Fancy! I hope they didn't forget to wear bowtie.

POSITIVES:
🙂+
😄+
😍+ the girl that says "elevator"
NEGATIVES:
🙁- no grammar/lexicon side content
😠- no shortcut/pin for recurrent expressions
😡-

🔷 Find So to speak here 👇
store.steampowered.com/app/1779030/...
🔹 and more puzzle games here 👇
www.youtube.com/@Mael_Duin

🔸 So to speak is a game and an educational app, but not the best it could've been at any. It is for people who don't know Japanse already, or just a few words, and find the language enticing. If that's you, you'll have a great time, but it won't turn you anywhere near fluent.

🔸 Aside from that, the game is represented in a pixel art that I wished it had been more stylised, and has some chill music that accompany the scenes nicely without being distracting.

🔸 There is a "dictionary" that acts like a database to search for words you already found, whether you comprehend them or not, but there is no grammar nor lexicon side content that develops topics further, or explanations on sentence structure, which I would have absolutely loved.

🔸 And you will learn, something(s) at least, guaranteed, by pure repetition. Learning how to say things in other languages is always fun, but it gets tiring when you have to match "wa" or "iru" for the 100th time. I wish there was an option to pin overly used expressions.

🔸 As a game, it's rather basic: you look for and match bits of information and that's it, sometimes feeling more like a detective game. There's no more added to the gameplay loop. No objectives, no secrets or other to keep you exploring the scenes, other than your own interest in learning more.

🔸 The game has 16 chapters covering basic and day-to-day topics like directions, colours, family, weather, etc., but I bet you're reading this to know if it's more of a game (and is it fun?) or an educational tool (and will I learn?).

🔸 In-game conversations are fully voiced and represented in romaji to work with. What the game never asks is to give answers or make sentences ourselves, so it feels like learning half way: only reading and listening.

🔶 So to speak is a learning language (Japanese) game by means of pairing bits of information: you see a sign with a picture of a mug but don't know what it means; drag the picture over the kanjis (or vice versa) and you found out how to write "coffee shop". It also works over speech.

Purply (ahem!) 🤣

Happy level up day! 🥳

POSITIVES:
🙂+ art
😄+ difficulty
😍+ mechanics variety
NEGATIVES:
🙁-
😠-
😡-

🔷 Find Spooky express here 👇
Itch 🔴 draknek.itch.io/spooky-express
Steam 🔵 store.steampowered.com/app/3352310/...
(also available on App Store and Google Play)

🔹 and more puzzle games here 👇
www.youtube.com/@Mael_Duin

🔸 In short, Spooky express is an excellent game for puzzle and non-puzzle players. It's fun and funny, accessible and challenging. It makes sure no one is left behind and it can take you as far as you want to go.

🔸 In general there's been an effort to make the game more accessible to a wider audience: the train updates its state in real time, which helps keep 'track' of the result of the current path, and I've also enjoyed the clues system, that shows a small section of the solution, without giving it away.

🔸 There's more variety of mechanics here than in Cosmic, so it's not just about taking passengers in and dropping them off. The different characters aren't just a change of skin, either, they have unique behaviours and requisites, and react differently to each other.

🔸 Each world has around 20 levels, for a total of 220, but they unlock in sets of increasing difficulty (or at once from the settings menu), so one only needs to finish the very basic ones to reach the ending. The difficulty curve increases gently and ranges from very easy to hard.

🔸 The game has a horror theme but represented in a family friendly way with cute characters and environments in a vibrant colour palette. There is a bit of a story, told through comic strips, that appear between the 8 worlds, and work as an introduction of each new mechanic and theme.