[Recruiting Anyone] [Profit Sharing] RPG to Learn Chinese (or other language) Thread

Hello everyone

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

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've attempted this project once with a group of friends, but unfortunately we all went our separate ways fairly quickly and barely made any progress on the game. Therefore, I'm starting from scratch again, as our original world concept was still heavily under development and I think we'll all have more fun if we get to design the world (and game) together

So, here's the idea:

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 would 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.

Personally, I'm interested in Chinese, so that's the language that I'd pick. I know enough Chinese that I can sort of get around, but I'm far from fluent, so it would help to, at least eventually, have someone else on the team that's more fluent in Chinese. However, if people are interested in another language, we could do that language instead. Alternatively, we could do several languages, although of course that would make things more difficult

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. I'm looking at using RPG maker for the game, but I'm not sure on that yet. Technically speaking, we wouldn't even have to do an RPG if people decided that another format would work better, but I think an RPG would lend itself well to this sort of thing

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 :) In fact, if you want the programming all to yourself, I have a feeling I might have my hands full coordinating things, so that would be fine with me, too
• Sound: Although probably not essential right off the bat, if you'd like to do sound for the project, that would be cool :)
• 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 :)

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.

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

This sounds interensting and I would like to ask if I may have a position as a Game Designer as I think it would be fun to help build the world for this game.

ShadowWolf, you may Welcome to the team!

Do you have any other projects that you've worked on in the past? If not, that's not a problem, but it's nice to know how much experience people have.

Would communicating via Skype work for you? I noticed that you're in the UK, so I'm not sure how much of a time difference there is between us. I'm in UTC-8 half of the time, and I believe UTC-7 the other half.

I have not worked on anything full yet. I tried to make a few games but I could never make good enough sprites. I can't really judge them because I made them but I can send you something if you want. I do have skype and since I don't really sleep that much I can be online nearlly all the time. Based on the time you have said I think that means it will be about 4pm for me when it is 8am for you.

sent a message

CarusimaHikura, thank you for you interest, but I looked through your Deviantart page and to be honest, your art is just too risque.

We now have a concept artist for the team

That means that are current team members are these:
A game designer
A programmer
A musician
A concept artist
Someone who speaks Portugese

It'd still be cool to have some more people, so if you're interested, please let me know

Hey everyone

We're still in need of some more people! One of our game designers will likely soon not be with us, and the other one may not be for too long, as he has a final project that he'll be starting work on, so we're in need of at least one more, and I'd be happy to have more people in pretty much every category

Right now, the team consists of
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

Given the skill sets of the people who are on the team, we're currently aiming to have Chinese and Portuguese be our two main languages, but I think it'd be great to have more, if anyone who knows another one would like to be on the team In particular, I think it would be nice to have a Japanese version

Edited by: neoncube