advertise the submissions email once more before taking her leave however the video is not over we trans ition to footage of an old horror slcpd Creepy Pasta website called spook tube with a bandicam watermark fittingly fixed at the top center of the screen there are a lot of fun references such as Squidwards suicide chz kids and Marble Hornets as well as some generic sounding top 10 videos and other stuff but towards the bottom we can see The Disappearance of Jamie Eastward analog can you hear me I need wake up I need you to remember I can't stay here forever in the next video we finally get to see Toby's tactical spelling frenzy in action hello I'm Toby Toby the spelling be welcome to Toby's tactical spelling frenzy you are the new contestant and if you can spell these words correctly you might win 10,000 Milton tokens and and thus we have the premise for the game wi the spelling be win 10,000 Milton tokens the first question is completely normal asking the player how to spell the word clothing congratulation that was the correct answer you're doing great the next one is just a little bit more concerning because Toby asks the player how to spell confined which on its own is fine but one of the options is come find this time around the player does not choose the correct answer oh no that's incorrect I'm so sorry however you still have a chance to win let's move on to the next one the third question which also seems vaguely relevant to the overall plot asks the player to spell vanished one of the options this time is a bit less subtle uh he's here this time though the player gets the question right and now there's only one question left prepare yourself for the final question for 10,000 Milton tokens how do you spell Jamie Jamie let's see you [Music] choose you just won 10,000 Milton tokens you are a superstar give a round of applause thank you for playing Toby's tactical spelling feny we will see you next well we didn't really learn anything new in this video aside from meeting a new character of course and he is awesome albeit he doesn't pay has taxes but that's not important let's move on to the next video following Toby's spelling B the next video in the series is just the Milton math games website song in the background several screenshots of gameplay all of which we've already seen appear on a slideshow aside from that it's totally normal nothing to see here at all yeah you and I both know that's not true I went ahead and dropped the song into a spectrogram and sure enough there are multiple hidden messages in the audio first what seems to be a very distorted landscape photo and Jam's portrait after that a message from Jamie it starts with Charlotte I'm still here immediately after are some coordinates but we can't quite make out the whole thing if I go on a map and approximate the coordinates it seems to lead to a location slightly south of Boulder Creek in Boulder Colorado and with that context in mind I'd like to think that it's probably the location of Jaime's body but again we don't know exactly where it is after that information there is actually a few sentences from Jamie directed towards charlot they haven't found my body I can't rest until I'm freed I didn't mean to take over Charlotte I just want to go home it's been 7 years now this is pretty interesting because because up until now I'm not sure if we actually had any reason to believe that Jamie actually had a physical body left somewhere it was pretty reasonable to assume that for some reason he like got sucked into his computer or into the internet or something and then he was just missing but now we know there's a body which begs the question was he murdered was he kidnapped another pretty important detail to keep in mind we have established that Jamie has a personal connection to the owner of the archive she's not some random person it's also been 7 years since he went missing which gives us some terrifying insight into how long he's had to go through the horrors of being alone and trapped on a goddamn children's website because Jaimie went missing in 2005 and it's apparently been 7 years this would imply that the series takes place in 2012 which is the last bit of information that I think we can gleam from this episode and with all that noted I think we're ready for the next one this video is titled messing around on my old Wii and as the name implies the episode consists of exactly that in the video description Charlotte tells the audience that this is a sort of filler video uploaded for fun while she waits to hear back from someone with the quote unquote Garrett video this is probably another teacher we haven't met yet I mean I obviously know that it is but immersion I'm sorry anyways once the video actually begins we are at the Mei Plaza and we get to see Charlotte's me a eventually she goes back to the home menu in which we can see that Charlotte what the [ __ ] Charlotte is a based retro Mario enjoyer but there's also that in place of the photo Channel which we're just going to ignore eventually Charlotte goes into the Wii settings in which we can see the console nickname is is sh and sis which means Charlotte has a sister and indirectly introduces us to a new character throughout the course of the video the visuals have been all but normal even disregarding the suspiciously j-shaped elephant in the room that is the photo Channel it's also been flickering constantly as the video ends Charlotte sets up a me parade but only one Me shows up as she shakily moves the cursor to hover over it this happens this is pretty unexpected obviously something has happened to Charlotte's memory this may have had something to do with Jim's attempts to reach out to her or maybe the act of her diving head first into old memory memories