The final game will have a huge handcrafted city to explore, filled with hundreds of opportunities to speak to the city's inhabitants. You'll be able to learn one of at least a dozen languages.
The full version of the game will support Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German and French. These languages will have voice recordings and apart from teaching people who can speak English these languages, you'll also be able to learn English in each of the chosen languages.
There are also a few dozen languages that have been translated by the community. I can't vouch for the fact that they'll be 100% correct or 100% accurate, but right now the community has added at least some translations for: Ainu, Arabic,Basque, Bengali, Bulgarian,Catalan ,Chinese (Simplified Mandarin), Croatian, Czech,Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Persian (Iranian), Polish, Portuguese (BR), Portuguese (PT), Romanian, Russian, Scots,Slovak,Slovene,Spanish,Sranan Tongo, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.
Want to know more? You can keep up to date with twitter, facebook and the mailing list. There's also a discord.
There are a few ways to learn words in the game
- You can click on objects in the environment to learn the word for them.
- Whenever you talk to one of the city's inhabitants you'll be able to learn a word by guessing it from a list or by solving a riddle.
- The city's inhabitants will also comment on the weather as you walk past. So if you want to learn how to say "It's snowing" (for example), then this is the way to go.
By clicking on a tree, the player learns the word for it.
The pictures give you clues to guess the word in red. In this case, "bird".
Words you know will appear purple when talking to people in the game. By moving your mouse over these words you'll be able to see its translation. The more words you know, the more you'll understand and begin to feel at home in this strange city.
The words you know are purple and can be translated
By being continuously confronted with the language you'll also internalise the word order and keep the words you know fresh in your memory. The game can display both the romanised version of languages with different scripts as well as the native scripts.
Three of the five planned city districts are currently in a near final state. They all have a unique look and their own words to teach you. The size of the city in the final version of the game also depends on the Kickstarter, some pledges will result in new buildings or areas.
- If fifty people back the Animal Lover reward, a zoo will be added to the game. You'll be able to learn the words for dozens of animals by clicking on them.
- If fifty people back the Paying Respect reward, a graveyard will be added to the game. Statues of the deceased will teach you adjectives, i.e "Here lies Alexander the great".
- If twenty five people back the Parent reward, kindergartens will be added to the city, children will use see-saws and swings and liven up the city with their playful ways.
- Finally, if 1 backer is found for the Royalty reward, a palace will be added to the city. You'll be able to explore the palace from the inside and learn many new words.
All the backers listed above and those who back as Citizens will have access to the game immediately and leading up to the game's release (which is currently scheduled for August 2018). Several new versions of the game will be available to you per month. You'll be able to watch the city grow and evolve as I work on the game and constructions sites will gradually make way for finished buildings.
Throughout the city, various street musicians will beguile you with their songs. This was my solution to play music in the game, they'll often be near important characters, luring you to their location
Some of the talented musicians you'll be able to meet.
I often feel bad for playing video games. They can take dozens of hours to complete and that's time I could've spent learning a valuable skill.
I also believe that games can be a great way to teach people various skills. I loathed the time I had to spend learning in school and would have been tremendously excited at the prospect of playing a game like Lingotopia.
I began searching for a game that allows me to learn a language while playing, thereby absolving my guilty conscience. To my surprise there were no games out there like Lingotopia. So I set out to create my own language learning game. A game set in a beautiful city, with an uplifting story, many unique characters to meet and hundreds of words to learn.
I've been developing the game in my spare time throughout 2017. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign in January 2018 I'm now able to work on the game full time! But the more support I get, the better the game will end up being.
Right now I'm busy adding more content to the game: Expanding the city and creating many more characters to talk to. You'll be able to learn hundreds of words by exploring a huge city. By supporting me you can either pre-order the game when it's released in August 2018. Or, by backing at the Citizen tier or above, you'll be able to join in on the fun now, by getting access to the unfinished version of the game immediately. I'm sure you'll be able to learn a lot!
My name is Tristan and I'm the developer of Lingotopia. Apart from some help with the art direction at the beginning of the project and with the music, I've been developing the game all on my own.
My career in game development has been short and sweet so far. I started out as an intern on the wonderful Expedition simulator, "The Curious Expedition". While working on the puzzle game "Slayaway Camp", I began making my own, smaller, more experimental games, like "One Show Only" and "Tumbling Home". Lingotopia is my first foray into language learning and I'd love to keep going in this direction, as long as the game is well received of course.
Music for the game has so far been provided by my dear friend Tobias Junge and wonderful wife Mariella Ziegenhagen. As more bands join the city's ensemble cast of musicians more songs by these two and potentially by others will be added to the game.
Art direction for the game has also been provided by Ludovicus Gees Aryo Herwastho, who played a huge role in establishing Lingotopia's unique look
I am also tremendously thankful to the wonderful people that have added translations to the game so far! Without them, the game wouldn't have made it this far <3
Risks and challenges
I've overcome the majority of the technical hurdles already. There will also be no physical rewards that require shipping.
It's always possible to underestimate the time it takes to make a game but I will do my very best to meet all deadlines on time.