Kaibutsu: Another World
Factsheet
Developer:
Scott McKie
Belief Engine
Based in Redmond, Washington
Engine used:
Defold
Release date:
TBD
Platforms:
TBD
Websites:
Homepage
Current Public Prototypes For Free Download
Description
Kaibutsu: Another World is a retro-RPG game about learning the Japanese language through immersion. It follows the story of the player who has been isekai’d to a remote foreign island populated with Japanese yokai, and is unable to get through many everyday common tasks there due to the language barrier. After befriending a Tengu, the player is slowly introduced to the language in layers that allow them to begin navigating and functioning in different parts of the island, as well as possibly befriending additional yokai.
The game will include lessons, exercises, and educational mini-games, but the main focus will be immersion. Using a game-within-a-game conceit, Kaibutsu: Another World gently guides the player through the experience of being thrown in the deep end, trying to puzzle their way through playing an obscure Japanese video game. Since everything is in Japanese, the only way to make progress is to learn the language or make educated guesses.
History
Scott McKie had been learning Japanese on his own for awhile now, and had tried out several different methods. All have their pros and cons, but trying to use multiple methods at the same time proved incredibly unwieldy. The current video-game space focuses a lot on the basics (like learning hiragana & katakana), but dries up pretty quickly once you get past that point. They tend to also stick pretty closely to “traditional” Japanese-as-a-second-language education, while there’s some pretty excellent literature out there on better ways to approach language acquisition and make it stick.
After discovering the language acquisition theories pioneered by Stephen Krashen and heavy immersion based systems like Refold, Scott wanted to find out if he could achieve this level of immersion in a video game, while also using the building of the video game as part of the immersion process for learning.
Current Development
Kaibutsu: Another World is currently being built slowly as individual components, via 2-week long game-jam prototypes. This allows for testing out some of the design better, as well as also allowing to test working with a unfamiliar game engine called Defold.
Credits
Scott McKie
Development & Lesson Planning
Belief Engine