resurfaced some kind of trauma and all just because she felt like messing around on her old Wii either way at this point in time we don't really know if these events are what caused her memory to be damaged or maybe her memory was already damaged to begin with moving on to something a little more lighthearted this short one minute video shows off a Milton plush that Charlotte found while rubbing through her old stuff check it out guys guess what I found that's right it's Milton now I don't know about you but the existence of a Milton plush is perhaps the single greatest thing to ever happen in the history of our civilization at least in my [Music] opinion although the video itself was was quite short the description offers some important supplementary details that are worth taking into account she says that she's been getting emails from people asking about how things are going about some longtime friend of hers or quote other things she can't really remember unquote continuing from the previous video this proves without a shadow of a doubt that Charlotte is indeed having problems with her memory and it's not just Jamie there's multiple things that she doesn't quite remember remember keeping all of this in mind it almost begs the question did Charlotte really start the Milton Math Games archive so that nobody would forget about Milton math games or was it instead started so she could remember Milton Math Games well in order to find out the truth we're just going to have to press on let's take a look at the longest video thus far Garrett's history and geography course the video begins on a loading screen which then takes us to a hallway with a Milton robot in a door labeled Garrett upon trying to enter the door the robot says error error you need a hall pass to continue thus the player has been given their quest for the fabled hall pass the first stop is the Janitor's Closet and on the way we learn about the help button which ironically enough you will come to find is never actually very very helpful at all upon entering the closet we're greeted by a new character who apparently can actually get us a hall pass but at a ridiculous price of 10,000 Milton tokens God damn he's ripping people off if you remember from Toby's tactical spelling frenzy this token in the player's inventory is actually worth exactly 10,000 Milton tokens the player seems noticeably conflicted about parting with these Milton tokens and they even try to get some help from the help button which is the first instance of the help button not actually being very helpful at all um student why are you in a dark closet I can't help with that let's actually let's let's start a counter we're going to have a counter in the corner every time the help button comes up and we're going to keep track of how many times it's not helpful finally the trade offer commences this should do it here you go goddess scattle thank you after Ronnie quickly disappears almost as if he knows that forging hall passes for a bribe is a federal crime the player exits the closet only to be greeted by the janitor hey what are you doing in the janitor closet student are you the one who's been rearranging all my tools and leaving cheese crackers all over the floor you could have at least left me some I hope I don't catch you rumaging in there again cuz it's already stressful enough cleaning these long hallways and especially Toby's classroom he always has so much confetti everywhere H I'm going to clock out and take a break see you some other time I guess what a poor guy so overworked I wonder who voices him anyways returning to the start of the level the player presents the Milton bot with a hall pass and is allowed to proceed into Garrett's classroom during the loading screen we learned that Garrett the fox does indeed have W RZ and he also gives us a not even remotely Eerie line about those who don't remember history being doomed to repeat it and that is not even remotely terrifying within the context of the story at all no not even a little upon entering the classroom we finally get to meet Garrett salutations the name is Garrett after introducing himself he asks the player if they're ready to learn history and for some reason the player says no at first which might I add is extremely rude like how could you possibly say no to Garrett anyways we transition to a screen with a map of the United States and the premise of the game is that Garrett will describe an event in history and the player must click on the state where it took place don't ask where Hawaii went we don't talk about Hawaii [Music] anyways Garrett asks the player some pretty standard US trivia like where the Declaration of Independence was signed and what US state is known for cheese production well actually the player doesn't know the answer to the second one and tries to get some assistance from the help button but uh yeah hey student I don't quite know the answer myself all I can do is spell stay cool I feel bad for the person playing they still think that the help button's actually going to help them unsurprisingly the question is not answered correctly a cheddar luck next time get it cheddar luck better luck uh too cheesy after that embarrassingly cheesy set of puns Garrett asks one last question before everything goes wrong this one hits a little close to home which state has an abundance of red foxes that's right it's Alaska that's right that's right this a little close to home a little a little CL all right uh before we get into any of the details in this episode I just have to say that is one of the coolest sequences in any internet horror series I have ever seen in terms of details this video actually has quite a bit to talk about with the first one I want to talk about being the identity of one