thinking back to tunic after a few years have passed, and while I still have some mixed feelings about how difficult the action parts are, I think it's definitely the most satisfying translation experience I've had in any video game. Highly recommend that part of it. (It works better the earlier you start trying to parse it all out, too, imo)
- she/her
- auratriolo.com/
Animation Lead on Wanderstop! She/Her & Transgenderrific! Past: Radial Games, Gaslamp Games
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in reply to @MOOMANiBE's post:
Just realized that I never fully completed that game, and I have no idea where my translation notes are. 😱
my wife and I played tunic together and ohhhhh solving the language was one of the most fun puzzles we've ever done
do you know of any other games that have such fulfilling translation experiences? most games that have them end up just plain ol substitution ciphers, I'd love to do more like tunic
yeah tbh I am not aware of any other ones offhand that aren't substitution ciphers
not that solving a sub cipher made out of weird glyphs isn't fun or anything, it's just like, okay I have enough text, I do frequency analysis, oh look it's english
I've had chants of sennaar on my list for a while, have you played it? it at least gives the impression that it'll have more complex translation
Haven't played Chants of Sennaar yet, but other games I can think of where translation is a lot more interesting than a simple substitution cipher, is Sethian and to a much lesser extent, The Expression Amrilato.
Sethian is a bit janky to play in practice, it quickly turns into a "guessing the right question to ask" game, but has a novel conlang plus logographic script, while The Expression Amrilato features a variation on Esperanto, but is more of a language tutorial than translation puzzle.
Senaar is fun but the game is very very guided, you won't be needing to take notes or anything
ah, that's rather disappointing honestly, I'm looking for the scrawling on my walls trying to understand just one more word sicko shit
Oh shit, I just remembered something from last IGF that might be your jam! This: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2699290/Kevin19972077/
I didn't get a chance to play it myself but I vaguely recall some other judges saying that it's got some real interesting self guided translation stuff going on
Have a lot of respect for people who managed to decipher it. I just assumed it would be a simple substitution and got frustrated when I couldn't figure it out. Still kinda torn between looking up how the language works or saving it for if I ever replay it.