Influent Language Learning Game

De Rob Howland

Inspired by Dreamcast titles of old (namely Shenmue and Toy Commander) Influent immerses players in a fully interactive 3D environment where the names for absolutely every object in the game can be gleaned with a single click! In fact, even more information can be learned with a double-click! Every door, drawer, and cabinet can be opened with a right-click here and a right-click there, revealing more and more things to be learned! Packed to the brim with hundreds of native audio pronunciations (painstakingly recorded specifically for this game), Influent offers players a unique opportunity to enjoy learning both vocabulary and pronunciation in the language of their choice. With 10 languages currently available for download, Influent combines the joys of playing a video game with the language learning process, resulting in real-life rewards and achievements that will remain with players for the rest of their lives. Influent is a Language Learning Game focusing primarily on vocabulary acquisition and pronunciation. It was initially developed in Japan at the University of Tsukuba's Entertainment Computing Laboratory under the Monbukagakusho Government Research Scholarship. After research funding ran out, further funding from a wildly successful Kickstarter Campaign allowed for the completion of the game. A research paper on the ideas surrounding the game and its applications was published by the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), which can be viewed in its entirety here.