#lingtopia
Me the other day: I really appreciate Duolingo, but I also wish there were more things I could buy with my Lingots than days off and the three outfits I already have for Duo. Surely there’s a way to give Duo a little apartment that I can buy decorations for or something…
Me: Actually, what would be really neat is if I could somehow fuse Duolingo with one of those town-building or farming games, like Animal Crossing or Littlewood or whatever. Your character goes into a new town where only a few select people speak your language of origin and has to learn a new language in order to complete the game. Introductions are easy, then you can build vocabulary and practice sentences by buying things, growing things, trading things, building things, etc.
Me: Shoot, who do I pay to make this for me, I have no extra energy to commit to learning to code.
I would LOVE something like this???? 12/10 good idea would support a Kickstarter??????
Seriously, I am not up to learning to code, and I’m still four lessons away from even finishing one language on Duolingo, never mind being fluent enough to teach other people, but I will happily attempt to write a storyline and/or will provide concept art and such. Someone help me make the thing.
In light of this getting notes again, here are two computer games that I know of that you learn at least some foreign language skills through:
- The Expression Amrilato: English or Japanese language game, teaches Esperanto; f/f sci-fi visual novel
- Slime Forest Adventure: English language game, teaches katakana, hiragana, and kanji; fantasy RPG. Free version with limited kanji and only episode one of the adventure, or registered/paid version with over 2000 kanji (includes all the basic literary kanji), reading training, some grammar, etc.
As you can see, neither of them is precisely the town-building game I’m daydreaming about, but there’s still more story content than Duolingo.
Do you know of more language learning computer games? Tell me about them!
I think about this too and it does make me mad that the town building stuff is in my wheelhouse to build BUT I know fuck all on the language side. (Get Duolingo to hire me??? Pay me Duo????)
I played a game called Lingotopia I think? Which supports a bunch of languages - you basically show up in a town that speaks your target language and learn through immersion.
Wait what
Lingotopia is a language learning game about being lost in a city where you don’t speak the language. Learn Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and more! You play a little girl shipwrecked on the shores of a strange island. In order to get back home you’ll need to explore the island and talk to its inhabitants. Sadly, no one speaks your language! You’ll have to learn words one at a time to decipher what these strange creatures are saying.So it looks like Lingtopia is a little on the buggy side, and the studio that made it has moved on to other projects with no plans to revisit,
not to mention my own attempt withered and died,but I did just find this Kickstarter:L2 SPEAK is a game that immerses you in the language that you want to learn. You’ll explore new areas, try new activities, and meet new people, seamlessly learning the language of your choice as you go. We’re the world’s first free, immersive mobile social-sim designed to turn learning a language from something you labor to do, to something you love to do.I mean, yes, it’s on Kickstarter, and there’s only two language options so far, but still!
this a brilliant idea actually @bisexualbaker. I specifically enjoy the gameification in credits earned via exercises that are exchangeable for stuff in the town builder. build the town->learn stuff->drill the stuff->build more town // sounds like something with a lot of potential.
Right? It seems like such a natural fit! Especially since farming and town-building games can be so addictive; and then the time you spend doing stuff is also time you spend learning a new language, which is just plain cool.
The games linked above are not enough! I need a dozen more games like this, stat!
