Hey everyone,
I’ve been working on a multiplayer Japanese word game called Danobang (ダノバン) and thought the community here might be interested! No signup is required to play, you can check it out here: https://danobang.com?game_lang=ja
You can think of the game like a more flexible version of shiritori. Each turn players are given a random prompt (like “ゆき”) and must submit a word that includes it in ANY position (e.g. “ゆきだるま”, “こゆき”, “はつゆき”).
At the moment, the game is best suited for players who can already read kana and know some vocab. I’ve also added a kanji mode with selectable WaniKani levels! Just choose your WaniKani level and you’ll only see kanji you’ve already studied.
The game is still very much a work in progress, so if you find any bugs or have any feedback please let me know! Thanks for reading へ_へ
Some more details for those curious:
- The game only accepts romaji/kana input and no kanji. Romaji automatically converts to kana exactly like how WaniKani does it, so typing should feel pretty comfortable for WaniKani users. In fact we’re using WaniKani’s IME library WanaKana! (ty tofugu)
- In kanji mode you will instead be given a kanji character and must type any word whose kanji form contains that character. For example if the prompt is 人 then valid answer could be ひとびと (人々), はくじん (白人), こうじん (工人), etc.
- The game handles ambiguity with submitted kana by finding the first valid kanji form match (which means the UI might not always display the kanji you expect)
- Also note that the game only accepts valid words, not pure kanji readings that can’t act as a standalone word. An easy way to think about this is that the game only accepts purple WaniKani readings, not pink!
- The game’s dictionary is sourced from JMDict with some filtering applied to exclude NSFW words and expressions/phrases. This part of the game definitely needs more work (ideally we wouldn’t allow proper nouns like in Scrabble) and I’m hoping to figure out a better system to organize things as time goes on.
- For those who prefer single-player, you can either create a private custom room OR you can play daily challenges which are meant to be completed solo. You can also control the timer or turn it off completely and play at your own pace.
- If you collect all 45 kana (not including を) you earn an extra life! I eventually plan to allow hosts to choose which characters are part of this alphabet bonus so the mechanic can be more fairly enjoyed across all skill-levels
- I want to give credit to jklm.fun and their game “Bomb Party” for helping inspire Danobang’s core gameplay. I thought the concept was very clever and wanted to adapt it for Asian languages like Korean and Japanese.
