I'm making an RPG to teach Japanese language. It's called Summon High and you'll LOVE it!

Japanese Language
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Yeah, I get your point now. Well, thanks for taking the time of reading the thread. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to make this game since I left High School; that’s was about 15 years ago.

What I mean is, I love Japanese language, I love teaching and I love RPGs; and I have plan for this stuff. First, I want to cover reading (as in reading, listening, speaking and writing) to fluency level (so around N1 I guess?), that includes understanding words and grammar. That’s my first goal.

Then, if I get enough money from that, I’d like to cover the listening part, because for that I’d need voice actors and it would cost some money.

Of course, I’d like to cover composition/ writing and talking, but that requires more Japanese language knowledge and technical knowledge, and actually I haven’t thought about those ones. So thank you for asking, it helped me ask that to myself and order my thoughts.

I don’t know about comparison with WK. I guess the order would be different I would like the player to be able to pass the JLPT levels step by step. So I’ll use some of those JLPT lists of vocabulary and kanji that are on the web to set my requirements of learning.

Of course, this might take several years, but for me, I think the harder part was starting.

I hope this answered you question. What do you think?

Greetings!

PS: yeah, it seems that was myself who didn’t read your words carefully/ didn’t understand them correctly, so I apologize. :pensive:

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22

One thing I can imagine, if you are learning at the same time as you are creating the teaching tool… is you may find yourself progressing to a higher level and then realizing that you need to rework a lot of the things you already created.

Because you don’t know what you don’t know.

And a game that teaches up to N1 level is… a very big project.

There’s no harm in making something quite limited in scope but polished for the game aspects of it. People don’t expect a game to teach them everything they need to know. They’re usually expecting games to just be a fun extra thing to supplement other studies.

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There are a couple of rpg games to teach kana and kanji already, I’m most familiar with the Learn Japanese to Survive series, which has a couple of weakness in its game design like non-random battles causing people to not memorize the kana, but just the order, and tedious battling. It doesn’t really solve the problems in the later editions for katana and kanji either. I can’t download your demo to try it now to see how similar or dissimilar it is unfortunately. I think it would be useful to take the pros and cons of this series though to see how to make yours even better than it.

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Well, I expect the development to last several years, so I’ll be going step by step. As you can see, maybe, I just did 5 hiragana mora (moras?) in one week, and that was just a prototype, so it will be slow enough for me to learn as I develop. I don’t see how that can be a problem

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You might want to edit your title, since it’s clear now that it’s not spam.

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Yeah! I’ll put something cooler on the title. Thank you!

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May I ask why can’t you play it? I’ll try making a video of the gameplay, anyway.
Yes, I’m aware of the existence of those games. But as much as I like healthy competition, I don’t like comparing myself to others. And somehow doing that feels… I don’t know… it makes me anxious.
So, I would only play that saga if the developers want to compete with me. If not, I’ll leave them alone. I don’t know if that makes sense.

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Hey, your game looks great! How long did it take you to create it? By the way, I am a music composer and sound designer for videogames. Please, let me know if you need that kind of things for your projects!

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Well… like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know. I assume the game will have some explanations, example sentences, content for the players to read etc. If you are writing it yourself, then your skills will improve over time and you will learn more. Content you wrote as a 1st year learner will probably sound awkward or silly to you as a 3rd year learner, etc.

Or maybe not. Just a potential pitfall that seemed to exist if the project is quite large, that’s all.

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30

Thank you so much for the feedback! I made the demo in one week, but I had the idea for a long time. About your offer, your help is truly welcome. I’d really like to have you in my team.
But please keep in mind that even if we plan to charge for the final version, indie games sell slowly. For instance I’m studying to become a freelance translator as a day job. If you really want to help me, we’d distribute the earnings fairly.
Thanks again, and welcome to the team!

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31

Yes, it is probably something like that will happen. I’m not sure. Because, for instance, Minna no Nihongo Shokyuu I (Honsatsu) has some reading practice, and that is simplified Japanese, it’s not meant to be sophisticated or real Japanese language, so if I use that style of Japanese in the first part/chapter I might want to go back an fix it (or not), which can be done, since it’s software.

On the other hand, I plan to become at least N2 by the end of next year. And I don’t go with N1 because I’ve heard it’s really hard that one test. That’s one of the reasons I came to study here at Wani Kani, because I think it’s al you need to learn Japanese well, and it’s the best resource I know, at least for my way of learning.

In conclusion, I’m not sure, but I’m always open to feedback.

