The Gostak Nonsense Language

Interactive fiction The phrase the namesake of an interactive fiction game called The Gostak, written by Carl Muckenhoupt. Most of the text of the game is in an entirely unknown language (fundamentally English in syntax and grammar, but with much of the vocabulary and even idiomatic constructions changed) which the player must decipher, not only to understand the game's text but also to type commands in the same language. For example, the game opens with the following text: "Finally, here you are. At the delcot of tondam, where doshes deave. But the doshery lutt is crenned with glauds. Glauds! How rorn it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes dismen them. But you are the gostak. The gostak distims the doshes. And no glaud will vorl them from you." The Gostak won the 2001 XYZZY Awards for Best Use of Medium and Best Individual Puzzle.[5]

The image is a screenshot of an article about the interactive fiction game The Gostak, including a passage written in deliberately altered English full of invented words. The joke is that the sentence structure remains understandable while the vocabulary is almost entirely replaced, creating a surreal language puzzle that people share as a reaction to confusing jargon or incomprehensible text.

• @rzeczyzabawne / 13205 2023-11-04