O mi mute li musi e anpa ma a (Let's Play: Underworld!)

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

While I know I have another Let’s Play already in progress, a game just came out in the Spring Thing that I’m especially excited about. Anpa ma is a game entirely in toki pona, a constructed language that challenges people to express their sentiments using only 100-some words and very basic grammar. And I’d like to play this while it’s still topical (i.e. while Spring Thing is still open)! My toki pona skills are not great—I haven’t done anything with it in years—but I was proficient in it once upon a time, and this seems like a great way to get back into it.

So let’s take a look at anpa ma, and see how well my rusty skills can do! If you want to follow along, it only takes a week to learn toki pona through the link I posted (though I wouldn’t recommend doing it in less than that), and what better reason is there than a new IF game?

To start with, anpa means “lower” or “below”, and ma means “place”. So I’m going to tentatively translate anpa ma as Underworld. We’ll see how correct that is…

---

sina sona ala e musi la sina ken kama sona kepeken >SEME.

anpa ma
musi tan jan Wiwijen
nanpa ‌1 / nanpa tenpo li ‌250329 / kepeken ilo Inform 7 v10.1.2

tomo sina
tomo sina li lili. taso tomo sina li pona.

sina ken lukin e lipu, e poki moku, e seli, e supa lape.

sina ken tawa weka.

Starting off with a couple large sentences! La separates context from the rest of the sentence, something like “if…then”. So we have “if” sina sona ala e musi (“you know not playing”), “then” sina ken kama sona kepeken SEME (“you can begin to know using WHAT”). So that seems like our help command. Let’s try it.

poka “>” la o sitelen e wile pali sina.

sina ken toki sama ni:
• >o lukin. “>l” li sama “>o lukin”.
• >o lukin e ijo.
• >o kama jo e ijo.
• o lukin e >ijo mi. “>i” li sama.
• >o weka e ijo. sina jo e luka tu taso la sina ken jo e ijo tu taso.
• >o open e ijo. >o pini e ijo.
• >o toki e nimi tawa jan. nimi ni li ken ale!
• >o pakala e ijo. >o utala e jan. sina wile utala anu seme? tan seme? ike a!
• >o moku e moku.
• sin mute!

nimi “o” li ken weka. “>moku e pan” li sama “>o moku e pan.

sina ken toki e ijo kepeken nimi ona. sitelen Lasina la nimi ijo li ken sitelen wawa. sina ken ante e ni kepeken nimi lawa ni: >nimi wawa.
sina ken ante e sitelen pi musi ni kepeken nimi lawa ni: >sitelen pona.
sina ken monsi e tenpo kepeken nimi lawa ni: >monsi.
sina wile tawa weka li wile kama sin la sina ken >pali e lipu tenpo, li ken >kama e lipu tenpo.

sina ken ala anpa e musi ni la
• nimi pi ijo wan li nasa e sina? sina wile e nimi lon toki Inli? sina ken >translate ona.
• o toki tawa jan Wiwijen. mi pana e sona tawa sina.

musi pona!

Oh my! That’s a lot of text, and I’m not going to translate it all here. I assume we all know how to play IF overall. But this is teaching us various useful commands:

• L or O LUKIN: “look”
• O LUKIN E IJO: “look at a thing”
• O KAMA JO E IJO: “begin to hold a thing”
• I or IJO ME: “my things”
• O WEKA E IJO: “abandon a thing”
• O OPEN E IJO: “open/activate a thing”
• O PINI E IJO: “close/deactivate a thing”
• O TOKI E NIMI TAWA JAN: “say a word to a person”
• O PAKALA E IJO: “break a thing”
• O UTALA E JAN: “attack a person”
• O MOKU E MOKU: “eat some food”
• sin mute: “and more!”

It also tells us that the O at the beginning can be left off—that’s the imperative marker that makes something into a command.

Then, we have a few meta-commands. The names of objects will be written in bold: sitelen wawa “strong writing”. We can change this with NIMI WAWA “strong names”. We can change the game between Latin script and sitelen pona (a special writing system for toki pona) with SITELEN PONA (“good writing”). We can take back a move with MONSI (“back”). And we can use the complicated phrases PALI E LIPU TENPO and KAMA E LIPU TENPO (“make a moment-document” and “use a moment-document”) to save and restore the game.

