The Parable Of The Gnome's Name

by LateBlt

If you were a big player of adventure games in the 1980s, or if you've ever
been a fan of older adventure games, you probably know (or knew at one time)
that in King's Quest 1, there was a gnome named Ifnkovhgroghprm who would
invite you to guess his name. This may be one of the most semi-infamous
puzzles in the history of computer adventures. The only clue to the puzzle is
a cryptic note you may have picked up in the witch's house, reading simply
"Sometimes it is wise to think backwards." There was no indication that it
was a reference to the gnome's name or exactly how you were to think
backwards, but for the people without hint books, it apparently was supposed
to be enough.

KQ1 was a game rife with references to fairy tales, and a gnome who asks you
to guess his name is a pretty obvious reference to Rumplestiltskin. But if
you guessed that "Rumplestiltskin" was his name, he'd say that your guess was
"very close", but volunteer no other helpful information.

If you're like 99% of the gamers who faced this puzzle, you probably at one
time or another guessed the gnome's name as Nikstlitselpmur, which obviously
is "Rumplestiltskin" spelled backwards. But even though it would probably
take some thought and time to connect the note with the gnome and try to
spell his name backwards, that *still* wasn't enough for the first version of
KQ1. Instead, you had to go to the trouble of using an "inverse alphabet" (a
backwards alphabet) to figure it out. Under this kind of coding, every A
becomes a Z, every B becomes a Y, etc. Using the following chart might make
it easier to figure out:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A

If you encode "Rumplestiltskin" using a backwards alphabet, you can see that
it becomes "Ifnkovhgroghprm". That is the gnome's name. Screwy puzzle, eh?

But unless you're a truly *dedicated* fan of King's Quest, you probably
didn't play the "updated" version, the one which used SCI. Sierra updated
several of their early adventure games with versions that had much better
graphics and sound, but otherwise similar plots and puzzles. Although the two
versions of KQ1 are almost the same as far as gameplay, one major difference
is the gnome's name: The new version no longer uses the inverse alphabet.
Instead, you just do a direct reversal of the name, so it becomes
"Nikstlitselpmur".

The puzzle of the gnome's name deserves to go down in history as one of the
most clever (and devious) puzzles in a major-label adventure game. But now
you know the whole story behind it. :)

The only two other important differences between the two versions of KQ1
are:

1. The condor would appear outside the cave at any time in the old version,
but in the new version s/he (it?) will show up only after you have already
gotten the chest and mirror.

2. The pebbles are picked up from different places.