So I have added a few features I think address some of the issues you have had.
1) I made an option for PICK UPs. You can set it to be MANUAL, AUTO, or as I called it PRIORITY. MANUAL is as now. AUTO picks things up just by moving onto the square. And my favorite , PRIORITY, sets the special action automatically to the PICK UP icon. So you don't have to use shift to get to it every time. You can turn it back to manual if you find a situation where timing is important and you don't want it to auto set the pick up icon.
2) I added training wheel hints to new characters you get. So the first 5 times the character appears in the special action box, the English will appear above it. This can be toggled on or off. This is both a great idea I got from you guys to help the learning process, and confirms with me that it would be a bad idea if it were permanent. I notice I stopped looking at even the Kanji I knew in favor of reading it off the English. It was like English subtitles on an English movie. For some reason, I can't stop reading them.
3) I removed the blanket references to everything as Kanji. I use the word "character" now in most places and it was a really simple easy fix. So much so in fact, I dunno why I didn't just do it that way to begin with. It's much better this way. Thanks for making me do that.
I have not updated the flash on the site with the new changes yet. There are some more things I want to do before that. But these changes are coming.
Oh, an issue people were having is the boxes crowding their view. I had anticipated that, so I built in the TAB feature. Just hold down TAB and the HUD hides. That's in the current version.
edit : I feel like the game is too hard ;_; and once you're losing enough, there's really nothing you can do but start all over again ]: (it is fun though)
This is a concern of mine that I made the levels too hard. I can finish every level, but I know all the secrets and things that can get me through them easier, and even then it's tough sometimes. When I improve my level editor, I should probably spend a lot of time evening some things out.
- Rewards encourage learning. Movement of one square is a pretty crappy reward. This feels more like punishment... and I am atoning by typing for each single step.
- You will lose players due to frustration with this mechanic. Frustration = less learning = game misses the objective
What I'm getting from a lot of people so far, is that they don't want to play the game this way. A lot of excellent alternate suggestions have been made. Unfortunately, this is the way
I want to play the game. I don't find it frustrating. The reward system for me is every time I get one right, I go where I want. When I get one wrong, I don't go where I want. I find this a nice reward system. Most times, mistakes don't mean anything. Plus I am getting the amount of practice I intended as well. It's unfortunate this limits the appeal of my game, but ultimately, I am my primary market
Though I'm sure this system can be improved yet. I hope I don't sound ungrateful of everyone's input.
Part of the lack of frustration for me is probably that I know all the secrets of all the maps. It's not an exploration game for me. I can see how people are feeling claustrophobic right now. I wonder if a minimap feature would help. Basically, show the entire layout of the dungeon level. Where the exit is and so on.
While on this note..
- It's WAY TOO slow. I suggest you make the movement based on a much more generous grid, say, 3 x 3 tiles. Maybe take inspiration in
(the RPG).
Honestly, I'm not sure what you mean by the 3x3 grid. I get the impression you are suggesting something like
Sparky's Tiny Crawl entry for the assembly competition. Am I correct?
- Kanji have several readings, so it's confusing how you want me to write them.
I'm still sorting this issue out. Generally, they have one reading when they are by themselves (often the onyomi) and another when they are grouped together (often the kunyomi). So at the moment, you enter the kanji's onyomi. But as I think you probably know, it's not always the case that you just use the onyomi when they are single. Or that there is only one onyomi. Also, by adding in compound words, the number of items to be learned jumps up a lot. I'm already concerned about how long I'd need to make the game just to encompass my 300 kanji goal. It's a WIP.
I'm a big supporter of randomly-generated content
I would like to make a level generator. But it's a coding puzzle bigger than I want to get into right now. It's on my wish list though.
EDIT :: Voice recognition would be kind of awesome, since what I really came to learn is japanese -- not typing -- but that's probably not very possible and it would suck and I'm a good enough typist to handle this anyway ^^
Also on the wish list.. at the top.
What if you made the kana/kanji display even while you're moving?
I am experimenting with this now. Instead of hiding all the other characters, I will make the selected one gold or something. See how it works.
I'm afraid of playing this too much because I don't want to be screwed if I lose my progress D:
Do you think you might add some way to customize your starting state, or what to include? (I understand it's still a work in progress!) Some people might have a basic grasp of, say, 20 different kanji and playing this game enough to unlock past those first 20 might just be painful for them. On the same note, someone losing their progress for whatever reason will be rather displeased.
You have given me a very good idea. Instead of the START LVL option I have now, I will try to make some kind of slide bar of all the characters, you just select the exact level you want to start at.