If we don’t understand what something is, we can TRANSLATE it to learn its English name, or contact jan Wiwijen—that is, the author.

---

That seems like we have enough to start us off! Let’s see what’s going on here…

anpa ma

Like I said, I’m tentatively translating this as “Underworld”.

musi tan jan Wiwijen

A game (or artwork) by jan Wiwijen.

nanpa ‌1 / nanpa tenpo li ‌250329 / kepeken ilo Inform 7 v10.1.2

Number 1, the time-number is 250329, using the tool Inform 7 v10.1.2.

tomo sina

Your house.

tomo sina li lili. taso tomo sina li pona.

Your house is small. But your house is good.

sina ken lukin e lipu, e poki moku, e seli, e supa lape.

You can see a document, a box for food, a heater, and a horizontal surface for sleep—that is, a bed.

sina ken tawa weka.

You can go out.

---

That seems like a good place to end the first post, after a lot of scene-setting. Shall we go out? Or shall we take or examine our belongings first?

[JTN]

@Draconis

To start with, anpa means “lower” or “below”, and ma means “place”. So I’m going to tentatively translate anpa ma as Underworld.

…or Place Under Ground?

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

That would also make a good translation! Probably not “The Netherlands”, since that would be ma anpa “lower land”, but something like “Under the Ground” would work fine.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

I vote for examining everything first!

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Time to examine things, then!

First, that document:

>o lukin e lipu

> LOOK AT THE DOCUMENT

sina pali e lipu ni. ona li jo e sitelen:

You wrote that letter. It has writing:

“jan pona Penelopi o

"My friend Penelopi,

tenpo suli pini la sina awen lon anpa ma.

After a lot of time, you remain in the Underworld.

anpa ma la sina pona anu seme?

In the Underworld, are you okay, or what?

jan pona Penelopi o kama sin lon mi.

My friend Penelopi, start again(?) with me.

mi wile seli e sina kepeken luka mi.

I want to warm you up with my hands.

mi wile awen e sina lon poka mi.

I want to keep you by my side.

mi wile luka e linja lawa pimeja suwi sina.

I want to run my hands through your sweet, dark hair.

sina pona e mi.

You are good to me.

mi wile toki e ijo suli tawa sina.

I want to talk about something important with you.

tenpo mute pini la mi sona e ijo suli ni.

For a long time, I have known something important,

taso tenpo pini la mi toki ala e ijo suli ni tawa sina.

But previously, I could not talk about this important thing with you.

mi wile e ni: sina sona e ijo suli ni.

I want this: that you know this important thing.

ijo suli ni li ni:

The big thing is this:

mi olı”

I lov—"

(The only word that starts with “oli” in the dictionary is olin, “love”. The missing dot on the I is a nice touch.)

lipu li pini.

The letter ends.

tenpo pini la, sina pali e lipu mute sama lipu ni.

In the past, you wrote many letters similar to this letter.

taso sina kama jo ala e lipu sin tan jan pona Penelopi.

But you haven’t gotten(?) a new letter from your friend Penelopi.

sina wile toki tawa jan pona kepeken uta.

You want to talk to your friend with your own mouth.

sina wile kama lon jan pona Penelopi.

You want to go to your friend Penelopi.

sina wile tawa anpa ma.

You want to go to the Underworld.

---

So we have a motivation now! I’m not totally confident in my translations here, so other tokiponistae in the audience, please correct me when I make mistakes. Because I definitely will. I’m guessing kama jo is “receive”, for example, but I’m not at all sure about that.

I’m also trying to be literal here, to help people follow along, but more idiomatically, all of those “talk about something important with you” should probably be “say something important to you”.

What else we got here?

>o lukin e poki

> LOOK AT THE BOX

ona li awen e moku sina. ona li pini.

It protects your food. It is closed.

Closed, eh?

>o open e poki

> OPEN THE BOX

sina open e poki moku. sina ken lukin e kili e pan.

You open the box for food. You can see a fruit and some bread.

