Chuchel is out (DRM free)

Adventure/Lucasfilm Games
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Chuchel is available for Windows and macOS on GOG (DRM free):

https://www.gog.com/game/chuchel

And on Steam:

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Gesundheit!

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This is a masterpiece, the best game if you have a 5-6 year old.

You’ll have to play the arcade sequences, but for the rest they can play on their own. Because there is no text and dialogues, and most of the puzzles are perfect for that age. (the logic and the mechanics. )

(Unlike Machinarium, Samorost 3 and Botanicula. BTW, between these 3, the best for that age is botanicula)

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Incidentally, any pointers on how to pronounce it?

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And don’t forget the adults! :slight_smile: It is a good game for “casual gamers”.

Have you tested it with (your) kids? The arcade sequences are very easy, except the flight with the 
 thing. :slight_smile:

AFAIK it’s Czech for “lint” or a “dust bunny”. So the pronunciation should be mentioned in a dictionary. :slight_smile: (I haven’t one
)

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Google Translate claims to be able to pronounce it in that case. It says something like /xuxɛl/ and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to assume it’s wrong. Also see Czech phonology on Wikipedia.

For English speakers that might be problematic, but it’s how loch is supposed to be pronounced. For us speakers of Dutch (lach = laugh) or German (Buch = book) that’s no problem.

Thanks for the pointer.

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Another official link in the Amanita Design forum (same as yours):

Isn’t that pronounced “lock”? I can’t think of an English word that has actually the “ch” in it


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Yes and yes they donÂŽt make that sound at all.

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Hence “supposed to be”. For the most part only Scots speakers will actually say it that way, but other English speakers are generally fairly likely to be aware of the sound in question in that context.

There are actually many English words, mainly of Yiddish origin, that also feature the sound. Off the top of my head: challah, chutzpah, Chanukkah. Sometimes it’s also written kh or just h, the latter being how many Americans without Jewish roots would pronounce the sound. I personally find kh more confusing, but unaware English speakers tend to equate ch with something like tsh (/tʃ/, cf. church).

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German has many yiddish words too. In fact often when I think a german word is used in english it was actually a yiddish word to begin with.

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I was surprised to see unbetamt on this list. It’s a regular Germanic word, so a priori I find that a slightly tenuous hypothesis.

http://www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/betamen

Admittedly it doesn’t seem to be a modern German word, so it could be Yiddish in the sense that Yiddish is primarily an alternative German dialect offshoot from Middle German.

Also on that topic, apparently uitgekookt is a calque from German ausgekocht. Unfortunately my Duden doesn’t seem to have much etymological information to see what it thinks. One of the Dutch etymological dictionaries links it to the same kind of meaning as refined (which means something a lot more negative in Dutch). If you cook something out it’s highly refined. It also says it originated as an Amsterdam word for “clever” and there are many Yiddish words in the Amsterdam dialect


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The etymological informations are covered in a separate book (ISBN: 978-3-411-04075-9):

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Sure, I’m not saying I expect all the info. But my simple Dutch dictionary includes simple indications like (Fr) for a direct loanword, (<Eng) for derived from but Dutchified, and (<Fr<Lat) to indicate deeper stuff. My Petit Robert goes several steps further in detail.

Or perhaps slightly more on topic, Chanukah starts like this in my Kramers Woordenboek:

Cha’noe·ka, Cha’noe·kah (<Hebr) (het) joods feest [
]

But actually I just noticed the Duden has that too for the most part. It just thinks ausgekocht is unremarkable. :stuck_out_tongue:

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well, it’s not the kind of game I would ever play, because the mechanics is completely based on trial and error. I like things where you can arrive at the solution through logic. (And yet that can’t be the real reason, because I like Gobliins.)

and the pacman thing? No way my 5 year old could play that. She would not even play the slingshot part.

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Hm
 Here are 5 and 6 year old kids in the neighborhood and I’m confident that they would be able to solve the Pacman part. Not at the first attempt, but eventually they would solve it.

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Yes that sounds right. In German you could write and pronounce it ‘Huchel’ (actually just the C is missing!). I’ve also heard the developer saying it in one interview.

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Ah, that’s interesting: But you can’t remember which one? (Maybe in the presentation video?)

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I don’t remember, it was an older video.

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I think it definitely says /xuxɛl/, not /huxɛl/ (that is, a velar fricative, not a glottal fricative).

NB I’m not saying that’s the correct pronunciation. I don’t know Czech. :slight_smile:

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I think you are right. So in German it’s actually spoken as it is written!

Here you can hear him saying it twice: https://youtu.be/p9SOnIrCbzg?t=124

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