This is a copy of an email sent to the Riven Lyst by RAWA, Richard A. Watson, Cyan programmer and ultimate D'ni historian. The words in italics are the questions from fans. The plain gray print is written by Richard Watson.

In the original game design, 25 was meant to be figured out by process of elimination. But later we decided to just not use it at all. I just double-checked the prototype to make sure that I was remembering correctly, and when generating the dome combo, it doesn't use 1 or 25.

It is possible that Broderbund (Mac/PC) or Sunsoft (Game machines) didn't implement this limitation in their versions. Out of the dozens of times I've played each of their versions, I never got 1 or 25 in the dome combo, but that may just have been coincidence.

A Fan wrote:
If the D'ni numbering system is base 25 (and it is), then 25 would be two digits. The first would be the symbol for 1, followed by a symbol for 0. I believe the symbol for 0 is a square with a dot in the middle. (25 x 1 ) + 0 = 25 We use the same logic for Gehn's Age 233. (25 X 9) + 8 + 233

For mathematical purposes you are correct. In these cases, twenty-five is always represented as two digits ("10"). But the D'ni also has a single symbol for 25 used in other instances (like comparisons, where they judge things on a scale from 1 to 25).

One Fan wrote:
BTW, the symbol for zero is a square with a single diagonal line. Check Gehn's timepiece. When it's open, there are number symbols on the upper area of the inner cylinder. They begin with this symbol, and continue with the symbols for one, two, three, etc.

Another Fan wrote:
I disagree. I believe the square with the diagonal line is an error. I remember a post many months ago stating the square with a dot inside is "0". I believe it was RAWA who posted it. But I may be wrong. Maybe both are correct.

There are two ways of looking at this:

1) The number on the timepiece was meant to be 25, but there was an error in the font that was used.

2) The single slash is a special symbol representing the combination of 0 (a dot) and 25 (an "x") only used in cases like the clock where the number sequence is cyclical, and can be thought of a wapping around upon itself.

#1 is the truth, but I like #2 better. ;)

Shorah,

RAWA

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/ * Richard A. Watson * mailto:rawa@cyan.com *
\_/ * Programmer / D'ni Historian * http://www.cyan.com *
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