>o lukin e seli

> LOOK AT THE HEATER

ni li weka e lete. tenpo pimeja la, seli li awen e sina tan pimeja.

This gets rid of the cold. In dark times, the heater protects you from the darkness.

So maybe this should be “hearth” or “fire” rather than “heater”?

> o lukin e supa lape

> LOOK AT THE BED

tenpo pimeja la sina lape lon ona. palisa tu tu li sewi e ona.

In dark times, you sleep on it. Four posts are above it.

Oh! So “in dark times” should be “at nighttime”. Neat.

> o lukin e kili

> LOOK AT THE FRUIT

ona li lili li suwi.

It is small and sweet.

>o lukin e pan

> LOOK AT THE BREAD

ona li kiwen ala. ona li moku pona.

It is not hard. It is good for eating.

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

All right! That should be everything. Time to head out!

>o tawa weka

> GO OUT

ma pi tomo sina

Place of your house (i.e. the area near your house)

sina lon ma supa lon poka pi tomo walo.

You are at a flat area by the side of a white house.

kasi lili mute li lon sike lon tomo walo.

Many small plants are in a circle around the white house.

poki lipu lili li lon ni.

A small document container (mailbox?) is here.

ilo tawa sina li lon ni.

Your movement tool is here.

I’m not really sure what a “movement tool” should be. A car is normally tomo tawa, “movement building”, so I’m going to guess this is a bicycle or something like that—something you ride on rather than in.

sina ken tawa ma pi kasi suli.

You can go to the place of large plants.

sina ken tawa ma tomo Nante kepeken ilo tawa.

You can go to the…???…using the movement tool.

Okay, I’m stuck here. Words group leftward unless pi overrides this, right? So ma tomo Nante should be (ma tomo) Nante, “(the place of the building) called Nante”. But that doesn’t make any sense to me.

sina ken tawa insa tawa tomo sina.

You can go inside to your house.

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Aha! ma tomo NAME is used to mean “the city of NAME”. So you can go to the city of Nante using the movement tool.

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

It is very cool that you’re doing this! I admit that trying to play this game gave me a headache after five minutes, but I’m looking forward to getting the guided tour via your playthrough

If you’re looking for direction, I’d say let’s look at the small plants and check if there’s anything in the mailbox. We might also want to eat some of our food before going further, since it sounds like we’re in for a bit of a trip.

(It sounds like we can walk to a forest, or bicycle to the city? If that’s the case I’d vote forest first).

This is probably an obvious observation, but the setup feels very Orpheus, while Penelope brings in an Odyssey reference (of course Odysseus did make his own trip to the underworld, though on a very different sort of errand…)

[Doug_Egan]

Enjoying your transcript. When I played I must have overlooked the movement tool, but I did find my way to two other locations including a store where I could possibly buy some things (but wasn’t sure how) and a cave entrance guarded by some large creature (but wasn’t sure how to get past him)

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Let’s check out that mailbox!

>open e poki lipu

OPEN THE MAILBOX

sina open e poki lipu.
ike… poki lipu li jo e ala.

You open the mailbox.
Bad…the mailbox holds nothing.

So there are some small plants here. Grass?

>lukin e kasi lili

EXAMINE THE SMALL PLANTS

kasi lili li mute li laso. tenpo seli la kasi kule jelo lili li kama lon ni.

The small plants are many and green (or blue). In hot times, small yellow flowers appear on them.

How about the large plants?

>tawa ma pi kasi suli

GO TO THE PLACE OF LARGE PLANTS

I’m guessing “large plant” means “tree”, so this would be a “forest” or the like.

ma pi kasi suli
pipi li mu lon poka pi kasi suli.

A bug makes a noise on the side of a tree.

The word mu is a sort of generic onomatopoeia in toki pona. It’s meant to suggest a cow mooing, but it broadly refers to any sort of sound an animal makes.

I’m guessing that, since this is a bug, it’s chirping like a cricket.

sina ken tawa ma pi tomo sina.

You can go to the place of your house.

>lukin e pipi

EXAMINE THE BUG

pipi ni li laso. ona li ken tawa sewi kepeken noka wawa ona.

This bug is green (or blue). It can move upward using its big legs.

