How about an RPG that motivates you to learn Japanese at the same time as playing? I was thinking, instead of levelling up the old-fashioned way (grind, grind, grind), you could use your Japanese-learning stats to rise through the ranks. Maybe there could be a feature where you input what you’ve done so far, in fields such as “Kana (number learned)”, “Kanji (number learned)”, “Audio (hours)” or “SRS Sentences (0-10,000)”. Obviously you’d have to have the user be truthful about it (who cheats at learning, anyway?), but you could use these numerical figures to calculate XP, so the more Japanese you learn the higher the level you reach (or the better weapons you get, who knows).

There could be a feature where you “train” your Japanese in a gym – by doing things like deciphering audio or reading kanji – which obviously would lead to better Japanese stats and thus better in-game stats.

Cutscenes/text/audio could be all in Japanese, which gives you a good place to mine sentences from (and level up a little in the process).

It’s obviously just an idea that came to mind by chance; it’s nowhere near thought through enough to be made into something real. But… I’m about to start a Computer Science degree, so who knows, maybe this could be a good project to work on in the future :)

So, what do you think? Terrific? Abysmal? Ideas for gameplay features?

[At first, I thought about making a simple little widget-y type thing, with the same levelling up idea but just on it's own, no game/training/whatever. A motivational aid, if you will. Just open it up at the end of each day and input what you did then watch your XP go up and the little bars FLY by hehe. After so much XP, you get a new rank, each with a cooler name than the last. This idea any better? Would it work better than a whole game?]

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter :)

*If you steal this idea and make it yourself, awesome, but I’m getting royalties, OK? :P*

I like RPG Games and although this idea (in my opnion) is kind of rough at the moment (like you’re basically saying) with a lot more work and thought into it it could actually sound like a really good Japanese learning game. This idea is certainly interesting.

All we need.

Mostly because I have a text file where I log all the Japanese speech audio I’ve listened to, and I hate adding up the times for the log. lol. “There’s an app for that” or hopefully will be, soon.

Also, this japaneseclass.jp thing seems pretty cool. Joining.

Now see, I thought this would actually work better, and be a lot simpler, just as an app (without the game), but it seems JapaneseClass has already done it. Ah well. I’d just been studying Java – and app development a little – as well, so I could have made something basic right away.

That isn’t to say I *couldn’t* make an app, if I included a few features that japaneseclass doesn’t have, and if I make it look pretty enough. *I’d* use it (if I had a smartphone, that is).

Stupid japaneseclass.jp, stealing a basic idea that anyone could have come up with!