WonderLang French

[b] Wonderlang [/b] is an educational game which helps you learn the French language by sending you on quests and interacting with the many characters that frequent the isle of Wonderlang. You can customize the game to cater to your needs by choosing one of the three difficulty levels and setting the frequency of enemy attacks. There are fifteen base languages to convert into French and there appears to be regular updates, but the game already has a lot of content. Conversations and battles follow the same process and you can choose whether to attack or respond by using your voice; typing in the answer; or picking from a list of correct and incorrect words to form the sentence. This means that if you want to practice your French speaking and listening you can hear the word and use your microphone and verbalize your answer, if you want to practice your writing skills you can type in the answer, or you can practice your reading by selecting the words from a list and putting them in the correct order. The game actually randomises the method but at any time you can over-ride the method by choosing your own. I tried the speaking part with my microphone and I did have trouble getting the game to recognise my pronunciations and had to talk very slowly to get it to work. I find listening to French and speaking French are the hardest parts for me so it may well have been the way I was saying things. I did notice that there are indicators to tell you how to say a word properly, but unfortunately, even though I had the base language as English, the indicators were in a language I did not recognise. You can ask the narrator to pronounce the word so that you can listen to it and repeat though. If you want to write your answer, then a keyboard is provided with the option to choose letters with accents. These are counted as mistakes if you don't get them right, which I often didn't! If you choose from a list of words, the last correct word(s) stay on the board but the rest are removed for you to try again. The battle sequences are very basic in the sense that you only have one or two monsters to fight and no tactics are needed, just an attack or defence option. Your stats in attack, magic attack, agility, defence, magic defence, and luck play a part in the fight though which are increased by finding treasure and equipping items like necklaces and wearing protective clothing. The way in which you choose to fight is quite varied. The monster gives you a word in your base language and you need to reply by voice, keyboard, or by choosing the word from a list of French words. The word can be partial (i.e. some of the letters are already provided), or with no clues, or you can choose between four potential words or six potential words. In the main, battles are so far are very easy, although I did meet a boss and he annihilated me with three hits so I am expecting to upgrade considerably before trying him again. Quests are mostly fetch quests so you'll need to get your bearings and learn where things are like people and shops. You don't get much help in the way of a quest finding compass or localised map but there is a world map with other areas you can visit if accessible. If you do get lost you have the option of asking characters where places or people are located (in French of course). The initial quest is to meet everyone and complete thirty tasks and I am nowhere near that with nine hours completed, so the game is going to be very long. I got a bit confused with the quests to begin with. I would like to see my inventory and quests on the game screen rather than hidden behind the escape button, and I wasn't quite sure who I had left to meet because the only characters showing were the ones I had already met. It would have been useful to show characters I had yet to meet. Completed tasks are marked green in the character bio and uncompleted tasks are blank so it's quite easy to see what you have left to do. Now and again, you get offered a puzzle to complete like Sudoku, but obviously filled in using French numbers. I was very impressed with how the game allowed me to quickly start learning sentences and phrases and helped me understand the order words are arranged and why. I did well at basic French in school but I felt like I learned a lot in the nine hours I was playing and would certainly use this as the main tool to learn more in the future. There are lots of explanations as to why words change when they are male or female and other explanations on grammar and rules of the language. Sometimes, these went a bit over my head but other times they made perfect sense. In most dialogues you can choose a question mark which gives you an explanation of the conversation and any rules you need to be aware of. There are flash cards available to practice well known phrases and you can bookmark phrases and dialogue to quickly access when you want. There is a dictionary where you can look up words and their meanings but I found that when searching for French words, it rarely gave me an answer. When speaking to characters certain words are underlined which means that you can have the narrator pronounce them in French or if you click on the word it tells you the meaning. As you progress though, more and more words are not underlined. I guess they have been presented before? It would be great to always have the words underlined because I found the search option didn't work and would have liked a reminder. My only other suggestion would be to name everything that you can see visually on the game play screen. Currently, the game only seems to highlight animals but it would have been useful I think if every object had the item name and the French translation when hovered over with the mouse. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] [quote][h2]I was very impressed with [b] Wonderlang [/b] and how it uses RPG mechanics and puzzles to engage you in learning about the French language. It wasn't long before I was surprising myself by putting sentences together and communicating with the characters. It seems a much more fun way to learn a language in my opinion. You can tell that a lot of thought and effort has gone into how the game is structured and how it manages to teach you in an entertaining way. I would definitely recommend it if you want to learn French. [/h2][/quote] [quote]Thank you for reading my review. If you enjoyed it, please leave a like and follow[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/] [b]IndieGems[/b] [/url] for more reviews like this one. We also have a [url=https://www.youtube.com/@IndieGems2][b]YouTube channel[/b][/url] if you would rather see game play footage with reviews. [/quote]

