I think that was “no Zork references that are as major as the dwarf is to Adventure”, rather than “no references we haven’t noticed that are related to the dwarf”?
We already have FOUCO as “swing”, which I think is right for two reasons: one, it works as a verb both for what a dwarf does with an axe and how a door opens, and two, I think there’s a sly reference here in how it sounds a lot like “Foucault”, as in Foucault’s pendulum, which is a thing that swings.
3 Likes
Oh, you’re right! Well, there’s another reference related to the dwarf that you haven’t twigged to 
2 Likes
If you’ve spotted a reference we’ve missed, please do share it!
@lpsmith mentioned this back in post 39 but I think there’s a good reason he’s being circumspect about it …
I’m confused; @lpsmith you “beta-tested” the transcript? Or have seen a canonical translation somewhere?
I my case, this is one of (now the final one of) the things which I said at the beginning I remembered from previous attempts at translating the the game and would avoid mentioning for as long as possible in order to give others an opportunity to spot it for themselves.
In @lpsmith’s case, while he may have also seen previous translation attempts, there’s a more specific reason why he would be familiar with one very specific aspect of Lighan ses Lion.
1 Like
Bit of a stretch here, but could PASVORN OLETI be “inhale deeply”? It seems to be related to resolving the “burning lungs(?)” situation, and we have PASE=“in”, so PAS- might be “in-” as a prefix, and OLET being “deep” might make sense in the description of the GARST?
EDIT: We also have an OLT chamber and an OLT door, and OLT-SHRON documents. I think “high/tall” might work for these (“high-value documents”), and it would make sense for “deep” to be related.
2 Likes
I see. There’s a Coke Is It reference then, maybe? I never played that game. It has an Adventure segment (including a bottle you fill with Coke to refresh your brass lantern), but nothing jumped out at me as matching something in the Lion transcript.
Yes, that’s quite convincing to me!
OLT=“high” sounds good to me. MORVONTY NOLVONT OLT-SHRON would be something like “high-value legal documents” or possibly “financial documents”?
The pit CARAB OLET PARO the VOLTO, and VOLTO also appears in the finale when ALL MEFAL your VOLT with ISKOLEB of your own BUELY. I think VOLT has to be something to do with the senses; “sight/vision” seems like the obvious one. Could CARAB OLET PARO SE VOLTO be “rises high out of sight”? But that errant definite article in there means that that doesn’t feel quite right.
1 Like
Well, I was proposing that OLET was distinct from OLT, so the description of the GARST would be in some way deep, not high. And I feel like figuring out the VOLT sentence hinges on figuring out what “your own BUELY” are. It really doesn’t seem like it could be “eyes.” Blood (but that’s not plural)? Heartbeats, maybe?
1 Like
Let’s look at:
To the south, an enormous CORRAN door stands VUREL the cavern wall, its top crusted with THALSHAIM.
No preposition seems perfect here for VUREL; “against” sounds the most natural to my ear (and fits with EL = “by”), though it connotes a door leaning loosely on a wall rather than being set “within” it (another possibility).
THALSHAIM is a puzzle. Notice that it’s not THALSHAIMY (and there is no evidence of any other words in the transcript ending in -M being plural) and is related to
- THALN = “point”;
- ZATHAL, which covers the walls/ceilings of a bunch of a caverns. It is also(!) a singular noun, and appears in a compound construction with “crystals”;
- and SHAIMOO, the thing your BUELY do earlier in response to smoke.
I would be in favor of @jwalrus 's earlier analysis that THALSHAIM = “spikes” (point + sting), except for the grammatical inconsistency this would create.
There aren’t too many singular nouns that idiomatically follow “covered with” or “encrusted with.” The most promising options I can think of are uncountable substances, e.g.
- moss/lichen: a common cave feature in Adventure-type games, but unrelated to “points”;
- ice (but sadly not “icicles!”);
- rust (fits well for the door; not so much for the caves);
- flowstone/calcite (fits well for the caves; not so much for the door).
3 Likes
athwart is the only word that really comes to mind, but I still don’t know that a door can really do that. I guess before might also fit, if the door is blocking the way to the wall?
As for THALSHAIM, what about “barbed wire”?
As for the hints from @jwalrus and @lpsmith : I won’t speak for the others who have been participating (@Hituro @averyhiebert @Draconis @EJoyce etc.) but I personally wouldn’t mind y’all sharing anything you happen to know (based on previous translation efforts, recognizing references to your own back catalog, etc.). As far as I’m concerned, we’re all in this together to crack the puzzle.
I did take a look at Emily’s own translation attempt using the Wayback Machine, for what it’s worth, but it looks like we’ve gotten quite a bit further than she did.
3 Likes
“Barbed wire” nicely fits the “point” prefix. My hesitation here is that almost all other Lionese words are one-for-one equivalents of English words (I think the only exceptions we’re aware of are related to verbs: (verb)+NE can form “doesn’t (verb),” and the helper “have” is missing in the perfect tense).
Likewise, I have no objection to a hint here! If it’s something that was meant to be clear to solvers at the time, it’s not like it’s an unfair advantage.
Well, now I’m not sure if further hints would be annoying or intriguing. How about a poll?
- More Hints?
- Just tell us.
0
voters
If we go with hints, I should be clear that my plan was that if you got the more-obvious reference, to just tell you what the actually-obscure reference was. (So if you think ‘what if it’s X’ and you check and it’s not, post anyway.)
(And no, it wasn’t a reference from ‘Coke is It’, though it would have been hilarious if it was.)
2 Likes
As a starting point it might be helpful to know what kind of references we should be looking for? More references to Adventure or the Infocom canon? To works of interactive fiction circa 2000? IF community in-jokes? Early 2000s pop culture more generally?
1 Like
That. Or a bit earlier.
1 Like