Hi everyone! I’ve been a member of the WaniKani community for many years, and today I released a WaniKani integration for the Japanese learning game I’ve been developing.
It’s a twin-stick shooter where you power you up through language knowledge. Study decks determine the level of difficulty and now you can create decks from your WaniKani account!
Choose from these deck creation options:
Items currently in Critical Condition
Vocabulary from your current WaniKani level
Vocabulary from any previous level
The game turns vocabulary review into something you can actively play especially when you want to study but don’t feel like completing another conventional flashcard session.
The WaniKani integration is available now in the demo, and I would love to hear what WaniKani users think of it. In particular, I’m interested in whether the available study decks fit the way you normally supplement WaniKani review sessions.
I love this idea! I’ve tried it for a bit but due to time reasons only for about 15 min.
First some positive things I immediately noticed;
Game feels smooth, no stuttering etc, including the pickup of the choices, shooting, moving of the ship etc.
Integration with WaniKani worked well, just added the key, pressed sync and was able to play.
Some feedback/things I’d like to see;
Would it be possible to add a reading mode only? I got quite a few bad leaches in reading only, some of them even have been reviewed 55x and I still got a 60% success rate on them.
Would it be possible to make the enemy bullets around your choices auto-remove when playing in casual? I’ve had quite a few times that I was thinking about the answer, went for it, and then died when trying to pick it up due to be focused on getting the right one.
Controller did not work properly for me, was not able to shoot and menu navigation did not work. Controls with keyboard mouse worked very well though. Not sure if this was due to my setup or that I messed up the visualization etc by also first moving my mouse .
Would it be possible to make a larger popup when I pickup the wrong answer? Can be at the same location where the original Kanji was visualized and then big red letters if it was wrong or something. It is visible in the top left (which is nice!) but this would allow me to immediately think “oh it was that!”.
I am sorry that I just added a while list of things I would like to be there I really like the concept, which is why I just throw everything here that came into my head while playing. Definitely look forward where this will go!
Hey thanks for the feedback! It is more helpful than you know as I might overlook something that is so easy to implement.
For reading only study, that would be no problem to add as a 3rd option except that many words do not have a Kanji component, like Katakana words or decks with words that use Hiragana when it is the most common reading. This means it would skip over words in the deck entirely and you could never complete it. I will let this one steep and see if I can work it in.
I looked into it and I think I can get the bullets to be more “friendly” in casual mode. And this is what I wanted for casual mode, something relaxing.
As for the controller support I have gotten good feedback from people using Xbox, Playstation, and Switch Pro. Possibly it is just that you need to use the d-pad to navigate the menu and the right stick is how you both aim and shoot. If you could move the ship around I am guessing the controller is working.
Your right about the wrong answer! When I hear that sound I always want to know right away and have trained myself to look at the log. The game only pauses when you get a correct answer for the power up choice so it is a little tricky keeping it from being too noisy but maybe I can do something here.
The game now has a Japanese language option and when playing in Japanese the flashcards for English words are quizzed in Japanese. Essentially everything is reversed.
This is a really cool idea and you certainly have my interest as a fan of shmups and tss who is also learning Japanese. I’d hope that you’d replace the AI generated music before release though. Music is a big part of the experience in this kind of game and the generic vapor-wavey type stuff in the trailer isn’t doing it any favors.
Thank you for checking it out and for the feedback about the music. I know the soundtrack won’t resonate with everyone no matter what style I choose but I hope the gameplay and study system make it worth playing with your own tracks as well!
I already have a currently undecided note for the release about adding modern sound effects rather than classic 1980s basic arcade synth sounds and allowing both options in the settings. Maybe a different more modernized music soundtrack can go with this as well. Will kick it around.
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