Tako Japanese, an
Interactive educational game/app dedicated to teach Japanese in a fun and
creative way, we have here today Alberto Gomez a Spanish programmer and game
developer who worked two years to get it done.
I've stumbled upon
this app accidentally while browsing Reddit. The trailer was interesting so I gave
it a try; and I loved it! Why don't we start this interview by introducing the
App to our readers? How do you describe Tako Japanese?
Hi!
First of all thank you for looking at our game and for this interview.
Takos Japanese is a game that teaches the player how to read and write in Japanese in an original and fun way. We do this by taking the player throughout guided lessons, which include minigames, different challenges and a new way to write Japanese in a virtual board. Thus we want to make the player feel that they are having fun while learning.
Takos Japanese is a game that teaches the player how to read and write in Japanese in an original and fun way. We do this by taking the player throughout guided lessons, which include minigames, different challenges and a new way to write Japanese in a virtual board. Thus we want to make the player feel that they are having fun while learning.
How many members were
the team during the development process?
At the
very beginning we were only 4 (2 programmers, 1 artist and 1 musician), but
with time we added another programmer and a marketing/PR person to the team.
Indies usually don't
approach educational games. What inspired you to make a game about learning
Japanese? And why Japanese specifically?
The
decision was hard as we were all gamers and we wanted to make a real game
rather than an educational one. But we thought that we could do both so we
started thinking about how to make learning a language fun.
All the idea comes from Julio, the artist of the team, who lived in Tokyo for a year and he thought that there should be something better than books to learn Japanese. He thought that today’s technology should be used for this matter and making a game for it would make it much more amusing. So when he came back from Tokyo he sketched the first ideas for the game.
All the idea comes from Julio, the artist of the team, who lived in Tokyo for a year and he thought that there should be something better than books to learn Japanese. He thought that today’s technology should be used for this matter and making a game for it would make it much more amusing. So when he came back from Tokyo he sketched the first ideas for the game.
You mentioned in your Blog that the idea started as a platformer game using Construct 2, then you
decided it’s not good enough as a learning mechanic. You went all the way down
and started from scratch. How much time did that cost you? And do you think you
would've done it faster if you planned it before? Or to put it in other way, do
you regret the time wasted on that phase?
Well
Julio was by himself, and as an artist he didn’t know how to program, so he
looked up for tools that helped him to make his idea a reality. He started with
Construct 2, but then I met him at university and we thought that a platformer
wasn’t the best idea for teaching a language. We thought that the player should
be able to practice Japanese calligraphy so we should make a way for the player
to draw on the screen. We decided that Construct wasn’t a good option for this,
it was better to code all the algorithm and tools that we needed.
I think
that it cost us only about a month thinking about how we could make a game that
was good enough to teach you Japanese. We did not regret the time wasted, as it
was time spent thinking on a better way of doing things.
You used Adobe Air,
and decided Construct 2 is "not flexible enough", can you tell us more
what did Adobe Air give you that you didn’t find while using construct?
Well I
coded my first games in ActionScript 3 and FlashPunk (a framework for making
games in flash). I already had this knowledge and I searched for tools that
allowed us to write the code once and then deploy to most of the mobile
platforms. Then I found that Adobe was starting to take a step into mobile with
Adobe Air, so that gave me the possibility to code in AS3, the language
and API that I already knew and also
deploy to Android and iOS without even changing a line of code. It was perfect,
as I didn’t have to learn something completely new. Later on I switched from
using FlashPunk to using Starling as a framework, as it was supported by Adobe
and it was incredibly fast on mobile.
The app is available
on Play Store, App Store, and Amazon. Which platform did you found the best in
terms of dealing with, and in terms of business?
I have
mixed feelings about all this platforms. As a developer the best to deal with
is Amazon, as it’s easy to set up, do testing, reports are faster and much
more.
For
business, surprisingly Play Store is doing really well for us. Usually people
say that Android is a horrible platform for premium apps but we found out that
is nothing like that, at least nowadays. We have a very low pirate rate and
many sales so we are happy with it.
Apple,
well, I only like the presentation. App Store looks much cleaner than the other
stores.
I never used Air to
develop personally, from what I hear it’s good with dealing with multiple
platforms. How hard was it to export the app to 3 different platforms?
It’s as
hard a pressing one button! Really there almost nothing else you need to do.
Let’s get back to the
app itself, first thing I noticed is the good polishing. Good art and sounds,
multiple modes and mini-games you even mentioned a Japanese teacher recorded
the pronouncing. How did you manage polishing the app so greatly? Do you have a
lot of experience? Or what’s your secret?
As a
team we really criticize our work. It took us lots of redesigns and feedback
until we found out what was a good balance between fun and education.
