No obvious hidden messages jumped out at me from the text, but DeeAnn wisely pointed out that several different video games are mentioned or described. That's pretty interesting.
Without knowing where this might lead, I'm not very motivated to spend time trying to solve it... but I'm sharing it here in case somebody else out there wants to take a crack at it.
If you do figure something out, please leave a comment below! (I also don't care about spoilers.)
Lessee... four video games... some animal-sounding descriptions... weird turns of phrase? All right, I'll bite and ramble;
ReplyDelete1. "Dear Pokemonsters" makes me think combining words is important. I'd say "portmaneua" but I can't spell it.
2. Pokemon - Sure, a video game, but any particular one? The last few lines imply that Pokemon Go. Name is a combination of pocket monster, although in Japanese?
3. Animal description (orange feet, black tail, silver fish) seems similar to a puffin. But I wonder if it's a pokemon being described. Not going to even try to go there.
4. Mario - Popular video game character, sure, but which game? He's a shepherd and Super Mario 64 makes use of the Shepard tone to make the endless staircase seem endless. Is that a stretch or what? The original Nintendo 64 came with the game.
4a. Why is his cap described as knitted wool? That would make it a knit cap. Sounds snappy.
5. Pac-Man - Okay, but why fuzzy herds? A herd of pac-men could be a Pac-Herd.
6. Animal described is obviously sheep. Baa.
7. Tetris - Nice, goes with the picture. Combination of Tetriomino and tennis. Only one of these games not developed in Japan, although Nintendo did... steal it? License it? for the GameBoy. The first GameBoy came with Tetris.
8. "Cliff-sick rookeries"??? What an odd turn of phrase. Animals that live in rooks are generally birds, like... rooks. Ones that live in cliff rookeries are usually seabirds. Is this the same bird referenced before? What the hell is "sick" doing in there?
9. Interesting that three of these games were inagural inductees into the Video Game Hall of Fame, while Pokemon has been denied twice.
10. "What is this game?" Seems like the ultimate goal here, a game only on the phone that is somehow described by these other games and animals.
It really doesn't help that I'm rereading Ready Player One right now!
All I can add at this point is that Tiny Wings is also a pretty sweet time waster
ReplyDeleteThe stones look like it's the Giant's Causeway in northern Ireland. Lots of seabirds in that area.
ReplyDeletePostcard seems to indicate it's in Iceland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynisdrangar. Large amount of puffins there in cliff-side rookeries. And other sea birds.
ReplyDeleteI mean, for all I know this is just a really odd way of someone describing their Icelandic vacation. Is Sybill a real person known to Curtis? Or is it Sybill Shepherd (there's that Shepherd reference again)? Or Sybill Trewlawney?
Mystery solved! This was my reward for sponsoring Emily Skaftun in the 2016 Clarion West Write-a-thon: "a one-of-a-kind postcard story on an actual postcard from an actual foreign country." If you liked the postcard, please go check out her other works. :)
ReplyDelete