So yeah, something cricket-esque.

sina sona e ni: jan pona Penelopi li olin e pipi laso sama ni.

You know this: your friend Penelopi loves green (or blue) bugs like this.

>kama jo e pipi

BEGIN TO HOLD THE BUG

sina kama jo e pipi.

You begin to hold the bug.

(tenpo ni la sina jo e pipi. sina wile e sona pi ijo sina la sina ken >ijo mi anu >i taso.)

Now, you have a bug. If you want to know your things, you can >MY THINGS or just >I.

pipi li tawa lili lon luka sina.

The bug moves slightly in your hand.

I’m not seeing a lot of things to do here, so let’s head back. And check out the town of Nante!

>tawa ma tomo Nante
GO TO THE TOWN OF NANTE

ma tomo Nante

Town of Nante

ni li ma tomo. tomo mute en jan mute li lon ni. tenpo wile la, sina esun e ijo tan jan esun lon ni.

This is a town. Many buildings and many people are here. Whenever you want to, you buy things from the merchants here.

jan mute li kalama. ike a. tan ni la tomo sina li lon ala ma tomo.

Many people are noisy. Augh! Bad! Compared to this, your home is in no town at all.

As mu is to animal noises, a is to human noises: a generic interjection for emphasis or to express emotion. So it seems like the place where our home is is much smaller.

ilo tawa sina li lon ni.

Your movement tool is here.

sina ken tawa ma pi tomo sina kepeken ilo tawa.

You can go to your house using the movement tool.

sina ken tawa sewi lon nena Silin.

You can go up Mount Silin.

Well, not necessarily “mount”. Nena is any sort of protrusion, from a bump to a hill to a mountain. It also means a person’s nose. The only direction words in toki pona are up, down, in, and out, so I expect a lot of verticality in the map.

sina ken tawa insa lon tomo esun lili pi jan Emeli.

You can go in to the small shop of the person Emeli.

Seems like we have two main options here. Which should we check out: mountain or shop?

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

Shop then mountain - maybe we’ll need some gear!

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

>tawa insa

GO IN

tomo esun lili pi jan Emeli

“The Small Shop of the Person Emeli”

This could either be a shop that’s small, or a shop for small things, but I think syntactically you’d need pi for it to be a shop for small things. So it’s probably just a small shop.

supa li jo e ijo esun. supa li jo e lipu pi toki Inli, e ilo alasa, e sike luka.

The counter has sale-things. The counter has an English-language book, a hunting tool, and a “hand circle”.

Similarly, I believe “sale-things” could either be “things being sold” or “things used for selling”. But I’m assuming “things being sold” here.

I’m not sure what a “hand circle” would be, but I want to ask here before resorting to >TRANSLATE. It could also be “five circles”; toki pona deliberately eschews all numbers greater than two, but some people use the word for “hand” to mean “five”, and the word for “many” to mean “twenty”, to express larger quantities.

jan esun li awen lon monsi supa.

A merchant stands at the back of the counter.

sina ken tawa weka tawa ma tomo Nante.

You can go out to go to the town of Nante.

Well, if this is a shop, we should be able to buy things; but I don’t remember BUY being in the list of possible commands. So let’s try TAKE.

>kama jo e sike luka

BEGIN TO HOLD THE HAND-CIRCLE

jan esun li toki: “sina wile pana e sina tawa jan anu seme?”.

The merchant says: “You want me to give you to the person, or what?”

I think I may have messed up the syntax here. Ditransitive verbs (verbs with multiple objects) are complicated.

sinpin sina li loje. “aa? s-seme??”

Your face is red. “Huh? W-what?”

jan esun li toki: “o nasa ala a! lawa sina li jaki. mi toki ala e unpa. sina wile wan e sina e jan suwi kepeken sike luka. mi toki lon ala lon?”

The merchant says: “Oh, it’s nothing strange!” (I’m very confused by the syntax here. How does this sentence work without a li?)

“Your mind is in the gutter. I’m not talking about lewd things. You want to unite yourself and your sweetheart using the hand circle. Am I talking correct or not?”

sina toki e seme? lon ala lon? >‍

You say what? Yes or no?

