Toki Pona Island

Far too bare-bones to justify the price tag. Really pains me to leave this review, as I have been learning the language on-off for multiple years, and I was really hyped to see more media proliferating this language. Unfortunately "Toki Pona island" does not hold up as a language learning tool, nor as a game. [b]Gameplay wise[/b] it is a barebones platformer, with no enemies nor any abilities or quirks to it beyond a simple high jump. There is no difficulty whatsoever, not even reaching a game aimed at children's general difficulty. Overall completely hollow and lacking any charm or endearment. It is also really easy on pc to get stuck on dialogue as the game always selects the first dialogue option, which you can easily hit again should you be skipping through a diaologue due to misclicking. [b] Language wise [/b] it is extremely unintuitive, with the game opting to only teach the player grammar which is found as artifacts in game. Words are, beyond some piecemeal dialogue where they are displayed in brackets, not taught at all. The player instead has to consult an in-game dictionary .... without search function ... yea. The game expects you to manually scroll through the entire dictionary every time you are looking for a word. For first time learners there might be some endearment to a new language here. For veterans of the language who can understand the in game dialogue by a glance there might be a nice outlet to refresh the language. The price tag of currently 10$ however is for what is offered far too much, get it should it ever be on sale for >5$ maybe.

musi ni li pona tawa mi! This is a very cute game. I came into it already knowing Toki Pona, so I can't speak to how well it works as a language-learning tool (and there are some bits of grammar explanation that I personally would disagree with, or at least would explain very differently) but it was nice to be immersed in the language (especially if you uncheck the option to have your dialog choices translated into English). As a Toki Pona speaker, it's a short-but-sweet experience of bopping around a little pixel-art island helping folks. If you're learning the language, I have to imagine it will be a much slower experience puzzling through the vocabulary and figuring out what everyone wants, and a good supplement to whatever other learning resources you've got.

musi lon toki pona la mi pilin pona. taso musi ni li tenpo lili li musi lili. mi wile e musi suli lon toki pona.

musi ni li pona lili tawa mi sina wile kama sona e toki pona la, lipu li ike tawa sina la, sina o musi e ni! musi li pona tawa kama sona tan ni: sina luka e nimi la, musi li pana e kon pi nimi ni tawa sina ike la, kalama musi li pona ala tawa mi. toki pona ala la, musi li musi lili tawa mi taso ni li ken pona tawa toki pona a! jan pali o! pona tawa sina!

If you're looking to spend some fun time with the Toki Pona language, this is certainly a nice way to do it. But if you are just looking for a good platform game, skip this one, it is certainly not worth it. No real challenge, no real missions (people ask you to collect something, usually the item to collect is in the same area), no enemies. And the controls aren't that great either. But I was looking for a great time with Toki Pona, and I had my fun with it. I am just a Toki Pona beginner but I tried it with no translations which was hard sometimes. But I finished the game and I think I have learned something. I think I will play it again with the translations enabled to see what I may have missed. The content is around 2 hours and because of the simplicity of the game play, that really is enough. Note: it works (almost) perfectly on the Steam Deck. The only problem I noticed is overlapping texts here and there. Because of the low resolution of the screen, some texts of the grammar stones overlap sometimes. But I can't say it was problematic. Update: now that's stupid... the English translation is only for the things you can say, not for what people tell you. I would have wanted the English translation to make sure I interpreted the texts correctly, but this is not what happens. That's a bit silly.

mi toki mute. taso mi nasa la ni li moli. I wrote a lot but I misclicked to blow everything up. I would just say this was good for me but I may not recommend this to my friends who don't know toki pona.

g

pona

musi lawa ni li musi pona Honestly, not a bad little game. Having only been studying toki pona for a little while, this is a great way to study further. Gameplay, while simplistic and somewhat ameturish, is entertaining, especially some of the distance you can get with a jump-cartwheel combo. The sprites are great, and the music is of the right mood to facilitate play, though I would suggest some music in the silent areas. However, I seem to have partially uncovered a bug of sorts. On my first playthrough, the pickaxe did not spawn in, being absent from the cave. I started a new playthrough, and the issue was rectified. I don't know what caused it, as I was focused more on the tpt and my own comprehension. Sorry for not being able to provide better data on this. Overall, very fun, and great for those who have at least a decent grasp on the toki pona lexicon

musi li suwi la lon ona li pona tawa mi. (It's a cute game and I'm glad it exists.) ona li lili li ike ala. (It's small and not complex.) pana sona li pona lili. wile la ona li pona mute. (The teaching is a little bit good. It'd be nice if it was better.) taso toki pona li toki pona! o kama sona. o musi. (But Toki Pona is a nice language! Learn. Enjoy.)