of the new characters so Ronnie shared a name with Jim's dad but it's actually a coincidence and I have confirmed this with the Creator it was supposed to be a reference to St well Mall which is another series by one of the series co-creators so I'm happy that I could clarify that here and after that I want to analyze the final sequence at the end since it goes by pretty quickly and there's actually quite a bit to dissect I'll start with some messages that briefly show up on screen at the very beginning the URL in the bottom changes to read Charlotte you can see me later another set of short messages flashes by the part with an arm coming out of Garrett's face has messages that say I will show them all and I want to go home I want to sleep again you need to come home you need to wake up we also get to see what seems like a topographical map of Boulder Colorado which then focuses on Boulder Creek another brief image shows an article that seems to be talking about Jim's disappearance but it's so Abridged and distorted that I honestly can't make sense of what it's trying to convey at all after that we see Charlotte including her me and an actual picture of her followed by an overlay of a brain scan being superimposed over that picture there is also text and I can make out the words shattered Memory and mind but the other word I'm not 100% sure this probably means that a physically traumatic experience may have damaged her brain and this could be why Charlotte has a difficult time recalling events and with her memory in general huh and why she doesn't seem to remember Jamie at all despite Jaimie clearly remembering her some more text flashes on screen multiple times shortly after and I was actually able to find the real scientific article used in this section it's a 2003 paper written by psychiatrist Dr Alan Sanderson called the case for Spirit release um I'm going to be honest I asked chat GPT to summarize the article for me because I'm not going to read eight full pages of yapping but the basic takeaway is that it proposes the Consciousness is indeed separate from the physical body and that treatments such as exorcism and hypnosis well not inherently scientific may be valid to use on some patients with certain psychological dispositions God damn this is sounding like Greylock at this point this is ridiculous either way it doesn't take a genius to realize the connection with Jaimie being a spirit possessing a medium separate from his physical body postmortem a disturbing close-up image of Jaime's eyes appears after this with repeating red text reading they will all see and then a genuinely uncomfortable shot of Jim's distorted head with text that seems to say something along the lines of I can't talk I can't breathe I can't move yet I can feel everything finally at the end The Spook tube logo from a previous episode appears as well as the words degradation and restoration before the sequence ends and that's all I really have to say about this video the next two videos are both quite short starting with the Halloween special which once again manages to have very unique presentation the most important takeaway of course is the inclusion of a new teacher that we've not seen before and yeah Toby canonically commits tax fraud that's an actual bit so if you were wondering why I said that earlier with literally no context it's because it's just true the next video on a more serious note is titled have you forgotten this one also features the paper animation style though it gets messed up pretty quickly since the video is only 18 seconds long the description is what's really interesting about this video though since it starts like most of the other ones do the hexadecimal Cipher at the bottom when translated is a message from Jamie that reads your brain has been severely damaged Charlotte look into my eyes I me but not myself I hurt but I never heal years fly by while I stay stagnant what remains of me I'm so tired of this no more the next video is also quite short but it's interesting because we get some elaboration regarding who made Milton math games in the first place a company named named hyperdrive softw works the rest of the video mainly features some neat early concept art from 1998 including a sketch of the previously scrapped science teacher I mentioned towards the beginning of the video in case you were wondering jimie being listed as 133 at the end of this video is actually a mistake he is meant to be 12 aside from that clarification the progressions shown in this video is actually pretty important for the first time Charlotte fully comprehends Jaime's presence in these videos she remembers at least briefly how fitting is it then that the very next video explains to us how she lost her memory in the first place this next video shows off an 8-bit miname that was apparently mostly forgotten on the Milton math games website unlike most of what we've seen throughout the series we're watching footage of a game that can actually be played which I'll talk about later on the section where we cover the website in the game there there are many characters who you can talk to and many Milton tokens to collect as you go the player needs these Milton tokens in order to get a hall pass that allows you to progress through the game at some point during this search the player would no doubt stumble across this lock which will be important later none of the characters say anything particularly interesting so I'll go ahead and Skip to what happens after you use the hall pass after entering a certain room we can see that one of the corner tiles making up the walls of the room is a bit off it can actually be clipped through allowing the player access to outof bounds areas within the map eventually the player stumbles