Demo Feedback

[Elyndra]

So, I tried playing the demo today and I have mixed feelings about it. This is going to be a pretty long post, because I do see value in this game. I think it could be something really interesting. I would not have written out this entire thing if I did not see a spark of brilliance in here, but in my opinion in its current state that spark isn't actually getting anywhere.

Is it fun to play? Yes, definitely. It's a good puzzle game. The mechanics are fun, the visuals aren't high end but fun and quirky in a way that would not easily get me bored of it. The puzzle mechanics build in a satisfying loop. Making you building longer structures in ways shown previously. Getting more complex each level. The music is soothing without getting annoying. As a japanese flavoured puzzel game this would be lovely.

But as you may have noticed I keep referring to it as a puzzle game, because as a language teaching tool? I'm not certain this will do much. At least not unless people already come in knowing base levels of Japanese. Not unless the end game is very much differently structured.

See I've always had an interest in learning Japanese, but through life circumstances I've never had a chance to try and the way schools teach language does not work for me. But I'm not incapable of learning languages, as English is not my first language.

So, knowing I have an interest and I am capable of learning languages, I still can't say I picked much up from this demo beyond recognizing one or two kanji I already knew and the sounds for it that I'm likely to forget soon. Now granted that may be because the demo is too short to anchor down the new knowledge, but unless the full game is very different, I'm not sure if it would even with longer time spent on it.

See the main problem is that you don't really need to be learning to do the puzzle mechanics. Context clues and rationally thinking gets you to build structures easily without having to recognize much and even less memorise it.

Now, yes, one could argue that playing that way is not engaging with the game as intended. Problem is that as is now you're thrown in and not told what is intended. If you're supposed to just puzzle and hope it starts naturally clicking eventually. Or if you need to spend a longer time trying to memorise the kanji and sounds before moving on. This could already be helped with a better tutorial/intro that primes you for the intended way of playing this. Which may be included in the full game obviously, but currently there is no hint of that and I can only give feedback on what is in the demo.

Aside from that I think the current pacing is just off. Again, this may be because it's a demo and it's trying to showcase different stages at once. But if not, then for beginners this is just throwing too much at you all at once. Without a basis many of the words used in this are too long and complex and will not stick no matter how many times you have to puzzle them together. Problem is that it feels too quick and complex for utter beginners, but likely too simple for intermediary learners. I'm honestly not certain who the target audience is for this. If it's not beginners, then it may be better to point that out in the description. As it could risk driving people off when they don't feel they are picking things up as fast as the game seems to want with the speed it throws new words and concepts at you.

Now all that said, I think this game could actually be really good. Connecting words to sounds to imagery is one of the best ways to learn and how children naturally learn language. But personally, I would not do so with translation (as that adds an unnecessary step that you have to unlearn later if you truly want to get fluent). Imagery based context does a lot. Give image of cat, show word for cat, show sound for cat back to image of cat. The game is already working along these lines. You could have the option to translate later on for more complex things, like sentence structures. Though even those I'd keep translation to a minimum and perhaps as an optional hint structure.

But either way, translation in the mix or not, I think if this game is meant to be for beginners that's also the level you may need to start with. Objects, animals, numbers, simple greetings etc etc. It also really needs to slow down the speed at which it introduces new things. Do multiple levels of focussing on certain subjects, have them repeat regularly, add in new ones more slowly and regularly have them pop back in in later levels, like one would repeat flashcards in rehearsal. Or more accurately, how a child would keep encountering the same objects or phrases again and again. Start leaving out one of the three contexts (kanji/kana, sound, image) and make us dig them from the dictionary function, but without said context. So if we need to provide the meaning, say neko is cat, then only giving a picture of the cat. Because if you have the kanji + the meaning (currently in English) as the game does now, it's more than easy enough to just match up kanji without having to retain anything. You just scroll through the list and do this kanji looks like that kanji without any memory or retention involved. (Again this can be argued isn’t how one is supposed to play this, but nothing is instructing you otherwise or disincentivising you from doing simple match the images.)

I want to repeat I’m saying all this not to ♥♥♥♥ on the game. I think it’s lovely in many aspects. I even think it could be a really good language learning tool if tweaked, since it already has a lot of the setup going for it. The showcase of how “and” and “is” is used in sentences was actually really expertly done and a good example of how this could playfully teach people about these kinds of sentence structures. It felt really naturally to start picking up on those in the way it was presented. So definitely kudos on that one and keep that up.

But that is exactly why I wrote all of this. I can see the spark of something great in there, but as it currently is I think it will be a fun little Japanese flavoured puzzle game that may give you a few words here and there but not much else. And frankly that would be a pity, because I think you’re on the right path. Just need to keep walking it a bit further.

Either way, good luck.