The only experience that we had was with flash mini games, nothing else. We all learned through the 2 years process. Our only secret is to work really hard and have faith in what you are making. If you believe in your game, you shouldn’t quit, just try to find easier ways to make it a reality and keep working on it.
The only experience that we had was with flash mini games, nothing else. We all learned through the 2 years process. Our only secret is to work really hard and have faith in what you are making. If you believe in your game, you shouldn’t quit, just try to find easier ways to make it a reality and keep working on it.
Every development has
problems, what kind of problems did you face during the development\release?
Japanese
itself was the biggest problem. It is a really difficult language and we wanted
to make it look easy. It took us very long to make it feel as easy as possible,
and we still aren’t sure if we have achieved it yet haha J
Apart
from the language, as I told you before, we had almost no experience and wasted
many hours on things that right now we could do in minutes.
Most Indies seem to
struggle with this problem. Do you have any advice how to avoid it or at least
keep it to a minimum?
I think
that there is no magic formula for this. My recommendation is to read and watch
lots of articles and videos from other developers, and try to understand what
knowledge you can get from them.
What methods did you
use to promote your App?
We
contacted all the press that we could, and we went to some major Japanese events
here in Spain. We also make some posts in Reddit to reach people that could be
interested in learning Japanese, and we kept our social networks very active.
Going to Japanese
event sound like a brilliant idea for your app, how did that benefit you (as a
team) and your app?
It was
really nice to see lots of people playing your game and giving you feedback.
Most of the time you just need to watch how people play, and you will instantly
realize what things you can do better.
Most of
the benefit that we got was feedback and future buyers.
Did you fund the
project on your own or did you use other sources of funding?
As we
were all students, we managed to work on the game on our spare time, so we
didn’t had or need any money for developing it and we didn’t look for funding.
If I don’t ask this I
think our readers will. Two years sound like a long time, financially speaking
do you think it was worth it?
We have
only been two months in the market and we have already recovered what we spent
on marketing the game, so we could say that is hasn’t been bad. I know that 2
years is a very long time for developing an educational game, but as I said we
were all students and we could only work in our spare time.
Was it worth it? Absolutely YES! We learned so many things in the process of making the game. We became a great team, we won a prize that took us to San Francisco and we spent there 2 weeks learning from the best mobile companies in the industry (http://blog.chartboost.com/chartboost-university-introducing-the-class-of-fall-2013/), we were nominated for other prizes and are now able to say that we are a team that finish what we start. We are proud of our game J
Was it worth it? Absolutely YES! We learned so many things in the process of making the game. We became a great team, we won a prize that took us to San Francisco and we spent there 2 weeks learning from the best mobile companies in the industry (http://blog.chartboost.com/chartboost-university-introducing-the-class-of-fall-2013/), we were nominated for other prizes and are now able to say that we are a team that finish what we start. We are proud of our game J
I have to say - even
if it’s a bit late- congratulations! Can you tell us about the whole thing and
how did it add to your experience?
The experience was a life changer. We talked to many professional developers,
they gave us feedback and spent time with other teams like ours, and we could
compare how different game development was in each country. We made lots of new
friends and contacts, and we had the opportunity to make a better game.
I would like to encourage to every game developer to apply to every single contest that they see, because you never know. (In fact today we got selected for Indie Prize – Casual Connect in Amsterdam J)
I would like to encourage to every game developer to apply to every single contest that they see, because you never know. (In fact today we got selected for Indie Prize – Casual Connect in Amsterdam J)
Final question: what
are your future plans after this great experience? Any particular projects you
can tell us about?
We are
currently working on big updates for the game and also planning a new game. We
are experimenting with Unity, but we don’t know yet if we will focus on PC or
mobile, so I can talk much about it.
Finally can you tell
us about yourself, what made you a game developer? What kind of games are you
into? What other activities do you enjoy?
Since I
was a kid I was curious about technology and videogames. I knew I wanted to be
a programmer since I was about 15, and since then I’ve been trying to program
games. I started with Game Maker and then I moved to ActionScript and Flash.
I love
sport games because I’ve practice many sports in my life. My favorite sport
games are Tony Hawk 2 and Dave Mirra BMX. I also love action games like XIII,
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and right now I’m really enjoying Nuclear
Throne by Vlambeer.
In my
spare time I love to play basketball, although I’m not really good haha
Well it’s
been great having you here with us at Xash, I hope our readers enjoy reading as
much as I enjoyed having this informative and exciting conversation with you.
Thanks for your precious time Alberto. And we wish you the best in your future
projects.
Thank
you so much for the interview. It was fun and gratifying!
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