across a different section of the map entirely a street road lit by the moon and street lights lies before them a text prompt near a bench reads you know sometimes you should just move on after reaching a junction in the road the player goes down and to the right only to stumble across the scene of a terrible car accident this just in a teenage girl has has been found with substantial wounds after this catastrophic car accident this teenager whose identity remains sealed due to being a minor has been transported to the hospital at this time please keep her in your Minds tonight and pray for her speedy recovery it is quite frankly a miracle that she is still even alive after the text prompt finishes the player can approach the crash to obtain a key after walking all the way back to the start of the level the player can use this key to pass the lock and once again venture out of bounds a body can be seen slumped over in a room and upon entering and following the path the game ends on a frozen pixelated screen of a forest this video's Revelation marks a pretty substantial turning point in our understanding of the series narrative at some point in time Charlotte our protagonist was in a terrible car accident now she was still a minor which means this probably only happened within a range of her being 16 or 17 assuming of course she was driving with a license during this she experienced substantial damage to her brain and in turn her memory the accident was so severe that the video goes out of its way to describe it as a miracle that she's alive and on another note at the end of the video's description Charlotte says happy 2013 everyone glad we made it through the Mayan calendar haha and the video was posted on January 27th 2024 so I think we can assume that the series is actually running in real time but 11 years behind us especially considering many descriptions referencing the passage of time throughout the series this information isn't relevant right now and it'll be more important later down the line when I try to come up with the actual theories now we've only got two videos to go so let's go ahead and move on to The Smiler okay this video is sick Nostalgia aside this video it honestly does feel like a hoax SL urban legend video that could have existed in early YouTube considering the use of you know the song and Movie Maker and just how ridiculous it is I mean for [ __ ] sake the inventory is full of pills and a gun and the URL says Milton death games.com somehow this whole hoax got so bad that the dev team at hyperdrive softworks had to out of their way to make a statement the video ends on the note that sightings of hoax images went down after the statement was made but that's not all that this video has to offer this is why you don't remember right you're very lucky to be alive you need to wake up Charlotte your job is yet to be fulfilled [Music] and now we've finally gotten to the last video in the series so far Ravens experimental science course this one is unique in the sense that it is the only time the footage we are watching is specifically Charlotte's own gameplay that she recorded when she was around 14 apparently the reason why she recorded this game play was because she was specifically reminiscing about her time with Jamie and how they had been playing it less and less as they grew up I'm pretty sure that this footage takes place after Jim's disappearance so honestly this is kind of sad we cut away and briefly catch a glimpse of what the website looks like in its prime before being sent to Raven's classroom where she introduces herself hi there my name is Raven and I put the rat in laboratory are you ready to experiment after she puts on a lab coat and she asks you to go grab vials of red and blue solution from the cabinet it seems like 14-year-old Charlotte was either colorblind or just slow because she needs the help button to identify what the colors red and blue are at age 14 hey student uh is this uh H I'm sorry student I can't help you with this problem and unsurprisingly the help button once again offers no actual help after making it back to the table with the correct fils Raven appears with a familiar face Ronnie who is apparently her younger brother Raven and Ronnie talk a bit about colors before sending the player back to get the colors to make green yellow and blue after Charlotte collects them she opens her inventory and we get to see just how much she's grinded the hell out of this game she has at least 20,000 Milton tokens 7 hall passes which is another 70,000 Milton tokens worth of stuff and a few miscellaneous items like Toby's sunglasses what anyways Charlotte returns to the table with the new vials and for some reason Charlotte clicks the help button again and like clockwork Garrett is of no help whoa what was that uh once Charlotte successfully combines the two vials to make a Green Solution the game promptly decides to implode on itself then we overhear a phone call from Charlotte hi um are you free tomorrow I'm starting to uh remember some things about Jamie okay thank you Mrs Eastward after the phone call ends we transition over to a recording of Charlotte's screen on the Milton math games website and a notepad window opens hello is this working look at you finally remembering that's a luxury I don't get to have not anymore at least it hurt me to reach out it's painful seeing you like this but I needed your help regardless of what happened to you I wish I survived getting closer and closer to being at peace it's been 7 years s excruciating Years thank you Charlotte for everything so far this is nowhere near over it's not over until I'm happy again tell my mom that I love her and that I miss her you'll be hearing from me again soon I hope you see this oh yeah