Shashingo

Shashingo is an educational game for learning Japanese designed for English speakers through taking pictures of objects in a fictional city in Japan. It was developed by a single developer Ryan Pocock, working with a voiceover artist (Rui Tsukishima) and composer (Kenya Abe). He started the project as a thesis and developed it into a full game after a positive reception from the gaming community. It is a combination of the Japanese words "shashin," meaning photography, and "go," meaning language.

Game mechanics

In Shashingo, we freely explore the fictional world of a Japanese city in a first-person view. We can take photos of various objects, using a variety of color filters. After taking a photograph, we learn the Japanese name of the object it depicts and English translations of the word and hear its original pronunciation. It is possible to save the photos in your diary and return to them later as part of your learning.

We can also learn the language by hovering over various objects during exploration to see the translation of the inscriptions placed on them and by using the lessons in the diary on various topics.

Game modes

In addition to the free mode in which we explore the city, the game also offers a "Find Mode" in which our task is to find and photograph the indicated objects, whose names are displayed in Japanese, of course.

Technical aspects

The game was built on Unreal Engine 4.