Kanas:
Tahven haeskaen si hef kearf ze haenaek. Sa lo teinseitsu bevae khuutae kearf tsah haenaekh laen.
Ahlaen laen khuun haenaek pahnkhu lo, ahlaen laen smuk lo tae. Ahva hef saentsah boishi te nah…
Background Information:
Kearf ze Haenaekh is based on a series of legends surrounding a mysterious cave situated on Xiaoliuqiu, an island off of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan.
The text used in this game is entirely written in wan khu Wan khu is a constructed language (conlang) I wrote two or three years ago over the course of a weekend (grammar structure, phonemes) and several mornings at my day job (analyzation and then construction of vocabulary). I always envisioned wan khu to have started out of necessity, as some sort of pidgin from the time that the Dutch colonized Taiwan (1624 to 1662). In terms of the game Kearf ze Haenaekh, the language is spoken by a lost population of people that had interbred with the Dutch, remaining isolated on the island. As such, wan khu borrows some vocabulary and ideas from Dutch and Chinese, as well as German, English, Japanese, and even Portuguese! If interested, here is the only page online about this constructed language:
https://www.maliscash.com/wankhulanguage
Please note that although the cave on Xiaoliuqiu does exist, and the Dutch did colonize Taiwan for a spell, the constructed language wan khu and the premise for this game (uncovering lost treasure in the cave) is strictly fictional and is not meant to be understood as actual history.
Objective:
Kearf ze Haenaekh is a fast-paced game! You are an unknown person, who ventures into the cave in search of treasure. The player controls a “magic hand”, which can break boulders located in each room of the cave. The objective is to collect treasure and find the entryway into deeper rooms of the cave before the time runs out. Once the clock ticks out, it can be assumed that something bad happened such as you ran out of oxygen or got the willies and thus die. This is a fast-paced game as each level must be completed in about 40 seconds or less!
Controls:
Up / Down / Left / Right: Move the “magic hand”
A / B: Attempt to Break the Boulder
Select: Suicide. Use this if you can’t solve the puzzle or get stuck
Start + Down: Pause the game
Physical Cartridges:
To forever commemorate the Byteoff V, we have made a physical release of Byteoff V Kearf ze Haenaekh demo cartridges for the Famicom, which are available for sale. Only 40 cartridges were made. Get in touch if you want one or order one from our partner below:
https://www.maliscash.com/product-page/famicom-kearf-ze-haenaekh-byteoff-v-demo
