There is now an interactive version of the puzzle, which I believe better represents how the puzzle plays than does the image in this post. It should be a Win32 program; just unzip to the location of your choice and run "wordpuzzle.exe".

(The interactive version also incorporates some of the advice given in this thread, such as the option to include a few letters as a hint to each puzzle.)

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Original post, for archival purposes:

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My current game includes, amongst other things, a substitution-cypher puzzle. I have a specific instance that I want to determine the difficulty of, so that I can gauge how appropriate it is for the level in which it's encountered. I'm thus asking for feedback: how difficult is the attached puzzle?

[attachment=32083:puz.png]

No key, just experimenting? I spent about 20 minutes playing with this before I gave up. :unsure:

Oh wow, I didn't realise that it was that tough! ^^;;;

A key shouldn't be required for this puzzle, I believe. If this particular instance of the puzzle is insoluble without one, then it's far too hard, I daresay. (That said, an instance like this could work later in the game, when the player is more familiar with the cypher-glyphs.)

Um... Perhaps I should look for a phrase with more duplicate letters... :/

@valrus and Nypyren: Hmm, interesting, and thank you.

Valrus, what do you mean by "checks"? Do you mean that those first four letters don't appear elsewhere?

Otherwise, fair enough--this puzzle won't work for the level in which I intend it, it seems. I think that I'll either remove this instance, introducing the puzzle later (this one's a bonus puzzle anyway) or find a better phrasing, one that produces more duplicate letters...

Thank you all for your help! ^_^

Hmm... How about this version? I've changed only the first word, but I'm hoping that it might make things a little easier:

[attachment=32088:puzz_2.png]

[edit] I do also wonder: The in-game version highlights not only the selected slot, but all others that have matching glyphs, and fills them in automatically when a letter is entered. To what degree--if at all--would that make the puzzle easier, do you think? Am I likely to be significantly biasing the results of these test-puzzles by not providing an interactive version?