I have two more things to show you the episode closes with Charlotte sending an inquiry to a developer at hyperdrive softworks named Allison H she says that she runs a YouTube channel about the website and she wonders if perhaps this developer has any more information regarding it and with that the episode ends here we are at the climax of the series Charlotte has regained her memory she's in talks with Jim's parents to meet up so that she can tell them what she's learned and she's a prha developer with inquiries related to the website in general which can possibly give us even more insight in the future as Jamie implies when he says he has two more things to show there are two main episodes left that are yet to be made but even now there's still plenty more to this ARG that might give us a few more cles I am of course talking about the [Music] website this is Milton mathgames.com looking at the home screen there's a lot going on here but for simplicity's sake I'm going to talk about everything in order from top to bottom left to right following this convention we'd be starting with the website's logo which is actually clickable it leads to an oldfashioned Google search of Milton math games which shows off some of the things that we saw in the Google search video the next few boxes are all popups the first of which being an advertisement for the website's newsletter which would Grant players free Milton tokens and other prizes if they signed up the next is an Internet safety PSA which is there to inform the child audience that browses the website not to share their passwords or personal information with anyone online the next button shows a graphic for what the friends list would have looked like though you could quickly figure out this feature wouldn't be functional since the sign up and login buttons also don't function correctly there is an option to click on forgot for resetting your password however in the context of the story it obviously has a bit more meaning than that moving down from the top of the page we see all of the teachers that we've met so far clicking on Milton brings us to his page and we get a short message from him hello student welcome to my personal page it's difficult to juggle being the math teacher and the principal at the same time here at Milton math games I want you to learn while having fun sometimes the most difficult part of learning isn't just the amount of new information you're being presented sometimes it's just because you're afraid of making mistakes remember that making mistakes is how you learn don't fear being wrong now let's check out Toby's page man that would have had I don't know God no guess I'll just C my hair instead wow maybe I will buy some Milton tokens dang it the IRS took my money again I will pay hey hey cters it's me Toby spell be welcome to by little corner of the website Qui question can you type I am a taxpayer without any spaces in lowercase I forgot out to students let's go ahead and try out what Toby told us to do okay I am a tax pay here I'll go ahead and save typing the rest of the things in for later Garrett's page has some art that I swear I saw all over the place when I was in elementary school it evoked Nostalgia but I don't even quite remember where it's from it's really weird he also has his own short message to say Greetings students it is I Garrett did you know that historically players who click on Milton mathgames.com are more likely to experience joy in their life and score higher on their tests finally we have Raven page which has one more comic and her own short message man what is Raven up to oh hey Toby what's up your chees and crackers are gone [Music] LOL oh hey welcome to my lab do you want to hear a joke about nitrogen oxide no well label me a number and put me on the periodic table because that is why I love science and with that we've covered the character pages scrolling down a bit we get a message explaining that the website is experiencing technical difficulties along with some banners related to the website including an advertisement for a Milton plushy the website logo here is also clickable and it brings us to a loading screen like we saw in the videos however no matter how long you wait it's not going to load since the servers are obviously down they have been for years before we move on from this page and check out the offline games though there's a little help button that can also be clicked on and you know the help buttons are generally not very helpful but maybe this time something good will actually happen oh no so this page seems to be a spot in which Jamie has a higher level of control there isn't actually anything to click on but there is a lot to see at the bottom of the page there are two messages scrolling by really quickly they're pretty hard to read in this state but the first one says cannot think can you hear me interception this s is not not normal P we are watching Remember me honestly with the way that he's talking it seems like he's communicating with us the viewers lurking on the website I'm sure at this point the website would get near zero activity from people actually playing it I mean the games don't even work anymore seeing an influx of new people coming from the archive has likely made him paranoid and Confused the second message describes what happened to Charlotte in slightly more detail than we were already aware of at midnight last night a teenage girl was driving her car alone when her car lost traction and she crashed into the side of a Street Lamp she has suffered a traumatic brain injury the doctor told our reporters her mother is tending to her daughter and the girl's sister is trying to stay optimistic and obviously the bottom message is just help infinitely repeating poor