11 Hours in so far! The game has a few bugs "npc's triggering multiple times sometimes" help boxes not fitting on the screen. (These have all been fixed from original play through) Overall the game is really helping put context in what i'm learning. I use duolingo which barely explains anything. This game really helps fill in the gaps, its vastly increasing my speed of learning. Would recommend, Please support the devs

I think that's the best educational game I’ve played because it actually feels like a real game, not just a learning app. The RPG gameplay is fun, and picking up French as you explore feels natural and rewarding. It’s great for beginners if you are a fest learner, but I think it’s even better if you’re already studying French in some way. otherwise, the learning curve might feel a bit steep at first. If you’re looking for a fun, immersive way to learn French, this is a must-try!

I am pleasantly surprises by how good this game is so far. I play it with my daughter together as well are both learning french and it has been a really fun way to supplement our learning while being immersed in this fun RPG. I am only A2 level mind you, but for my level it is perfect. Je recommande vraiment Wonderlang !

I haven't gone deep into the game yet, but of the 90 minutes I've played so far, I feel that it's going to be a promising game. It's still Early Access, so it'll definitely have some issues to work through. Couple of recommendations (from when I wrote this review. March 14, 2025): - Has a weird mix of keyboard vs mouse. I end up having to go back and forth. I'm not a fan of on-screen keyboards, but am forced to use in some places, especially with the accents on letters. I'm on Mac and found that when I press alt/option and the letter it will sometimes work, but not always. I'd prefer to use JUST the keyboard if at all possible. - If the mouse cursor is hanging out on certain parts of the screen, when an NPC starts talking and the mouse just so happens to be hovering over a word, it'll just say the word and skip saying the whole sentence. Unfortunately, I think I got this game when I was a bit further along in my French learning and am hopeful we'll see higher levels of French added (B1,B2? :) ) I'm still going to recommend it, in the hopes that the user experience gets better over time.

Ever learn a bunch or weird words like Firaga and Baka in an RPG? Lol well now actually learn a proper language while doing it! It's a proper RPG with story. You just learn French along the way!

Currently 3/4 through the game. I think it's great and a pretty good starter RPG for those wanting to move to native french games or JRPGs localized in French. It's an indy game so there are bugs, but devs are pretty responsive on the discord. What surprised me the most is that this is a legit full length RPG with a narrative/mystery. If you know french already of course you could probably blow through it quickly, but if you are the intended audience you won't be finishing this game in a couple of hours. Some things I really like: -Each section of the game has a "Dungeon" at the end of it where you don't have the normal look ups available that also includes a final cutscene in the end that moves the narrative forward. I know it's simplified french, but understanding the cutscene and the important story beat without help feels really satisfying. -Finding random notes laying around like skyrim and being able to read them. -Being able to adjust battle settings (encounter rate, strength of enemies) -Verb Conjugation Battleship mini game is surprisingly addictive.

Really enjoying it so far. There are different "mini-games" like fill in the letters, say the word out loud, word searches, etc. Looking forward to playing more.

does anything work in this game?

I like this game so far. It's still EA so some stuff needs work, but overall it is fun and engaging. It is a good way to practice french.