Isthmus Cyclicus Crypticus
Isthmus Cyclicus Crypticus is a thematic esolang being designed by User:Salpynx, inspired by the episode Isthmus Crypticus of the animated series wikipedia:Æon Flux.
As a language, it is basically intended to be a combination 3D Turtle graphics, cyclic tag system, level design, and narrative generator.
Overview
An agent infiltrates a Crypticus complex in search of a particular goal containing chamber, guided by instructions written in the ancient language of Scaloti Middle-High Breen, translated on the fly by an assistant. The mission ends once the chamber is reached, or aborted if the enemy guards overrun the complex, by advancing across the aerial bridge (the isthmus) that passes through the giant central chamber of the Crypticus complex. If guards detect traces of the agent's passing at any level across the central chamber when they advance, they go into high alert. The translating agent is then unable to relay instructions (skips a section) and must instruct the active agent to wait while she catches up and finds her place in text. If the translator reaches the end of the text before the mission is over, she begins again at the beginning. Hence Cyclicus.
Syntax
Source code is written in a reduced set of symbols that approximate those used in the original episode for the coded directions to the goal chamber. For the purposes of this language they can be referred to as Scaloti Abbreviated-Low Breen.
Main directional symbols are taken from the Unicode block Unified wikipedia:Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, and have the property that they rotate and reflect, and look very much like the symbols used to represent Scaloti Middle-High Breen in the episode.
Numerals are a combination of Telegu (even) and Odia (odd) numerals ౦୧౨୩౪୫౬୭౮୯. (Reason: avoid Telugu 3, which looks too much like a '3', and avoid Odia 8, which could be confused for a Canadian Aboriginal Mi (used here for Right turn))
Tifinagh symbols are to be used for adding detail to the narration and level, they do not add any to the computational power, but could be utilised for output encoding.
Output is provided in the form of
- an English transcript of the instructions relayed to the active agent by the translator
- a 3D plot of the active agent through a Crypticus Complex, including all the positions occupied by the guards.
Examples
Hello, World!
ᐁ ᐁ ᑌᑌᒋᐅᑌᒋᑎᐅ ᐅᒋᑌᐅᒋᑌᐅᐅ ᑎᑎᒋᑊᐅᐅ ᑎᑎᒋᑊᐅᐅ ᑎᐸᑎᐳᑌᐳᑌᐸᐅᐅ ᐅᑎᑭᑭᐸᑊᒋᑊᑎᑭᐳᑌᑯᐳᑎᑭᐳᑊᒋᑊᐅᐅ ᑎᐸᑎᐳᑌᐳᑌᐸᐅᐅ ᑎᑎᑌᐳᐳᑌᐸᐸᑌᐳᐅ ᑎᑎᒋᑊᐅᐅ ᑎᑎᑌᐳᑌᐸᐅ ᐅᑎᑎᒋᑊ ᐦ
Output: (provisional, using current incomplete interpreter:)
Wait. Go south. Green light, go. Red light, stop. Green light, stop. Red light, go! Go down. Go down. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Go east. Go down. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Go up. Go east. Go east. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Go down. Go east. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Go down. Go east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. Go east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. Go east. Go east. Go up-west. Go up-east. Go down-east. Go down-west. Go east. Go east. Go east. Go up-up-up-west. Continue onward. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. Go up-up-east. Go down-down-east. Go up-up-east. Continue onward. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. Go east. Go east. Go up-west. Go up-east. Go down-east. Go down-west. Go east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Go down-east-east. Go down-west-west. Go down-east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. Go east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Go down-east. Go down-west. Go east. Go east. Go up. Go up. Take the next sharp turn to double back the way you came. Continue onward. You should be able to see a red door to your right with a green frame.
Arbitrary Cyclic Tag behaviour
This shows multiple cycles and productions being skipped, before the mission is aborted.
ᐁᐅᐃᐃ ᐁᐅ ᐃᐃᐃᐅᐁ ᐁᐁᐅ ᐃᐃᐅᐅᐅ ᑌᑌᐃ ᑎᐅᑎᐁᐁᐁ
Output (truncated):
... Go up. Go east. Go up. Go south. Go south. Go south. Go south. Go east. Go north. Go north. Go south. Go east. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. The guards have overrun the Crypticus. We have to abort the mission. Pull out!
Computational class
If I haven't messed up the specification, this language should be Turing complete as it is designed as a Cyclic tag system. Each line of the code is a production, which is an arbitrary set of physical directions in 3D. The path of the active agent is the data string. For the purposes of the tag system, a crossing of the main central chamber counts as a 0 (production not copied to the data string: guards on high alert), no crossing is a 1 (production is appended). All other movements on either side of the isthmus are extraneous to computation, but can be used for arbitrary output encoding via turtle graphics. The guards advance one position across the isthmus after each step. Their advance represents the deletion of the left-most character of the data-string, and their position reads the signs of agent crossing at that point to determine whether the next production is translated and carried out by the agent (i.e. appended to the data-string).
External resources
- An in-progress Python interpreter exists to prove the concept with pyplot output.