Lemma Soft Forums

Current team / available positions:

• Writers / co-writers: TrickWithAKnife, jjbproductions, Astrane
  
  
• Programming: TrickWithAKnife
  
  
• Proofreaders (English): TrickWithAKnife, nyaatrap, Neolem, misamane
  
  
• Proofreaders (Japanese): Yuko N, Kozue-san
  
  
• Artists (Sprites/CG/or photo manipulation): peong-keu
  
  
• Artists (Backgrounds): TrickWithAKnife, Chi
  
  
• GUI designer: Open
  
  
• Female Japanese voice actors: Yuko N, Kozue-san, Aki, Chi
  
  
• Male Japanese voice actors: Open
  
  
• Female English voice actors: peong-keu, Crashgirl
  
  
• Male English voice actors: TrickWithAKnife
  
  
• Anyone else who maybe be able to contribute in any way, even ways not listed above: Always open

If anyone wants their name taken off this list, added to this list, or would prefer to be anonymous, please let me know.
Also let me know if you would like your name added to more than one category.

Adding your name to the above list is not a contract. There is no pressure involved. It just means you may be interested in helping in that area if you have time.
Also, just because there are names here, doesn't mean you can't join in. I'm sure we can find tasks for anyone who wants to be involved. I've only added my name to the voice actors, but I'll be doing as much work as possible in most areas. Probably the only parts I can't do are character art and Japanese voice acting/proof reading.

This game will be 100% free, which means I'm not able to pay anyone.
But considering the positive feedback I've had about this idea, it would be a great opportunity to get your work known.
Anyone involved will be credited within the game, unless they ask not to be. I know this is probably not a big deal for some people, but I just wanted to be clear about this fact.
The potential audience for this game is absolutely massive. As far as I know there is nothing like this available for free, but there is a huge demand.

The basic overview is that the main character will be in Tokyo for the first time, and have to deal with all the problems that can happen when you don't speak the language and aren't familiar with Japan.
Throughout the course of the game both the character and the player will learn Japanese and about how to enjoy life in Japan. THIS WILL NOT BE A DATING SIM. Just wanted to make that clear right away.

I'm purposely being a bit vague on the storyline at this point though, as there is a reasonable chance it will change, depending on feedback from other people.
I want to make sure the story and gameplay is interesting enough to keep the player entertained for an extended amount of time.

This is not going to be a short project. A language takes a long time to learn, even to a basic conversation level, and making a game that teaches it would too. But I'm not expecting anyone to have to commit to helping for the entire project.
Even short contributions would help a lot.

The reason I chose Tokyo as the setting is because I live there. This means I'll be able to take photos of anything needed for backgrounds. These will be altered as needed.
I'd like to include an option for the player to choose if Japanese text is displayed in Romanji (Japanese written with English characters), or written in Hiragana & Katakana.
My wife is Japanese, and she said she is happy to help out with any Japanese.

If anyone is interested in finding out more or discussing this, please let me know. I have a lot more ideas than what is written here, and I think I'm pretty flexible.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

The project got my interest
I have some projects have to do so it's hard to become a regular member, but I'd help some proofreading/factchecking on Japanese, and even some coding.

_________________

Any help would be very welcome, not matter how big or small.

I won't be taking any action just yet though. Want to get a more concrete idea of the events, story and functionality of the game first. Although I hope to do a bit of brainstorming regarding the plot with as many people as possible. I think my ideas need work.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

It got my interest too. I'm currently studying Japanese myself and I had almost the same idea.
But with my knowledge, it was impossible for me to do it and I couldn't really find a game like this either.
So I was glad when I saw there was someone trying to make it, and I'll gladly help you with what I can.
I would like to help brainstorming about the story or any other idea's. But since I'm often very busy at my university, I don't want to say I take the co-writer position. But I can at least be a extra proofreader.

Even a little contribution can make a difference, especially regarding story ideas.

At this point I've been preparing lists of scenarios that may be useful, some of the Japanese vocabulary that may be most useful, game features that would make this project better, and so forth. I've also been testing that I have the ability to actually code these features, and so far it's going pretty smoothly.

