"Players use interactable signs dotted throughout, with words in a given language displayed upon them. These words relate to a white piece of environment nearby. Players press the sign and hear a word played aloud. Players must then speak this word back to their device. When the correct pronunciation is heard, the environmental piece gains colour. The translation is then added to a player's word bank’. Players who are hard of hearing, or those who would rather learn spellings, have a typeable alternative available."

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A Deeper Dive

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Gameplay Walkthrough & Prototype

I'm not a proficient coder, so I needed to find ways in which I could prototype, or even emulate, gameplay without the need for actual coding. To do this, I used premade Unity Store assets, my own assets, and PowerPoint. This does make it look a bit like a point-and-click, but I think it gets the general point across well. Below, you can use the arrows to click through a prototype...

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Why Lingua Mundi?
'Lingua Mundi' translates from Latin to mean "The Language of the World". Latin is one of the oldest classical languages still taught today and it has directly influenced many languages of our modern world. As different areas of the game take place all over the world, it seemed smart to call it by this name in Latin. I think the name itself is easy to say and spell, as well as captivating.

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Gameplay Loop:

Gameplay loops are highly specific actions that a player is expected to take during gameplay and the results of these actions. 

Activity and Risk: Players travel through different stylised areas, with the main aim being to restore colour to the area by 'learning' a new language. Players risk not being able to learn a word, however, this may not be considered a true risk as players are allowed to move on. The only repercussion would be that players do not fully colour an area.
Reward: Players learn a new language (or at least specific words within the language), there is a personally satisfying element to having an entire area coloured (as in House Flipper) completely, and players can unlock new levels in new exciting areas. 

Opportunity: Players unlock new in-game areas, have the opportunity to learn about new cultures and historical events, as well as the chance to gain a new found love for languages (perhaps to enable dying languages to survive?)

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Ratings and Controls:  For Lingua Mundi, I chose to use the 'Everyone' ESRB rating and/or the 'PEGI 7'. Within the game, I hope to have certain areas showing important historical events that have been frozen in time. Scenes may include natural disasters or war. However, these scenes will contain no amounts of gore or actual fighting and would be highly stylised, and low-poly, so could be considered mild fantasy/cartoon violence and therefore suitable for those aged 7-up. The only reason I chose to NOT have the PEGI rating set at 3 and up is because of this violence, and the fact that youngsters would probably find it pretty difficult to play. This will be a single-player game so every player gets a full experience of learning all in-game languages.

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UIX:

I wanted to make sure my game was easy to navigate in terms of its general design. The main aspect of the game should be based on relaxing in-game mechanics and visuals - the only difficulty should be around learning a new language, rather than faffing about with dodgy UIX (I'm looking at you Death Stranding). When players learn a new word, it is added to their word bank (if they have the pronunciation/spelling correct) which they can access at any time from the main menu or on the left-hand side of the in-game screen. I also added in a scoring system, so completionists, or anyone really, can see how many words they have left to find – if they're aiming to colour the whole environment, for example. Words can relate to big or small areas within the world so I thought this would be of help to a player. This is viewable on the right-hand side of the screen. Word signs will also disappear after a player has collected the word as well as text on the side so they know precisely what translations they do have and what they need at the moment. Change in colour in the environment would be viewable behind a player's in-game sign to show real-time change, too.

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Extra Elements:

As suggested in the section on Ratings, I would like to not only show different cultural spaces but important historical events, too. The event would be held still - like a snapshot from a previous age. I hope this would allow players to 'experience' events, but not overwhelm them with movement and information. The important part of Lingua Mundi is learning a language, not about historical events, but I think these scenes would add extra interest to the game; having still scenes would help to not take away from the main element. Below, I created a fantasy scene using premade assets in which a dragon has attacked a town. Not exactly a historical event, I know (perhaps showing myths would be fun?), but this was created just to show the 'snapshot of the past' element...

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I actually really like the idea of adding myths and legends, or even just something that could show history in general. Colouring the Sistine Chapel while Michaelangelo paints above you, for example. I tried to prototype a scene in which a well-known crime has taken place, and the 'language' was Slang (listening to slang when you don't know it IS like a whole other language!) but soon realised this went completely against the idea of having an ESRB rating of 'Everyone', so soon scrapped it. This idea can be viewed in my End Presentation.

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Concerns:

I do have quite a few concerns with this idea...

1) I do know quite a lot of languages, but not fluently. I'm worried that when translating words I will get some wrong, and then will be teaching the wrong words to players. To combat this, I would have to find people who are fluent in the language I'm translating and hope they are willing to work with me.

2) Cultural appreciation may seem culturally insensitive. Stating that certain architecture or environments are associated with certain languages may become an issue?

3) There may not be enough scenes I could create for lots of different languages... what could I do for Irish? (for example). The complete opposite issue may also occur; I might not have enough languages for players, and therefore not enough scenes. The main idea was to have the game almost appear endless in the number of levels a player could play. If I run out of languages and levels too soon, this would be super off-putting for a player.

4) I was worried about accessibility, too. As players are listening to the pronunciation of words and speaking into their computer microphones, players who are deaf or hard of hearing may struggle with this. This would also be an issue if players couldn't play in a quiet environment. I had the idea of simply allowing players to type the word instead as a quick and easy fix.

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