Hello, in one of the puzzles in my game, you have to select the relevant words on this machine and form a sentence related to the game’s cold war themed lore. As you can see in the video, each slot has several possible options, including real words and meaningless filler words, but only one combination forms the correct solution.

I recently asked some friends for feedback, and they suggested removing the meaningless words and using only real words.

The problem is: if I include only real words, and each slot has around 12 options, players will almost certainly be able to form meaningful sentences (maybe even ones that fit the cold war communications theme) but that aren’t the intended answer. And personally, I would find it frustrating to create a sentence that is completely valid and meaningful, only for the game to reject it.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts: Should I reduce the number of meaningless words? Remove them entirely? Reduce the number of options per word? Approach this in a different way?

P.S.: Unfortunately, I can’t upload a video that clearly shows the puzzle, so I had to include several screenshots. If anyone wants to see it to understand it better, I have it pinned on my profile

Thanks! I’m looking forward to reading your feedback.

Meaningless filler words or valid but incorrect sentences