You made it farther than me!

Alas, too busy to even take a crack at it. Since I haven't coded anything since 19x5, my knowledge of languages is both limited and rusty, but it's always fun to try.

Just not this time.

+1 for the puzzle though!

Let's try this again with a fresh set of eyes...

It's tricky, but as always with ZFR's work, it is also very elegant. I was extremely impressed.

No doubt. These have all been very clever.

I can't even figure out where to start with this one...

Start in the obvious place, and see where that gets you ;-)

pop
Sound advice :)

I really want to read the explanation for the puzzle. It flew straight over my head and I feel like a complete idiot but I am intrigued. If OP or the puzzle solver could PM the solution at some stage that would be appreciated, thanks.

With help from ZFR himself I managed to solve this puzzle.
It's quite fun and not that difficult, if you know a bit about computers in general and have good search engine skills, I guess.
Try it out, people!

I haven't helped you more than I helped some other people in these GAs.

Game is still available, by the way.

For extra elegance, here is a much more compact version
http://pastebin.com/raw/5dsCG0gR

This is what I should have created for the challenge. The idea of how to make it smaller without affecting my restrictions came to me just as I was finishing it. But I was in a hurry to post, so I put the larger version that I had, since completing the smaller one would have taken me some time to finish.
I'll let the original stand, but looking at this, and comparing to the original, *might* give those who haven't solved it some ideas (or it might send them in the wrong direction, so be careful).

Nope... still stuck :(

Seriously, check out the previous two giveaways linked in OP's post. ;)

Believe me, I have... I solved both of those at the time, and again a few days ago.

Well, then you should have a start at least, right? Have you found the first, most obvious "esoteric"?