- Joined
- Jan 27, 2020
I just came across this game last night and I can not stop playing it! It is a mixture of Shenmue (more so eventually) and Influent. You walk around as an alien (yea that was an odd design choice...) and have to learn languages by pointing at objects. It is similar to Influent in that way, but you are not restrained by a single small apartment with a few rooms, no matter how jam packed they may be. You have whole cities to explore, filled with vehicles, houses, stores, people, animals, objects, etc. They not only teach nouns, but adjectives and verbs. Each map adds new places to explore and more words to learn. You can learn in kana, kanji and romaji and more ways are being added. The speech is very clear. The visuals pleasing. The atmosphere really alluring. It is a relaxing game, but with learning elements.
After you click on words, you can then review and or be tested in two ways so far. It will tell you/write out the item and then you have to go search for it. So for example タクシー you actually have to go search for one and then click on it. But not just any car, as くるま 車 is also in the game. You have to find the yellow vehicle that looks like of a taxi. Same with every other object in the game. Lamp posts, boats, women, grand fathers, cats, tools, dishes, etc. Or you can choose to be tested by spelling. Objects are also classed in three ways- Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs. So for "door" it has と 戸 as it's noun. ちゃいろい for it's adjective (color). And あける for it's verb. It says it has over 1,000 words right now and he is working on more. That is already double of what Influent has.
Plus he wants to eventually add voice recognition and even conversations so you can learn how to speak it correctly. I assume they will play out randomly as you walk by and you can listen and even join the conversation, such as Shenmue, but in a more direct way. He also wants to add some story quests, although I am not sure how that will actually be accomplished. I've only had several hours in it so far, but it is amazing and something that I can see myself coming back to every day.
To top it off, if Japanese is not your thing, he is not just focusing on one language, but several and even more once he gets more time and or a bigger crew. I have not tried the other languages, but the Japanese one is excellent. It is free, so costs you nothing. Download off of Steam and enjoy yourselves! Also available on your phones!