Hi! I absolutely LOVE rebuses - there aren’t enough of them in thinky games, tbh - but this game is confusing. There are a few ? and =, but I’m not finding the +, -, |, etc. in each phrase like in a typical rebus.
Are the emoji meant to be interpreted as pictograms (taken literally) like in rebuses, or ideograms (symbols that represent ideas) like in emoji-speak? Maybe I’m misunderstanding something?
Hello! Thanks for checking it out! The puzzle is very confusing, you are correct, as it was designed with some specific friends in mind who would know more about the context. Basically, it was made with the thought in mind that all the emojis are related to each other in some way, and are trying to hint at a word using the sound of the emojis, the appearance of the emojis, or the arrangement of the emojis. Also each word in the fill-in-the-blanks puzzle has two in-game NPCs that have a hint for the word (there are NPCs that hint at where/how to find other clues also). So as a more obvious example, the NPC that has 🙃☹️🤡🫳👇👎🟤 as their response is upside down, frown, clown, hand down, pointing down, thumbs down, brown. So they are hinting at “own” but pronounced like the emoji names, which is a part of the hint, and the other part is 💎🪙🔱💰🔶💎⚜️💛🇬🇧 which does not use the emoji names but rather the emojis are conceptually connected to a word and are related to the other clue that this same NPC gave elsewhere in the game. So if you find the same NPC in two places, both of that NPC’s hints are for the same word or idea. This is definitely not a well designed puzzle lol, I just made it to see if some friends could figure it out, so don’t feel bad if you’re confused, it is confusing 😅
