Pixel Art

We are presented with a 4x6 grid of 10x10 pixel art images. We can identify them and read off the first letters for our first step to get CHAR FROM SECOND AND LAST HEX:

We then turn the given colors into their 6-character hex values, and look at the second and last (sixth) character of each.

Parsing this as ASCII, this gives us passages that seem to be from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, each with a question mark at the end. This clues us to look at the next word in each passage, which says: “Look at any square where the first base sixteen number is odd. However, watch out for the devilfish's relatives. If you find yourself in a region with one of these relatives, you must reverse the conclusion that you have reached.” We may notice at this point that the text does not match exactly, containing many typos - a fact we will use later on.

We then look at the cells in the 40x60 image where the first hex digit is odd. However, in “regions” (i.e. 10x10 areas) with a “relative” of the “devilfish,” we should do the opposite (i.e. look for even hex starting digits). Some of the 24 images depict words that can be followed by “fish” to form a type of fish (e.g. CAT → CATFISH). The cells are indicated below:

Following this rule, cells with an odd starting value in non-fish regions & cells with an even starting value in fish regions are indicated in orange below:

The image indicates the next step: to color in (r, g, b) values as either 255 or 0 based on the rules shown.

• For red, look at every red cell in regions that do not depict a fish type
• For green, look at every cell whose 20,000 Leagues differs from the original text
• For blue, look at every cell whose hex code contains the digit “b” anywhere

Overlaying the three RGB results, we get the following image:

which was created based on this image from Finding Nemo:

Dory is indicating the answer to this puzzle,

P. SHERMAN
42 WALLABY WAY
SYDNEY, NSW