[Game] Knuckles in China Land

Summary
Name: Knuckles in China Land
Abbr: KiCL
Author: André Dirk
Homepage: http://www.kicl.info/
Forum: YES
Platforms: Windows
Status: FREEWARE
Summary (from site):
Knuckles in China Land is a Learn Japanese Game combined with a console-style RPG (Role-Playing Game). It is designed to make certain aspects of Japanese, German, and Indonesian language-learning a bit more enjoyable.

Advantages:

• Multiple languages
  
• Lengthy storyline
  
• Extensible vocabulary
  
• Free

Disadvantages:

• Windows only
  
• No sound

Review
Story:
You find yourself in China Land and have to learn the language of dreams (whichever language you chose at the beginning) in order to return. It's more complicated than that, but I don't want to reveal any surprises. There is a LOT to this storyline.

Graphics:
What can I say? It's a fan-game; a tile-based RPG with the graphics based on SEGA characters (the artists can be found in the credits section of the help file). Unfortunately, full-screen only.

Sound:
None. Alas.

Gameplay:
Standard RPG fare. You have a main goal, and current sub-goals (find an item, find your way through the maze, etc). There's no overworld to make things easier, so you may get lost at some point. You also don't level-up from battles, so the role-playing element is a bit limited. A great feature of this game is the vocabulary list builder. Don't like the built-in list? Make your own. Studying from a particular Japanese book and want a list to accompany it? Make your own (I did). Want to learn a different language? Make your own list. The storyline remains the same (and is itself not yet expandable), but you can add just about any kind of list you want to play against.

Battle:
Flash-card based. See the card, type the answer (or one of the answers). Flash cards can be text or graphical. New cards are introduced at a fairly rapid pace (perhaps too rapid, and no apparent means to slow it down). A bit repetitive after a while, but the storyline may keep you playing after the battle-boredom sets in.

Conclusion:
A decent game, and you can't beat the price (free). It has a way to go before it earns a regular place in my toychest, but fortunately the author is making frequent updates. Suggestions posted to the forum are implemented regularly. Definitely worth checking out.

Screenshots

[Game] Project: LRNJ

Summary
Name: Slime Forrest Adventure
Abbr: LRNJ, SFA
Author: Darrell Johnson
Homepage: http://lrnj.com/
Forum: NO
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
Status: Various Registration Levels ($10-$99) *Currently, only the 'limited' free version is available, and that is what is reviewed here.
Summary (from site):
The goal of Project LRNJ is to make LeaRNing Japanese fun and easy with a retro-style RPG: Slime Forest. The game is still under development, but many students already find it useful, and it can currently teach you katakana, hiragana, and over a thousand kanji, essential character recognition for reading Japanese.

Advantages:

• Multiple platforms

Disadvantages:

• Not free
  
• Short storyline
• No sound

Review
Slime Forrest Adventure is an RPG that helps you learn or review the different Japanese writing systems.

Story:
Sell potatoes. Save the princess. Nothing to write home about.

Graphics:
Fans of old-school tile-based RPGs (eg early Final Fantasy) will feel right at home. The graphics are pretty basic, but functional. Remember, this is a one-man project; there's no separate graphic artist.

Sound:
None. There's no separate sound artist either.

Gameplay:
Pretty much standard RPG fare, although somewhat limited. There's not much story to this game. You start with the goal of selling your potatoes, and end up trying to save the princess. There's not a lot more to it than that, although there is a bit of a side-quest involving spicing up your home-cooked food. The point of the game is not the graphics, sound, or gameplay though. The point is the battles.

Battle:
Your enemies are various types of slimes. You start out against kana slimes and work your way up to kanji slimes. This is the part of the game that really shines. For learning the kana, this is the program to use. Some might say it's little more than a fancy flash-card system, but it is. The time pressure of seeing a kana and recognizing it and typing it in before the slime can attack does tend to focus one's concentration more than a simple flashcard would. The kanji slimes only have a keyword. You are given no stroke-order information, nor ON/KUN readings, nor multiple meanings. You are given a mnemonic to remember the keyword, and you can pick them up pretty fast (for some reason, 'well' really sticks in my head as a great example. Look it up in the game).

Conclusion:
The game is good, but not great (ie, not worth paying for, at least not yet). I was dismayed to see it teaching obscure kana that are no longer part of Japanese, but there are few of them, and it's easy enough to learn them with the others. Learning the kanji through keywords is the same concept used by the fantastic Heisig books, but that series eventually teaches readings as well. Unfortunately, you can't mix Heisig and SFA, as the mnemonics differ and it gets confusing. The story is not compelling enough, and the rewards are few and far between. This is not a game that is impossible to put down (on the contrary, it's quite easy). This game will not teach you the Japanese language. However, if you are just starting out and need to learn the kana, use this.

Screenshots