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32

Games and Art in general are usually developed upon the mistakes and failures of their past contemporaries. I think it would probably be helpful to play or look into games that are similar to the one that you are making to see what direction you want to go with. So your idea is to teach the language from scratch to N1 all self contained in one game? I feel like trying to fit this all in one game is a bit too much to be honest.

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Thanks! But if I look other games I feel… as I said, uncomfortable. Like spying on the competition… =/ I actually want a rival pretty badly (it fires me up :muscle:), but for the time being I’m focusing on developing my own idea.
About putting all of that in just one game, it’s not a good idea. I’d divide the saga on smaller games. Like one or more for each level of JLPT. Does that make sense?

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34

I don’t want to sound condescending, but it’s a bit alarming if you think Wanikani is the only thing you need to learn Japanese… Kanji is just a very small part of it. Often beginners have a hard time grasping the amount of work you need to put in, and your methods and view will change as you learn more.

N2 in one year is quite a feat. Do you really study 8 hours a day or something? It’s just that you see these kind of ambitious posts all the time, and 99% of those give up after a few months.

I don’t think any single game could to this. Unless that game mimics life itself.

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35

Well, yes, let me rephrase that: I came to study here at Wani Kani because it’s all I need to learn Japanese well. The other part I’ll do by reading and listening as a second stage, but kanji and vocabulary are the building blocks, the base of the pyramid. My third stage would be speaking and writing the language.
I plan on studying just 6 hours a day, because I also have to improve my English and do other tasks.
Does that makes sense?

EDIT: My primary goal is to get that translator job I was talking about, so I can’t give up on this goal. After living a whole year in lockdown with my family… let’s just say… I need a job ASAP. My game is not a hobby but I can’t consider it a job just yet.

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I was on my lunch break lol

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37

I think it’s an admirable task you’re undertaking. I can’t play the demo because it’s Windows only and I use a Mac so I can’t give any feedback on gameplay.

From the screenshots the game looks pretty but I’m concerned that the storyline isn’t going to be very engaging because from the description it appears to be a game designed to teach you through pretending to go to school with RPG elements thrown in.

I’m not sure how useful a teaching tool that is honestly but if you ever make a MacOS version I’d be happy to give it a go.

Kanji and vocabulary are building blocks but grammar is cement. A stack of bricks is not a house without cement just like studying kanji and vocabulary in isolation is useless without grammar to show you how it fits together, so I’d keep that in mind.

I think if you’re studying for six hours a day you might burn out, especially if you are currently learning another language alongside Japanese as well as developing an ambitious game singlehandedly.

Make sure you take time to look after yourself.

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38

Thank you, that’s really kind of you. The game is actually made on the latest installment of RPG Maker, so the graphics and assets are not made by me. I’ll make a build that runs on web browsers, so that way you and other players that don’t use Windows may play it.

Yes, but some things about learning grammar and vocabulary: I learn grammar better by reading and listening, then by speaking and writing and receiving feedback. Studying grammatical rules (at least on the first stages) is not an organic nor natural way to learn a language, and it shouldn’t be used anymore as a teaching system.

But for reading Japanese language, I first need to have knowledge of kanji, at least. I really learn well by reading, because instead of listening you can take your time rereading and analyzing a sentence or a paragraph.

I hope that makes sense.

Regarding burning out, I also feared that. But I’m not on my own, I have this great community, and my awesome boyfriend (who keeps me working even when I don’t want to).

One of the reasons I subscribed here was because I know learning alone is pretty boring, and making your own mnemonics is extenuating. Besides, the ones here are much funnier than the ones I can come up with. So, yeah, there’s always the fear of failing, but I’m taking measures, and I think you only fail if you don’t try.

Again, thank you for being kind. It’s people like you who make this community so great to take part in!

EDIT: I’m so silly! I forgot RPG Maker has an option to build for Mac. I made one build of the demo for Mac and other for web browsers, but the latter doesn’t run on my computer. If you follow the link I posted, you’ll find them. Please, if something goes wrong, let me know.

About storyline and gameplay, I think there’ll be plenty of room for them to develop well.

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39

Are you sure about that? Some people can grasp grammar merely by going to natives and listening - I’m reminded of Jesuit priests, who just traveled to a lot of places and picked things up very fast - but you usually need some sort of genetic advantage, some knack, to do that. If you lack that advantage, you will need a resource to teach you the grammar, which is the other foundation, just as important as vocab. Also, every language has its quirks, and one of the quirks of Japanese is that onomatopoeia figures somewhat prominently. I haven’t yet found a comprehensive resource on that.

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40

A question for you:
How would you teach Japanese language to others? And at which point of learning would you introduce the study of grammar rules?