Ah, all right! So a “hand circle” is a wedding ring, apparently, and the merchant is offering to perform a ceremony? But I don’t know if that would be useful to us, or if we have anything to trade for it.

So, yes or no?

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

If Penelope is in the underworld, having some sort of ritual link to her could be useful for finding and retrieving her, so I’d vote lon (I think?)

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

sina toki: “…lon.”

You say: “…yes.”

jan esun li toki: “a mi sona lon tenpo ale! sina olin e jan. ona li suwi anu seme? ona li pona anu seme?”

The merchant says, “Ah, I’ve known for a long time! You love a person. Are they sweet or not? Are they good or not?”

sina toki: “ona li suwi li pona li wawa.”

You say: “She(?) is sweet and good and strong.”

Toki pona pronouns don’t specify gender, so this could be he/she/they/it equally well. But “Penelope” is a feminine name in Greek (and English), so I’m assuming “she”.

jan esun li toki: “a, wawa li pona. wawa la ona li ken sewi e sijelo sina! musi mute. pona ante la ona li ken awen e sina kepeken wawa. ni la jan sina li pona mute. sina wile wan e ona e sina. o esun e sike luka ni! mi wile e mani tu taso.”

The merchant says: “Ah, strength is good. If strong, she can lift up your body! Very fun. If goodness changes, she can protect you using strength. In this case, your person is very good. You want to unite her and yourself. Buy this (these?) ring(s?)! But I want $2.”

The price is literally “two money” or “two livestock”, but “$” is better English than “two unspecified currency units”. Toki pona (like Japanese) normally doesn’t specify the number of nouns, so it might very well be two rings instead of just one—all we know is it’s not mute (many).

sina esun ala esun e sike luka? >

Do you buy or not buy the rings?

…do we have any money?

>esun

BUY

sina ken ala esun e ona! sina jo ala e mani.

You can’t buy that! You don’t have the money.

Seems not!

pipi li uta lili e luka sina. taso ona li pakala ala e selo sina.

The bug gives your hand a little bite. But it doesn’t break your skin.

So I’m guessing we need to go elsewhere and get some money first! Let’s go up and…

…okay, I think a screenshot’s the only way to convey this.

You go up and go up and go up go up Mount Silin.

sewi pi nena suli Silin

Top of Mount Silin

ni li sewi pi nena suli Silin. “uta” pi nena suli Silin li lon ni. kepeken uta ma ni la, sina ken tawa insa ma.

This is the top of Mount Silin. The “mouth” of Mount Silin is here. Using this mouth of the land, you can go inside the land.

I’m not sure why “uta” is in quotes like that. Maybe this is an unusual phrasing.

sina wile tawa insa ma. sina wile e jan pona Penelopi.

You want to go inside the land. You want your friend Penelopi.

taso jan wawa li awen lon sinpin pi uta ma.

But a strong person waits at the front of the mouth of the land.

Apparently jan wawa idiomatically means “guard” or “police”.

sina ken lukin e poki lon ma lon poka pi jan wawa.

You can see a container on the ground at the side of the strong person.

sina ken tawa anpa tawa ma tomo Nante.

You can go down to go to the town of Nante.

sina ken ala tawa insa ma tan ni: jan wawa li awen.

You cannot go into the land, because of this: the strong person is here.

pipi li tawa tan luka sina tawa ma.

The bug moves from your hand to the ground.

Aha, a puzzle! The guard presumably wants something to let us past, and if we put the right thing in the box, they’ll let us go past. But what could that thing be? Food? Wedding rings? Bugs?

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

The angled text is interesting; was it done via an image or via CSS? Could you highlight it if desired, for instance?

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Yep, it’s CSS!

Looks like it’s done in Bisquixe.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Oh, neat! I wondered that, but VERSION didn’t list the Bisquixe extension.

[vi (Vivian Rose)]

I’m enjoying watching you figure out the game on your own, but I should at least clarify: I did not use Bisquixe; I wrote my own JavaScript to handle typographical effects like slanted text and the logographic writing system.

Bisquixe would have been a good approach, though. I actually recommended it in my toki pona extension documentation to anyone who wants to make an optionally-logographic toki pona text adventure.