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Okay, I already have a WIP, but I am still designing the game (as I am not in a position to work on the WIP at the moment. ). For the first boss you will have to solve a riddle at the end. Now along the way you will have read sign posts given you parts to the riddle.

I want to see if people can work out what the riddle means. If you can, put it into a Code Snippet box. I don't want to make it too difficult, so that people just take a guess.


Note: If you're Scandinavian, you may find it easier. The riddle is written in Norse (the grammar may not be perfect yet - I will double check it).


The clues:

1: If a name is a name, then it's verb is 'heitir'.
2: The 'Nótts' are 'the night', the noun that describes these fiends.
3: To fight is to battle, some may call it 'bardagi'.
4: To have many battles or to have fought many time is to have 'margar orrustur'.
5: If a weapon hurts, then it bites, then 'vápn bíta'.
6: If it is not, then it is 'Ekki'.
7: A healthy body is one with 'heið'
8:If you wish to kill somebody, then you will 'drepa' them.
9:'mik' and 'þik' are like me and you. But 'Þú' and 'ek' are like you and I.

The conversation:

Master: Ek heitir Jór.
Keats: What is this?
Master: Þeir eru nóttinn.
Keats: What?
Master: Þú átti margar orrustur með nóttinn. Vit bardagi. Vápn bíta ekki á mik.
Þú á ekki heið.
Ek vill drepa þik.

The question that follows is:

What shall I do?
Choices:
-Finish him off with a neuro.
-Finish him off with an attack.
-Try to heal myself
-Try to Escape.

So what is it that the master is trying to say? And what would be the best course of action for the character (Keats)?



I will post more of the Game Design once this bit is sorted.

Well, here's what I thought:



Took me a good 5+ minutes.

Hm, intriguing. There's a lot of filling in the gaps (for example, "a" is not given) but it's interesting how you can sort of see how it fits together.

My thoughts:

Good answers, but I can see where I need some work. I can say you both followed the evidence well. Darth Kiwi got an almost exact translation.


A comment on Darth Kiwi's:






Though I think it could be a little easier - just make a couple of the clues easier to understand, just because though I want people to think, I want the answer not take too long to solve or leave the player to decide: 'random guess'. Plus this is the first puzzle.


I ask, how difficult was it?

Well, it wasn't exactly difficult to translate some of it (I did a bit of German so "ek heitr" immediately put me in mind of the Deutsch "ich heisse" and so on. So I'm used to cramming translated words into half-translated sentences and trying to make sense of it.

The problem was, though it wasn't difficult to translate some of it, it was difficult to actually come to a final decision which was supported by the translation. "Finish him with a neuro" might have been exempt from the "I'm invulnerable" line, because it's not a weapon which "bites" him - but he might have been speaking figuratively. Similarly, since you have low health, it might have made more sense to run than to heal, since he might have killed you before you had a chance to heal.

Overall, though, I applaud the idea of putting ancient languages into games!

I think I'll have to figure that one out myself - so the answer can be a bit more clear-cut. My original answer was to run. Perhaps find a way 2 rule out 2 other options - we definitely know attacking is a bad idea.




Thanks, I suppose my passion for them comes into it, but I also like the idea of getting people to figure out puzzles. I may later have puzzles to be solved in Runic or even Cuneiform. But not only play with language, I might use mythology, history and symbolism. But they'd be further ahead in the game design, I've still got the first scenario to plan and how I'm going to do it in DBP.


[edit]

How about?

Hlaupr ok geðinn er gœðalauss.

Clues:
The geð belongs to your head, like the mind
All things 'gœðalauss' are simply useless.
Those that like to 'hlaup' are also those who like to 'run'


Hopefully that leaves only one answer.

Here is my design for the first part of the game - it is a part of the dream-world,

Abeyance

The Game Design Plan

Tool List:
Programming
Dark Basic Professional
Newton Physics
Barnski's LUA
3D Art
Silo 2* [If not, Hexagon 2]
CharacterFX
LithUnwrap
EVOLVED's Shaders or DarkShader*
Paint.NET
A Texture Website
Normal Map Generator (by MikeS)
Leadwerks Texture Tools
EVOLVED's Mapscape or Cartography Shop*

*Depends on Purchase
2D Art
Paint.NET
Music
Online Source [Temp]
Anvil Studio + Audacity
OR Fruity Loops
Sound Effects
SoundMATTER


The Engine

Using the Abeyance:Battle Engine.

