Influent Language Learning Game

I don't know what you expect in a game that promotes language learning, so I don't know if this game will let you don't in terms of fun, but I do think it is good for learning vocabulary. I thought it might be gimmicky, but turns out it is well thought out, with just some rough corners. Overall, I'd say it's a good vocabulary builder with a bit of a small scope (for now at least). The screenshots do a good job of illustrating this, what you see is what you get. For instance, I thought that a game that involves words and looking at stuff would only feature nouns, but there are adjectives and verbs, though nowhere as many. To be honest, I like how that anchors those words. You learn 眠る/to sleep by interacting with a bed, and then you point at the bed to show you have learned the word (more on that later). I think that's a very interesting and effective design choice. I'd love to get a sequel or expansion in which language chunks (small frases, commonly including verb+noun combinations) are used in addition or instead. With some mastery of the target language however, you could try to imagine those language chunks yourself. Anyway, the game has a story that is kind of connected to the tutorial, which feels a bit long, but that's okay. I can't speak to the ending, I've only mastered a few words out of I don't know how many hundreds. The gameplay is learning the name for each thing (with some synonyms you can choose from) and then quizzing yourself in five different ways (two assessing your text recognition of the word, two for audio recognition, and one for audio+text). You can choose between point and click or point and shoot, and there are three ways to get around the small apartment in which the objects are laid out. This works very well, and it doesn't take long to learn the interface (though I wish I learned that you can open stuff with right-click sooner). At least for me, just clicking on things and learning the words was fun. The quizz part was okay too, I feel like it was an effective way to learn vocabulary. Unless there's something I haven't seen yet, I don't think there is a way to learn any grammar, as you won't be putting together any phrases or sentences. There are enough words to make this a worthwhile exercise though, and it's nice that with a one-time purchase you can learn the same words for a different language. If you are interested in many languages in the same language family or languages that share vocabulary, such as European languages or languages that have borrowed some Chinese vocabulary (Japanese, Korean, etc.), this selection of words can help you to compare and contrast, maybe even spot differences in pronunciation, and so on. Before concluding, I'd like to highlight that, while the game is not perfect, it shows a great deal of good design in terms of what it is trying to achieve. So far I've only tested Japanese, and it helps that you can switch between different spellings of the same word (漢字、ひらがな、romaji). In the screenshots, I can see that the Spanish version includes articles for each noun, which makes it easier to learn the gender for each noun. Just in case it wasn't clear, you also get the audio for each word. Not a small feat for a solo dev, by any means. Anyway, it's a good vocabulary builder. It's not revolutionary, but I certainly wish the dev the best and I'll be looking forward to anything else they produce. Oh, and did I mention the soundtrack features songs by Lifeformed? That's a plus in my book.

I want to like this game so badly, but the controls are a freaking nightmare....

I am super grateful that this game exists. I'm learning Polish and my recall sucks. It feels like every time I learn something, I completely forget it again the second I need to use it. I never retain a thing. So I've been trying to take a few steps backwards and go full "babymode". Babies are soooo good at learning. And playing is a big part of that. Helps create stronger associations with stuff I think. I remember when I was a kid, I loved all those 90's educational PC games. You know the ones. So I figured... okay, Polish games, right? But i'm not quite ready to just jump into playing Witcher 3 in Polish and understand wtf is going on. I tried. It's rough. This game however is seriously perfect for where i'm at. I already find myself remembering words WAY easier now. I love that it's not just nouns either, but verbs and adjectives associated with the objects too. And I LOVE all the different modes that help me hone different things like reading, listening, etc. I honestly wish this game was larger and had some more game modes or mini games, maybe some grammar stuff or cultural trivia too? it's seriously exactly what I needed, just wish there was more!

I purchased this game to attempt to learn Japanese. Was excited and wanted very much to like this game. However, the game was not "fun to play" and felt very limited. The vocabulary had many borrowed words while the game test/challenges had (too) many errors. Personally, this game did not work well for me (for the Japanese DLC). I was avoiding it more than using it to learn the language until I got a refund. I do not have any experience with any of the other many DLC's available.

Вспомнил про эту игру. Оказывается разрабы сделали ее платной и отняли у меня, так как она была в библиотеке, а сейчас ее нет. Раньше в качестве бесплатной игры заучить 500 слов на разных языках было круто, а сейчас отдавать такие деньги - ну такое себе. Не рекомендую, лучше скачать птицу и слушать ее пение на разных языках…

I really like this game. Simple yet thorough. I am using it for Japanese and I love that I can toggle between kanji, furigana, and romaji forms. I also really love the cute games and how detailed the apartment is.

Rather annoying way of "learning" new words by having to navigate around your apartment, trying to find everything and remembering its locations. The game tries to make learning more interactive, which hats off to the developer for trying, but unfortunately it manages to miss its mark.

Fair for the price, but it seems like there is a lot of missed opportunity for greatness. Overall I recommend, but gripes are below: I was excited that there appeared to be some sort of story building that would progress as you play - at least - the introduction to the game introduces stuff like characters and motivation.... but be warned there is no story/character progression, the dialogue you get when you load up the game is the dialogue you'll get every time from there on. The things they talk about don't actually go anywhere or have relevance to your experience. It kind of makes me wish they got rid of the characters if that would have freed them up more $$ for game logic. I was also excited at the possibility of unlocking another environment (even as DLC?) but that is not here. The controls are brutal. I guess because this was designed for mobile, but I'll never get used to the controls on keyboard. I have resigned to this. Just a fact of life. Still, I recommend this, particularly because it is a well-put-together solodev title, and it is doing what I wanted - teaching me french vocab! Would love to see Influent 2!

Excellent and enjoyable game for learning a new language!

Fajna motywacja do nauki słówek. Osiągnięcia zmotywowały mnie do przejścia wszystkich słówek po Włosku, co nie tylko było satysfakcjonujące, ale też praktyczne. Sama gra ma swoje wady i błędy, ale są niewielkie i ostatecznie jestem zadowolony ze spędzonego w grze czasu. Polecam jeśli nauka języka to dla Ciebie nie blokada