Jamie well there's nothing left for us to see on this page so I suppose we'll just leave as we get to the bottom of the page we encounter the offline games that were talked about a bit ago the first of which being the game from the video that is actually playable the original video It's featured in actually cuts off the top of the screen a little bit for some reason so there's a few things that you can see a little bit better otherwise there's not much of a point in playing this game if you've already seen the video you won't learn anything new apparently statistically Gamers have more fun at Milton mathgames.com according to this page the next game is pretty simple it just involves solving a 3X3 puzzle with various Milton Math Games art pieces featured in them apparently puzzles are a great way to improve uh cognitive development and memory ah you don't say so there are seven of these puzzles but two of them are definitely not meant to be there the final offline game jump and run is pretty obviously meant to be a reference to the Google dinosaur game that shows up when you have no internet every successful jump would translate into one Milton token but honestly this level's probably harder than tidal wave so you're not going to get very many tokens and that's the end of the offline games and the last link on the page brings us to The Smiler PSA featured in The Smiler video now the very bottom of the website is honestly probably my favorite part because every time you refresh the page you get a random nostalgic advertisement reminiscent of the era Milton Math Games had its prime there's quite a few ads that can show up like an ad for a Wii or a PlayStation 3 all things that are archaic by several Generations but it's just so fun to see and and so nostalgic they're all clickable as well they take you to the modern versions of whatever website is associated with the IP or whatever was being advertised there's even some ads that reference other internet horror series which is just the cherry on top another mascot based Flash website is referenced dingo.ate page that says you can get a free Milton accessory in the game with a code so that's that's a pretty fun thing there's a few more ads that are actually kind of important two of them lead to an attempted Japanese localization for Milton math games but it's even less functional than the website we were already on it doesn't have any games on it and they didn't even bother translating the popup Pages man and these developers are lazier than moyang employees there is one more ad which has been directly influenced by Jamie which takes us to a page with a URL called who are you the background seems to be a massive sea of scrolling eyes watching our every move there are seven pictures on this page two of which are visibly near or on a street and the rest of them seeming to be in a forest with the last one being entirely black if I had to guess these are probably photos on the way to or near the location of Jaime's body on a more light-hearted note I think before we move on to the rest of what we have in store we should go ahead and follow Toby's advice and try to type some more things into the website most of the secrets you find by doing this are short fun dialogues from characters when you type in their names or references to other media like shipwreck 64 Lacy apparently Milton has a competitor named Samy's School Mouse that's referenced it also rewards you for counting to 10 saying your ABCs if you type Charlotte or Jaime's name you get a loud ass sound that jump scares you in response I know at least one person watching this is probably wondering what happens if you swear you want to know what happens if you [Music] swear no [ __ ] swearing okay aside from that there are a few other things you can type in but I'm going to leave those up to you guys you should go visit the website yourself and try to see if you can find them the last one I am going to show off is what happens if you type developer it leads you to a debug page most of the information on this page is obviously not very useful as it is of course just a debug page however we see the familiar name referenced at the bottom Allison which is the person that Charlotte went out of her way to contact at the end of the Raven video there's also this little piano which was actually made by a friend of mine shout out to Lavender she's the goat as far as I'm aware by this point we have explored every nook and cranny of the Milton math games website if I missed anything I'm just going to have to cover it in the next video now on a normal website that would be the end of it there would be nothing else to find and we'd be done that is of course on a normal website it wouldn't be an ARG if there wasn't stuff hidden in the source code and it's actually pretty interesting the homepage has nothing out of the ordinary in fact a lot of the pages don't have anything out of the ordinary once we get to Milton's page we get to start noticing some actual deviations though towards the bottom of the code we can see a message left behind by Jamie log 234 I think she noticed me today after all this time the website is such a hell hole it's dying not dead yesterday what am I supposed to do one day no one will ever find me log number 234 that's a pretty big number and judging by the context from the message it makes sense but it also implies that there are at least 233 more logs and we will see some of them Toby's page has the same message as Milton's however Garrett's page has a new one and it's a much earlier log than the previous one log 14 currently it is April 3rd 2006 no hope ins sight no one can even see me Mom Dad please can anyone help me hello why is this happening to me on Raven's page the log Jamie Left Behind