"Kanji-Panic!" Offictal Thread {NOW HIRING!}

[kokoro nut]

I've been meaning to start this thread a long time ago, but lacked the motivation to so. Now that I have it, here's a list of people that I need for this peoject:

• CG Artist
• Sound Designer
• Backgrond Artist
• Game Interface Designer (A person that creates menus and dialogs for a game)
• A Programmer with a knowlege of Visual C++
• A person with a knowlege of the Japanese language

If you would like to fill one of the above positions, please PM me with the position you like to fill to obtain a worklist.

For the uninitiated, Kanji-Panic! is a Puzzle/Word game done in the style of Tetris Attack! To play it, you would move blocks with Japanese symbols on them up, down, left, or right until they form a Japanese word or phrase. Then there slowly replaced by blocks rising from the bottom of the screen. If they reach the top of the screen, the game ends.

I will post more info in this thread and update it from time to time, so check back often for more info on this project. Again, If you want to fill one of the positions on the list above, please PM me with the position you like to fill for a worklist.

Thank You.

[PyTom]

To play it, you would move blocks with Japanese symbols on them up, down, left, or right until they form a Japanese word, phrase or sentance.

It strikes me that trying to automatically recognize a valid phrase or sentence would be hard, regardless of the language you're working in. For example, take the sentence "The car ate the green morality." That's a valid sentence, but one which makes no sense. (How can morality be green? And how can a car eat it?)

So a question would be what would you define as a correct sentence, and how would you go about recognizing them?

I think the problem is deep enough that it deserves some thought before forming a team.

Once the algorithm for matching sentences is finished, then the actual coding should be fairly easy... I've written tetris attack before (for the ti-92 calculator), and it only took an afternoon.

[kokoro nut]

To play it, you would move blocks with Japanese symbols on them up, down, left, or right until they form a Japanese word, phrase or sentance.

It strikes me that trying to automatically recognize a valid phrase or sentence would be hard, regardless of the language you're working in. For example, take the sentence "The car ate the green morality." That's a valid sentence, but one which makes no sense. (How can morality be green? And how can a car eat it?)

So a question would be what would you define as a correct sentence, and how would you go about recognizing them?

I think the problem is deep enough that it deserves some thought before forming a team.

Once the algorithm for matching sentences is finished, then the actual coding should be fairly easy... I've written tetris attack before (for the ti-92 calculator), and it only took an afternoon.

Well, now that you've said that, I'll just limit it to only words and phrases untill I can resolve this. With that being said, The game will use a dictionary to reconize them.

[PyTom]

Hm... I'm not a japanese expert, but aren't quite a few kanji standalone words?

And phrases run into the same problems as sentences, I would think.

That's not to say a game along the same lines couldn't work... Perhaps some sort of game that required people to match kana and romaji representations?

[kokoro nut]

I've decided that kanji will only appear if the word it represents is created. Those that have diffrent names, but the same meaning will only appear randomly upon creation.

[ShiraiJunichi]

You do realize that there are several thousand Kanji, right?

Anyway, will you be using Hiragana, Katakana, or Romaji?

[darkknight]

Wow i love C++ That was one of my most liked language in school but...

I dont have a complier...
I dont have the time...
And i really would not know how to acomplish the task you desire...

So in short...if you find someone to program for you i will be able to help them

[kokoro nut]

Yeah, I already know that. And to answer your other question, ShiraiJunichi , Hiragana and Katakana will be used durring gameplay, while romanji will be used in the dictionary file for region compatability. And darkknight, the're many free complilers out there, like Dev-C++. Try that out and see it you like it.

EDIT: I've decided to load the kanji blocks all at once instead of dyamaicly.

[PyTom]

I should point out, BTW, that "several k" isn't that big, in today's terms. Ren'Py uses several k for sound buffers. So you really want to think about if the additional complexity of dynamically loading kanji is worth the additional code development time. (Which is almost certain to be the limiting factor in practice.)

[kokoro nut]

I should point out, BTW, that "several k" isn't that big, in today's terms. Ren'Py uses several k for sound buffers. So you really want to think about if the additional complexity of dynamically loading kanji is worth the additional code development time. (Which is almost certain to be the limiting factor in practice.)

