[Profit Sharing] RPG to Teach Chinese, Portuguese, and perhaps other languages Thread

Hello everyone

Just to start out, no, you wouldn't need to know a foreign language in order to work on this game

I posted about a month ago, but we're still in need of some more people, so I'm posting again

I've had an idea for a game that I'd like to try to make, and I thought I'd post to see if I could recruit some people that were of like minds

I'd like to try to make a game that's designed to teach people a foreign language. Now, I know, most learning games are pretty boring, but I'd like this one to be an exception The idea is to have a game that's as totally immersive in the language as possible. I don't think there's really any way to avoid giving players vocabulary sheets, so players would be given a list with a few vocabulary words on it and then sent off to do some quests that only made use of those words. Once the quests were completed, they'd be handed a new vocabulary list and given a new set of quests. As time went on, their vocabulary would grow and they'd eventually be able to read the language somewhat. Part of the idea is that the game would need to be interesting enough that people would want to play it even if they weren't learning a second language, as this would provide additional incentive to keep learning the language. To that end, I think it might be nice to have an English version of the game so that people who weren't interested in learning the language would still be able to play it if they wanted to, although this might not work out.

Currently, we have two people on the team that are fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, and I know some Chinese, so those are the two languages that we are currently planning on using in the game. However, I think it would be great if we could have at least one other language as an option to be learned by playing the game, so if you know another language and would like to be on the team, please let me know In particular, I think it would be cool to have Japanese, but I'm open to most languages

I'm a programmer, so hopefully I should be able to handle most of our programming needs, although I'd be happy to have someone else along to help out if they'd like to. Currently we're using GameMaker, which seems to be working fairly well so far, although we haven't gotten very far into it yet The format of the idea is probably going to be an RPG, but if someone has a knockout idea for another genre, I'd be happy to hear it

So, here's who we need:

• Game designers: We'll need people to design the world, the storyline, overarching themes for quests, etc. We'd be starting completely from scratch, so you'd have a blank slate to build something interesting on
• Writers: I think this position should be fun, as you'll need to be able to come up with interesting dialog using only a very limited vocabulary, at least for the initial quests :) Given that we'll have other people doing translations, you would just need to know English, although if you know another language, too, that's awesome :)
• Artists: We'll need pixel artists, for the tiles and characters and things, but probably also an artist or two for doing non-pixel-art faces and things like that. If we do end up using RPG maker, there are lots of tilesets that we might be able to use, although the licensing on a lot of them is kind of fuzzy, or doesn't allow for commercial use, which would limit our options. Having some concept artists would be cool, too :)
• People who know a foreign language! It would be great to have one or two people who know a foreign language so that we have multiple people to check translations and bounce ideas for vocabulary lists off of :)
• Programmers: As I mentioned, I'm a programmer, and if we go with RPG Maker, we might not need to do a ton of programming, which I'm hoping would speed things up, but if you'd like to be on the team, I'd be happy to have some other people to help me out :)
• Other people: If you'd like to be part of the project, we'd love to have you! Let us know if you'd like to help in any other capacity that's not listed above. It'd be nice to have feedback from people who want to learn a foreign language, both when designing the game and during development :)

The team currently consists of these people:

• A game designer/some who is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese
• Another person who speaks Brazilian Portuguese
• A programmer/someone who speaks some Chinese
• Possibly a musician
• Possibly a concept artist

I'd like the game to be commercial, as I think it will take quite a bit of effort to develop. I'm not sure how much of a market there is for something like this, but I think that there are lots of people who want to learn a foreign language, and a lot of them are gamers, so perhaps there will be a decent amount :) As for pay, it would be profit sharing, as noted in the title. However, I'd like for people to be working on the game much more for fun than for the prospect of eventual profit :)

If you're interested, please reply, and feel free to send me a PM, as well, although I'd like to keep this thread the main route of communication for the moment :) I hope to hear from some people soon, as I'm really excited about this project, and I'm hoping other people will be, too :)

Edited by: neoncube

Sent you an email.

melsh, we wouldn't be able to pay up front, and we're looking for people who are interested in the game more for fun and less for profit, so we probably wouldn't be a good match for you, although I could be mistaken