The concept of Lingotopia is super cool, and I was able to pick up some more words in French and Japanese as well as put my context clues deduction skills to the test to gain a better understanding of how to implement them as they appear in sentences. I can't help but feel that it's incomplete however; the more I play, the more I realize that it's missing some very key features that would make it both more accessible and more effective as an interactive educational program. For example, adding some interactive features like chatting up random strangers on the street or entering shops to browse wares would have been really welcome additions to a strong start. There's also no character recognition attached to the pronounced words as they appear with the Latin alphabet for the relevant languages, which is pretty important because the concept of languages such as Japanese and Chinese rely on characters that represent ideas rather than phonetics; it's for that reason that I also kind of wish there was a way to draw characters in those languages, though perhaps that's a bit too ambitious. In addition, the game is missing a lot of quality of life features; I wish there was a map so I wouldn't have to walk around in circles and not pick up any new words/conversations, and it would be nice to be able to adjust the camera and dash to get to new areas of the city faster.
Perhaps my biggest criticism here is that it's all one-sided learning, in that you're always being spoken to but you never get the chance to really put what you've picked up to the test and form sentences yourself. After all, what good is learning a new language if you can't replicate its usage in an experimental setting to later converse with others in real life? It would be nice if there were any features that allowed you to communicate back, thus completing the cycle of conversing and learning a new language. Nevertheless, it's a fun little learning tool if you want to pick up some quick words as foreign vocabulary practice, so I'd be interested to see if they expand upon this to make it a more full and realized product.
Perhaps my biggest criticism here is that it's all one-sided learning, in that you're always being spoken to but you never get the chance to really put what you've picked up to the test and form sentences yourself. After all, what good is learning a new language if you can't replicate its usage in an experimental setting to later converse with others in real life? It would be nice if there were any features that allowed you to communicate back, thus completing the cycle of conversing and learning a new language. Nevertheless, it's a fun little learning tool if you want to pick up some quick words as foreign vocabulary practice, so I'd be interested to see if they expand upon this to make it a more full and realized product.