You are a criminal from a higher dimension, finally captured for your litany of offenses, imprisoned now in a meager 3d realm but given the chance for freedom by participating in a game called Polysemous. Your objective: to be the first prisoner to gain two victory points. Your obstacles: the other prisoners and the boards. If you fail you remain in this suffocating 3d realm forever while the lone victor returns home.
Polysemous has heavy surreal and light fantasy elements, with many concepts around space, time, and extra dimensions.
The core mechanics are very simple, it is simply rolling a dice for movement and moving the amount rolled, but there are many added mechanics to this age old one like:
-Battle (roll a d6 for every follower and compare successes)
-Sanity (roll 2d6 for every sanity lost or gained and gain curses or blessings)
-Laws (permanent cards placed at the beginning of the game that change the rules of boards)
-Reporting (each player has a unique hidden quest, guess it and report them to the council)
-Bribing (bribe the council so you can use your suppressed reality breaking powers that come from being from a higher dimension)
The three possible victory conditions are:
-Conquer a board (six of the eight boards have a goal)
-Complete a Quest (each player has a secret quest)
-Collect two symbols (there are nine symbols scattered throughout the item deck)
During setup a variety of three of these conditions are chosen, and the same condition can be selected three times. So one game could be all about conquering boards, and the next could be about scouring the item deck for symbols.
Polysemous boasts eight different unique boards for players to explore and interact with, 365 cards with no two alike, 365 tokens, and the rest of the miscellaneous pieces (dice, coins, cups etc).
Polysemous is the first game I have released, and hope to release many more if it is successful. My favourite board games to play and make are those that allow a great amount of freedom of action and highly creative games.
I've developed this game over the past 4 years. Originally I came up with the idea 10 years ago but lost the prototype on bus! after I lost it I've made about 9 other board games until I wanted to try and publish one, so have come back to Polysemous.
Thank you for any support or feedback, I hope Polysemous piques your interest! Find it at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/polysemous/polysemous-the-doors-to-other-dimensions-are-open
Words that readers of this subreddit may like -
- essorant: Standing, but with the wings spread, as if about to fly.
- retrophilia: a strong liking for things from the past.
- paralambdacism: Inability to pronounce the sound "L".
- fulsome: Offensively flattering or insincere.
- polysemant: a word having more than one meaning.
These words are taken from vocabulary app - Vocab Assistant
Words you might not have heard of -
- polysemant: a word having more than one meaning.
- chiaroscuro: The contrasting effect of light and dark shading in a work of art (or mood/character). [from Italian "chiaro" clear, light + "oscuro" obscure, dark].
- opsimath: a person who learns late in life.
- simulacrum: a bad imitation.
- zephyr: a gentle, mild breeze.
These words are taken from vocabulary app - Vocab Assistant
I don't have an exact definiens count to qualify "not so polysemous", since it feels like a heap paradox to do so, but I figure that there must be some terms that more clearly are than aren't. For "highly frequent", I guess that'd be any term that's at least within the 95% coverage range of a 10,000,000-plus-token corpus, but the lower on average, the better.
This is just an intellectual curiosity to see what people would derive.
Also, is there a name ("[Surname]'s Law", for example) for the trend of more frequent terms' being more polysemous and of less frequent terms' being less so?
The credit of deciphering Hilichurlian goes to this Chinese video and its makers. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1P64y1i7Bz
>!I might end up translating this entire video, but since I'm not a native English speaker, so don't put too much hope on me.!<
In order to understand what "muhe" actually means, we gotta understand some background knowledge about the Hilichurlian language.
The idea of the Hilichurlian language probably comes from an artificial language called "Toki Pona". The biggest characteristic of this language, according to Wikipedia, is it only has "around 123 root words and 14 phonemes". "Each is polysemous and covers a range of similar concepts, and to express more complex thoughts, the roots can be combined." Wikipedia also gives examples of how it works.
>For example, jan pona can mean "friend", although it translates to lit.β'good/friendly person', and telo nasa, lit.β'strange water' or 'liquid of craziness', would be understood to mean "alcohol" or "alcoholic beverage" depending on the context. The verb "to teach" can be expressed by pana e sona, lit.β'give knowledge'. Essentially identical concepts can be described by different words as the choice relies on the speaker's perception and experience.
If the idea of creating Hilichurlian is coming from Toki Pona, then the meaning of "muhe" would not be restricted to triumph, but to express more generally positive emotions such as like/appreciate/love.
Actually, the idea of interpreting "muhe" as a "more generally positive emotion" is coming from an in-game book called Handy Handbook of Hilichurlian.
>"Muhe"
- Like, want.
