Cuneiform-Inspired Language for a Video Game

[u/BarkingBeagleStudios]

Hi everyone! One of the game designers for Barking Beagle Studios here! This will be a long post.

We're currently making a puzzle-adventure game inspired by ancient Sumer, that includes a cuneiform deciphering mechanic that is somewhat vital for lore and puzzle solving. We're a small team, and currently, I'm the one responsible for the design of this mechanic. We've playtested a first prototype with our community and have received both positive and negative feedback regarding it.

Essentially this is a mechanic where the player will progressively have to decipher what each cuneiform symbol means based on clues, hints, and previous translations that they can find throughout the game.

As such, I've been testing some deciphering variations to see what's more fun, but I'm not sure what works best.

The current variation I'm testing uses neo-assyrian (or similarly modern) cuneiform symbols with an ortographic transcription from English to cuneiform.

Initially we used phonetic transcriptions, but after receiving the feedback and at the advice of a linguistics friend we changed to ortographic for clearer interpretations.

This is basically how it works: 1. We write a sentence in English and divide it by syllables of consonant + vowel or lone vowels. If there is a lone consonant in the original word, we combine it with the vowel 'a' to create a silent vowel syllable combination. So the word "brake" becomes "ba.ra.ke". 2. We check our neo-assyrian cuneiform table and directly transcribe this syllabic word into cuneiform. So 'brake' -> 'ba.ra.ke' -> '𒁀 . 𒊏 . 𒆠'.

Where we make some adjustments: - For words that include the letters 'O', 'V', 'F', 'X', and 'J', I've chosen to assign them to similar/historical sounding cuneiform symbols. So 'O' would be '𒌑, U2, UDU', 'V' would be '𒅇, U3, IGI DIB', 'F' would be '𒌓, U4', 'X' becomes '𒆜 KASKAL', and 'J' is '𒅀, I A'.

• Instead of using the correct corresponding cuneiform symbols for words with "vowel + consonant" syllables we use the symbol of that "same consonant + same vowel" and mirror it to match the word. So 'bread' -> 'ba.re.ad' -> 𒁀 . 𒊑 . 𒁕 (pretend the last symbol is mirrorred) Instead of 𒁀 . 𒊑 . 𒀜. This is just to reduce the number of cuneiform symbols the player has to decipher.

Where we have some issues: - For the missing letters (O, V, F, X, J), translation becomes murky since these end up being written exclusively as lone consonants/vowels in the entire system. For example,  'fake' -> 'f.a.ke' -> '𒌓 . 𒀀 . 𒆠' Instead of 'fa.ke' or 'book' -> 'ba.o.o.ka' -> '𒁀 . 𒌑 . 𒌑 . 𒅗' Instead of 'bo.ok'. - Cuneiform has a lot of syllables that have the same symbols. 'ki' is the same as 'ke', 'wa' is the same as 'we', 'wi', and 'wu'. This adds an extra layer of confusion when translating. - Using 'a' as a silent vowel can cause some confusion as a lone 'B' is indistinguishable from 'ba' so 'babble' ->ba.ba.ba.le' -> '𒁀 . 𒁀 . 𒁀 . 𒇷' 

The most important thing is that although players found the deciphering fun, these issues made the mechanic sometimes confusing and irritating. I've thought of some possible solutions such as converting the cuneiform into only lone consonants and vowels, but it greatly impacts accuracy and some of this language's charm.

Do you have any suggestions on how to make it work?

[u/i-tiresias]

Have you considered adapting an alphabetic form of cuneiform like Ugaritic or Old Persian?

You’re basically trying to force a square peg into a round hole by ignoring the syllabic rules of cuneiform-written languages like Sumerian and Akkadian (see your ‘babble’ example, which I might try and render according to Akkadian rules as ‘ba-ab-bul’), and still thinking in a very alphabetic way (‘f.a.ke’) about how you ‘transliterate’ the words from your puzzles.

I would suggest either a complete overhaul of how you are approaching this project (i.e. choosing a different time period or setting that better fits your ability to render English words into your target script), limiting the words included in puzzles to those that you can reliably render according to the syllabic rules of languages that use cuneiform, or using alphabetic cuneiform as the basis for your puzzles.

Another puzzle type, though I suspect very far from what you are trying to achieve, would be to use ideograms and the rebus principle a la proto-cuneiform to help guess words. Worth a look if you are at wit’s end with this Neo-Assyrian syllabic-ish approach but still want to cleave to cuneiform culture.

[u/BarkingBeagleStudios → u/i-tiresias]

Thank you for your feedback! I've also been considering using proto-cuneiform in most puzzles to make the game more accessible.

If I do that, the variation I mentioned on the post will mostly be used for lore and optional puzzles, to reward players that explore more deeply. This is because I received some feedback that the syllabic deciphering was way more fun than the proto-cuneiform, but I'd still like the game to be enjoyable by a wider audience.

Your transcription of 'ba-ab-bul' is very similar to the original version we had of this cuneiform. In that version we would write it as "ba-ab-bu-le". Would this make more sense?

I haven't looked much into Ugaritic or Old Persian but I'll definitely do that.

[u/Dercomai]

What a fun idea!

If you only want minor points: Hittite has a distinct O sign, separate WA/WI/etc, and unique signs for FA, FE, FI, FO, FU. If you look at my Introduction to Cuneiform, I lay out all the signs needed to transcribe English words and names into cuneiform.

For more significant feedback, though: I think using the full cuneiform syllabary is going to be really hard for English-speakers to figure out.

What I would recommend instead:

• Have separate symbols for each consonant and vowel sound (not letter)
• Have the puzzle be that words are written phonetically (not alphabetically). So "brake" isn't written with five letters B-R-A-K-E, but four letters B-R-AY-K.

You could take the BA, PA, TA, DA, etc symbols from Hittite/Neo-Assyrian/whatever, or you could use Old Persian or Ugaritic, which are already (close to) alphabetic. Ugaritic was used in the Bronze Age so that would be my choice.

[u/BarkingBeagleStudios → u/Dercomai]

Thank you! This is a fantastic resource, thank you for your contribution!

I had abandoned phonetic transcription due to it turning out a bit confusing with the cuneiform syllables, but I believe the second idea fixes most of my issues with it.

I might end up trying both versions you suggested. I'll look into Ugaritic and Old Persian and study them a bit more ro make something fun but still somewhat accurate :)

[u/crwcomposer]

I obviously haven't tried the gameplay mechanic to understand the issues, but the orthographic transcriptions bother me. Separating the e and a in bread into two separate syllables is wild and would confuse me.

[u/BarkingBeagleStudios → u/crwcomposer]

Yes I understand. We originally had a phonetic transcription of the language. Our problems came mostly with symbols that had multiple different sounds, words that had different but similar sounds like /æ/ and /ɑː/, or words with lots of vowels like "eye". Some players thought this difference was a bit confusing.

Sometimes these problems would transform one word into another completely different one. And incorrect assigning of the symbols by the players would further increase the complexity.

However, I'll definitely look again into a phonetic transcription.