[When access to engine, put current engine design here]

Elements:

Newton physics for all objects
3rd Person movement for Character controller
Sectioned Objects - modelling object section and placing them individually in an editor
Hide non-visible objects for culling
Distance for Grass and Trees -> Create Function for distance between tree and camera
LOD Meshes (Depends on performance)
Even set up functions for object creation - make it so that I can create a character, an enemy or whatever with a function. What we want is a 'Free Object' command

For example:




Engine Parts:
Walking Engine -> Pick-up Objects (nearly done - just need picking up of objects)
Talking Engine (Done)
Inventory Engine -> View from a Menu -> Skills and Equipment -> Use items (half way there)
Control-Engine> Keyboard + Xbox 360 Controller
Battle Engine -> One on one battle (nearly done)
GUI Engine -> Main Menu
Load and Saving Engine -> Using LUA scripts, similar to Vortex Engine (create a 'new line' command to help)
Options Engine -> Configure appearance and LOD distances and Resolution
Cutscene Engine - (movement and animation of objects + talking scripts)
Scripting Engine -> A Later, more advanced part of the engine -> Requires Code Conversion
Levelling Engine -> A Later, more advanced part of the engine


Abeyance: Level Design

The first level he will be in a nightmare situation.

First it will be a black screen with text that will fade into the next situation - the text will be central and in small 2 line chunks: SOUND OF WIND IN THE BACKGROUND...The TEXT Comes up slowly to start with (use your typewriter effect)...maybe a voice effect in the future?

Life...

...What is it to live?

Many things in life seem not worth living. There is nothing interesting.

Day in, day out, the same old things. The same old dreams of something better.

*Sigh* Why is it that I always feel lethargic? I could do with some rest

*Yawn* I best try to sleep, the boss will not be happy if I wake up late to work.


His bed is in the middle of a field, a small black gollum like creature is by his bed. He climbs out of bed

The conversation:



Conversation:

Keats: Where am I? Is this a dream?
???: Welcome.
Keats: What the...
???: I am here in the name of his grace.
Keats: What does he want?
???: I am here to collect your soul. Please, stand still.
Keats: Over my dead body!
???: That's kind of the intention


BATTLE START:

Keats will start off with:
No Weapon - punch/kick attack (later he'll get a crowbar)
Psycho - Thrust Kick
Neuro - NONE
Item - Health Pills x 5

After battle WIN: Cutscene: Keats will manage to produce a bolt on the creature, finishing it off.

He speaks:

Keats: What was that?
Did I? How? This can't be real.

Then he has to move through the level, battling enemies until he reaches the master. The level will contain just these creatures - there will be a couple of pills placed.

Here is the map"



When he reaches the master, they will speak, but the master will speak in his only language: the player will have the means to translate him...along the way he can read the billboards to learn parts of the language. (write them down as they go through.

First you will fight the monster. At the end you will have little health. So he will speak and then deliver the final blow, you can escape it if you can translate what the boss is saying.

Master: Ek heitir Jór.
Keats: What is this?
Master: Þeir eru nóttinn.
Keats: What?
Master: Þú átti margar orrustur með nóttinn. Vit bardagi. Vápn bíta ekki á mik.
Þú á ekki heið.
Hlaupr ok geðinn er gœðalauss.
Ek vill drepa þik.


The clues:

If a name is a name, then it's verb is 'heitir'.
The 'Nótts' are 'the night', the noun that describes these fiends.
To fight is to battle, some may call it 'bardagi'.
To have many battles or to have fought many time is to have 'margar orrustur'.
If a weapon hurts, then it bites, then 'vápn bíta'.
If it is not, then it is 'Ekki'.
A healthy body is one with 'heið'
The geð belongs to your brain, like the mind
If you wish to kill somebody, then you will 'drepa' them.
'mik' and 'þik' are like me and you. But 'Þú' and 'ek' are like you and I.
Those that like to 'hlaup' are also those who like to 'run'.
All things 'gœðalauss' are simply useless.


The question that follows is:

What shall I do?
Choices:
-Finish him off with a neuro.
-Finish him off with an attack.
-Try to heal myself
-Try to Escape.

Interesting - the fact the bed is in the middle of the garden seems pleasingly strange: do you plan to make the whole game slightly off-kilter?

And I presume that Hlaupr ok geðinn er gœðalauss means

It's going to play with reality a bit, I have used the same sentence to base my ideas on as I did/am doing with my NaNoWriMo/Novel.

"With repression, abnormality surfaces."

At the moment this is just a strange dream where he encounters a creature (which is a part of his mind) that will later haunt him. Reality and dream will kind of merge.

Though I don't want it to be too close to my Novel for reasons I hope that are obvious, so I will make sure that it's different, though so far the 2 fundamental concepts are similar. Perhaps the 'dreams' will be realities in their own right - as I am using ancient references, I may modernise some of the ancient world. But I think I'll stick with the fundamentals until I progress, instead of thinking too far ahead.

Here's my attempt:


Anyways the project sounds interesting as always! I need to find my MSN account info because we haven't chatted in ages.