If you'd like to share some ideas regarding the story, please head over to viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14366 .
I'll add some of my notes there so people can see what's going on.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

I would like to help, but I unfortuanetly don't know Japanese Maybe I could co-write a few (not too many because I am very busy) of the non-Japanese scenes because I am very interested in this.

Not being able to speak Japanese isn't a problem.

My Japanese isn't great, but I actually have a few Japanese friends who are happy to help with translations, and my Japanese wife too.
Not only that, but they will make sure the Japanese in the game sounds natural, not just correct.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

Hmm.. so could I be a "co-co writer" since I don't have enough time to be a co-writer? The scenes I would write would probably be English ones or ones that someone else would have to translate to Japanese. I have a few ideas for characters and the story.
Also:
Will the game be a kinectic novel (without choices) or visual novel (with choices)?
Please say it will have choices...

Due to the educational nature of it, it will be much more effective with a high number of choices. Not only that, but the experiences of the main character will affect the available options. Would be weird to give them options to use Japanese phrases they haven't learnt yet.
Plus I think making it more interactive will make it more enjoyable when playing for a long period. This is not going to be the kind of game someone finishes playing in a couple of hours.

I'm too lazy to make another category, so I'll put you in the co-writer category. When it comes time to add credits to the game, I'll shuffle the categories around if you feel you are in the wrong one.
There is no pressure involved with this project. People can contribute anything they want, no matter how big or small, regular, irregular or once-off.

Please check out the main discussion topic here if you get a chance: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14366

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

I would be glad to do sprites for an educational game like this ≧(´▽｀)≦
This is my art : http://saeun.mangakagallery.com/

저는 당신의 아트를 아주 마음에 들었어요!
당신같은 재능을 가지고 있는 사람이 저를 도와 주신다면 좋겠어요.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

Ah you speak English, Japanese, and Korean? Thats impressive o(º▽º)o
Glad you like it, let me know the details when its time for art
If its needed, I can also do english voice acting if its for a small girl

Actually.... I only speak English and limited Japanese.
My wife however speaks Japanese, English, Korean, and some Chinese.
I asked her to help me write that last message (I can read and write Korean, but I don't understand what it means).

Thanks for your offers. I'll definitely be requesting your help a bit later.

Because there would be far too many different scenes for anyone to draw them, and also I want to do as much as I can in this project, I was planning to take photos of whatever is needed around Tokyo to use as backgrounds.

I'm still deciding if I should keep the backgrounds very realistic, or apply various Photoshop filters to make the backgrounds look a little more like they were painted.
I wanted to get your thoughts on about this, because I want to do something that will work well with your style.
I will be doing taking some photos later today, and will upload some examples of what I mean to my new Photobucket account. There are no pictures there now, but there will be later today.
Link: http://s1158.photobucket.com/albums/p602/CJinTokyo/
Password: ilovejapan

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA

I have one suggestion to take photos which will be used in the novel game.
To align sprites on the backgrounds easily, the eye level of the backgrounds should be a slightly lower than the real view, especially if you are a tall man.

_________________

Ahh, thanks for the tip. I didn't even think of that.

I guess in the situations where I'd need to take a photo of something very tall, I could take it from a more distant place, or maybe move the character sprite down a little to make the angle a bit more realistic.
I'll play around a bit with that idea later, anyway.

I do have one more thing I'd like to run past peong-keu in particular: window size.
A larger size would make things easier to see, but would also mean sprites would need to be larger.
A smaller size would probably make doing the art a little easier, but could make some things difficult to see.
I'm curious, what size would be best for characters? From this I can decide on the window size.

_________________
Working on a VN to teach lower-conversational Japanese, and a guide to living in Japan.
It's a very long dev process.

You could help me with my game A LOT by filling out this anonymous 10 question survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6GR57YB
Massive thanks to everyone who has already filled it out!
You can see a Q&A about the survey here: http://tinyurl.com/SurveyQandA