Hey, just looking around and saw this. would like to say that, although i havent been able to get the files on mediafire (it says there all removed), it sounds extremely good and interesting. im not particularly skilled at anything, although im learning how to program (slowly), working on my drawing skills (they are actually recognisable as people now, lol), and am trying to learn japanese in my spare time. not really succeding too much on the learning japanese, but i know a few people who are pretty good artists, especially when they set their mind to things, and i also had a few game ideas about the whole project. Mainly about the learning curve that everyone seems to be confused about what to do when splitting into volumes and stuff.
ah well, here goes my ideas for the difficulty curve:
Why not make a game in english, and then a second version of the same game in japanese. i know that sounds really stupid, but please hear me out and think about it. what i mean is, first volume of the game you learn all of the sounds for talking japanese, and you learn what words are said like in japanese using the english langguage to read from. maybe if you get the words to the questions right, you can hear afterwards how it would be said in japanese so you learn the language. and example is, when your talking to people they would ask you a question in japanese, but written in english, and you have to respond to them like "boku wa...", like that. in this volume you'de learn what words mean in japanese, and how they are pronounced and spoken.
the second version would have the same storyline so no real changes are neaded in that aspect of things (hopefully, this depends on finding a program with multi-lingual capabilitysand the ability to program in one language and have the responses that show up appear in another, but everythings in full japanese and you'de have a sort of "cheat sheet" that you print out and it shows the japanese letters next to their associated sounds, and for people to learn the language and written side of japanese they would have to use that sheet paired with their own knowledge of what the word means to understand whats being said, and to reply thay would have to re-translate the sounds that they know would make the answer into japanese writing and reply like that, so they can start to accosiate individual sounds with japanese script. This method would have people learn in over the space of both volumes, and learn both how to speak and write/read in japanese.
I came up with this method thinking that for people like me who know virtually no japanese it could be one of the most efficient learning methods. Also, if people are into Anime and all that, which i dont doubt allot of people who visit this page are, they can learn slightly how to speak sentences from it, as well as a lot of general words. I know that allot of people say that watchingg Anime is nothing like the actual language in typical speaking, but its undeniable that when watching in japanese with subs, if you see and hear words used in many different contexts you do learn the general meaning of the said word.
Oh, and another good thing about this method is that if we can make it as long as possible story-wise without making it boring, it would work to our advantage as people would forget about the actual question particulars by the time they do the second playthrough on version 2. I also agree with the idea of making a few volumes or "chapters" to seperate parts of the story, as that lets you feel like your getting somewhere with the project which helps you feel motivated and youll get a lot more done if your motivated, just like the whole point of making the game to make it easier to motivate people trying to learn. It will also help people keep up with where thay are in the story, and if you wanted you could make later volumes delve into specific categorys.
I cant say im too exited about the battle side of the project, as it may get rather boring to older players, but i cant honestly say i can think of any better without decreasing the learning ability by a drastic amount, which kind of defeats the purpose. maybe the battles could be with actual moves, not just elements oppisite of the monsters element, because that system would kind of limit how far you can go in terms of learning from the monsters, as you can only learn certain elements and others wouldnt make sense as the monsters "element".
As for walking around and game environment, i reckon graphics similar to those of the pokemon games would suffice. just using small sprites would probably be alright if you made it all run smoothly. after all, as an unproffesional project i think we are definitley allowed to have weaker side of the game if we have strong enough points in other areas of the game, and the stronger sides that we would want would probably be the Learning of the program and its ability to keep people interested, so not having an amazing, full graphic 3D map movement system would seem like a more than reasonable trade off. we could even use map sprites that other people have made to decrease allot of the workload.
If you like the idea's or you think i can help in any way (im willing to try my best
), please email me at "
[email protected]".
I have just started yr 12 in Aus, and am in allot of the top classes so i cant garantee any definite, constant support, but during certain weeks i do have allot of free time on my hands and would love to be able to be part of the project in any way possible
Wow, i wrote allot more than i expected lol