After completing Homesick I read flotsam's review (it's right on) and it made me wonder if anyone else tackled a problem the hard way throughout the early part of the game. Please don't read the spoiler if you haven't played the game, since the total mystery of everything in the beginning is a great part of the game:
The encoded texts were impossible to read, but during a nightmare the sign on the door was in English. It seems like a common adventure game puzzle to decode a text once some of the words are known in both English and in the encoded text, so it was pretty straightforward to decode most of the alphabet and then read the notes and books that I came across. After doing this for several notes, I could eventually read the texts directly without consulting the translation, though it was slow going. I was kind of surprised how quickly your brain can pick up a whole new alphabet and read texts...I'd have thought you'd have to constantly consult the alphabet key. Anyway, eventually there is a much easier way to get the texts translated and I felt like a bit of a sap for doing it the hard way.
Did anyone who played this game have the same approach or am I the only sap who did it this way? If you haven't played Homesick yet, have you solved puzzles the hard way in other games, only to find out later that there was a much easier way?