Comments on: Room 20

By: Flamiya

Flamiya — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:40:24 +0000

If you have to return to the room 1, the answer is obvious, but I think if you already start the game, there must be some clues to avoid to go in room 27. The best I can think is, there is a picture of an arrow shaft, and the idiom “getting the shaft” is a popular idiom meaning to be treated unfairly, cheated, or subjected to a harsh, undeserved outcome. It often refers to being “screwed over” or receiving the bad end of a deal. So at a first attempt I would go to the room 5 or at least go back to the room 1 i think….
This thesis is reinforced by the text in the back cover “Just inside the door to room 27 you see what looks like the bottom half of an archer’s arrow – an arrow pointing the way perhaps? I will not tell. Perhaps it wouldn’t help if I did” not only for the negative vibe, but for the fact you may not know the existence of the loop rooms at this point, so it can be complicated.

[Sorry if these thoughts have already been said, I've read some comments but probably not all of them]

By: britzerland

britzerland — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:14:46 +0000

>”The ringing stopped as soon as we entered.”
Phone has a “full stop” circle on door handle to 1.

>”With backwards looks”
Sultan is looking at door 1/one. Phone is code for phonetic so use the homophone for “one” which is “won”. Need to reverse this word because backward look, so use “now”.

>”as soon as we entered”
Reading what the guide says backwards the first thing he says when entering is “now” which is reverse of won/one. Answer is door 1.

> “around the edges of the room”
The two round things at the edges of the room are PHONE and the leaning tower of PISA.
Use P-IS-A with PHONE and get “AH, ONE!”. Door 1.

Turtle/tortoise being used interchangeably refers to Chelone/Chelys/Chelus. Perry fable 106 has Zeus smite Chelone into a tortoise. The Tarot has Zeus thunderbolt and card is XVI which is also 10,6. The instrument in outer ring of carpet in room is Chelus.

> “I watched with aN aMUSEment shared, I think, by the wise old tortoise”
The Muse is strongly associated with Chelys instrument and it’s Erato.
The sultan has “backwards look” so reverse what he looks at: ONE to ENO and TAROT to TO RAT.
If you convert the N in ENO to RAT then you get the muse ERATO. If you start with Erato and do reverse you get answer of ONE.

> “I watched with an amusement SHARED, I think, by the wise old TORTOISE”
Sultan looks at TORAT. Look at letters shared with TORTOISE. Remove shared TOR and get remaining AT TWO ISE meaning at two letter i. The only word in text with two letter i is “ringing”. The phone overlaps with door handle to room 1.

By: britzerland

britzerland — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 04:31:14 +0000

The first lyre (chelys) was created out of Tortoise/Turtle shell by Hermes. The room uses words Tortoise/Turtle interchangeably despite them being different animals. In Greek/Latin they use the same word for turtle/tortoise AND the instrument of Chelys. (Greek: χέλυς, Latin: testudo).

The border of the carpet has drawings of lyre/chelys. The strange triangle in the Omega shapes is best explained as lyre/chelys strings. Look up “ancient lyre” to see. The strings all go to a point just like it.

The story of Hermes creating first the lyre from turtle shell is written in Homeric Hymns 4 (of 33). When you add the numbers above the doorways (5+27+1) you get 33. The panels on the wall are 2×2 grids of 4.

In latin “testudo” means turtle/tortoise/chelys/lyre and also … battering ram. The Ottoman might be explained as the sieges of Constantinople are textbook examples of battering ram use. The Ottoman faces the destroyed tower.

Since everyone walks around the turtleshell border, with turtle in the middle, and this is the last step on The Path: I feel this could be representing the World Turtle. A myth/fable occurring in many different cultures.

The tortoise is happy because people are walking carefully (slowly) – the opposite of Hermes

By: Artemis

Artemis — Tue, 20 May 2025 10:28:18 +0000

The Turk obviously looking towards door #1))))

By: Joe W

Joe W — Mon, 19 May 2025 23:21:50 +0000

Good point. The missing arrowhead could suggest aimlessness or a misdirected path.

Additionally, the arrow points straight upward, leading to the unmarked door in Room 27, which has a heart above the doorway. This could imply a symbolic message like “shot through the heart” or perhaps “Cupid’s arrow.” It might suggest a theme of lost connection or obsessive love associated with Room 27.

By: TonyToney

TonyToney — Thu, 15 May 2025 05:04:51 +0000

Another thought about the arrow is the word play “broken arrow,” which refers to when a nuclear missile is LOST. Since we can’t see the whole arrow (the head is missing, implying aimlessness), it visually looks broken. Maybe a hint that the door it appears in (27) leads to the LOOP where you’re bound to get lost yourself.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 18:08:31 +0000

The Aldabra Giant Tortoise is both larger and has more pronounced points, but every tortoise species has variation in this regard, and it could well be that the artist simply looked up “tortoise” and a Galapagos tortoise – one of the best-known species – popped up.

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 22:31:03 +0000

Can anyone identify a species of tortoise that looks like the one here, but is also this big? It may be that it isn’t a specific kind, or that size doesn’t matter to identifying it, or (most likely) the species doesn’t matter, but I’m just curious.

The [points?] on this fellow’s shell seem a bit more pronounced, but I suppose it could be a galapagos tortoise.

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 04:02:58 +0000

A “Turk’s Turban” is a type of gourd…

By: vewatkin

vewatkin — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 15:07:21 +0000

I don’t know that this actually is an allusion; we already just called that guy a Turk or said he was wearing a turban, so we could have another T word to go with the theme of T-things in the room, which we also can’t really explain. If this guy is the Tortoise Trainer, that could just be be the T-value, and he’s incidentally a Turk wearing a turban…or it could be anything else! Anything in the world, other than anything we’ve thought of.