Post by Playcebo in Discussion and Feedback [Spoilers Allowed]

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Absolutely, go for it!

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions while designing it. My main advice is to place words in a stretched-out shape (like the planets were) rather than bunched in on themselves (like "rooster" was), when possible. And also that puzzle 2 will likely be the toughest to design -- make sure that the player feels confident they solved it "correctly". Also, I recommend picking an obscure Otagedaugnel, perhaps leaving it as-is. But feel free to change the words and even the themes as needed! Oh, and puzzle 8's words are listed chronologically; I tried to put all the lists in some sort of order, but puzzle 1 is not. Puzzle 1 can perhaps be listed alphabetically, but IMO it's more important that the shape of the visible word list feels natural, not like it has gaps in it. Okay, I think that's about it!

Chapeltok176 days ago

Thanks! I'll do my best!

Damn, I didn't even realised the words were listed in a certain way (except for the numbers and the months)... My objective here is to make a game as close to the original as possible, so I'll make sure the translated words lists are correctly arranged.

And thanks for your advices, they're greatly appreciated!

I just have one question regarding the shape of the grids: I figured the timepiece one has the shape of a watch and the solar system one is... Well, it's obvious, really. But what about the Chinese zodiac, or the numerals? Does the shapes all have a meaning or did you make them like this just based on the number of characters you had to put?

Playcebo176 days ago

Chinese Zodiac's shape has no meaning, it was just based on the number of characters and the highly-constrained shape of the words. Feel free to reshape it.

Numeral is a #, as in a "number sign" (like "#1").

Playcebo176 days ago (2 edits)

Here's a recent (very messy!) version of the game files you can use, and a few quick notes on all the grids and word lists. 12WS - shared

Most stuff is fine to change if needed, the most important thing is the word list order for puzzles 11 and 12.

Oh, and my typical process for puzzle layout (excluding puzzles 1 / 2 / 5 which must be built around red herrings) is to start with a cute gimmick or two like the shape of Question Mark, and build the rest of the puzzle around that while minimizing ambiguous word placement. (e.g. having two Ds to choose from for the end of DEIFIED.)

Chapeltok176 days ago(+1)

Wow, I didn't expect that many notes and advices, thank you very much! You sir are a true gentleman.

I'll keep you updated on my progress, I hope having some time to work on it during the summer.

Chapeltok100 days ago (4 edits)

Hello,

Sorry, I forgot to keep you updated on the translation... Anyway, it's finished!

Here are the pdf and some notes about the translation

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lktkme7VdOxySfNfUUU0sU4qupidtTn7

It's not out officially yet, I wanted to know what's your preference:

1: I post it on my own itch.io profile (which I created especially for this) but, as always, by crediting you as the creator of the game

2: you post it on your profile as the French version of your game (and I remove my itch.io address on the front page)

Let me know what you want to do (if you still want to do it).

Playcebo99 days ago (2 edits)

Wow, this looks incredible! Puzzle 2 and the final message seem perfect, I was worried they'd be impossible to get right. I played through levels 7-10 and they seem great as well. Puzzle 7 was actually a lot of fun to do without knowing french -- the logic for KAYAK is really great, seeing the k clue and connecting it to the only possible other k. I think I made the palindromes too easy in my version.

I greatly enjoyed the words ESERPACATROT and NOIL, and SPAM is a good choice for a red herring. I was happy to see the Obelisk shape and the two half-fish-half-hourglass things. Oh, and the scorpion stinger blot! I almost missed it. Great blot shapes overall, mine were a bit repetitive and chaotic.

I assume it's just a coincidence, but I like that the center of #9 apparently spells "I thought" in Portuguese. (In mine, I made it so the center would say "Le remains" as a vague hint, in terrible half-french, to look at leftover letters in reading order.) It also worked out nicely that BALANCE and MARS get to appear twice -- I wonder if that'll make #4 easier or harder!

It looks like you pretty much got everything important in there -- and even some little things like KEY/TOUCHE being a confusingly vague category name! I just noticed two potential errors:

What word is the first P11 on puzzle 1? That slot should match the gingerbreadman glyph, but PAINDEPICE is 10 letters long.
#10 seems to have an extra S in SESTERCESS... unless it's "poissons"? (Incredible anadrome by the way!)

And then I have a few small suggestions:

To make the other fake blots on puzzle 5 feel more fair, add a silly fake blot in the corner after t18 (as though it could be t180).
I would add a glyph to puzzle 8. Perhaps something like [image]
CANCER can initially be placed 3 different ways (in the same general area), which is valid but may be annoying. (Jupiter's ambiguity, in contrast, feels okay IMO because it has a nice orthogonal shape.) That said, maybe it's useful to have suspiciously ambiguous placement at that point in the book.

When you're ready, go ahead and put the book on your own account, so you can update it or respond to feedback if desired, and have a French comment section. I will link to it in the description, probably "French translation available at chapeltok.itch.io/whatever". Feel free to keep your chapeltok.itch.io link on the title page if you like.

Thanks again for making this! It was kinda wild to see my own book but different, and I'm glad more people will get to play it. (My next puzzle book will be much, much easier to translate.)

By the way, I got most of my anacycles/anadromes/semi-palindromes by piecing together bits from https://foxhugh.com/word-lists/list-of-heteropalindromes/ and some list of palindromes I forget. As for BONE-based timekeeping, I think I got it from https://www.history.com/articles/ancient-timekeeping. Wikipedia categorizes these bones as "tally sticks" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick) and Google says "tally stick" would just be "baton de pointage", so BATON is good!

Chapeltok99 days ago(+1)

Thank you, glad you enjoy it! And thanks again for your trust, translating your puzzles was a wonderful experience! I may already have told you, but 12 Word Searches was easily the best pen and paper game I had the pleasure to play, and the first "metroidbrainia" paper game I played. 😉

About your notes:

You're right about CANCER, I didn't realise it could have multiple solutions. I'll check that out.
For p11 in the first puzzle, it's spelled PAINDEPICES, with an S at the end
The same goes for POISSONS in puzzle 10: always an S at the end when it's the astrological sign
Good idea for the ink blotch on puzzle 5, I'll add it
About the Portuguese "I thought" on puzzle 9, well... No, this one is purely a coincidence 😅
And many, many thanks for the drawing, that's a gorgeous tome of gap! I suck at drawing - very badly - so I think I'll just take yours as is. 😁

I'll make the final changes this week, and a landscape version too, and I'll post them on my account. I'll tell you when it's done.

Playcebo98 days ago

Great! The vector graphic for TOMEDECART is in the same folder I shared before (12WS - shared).

Chapeltok98 days ago

I truly love it, thanks !

Chapeltok93 days ago(+1)

OK, it's officially done, the French version is online!

https://chapeltok.itch.io/12-mots-meles

BTW, I tried to email you but I may have the wrong address...