I think it is. You are making the puzzle more difficult to solve by obscuring what the object of the puzzle even is. If you don't even know what the goal is, ho

I think it is. You are making the puzzle more difficult to solve by obscuring what the object of the puzzle even is. If you don't even know what the goal is, how can you start solving it? If I gave you an AES-encrypted cipher and told you to crack it, you would at least know what the end goal is (break AES). But if I just said, "crack the following cipher": a13908x91827p93892a... Where would you even start? You could randomly try things, but the layer of obscurity wastes your time such that you don't even know what goal is other than some vague, nebulous "find the hidden message" goal. Then I reveal that the cipher is actually just AES but with a layer of obscurity on top of it using a quirk of the Afrikaans spoken language to transform the cipher into a baffling string.