The initial pitch It started as a normal work-day morning, when my friend Alessio comes out of the blue and asked me to play some CTF. "My colleague sent me this VM challenge..." Challenge name: VeryMuch RE Description: Implementing my own VM - Can you check if I did it right? Milestones 15 minutes: player recognizes the implemented virtual machine 30 minutes: (the player) starts writing a disassembler 1 hour: (the player) has the whole program disassembled 1 hour and a half: (the player) understands the logic 2 hours and a half: (the player comes up with a) solution Later in the evening, I picked the challenge up.