is very new log number 277 log 277 why do it have to be this site these people are really bad with their jokes it's not quite as troubling as the other ones he's just complaining about the corny joke that Raven says on her page the first game page has nothing out of the ordinary in fact none of them do not even the scary looking one if we look into the ads the dingos page is probably the most concerning one because it reads help help suffering continues and no one is here to listen each new page is another way of pain please no more uh that's kind of a terrifying implication actually does every page added to the website somehow equal more pain for Jamie is his Consciousness being stretched across all the pages at once it this dude cannot catch a damn break on Jamie's p he leaves a message that outright confirms my prior Theory where he directly speaks to us the ones digging into the website very clever aren't you who are you it feels like no one can hear my screams anymore so it's lost hope but who are you so confused who are you who are you are you my salvation or my dation don't leave stay oh I could use the company you think outside the box don't you if I had to guess this message was probably put here before Charlotte started remembering Jamie since he specifically talks of having lost hope obviously by the end of the videos we've seen this is no longer the case finally we have the Japanese Milton site which honestly probably houses the most interesting bit of secret source code information yet it's a conversation between Developers now I'm not going to read the whole thing cuz it's not really necessary but all you do need to know is that for some reason Allison another person named Angus and Walter had a conversation in the source code Walter was their boss and he actually got mad at them for having conversations in the source code it's it's it's a weird thing they weren't making that much money from ads or from merchandise sales and they couldn't even afford a proper translator some random Japanese friend just helped them with the translation that's basically all that there is though I think the dialogue is intriguing in the sense that it gives us a small glimpse into the dynamic between employees at hyperdrive which we might be seeing explor but aside from that we don't really get much else and we know almost nothing about hyperdrive softworks and that is the end of the source code Secrets I do wish that there were more of them and I'm assuming that there will be more added in the future but for now that's all we got now that we have the pieces we can try to put together the puzzle I'm going to create a timeline of events and along the way deposit some theories if I have any let's get started in 1998 a software development company named hyperdrive softworks began work on early concepts for a kids educational website named Milton math games when the website actually opened after this we don't know exactly but if I had to guess it's probably like 2000 1999 I don't know as far as we know the website consisted of four main teacher characters and various educational mini gamess there was also at least one or two animated shorts and merchandise in the forms of a Milton and Toby plush the latter of which we never actually got to see around this time two childhood friends Jamie and Charlotte would regularly play together on the website but they'd stopped playing as much as they got older then on June 14th 2005 jimie would mysteriously go missing shortly after his parents bought him a computer as we know his body is somewhere in the forest south of Boulder Creek and we've been given approximate coordinates and many references to forests which have led us to that conclusion however beyond that any details regarding his disappearance are almost entirely unknown we really have no idea what happened to Jim's physical body at least not yet his soul however lived on somehow he went on to possess Milton mathgames.com if I had to guess the fact that he had just been given a new computer probably had something to do with it maybe it was his attachment to the website maybe that was the last website that he went on it's very vague and we have limited information I really don't know but so far the narrative has given us little information regarding the company that actually made Milton math games all we really know about it are the existence of three of its employees at hyperdrive softw works that being Allison Angus and Walter and what I'm basically trying to get at is the narrative has done nothing to point us in the direction of hyperdrive being at all malicious so I don't think they are I also don't personally think the characters themselves are meant to represent anyone or anything specifically and I don't think that they have anything to do with what happened to Jamie I think they're just mascots on the website that he used to play on of course after Jaime went missing his parents would make statements in the news and I imagine that it was probably a pretty big local Story Jamie Main aining Consciousness within the website but being unable to do much of anything at all would leave behind countless logs describing his emotional state and experiences now as we jump forward by at least a year maybe more we have the release of the Wii it was after Jam's disappearance which implies that Charlotte had to have gone out of her way to make Jim's me on her old wayi this is probably the only Insight that we have to the grief response that she may have had to the incident and it is only implied but it is pretty sad as the years went by Charlotte would of course have to move on with her life though after all time waits for nobody it's implied by the mere existence of the Milton Math Games archive that the end of flash