Ponkotsu Factory

About the game

Hurry! Hurry! Repair the words! Broken words are brought to the factory every day. Can you combine these letters and repair those words? 大怪獣コトバモドス (Dai Kaiju Kotobamodos) in English means "The Great Monster Kotobamodos", with the name "Kotobamados" coming from 言葉 (kotoba) "words" and 戻す (modosu) "revert/undo", so the names means something like "return the words to their original state", which is a monstrous task. This is a word game in which the master creates three words of three letters each behind a screen, then scrambles the letters face down and passes them to the other players. All players race to combine these letters to create the three words, and once someone does, they start a one-minute countdown timer. The first player to create three words scores 3 points, while anyone else who does so with the time limit scores 1 point. For each word that matches the master's word, a player scores 1 point. In English, the task of creating words would be relatively simple, but in Japanese, this is a much harder prospect. Japanese uses three writing systems, with Hiragana being the most broad. Hiragana has a lot more letters than the English alphabet, and fewer restrictions in combinations, so three characters can be used in a lot of ways. In addition, there is a further element in Hiragana: 濁点 (dakuten), which is a voiced sound mark similar to accents or umlauts. For example, た (ta) combined with a Dakuten would be だ (da), or す (su) and a Dakuten would be ず (zu). In this game, the letter tile for た may be used for either た or だ. From around fifty Hiragana letters, twenty of them can be combined with Dakuten. If the tiles offered to solve have several of these twenty Hiragana characters, it becomes very hard to deduce what the secret words actually are. Whilst the game could be played using English lettering, it would lose a lot of the complexity. In 2017, a new English/Japanese edition of this game was produced with the new name ぽんこつファクトリー (Ponkotsu Factory). "Ponkotsu" means something like silly or clumsy. This edition was co-produced with itten, with new artwork by Yoshiaki Tomioka. In this edition of the game, changes were made to allow for the differences between English and Japanese writing. When playing in English, the master constructs three four-letter words using twelve letter tiles, then mixes them thoroughly. The change to longer words should approximate the challenge of playing in Japanese with only three characters. 早く！　早く！　言葉を修理しなきゃ！ 今日もバラバラになった言葉が修理工場へ持ち込まれます。あなたはうまく文字を組み合わせ、言葉を修理することができるでしょうか。 このゲームは、問題作成と問題回答の二段階で行われます。問題作成では4文字の言葉を3個作り、それを元の言葉がわからないようにバラバラの12枚の文字タイルにします。問題回答では、他の人から受け取った12枚の文字タイルを使って、4文字の言葉を3個作ります。作成のスピードと質が勝負を分けるでしょう。" ばらばらになった３つの言葉を、それぞれの文字を組み合わせいち早く元に戻すゲームです。 ・問題作成 ついたての裏で３文字の言葉を３つ作り、それを元の言葉がわからないようにバラバラにして混ぜます。他の人に渡します。 ・問題回答 渡された９文字をうまく組み合わせて、誰よりも早く3文字の言葉を３つ作ります。 誰かが言葉を完成させたら、残り時間は１分です。 ・点数獲得、答え合わせ いち早く３つの言葉を作れた人は３点を得ます。制限時間内に３つの言葉を作れた人も１点を得ます。問題出題者の解答と一致している言葉１つにつき１点を得ます。