2020-04-28
The fictional D'ni numeral system that players must deduce in Riven is a base-25 positional system, with the twist that its 25 digits are constructed using an unrelated base-5 scheme in which the would-be fives place is orthogonally overlaid to form a single glyph:
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | |||||
5 | |||||
10 | |||||
15 | |||||
20 |
The number 241, for example, is written as
Given the amount of symmetry in the notation I thought it would be fun to generate these procedurally. The following registers a custom HTML element that renders as an inline D'ni numeral:
Using it is as simple as:
This opens the door to such fun things as a D'ni numeral clock—
—or an interactive converter: