Encoding

Encoding into oceanscript looks challenging at first, but it sure doesn’t take too long to get into the swing of it.

Start by visualizing 4 boxes. These boxes can be used to write oceanscript, and in my opinion it is the best way to get started.

Box Configuration

…

When writing a character in oceanscript, you should look from left to right at the row and column indicators on each box.

We need to check three things:

What row is my character in?
What column is my character in?
What box is my character in?

Tip

When checking for the row, look at the most-left column of the table.
When checking for the column, look at the top or bottom row of the entire table.
When checking for the box, look at the most-right column of the table.

Single Letter Obtainment BOX-1

Lets try and write the letter “d”. “d” is in box 1.

	<	-	>
^	a	b	c	.
~	d	e	f	.
_	g	h	i	.
	<	-	>

Row

As we look across to our table above, the letter “d” is on the middle row. Looking to the left, that means we start with ~.

Column

Looking directly above where “d” is in the table, our next character should be <.

Box

We are in box 1, so we add 1 dot on the end (.). The table also tells us to, on the most-right column.

Joining all these components together, we get ~<. - and that is how you write the letter “d” in oceanscript!

Letter Obtainment in other boxes

Now lets have a look at writing a character from a different box. Lets pick “s” for example, a character used quite a lot. “s” is in box 3:

	<	-	>
^	s	t	u	…
~	v	w	x	…
_	y	z	0	…
	<	-	>

Row

Looking to the left, we start with ^.

Column

Looking directly above where “s” is in the table, our next character should be <.

Box

We are in box 3, so we add 3 dots on the end (...). The table also tells us to, on the most-right column.

Joining all these components together, we get ^<... - and that is how you write the letter “s” in oceanscript.

Unfortunately, characters in BOX-4 work slightly differently. In BOX-4 are the numbers 1-9:

	<	-	>
^	1	2	3	o
~	4	5	6	o
_	7	8	9	o
	<	-	>

Instead of adding 4 dots (as you’d expect), you instead just add the letter “o”. So the number 7 in oceanscript would be _<o instead of _<.....

Forming Waves

When we’ve encoded a character into oceanscript, it is referred to as a wave. For example, ^<.. is a wave representing the letter “J”. The above examples demonstrate how waves can be formed.

Forming Tides

Tides are the joinings of waves in oceanscript - to form a word. To form a word, simply join the waves together. Here is each letter encoded as a wave in the word “hello”:

h = _-.
e = ~-.
l = ^>..
l = ^>..
o = ~>..

To form the word hello, we will join these waves together. “hello” in oceanscript will look like this: _-.~-.^>..^>..~>...

Forming Oceans

This is the final escalation of encoding. Ocean is the name given to a collection of tides to form sentences, paragraphs, even essays if you wish. A space in oceanscript is represented as ,, which is put in between each wave you want to join together. Here, we have two waves representing the words “hello” and “world”:

hello -> _-.~-.^>..^>..~>..

world -> ~-...~>.._>..^>..~<.

To join these waves together, we just need to put our comma (,) in between them. “hello world” would look like this: _-.~-.^>..^>..~>..,~-...~>.._>..^>..~<.. This is an ocean.

Capitalization

The tables that have been shown above only contain lower-case letters and numbers. To write a capital letter, we use the splash indicator which looks like this: *. This indicator prefixes each wave which requires capitalization.

Here we have the letter “h”: _-.. To capitalize, we add our splash at the start of the wave, so it will look like this: *_-.. If you wanted to write a whole tide in capitals, you’d need to use the splash indicator for each wave in that tide.

Non a-Z/0-9 Characters

You can now write “Hello world”, or “How are you” - but what about punctuation!

In oceanscript, if a character does not appear in the tables, it doesn’t belong in the ocean. We need to use a raft in order to write said character. A raft is denoted by the character =, and it works just like the splash indicator, we prefix the given character with it. Rafts are NOT allowed for a-Z and 0-9, but are required for any other character.

Example

Is ? in a-Z/0-9? No. We need to use a raft for this character. It would look like this =?.

Rafts can only take one passenger at a time, so to write an ellipsis (…), we would need 3 rafts (=.=.=.).

Now we can write “How are you?” -> *_-.~>..~-...,^<._>.~-.,_<...~>..^>...=?

Literal Line Breaks

Be careful when writing line breaks in oceanscript, seeing as a line break would represent a space and not a literal line break. To do so literally, use the % character.

Example

H
I

This word is both fully capitalized and uses a line break to split the two letters (for whatever reason). It would be written as *_-.%*_>.

I - I
K - Know
R - Right

This acronym uses line breaks, and would be encoded to look like this:

*_>.,=-,*_>.%*^-..,=-,*^-..~-..~>..~-...%*_>..,=-,*_>.._>._<._-.^-...