Kevin(1997-2077)

以下の点によりおすすめできません。 ・語順や該当する単語などが完全に英語準拠のため、日本語話者にとってわかりづらい(これはまだマシ) ・操作のチュートリアルで表示されるキーボードのレイアウトがUS配列のため、日本語で使用されるJIS配列だとなんのキーなのかわからないことがある(ちなみに右の平たいキーはReturnです) ・表示されている記号がすべて手書きなので同一系統の単語でも統一感に欠けている ・ゲーム中でペイントできるモードがあり単語に自分で解説をつけられるのはいいが、ペンの太さが太すぎるため長い単語を書くと隣の単語を書くスペースがなくなるので言語解読ゲームとして難がある ・BGMに難があるというかずっと耳元で数を数えられているのでうるさい

This is one of the strangest “games” I have played in a while. There is no explanation for what the whole thing is about or what you are supposed to be doing. All you can do is click on the icon that takes you to a large map of Earth filled with strange symbols. The first image you see is a tutorial on how to move, and you can view more by scrolling down. Actually, you can scroll all over the place, but you cannot zoom out or in. This makes navigating extremely difficult because you never know where you are heading. To avoid becoming entirely lost, hitting number 1 returns you to the tutorial section. If you find something fascinating, you can use one of the remaining numbers to set down your own quick-travel points. Because you do not have infinite options, you can rewrite those points if you discover something more intriguing. The only additional tools are a multi-colored pencil and an eraser. After a while, you realize that symbols represent words, and your overall goal is to understand these symbols while following Kevin's story and journey. As you wander across the map, you will notice icons. If you press a key, you will see an image with more strange symbols. Each icon is supposed to represent a new individual Kevin met on the journey. Most images are fine, however some have colors that clash with the background and symbols. This occasionally makes them barely visible. Unfortunately, this is an old-school deciphering game. This means you will need to memorize what each symbol represents or write it down on a piece of paper. There is no mechanism that would fill in all symbols with the correct word once you figure it out. And, given the large number of symbols, you may not have the time or interest to master the complete language. It’s very hard to recommend this to gamers. There’s no sense of accomplishment and you don’t get any reward for figuring out a symbol. All you do is scroll the big map and decipher symbols that tell a story that will be left invisible for too many. There are absolutely no "quality of life" functions, fancy graphics or even sounds. Which is strange because the game takes 4GB of space.

Kevin(1997-2077) tells the story of Kevin's life from 1997 to 2077. Kevin tells his story using a secret language that he made. What makes the language interesting to attempt to translate is that most of the symbols (and i mean most) have multiple meanings. For example, the symbol for think is the same as the symbol for remember or understand. The symbol for feel is also the same as "body". I found this quite enjoyable. Although the game has so much to translate, the translations never felt like the chore of simply slotting in the correct word. This is because the sentence structure and theme can change the interpretation of each word as you go. This makes every translation quite engaging. And with the sheer amount to translate, the developer never once got lazy with how they wrote the language. There is a consistency throughout all of it. And going back to revisit prior translations is very fun. What is daunting about this game is the sheer amount there is to translate. And the UI is intentionally designed to try to steer you away from even giving it a chance. I played this game a lot. In fact, I played this game in its entirety. And I walked away with a sense of love and joy towards the character of Kevin. It truly was a lovely journey. I think most players will give this a bit of their time, and walk away with the idea of "that was a cool concept", or maybe translate 1/10th or less of the language (again, there's so much) and still say "that was fun." And because of that, I recommend this to everyone. Make sure you have screenshots, pen and paper, you name it.

A puzzle game where the point is that you can't complete the puzzle.

「日本語に対応」とは

I went into this expecting a wee bit more, I'm afraid to say. I fear I might be something of an outlier to the target audience (I assume?). I didn't notice or take to heart what the dev wrote in the very description at the top of the Steam page - namely, that one Chinese sentence he put in there. I speak Chinese myself and as soon as I started translating the symbols you see in the game to Chinese (because there isn't really enough room to write out English words there, so I naturally gravitated towards using Chinese symbols when making notes), I immediately noticed how most of what you see is just Chinese, redrawn into some bootleg symbols that for the most part uncannily resemble their Chinese counterparts. For example, the mouth you see in game, which is meant to mean "to say" is inspired by the ancient Chinese (文言文) character 曰, which really literally just means "to say" (and is meant to represent a mouth shape in itself, so he sorta just used the crude Chinese characters' predecessors you can find in those old ass dictionaries). This might be a bit of an unfair criticism towards the dev, who obviously put the work down to make this game, and I feel bad saying this out loud, but I kind of expected more. I guess it wouldn't even bother me as much if there was more content to the "game", but what this seems to be from what I could gather is essentially just the first few lessons of a random textbook for foreign languages, with extremely basic dialogues used to illustrate grammar. Just that there are no grammar or vocabulary instructions in this game, so you're left thinking there was a big ol' mystery for you to unravel, when really all they're saying NO SPOILER is just stuff like "I like you, you like me.". I am entirely unclear on whether or not I missed something, because there didn't seem to be a zoom out function and I couldn't see where the hell I was in-game. I really like the idea, but the execution was lacking. Anyway, if you don't speak Chinese all of these are moot points, so whatever I guess.