>Note: You will not generally hear hilichurls say that they like you, so translating this as "want" is sufficient.
The word "muhe" can also be seen in in-game books Hilichurl Ballad Selection first song, third song, fifth song, Draft Lines of Hilichurlian Poetry from quest Poetry exchange, and quest Lionfang's Legacy from Venti's story quest.
In Draft Lines of Hilichurlian Poetry, it wrote:
>Muhe ye!
>
>β These two words seem to indicate some sort of... positive
The funeral director was asking us what we think Mum should wear in her casket.
Mum always loved to wear sarongs (fabric wraps that go around the torso and drape downward a bit like a long skirt would), so my uncle suggested that she wear a sarong in there.
The funeral director looked a bit confused, as did some of our family members, to which my uncle added:
"What's sarong with that?"
I started laughing like an idiot. He was proud of it too. The funeral director was rather shocked. We assured her, and our more proper relatives, that Mum would've absolutely loved the joke (which is very true).
His delivery was perfect. I'll never forget the risk he took. We sometimes recall the moment as a way help cushion the blows of the grieving process.
--Edit-- I appreciate the condolences. I'm doing well and the worst is behind me and my family. But thanks :)
--Edit-- Massive thanks for all the awards and kind words. And the puns! Love 'em.
I would have a daughter
But Bill kept the Windows
True story; it even happened last night. My 5-year-old son walks up behind me and out of the blue says, "hey."
I turn to him and say, "yeah, kiddo? What's up?"
He responds, "it's dead grass."
I'm really confused and trying to figure out what's wrong and what he wants from me. "What? There's dead grass? What's wrong with that?"
.
.
.
He says, totally straight-faced, "hay is dead grass," and runs off.
And then you will all be sorry.
No it doesn't.
Now itβs syncing.
He replied, "Well, stop going to those places then!"
I will find you. You have my Word.
She said how do you know he was headed to work?
βthank you for your cervix.β
In order to avoid relexing, I've taken to using polysemy more strategically in my conlangs. My words often have a lot of different meanings that change with context; there is very little synonymy in my conlangs. When I have to translate something into Athama, I try to see if there's a word I can use that already exists before inventing one, as I want to keep the lexicon small and the words generally polysemous.
Do you purposefully use ambiguity in your conlangs? What's your policy on synonymy and polysemy? When you do a translation challenge or other activity, do you typically invent a new word or do you try to make use of words you already have?
I'll add later one some examples of Athama's polysemes but I wanted to just pose this question to you-all first.
Made me smile
Mods said I'm a cereal reposter...
But now I stand corrected.
Wait. Sorry, wrong sub.
Theoretical Fizz-ics
http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/lfuvtf/an_intense_competitive_adventure_board_game/
You are a criminal from a higher dimension, finally captured for your litany of offenses, imprisoned now in a meager 3d realm but given the chance for freedom by participating in a game called Polysemous. Your objective: to be the first prisoner to gain two victory points. Your obstacles: the other prisoners and the boards. If you fail you remain in this suffocating 3d realm forever while the lone victor returns home.
Polysemous has heavy surreal and light fantasy elements, with many concepts around space, time, and extra dimensions.
The core mechanics are very simple, it is simply rolling a dice for movement and moving the amount rolled, but there are many added mechanics to this age old one like:
-Battle (roll a d6 for every follower and compare successes)
-Sanity (roll 2d6 for every sanity lost or gained and gain curses or blessings)
-Laws (permanent cards placed at the beginning of the game that change the rules of boards)
-Reporting (each player has a unique hidden quest, guess it and report them to the council)
-Bribing (bribe the council so you can use your suppressed reality breaking powers that come from being from a higher dimension)
The three possible victory conditions are:
-Conquer a board (six of the eight boards have a goal)
-Complete a Quest (each player has a secret quest)
-Collect two symbols (there are nine symbols scattered throughout the item deck)
During setup a variety of three of these conditions are chosen, and the same condition can be selected three times. So one game could be all about conquering boards, and the next could be about scouring the item deck for symbols.
Polysemous boasts eight different unique boards for players to explore and interact with, 365 cards with no two alike, 365 tokens, and the rest of the miscellaneous pieces (dice, coins, cups etc).
Polysemous is the first game I have released, and hope to release many more if it is successful. My favourite board games to play and make are those that allow a great amount of freedom of action and highly creative games.
I've developed this game over the past 4 years. Originally I came up with the idea 10 years ago but lost the prototype on bus! after I lost it I've made about 9 other board games until I wanted to try and publish one, so have come back to Polysemous.
Thank you for any support or feedback, I hope Polysemous piques your interest! Find it at
... keep reading on reddit β‘