support on the internet happened much earlier than in our timeline at the very bottom of the website the copyright is for the Year 2007 and obviously hyperdrive did not bother to renew past this which means to me that is the year that the flash support ended in that timeline and I think that actually checks out because in the Raven video Charlotte said that she recorded herself playing when she was 14 and it was supposed to be for the last time now I am assuming that Jamie and Charlotte are the same age and I'm pretty sure they are 2 years later is 2007 he would have been 14 Charlotte was 14 so to me this confirms that the flash support ended into 2007 people probably stopped regularly visiting the website since the games weren't online anymore leaving Jamie with barely anyone to even watch one-sidedly for half a decade until of course the archive would bring attention back to the website now obviously we don't know exactly when Charlotte's traumatic car accident takes place but if I assume that she was 16 it was probably 2019 and if she was 17 it was 2010 we know she had to have been a minor so it couldn't have been any farther than that we know that this accident caused her to forget a lot of things my guess is that she forgot large portions of her childhood entirely but maintained her current memory and any memory going forward under normal circumstances this honestly might have been for the better you can't grieve for someone that you don't remember but we know that the circumstances surrounding Jim's disappearance are anything but normal and as Charlotte began to remember more things from her childhood she would also start remembering mil math games but she didn't remember Jamie not yet as she began to remember more and more she opened a YouTube channel on May 11th 2012 and posted a video the very next day this was the beginning of the Milton Math Games archive she opened an email to receive submissions figuring help from other people who used to play on the site as well would be appreciated and it was but something was clearly wrong the videos were distorted and often downright disturbing at times it was Jaime's influence Charlotte didn't remember him though in fact she seemed to not notice these things at all even after viewers of the channel noticed them and emailed her about it she was still oblivious I'm almost wondering if her brain was purposefully attempting to ignore the signals that Jamie was leaving behind in an attempt to unconsciously Shield her from remembering her trauma I'd honestly say it's entirely possible and probably the most plausible explanation as to why she didn't notice things that were obviously there on November 11th 2012 Charlotte uploaded the concept art video and in it jimie for the first time was able to fully show his presence to Charlotte and she actually would realize it over the next few months the videos we'd received would teach us more about how Charlotte lost her memory whilst simultaneously showing off some brand new discoveries related to the website then on March 4th 2013 we got the Raven video in this video jimie communicates directly with Charlotte on the notepad and afterwards Charlotte calls Jaime's mother and asks when she's free most likely to sit down with her and explain what really happened finally it ends with her attempting to contact Allison one of the website's ex developers and that's where we're at that's the end of the Milton math games timeline in the future I predict that Charlotte and Allison and possibly even more of the developers of the site May collaborate in an attempt to free Jamie from the shackles of the website and allow him to peacefully Venture into the Afterlife like he should have always been allowed to do before this though Jamie will probably give Charlotte the direct coordinates to his body since he does seem to know them and from there Charlotte and Jim's parents can properly mourn we still do have a massive elephant in the room though and that of course is the cause of Jaime's death personally I would be fine if we never found out the series has never really been about how jimie died but rather what happened after he died it's pretty obvious that we're in the climax of The Story and there's probably not much time left to start entirely new plot threads related to the cause of his death the main thing that I really hope the series explores before its end is the emotional consequence that these events have had on the characters in the series I think in terms of the narrative the emotional aspect is the strong wrong suit Milton Math Games is not that scary and I don't think it's supposed to be it's not really a digital horror it's more of a digital tragedy and I think Jamie and Charlotte they both deserve to be free maybe just maybe Milton math games can have a happy ending but we'll just have to wait and [Music] see and just like that we've made it to the end of the video time flies huh it has been a while since I posted and I do apologize for that however I want to start taking more time to make sure that my videos are at a quality standard that I can be proud of and once again I have to remind everybody if you enjoyed this video If you enjoyed the series please go subscribe to the channel in the description the series end is in sight and I'm seated for for it that's for damn sure hopefully you are too and finally if you had a good time it would mean the world if you subscribed for more content like this and turned on post notifications so you never miss a video if you want to support me further $5 channel members get early access to new videos and you can also follow my socials and join the community Discord server that being said that's going to be all from me I hope you enjoyed the video until next time [Music]