Now that you've said that, I've realized that they should only take up about 3MB of menory, (even though the blocks haven't been created yet.) And for those of you who are just sitting there, watching me figh off all the critistsim, how about you make yourself useful, and contact me with who you want to be on the team so that I can get a demo build going.

[Grey]

And for those of you who are just sitting there, watching me figh off all the criticism...

It's constructive criticism, presenting you with things to think about, so you don't get a little way in and realise you've bitten off more than you can chew.

Language processing is so complicated that it's a big topic in AI research, and you expect that you and a small group of amateurs will be able to knock something together that can recognise valid phrases/sentences?

...how about you make yourself useful, and contact me with who you want to be on the team...

Also I'd advise against the "how about you make yourself useful" tone while recruiting. People are not obliged to help you, it isn't some sort of honour to work for you, and if you take that sort of tone with potential teammates then it may actively discourage them to join up.

...so that I can get a demo build going.

With such a large list of people wanted, what are you intending to do yourself? Be the 'manager' and tell everyone what to do?

If you want to make this a reality you can't just sit back and tell people what you want and let a lot of other people do the work.

[PyTom]

It's constructive criticism, presenting you with things to think about, so you don't get a little way in and realise you've bitten off more than you can chew.

I did mean my criticism to be taken in a constructive way, trying to help this become a finished game project, rather than just another idea that fades away, consuming talent and resources as it does so. IMO, starting with a premise that is AI-Complete guarantees the latter, hence my initial comments.

The other issue I have is that we have a somewhat limited pool of talent that is willing to work on OEL b-games. I can think of little more frustrating that seriously working on a game and it not being finished... this is something that's likely to cause artistic and musical talent to shy away from our group entirely. So as a result, I think there should be a high probablity of success before trying to recruit others... Such as a complete script for a VN or DS, or a fully-worked-out mechanic for a game.

[mikey]

Well, Grey is quite direct in his words... If I may say something from my perspective...

I am usually very particular about what I want. But when team members show me completed work, I rarely ask them to redo it. I will not be a slave to their whim and will not tolerate delays, but they know and they basically never disappoint me. I usually ask three or four times before someone joins in - do you REALLY want to do this? There is no shame in leaving, and I even talked many out of working with me, because I knew it wasn't for them. It's not enough to see a smiling face when they give you the work, it's seeing them smile WHILE they work that frees me from the guilt of thinking they work on something which is not theirs. I somehow always find myself overthanking them for that, annoyingly. They may feel obligated to finish their work, but I also feel (even more) obligated to finish mine because it's my responsibility to finalize the project I started.

PyTom >>

It's a Yin-Yang kind situation I'm afraid. I think OELRG makers are in essence very emotional and dreamy kind of people. This allows them to think up very emotional games. At the same time, that imagination also works against them, because game-making as such is work.

Well, for the sake of illustration, I'll tell some secret ATP-things - currently, I have around 30 game concepts detailed, some have as much as 20kb of dialogue written, and all the backgrounds done. It's just to show that I really can't make all those concepts into games - and you know, there are some that are just excellent, but I don't have the skills to do them. Bottom line: There's never a shortage of ideas.

So as not to scare away talent, I think the best would be to support even very small projects (less than 20-mins per path). An artist draws a few pictures, someone else tells a short story and there's a choice or two. I can't say I'd put them in the same category as the majority of renai.us games, BUT... maybe a microproject is better than no project. At the very least it would ensure potential artists, musicians etc. that their efforts will not be in vain.

[musical74]

*puts my two cents in*

I would say that most of the criticism received has been constructive - helping out and offering advice to help make a better demo or game. It's not always easy to accept this as help - sometimes people think *what am I doing wrong* when the base idea is fine, it just needs tuning in some way.

mikey: I think that's a good idea, to have a microproject - it gives you an idea of everyone's strength and *gasp* weakness, and it gives you an idea of what everynoe is capable of. When people get encouraged by the mircoproject and do others that are bigger in length and take longer, it means a lot to all involved.

[mikey]

The question is how "support" would look like for microprojects. It's something I have no ideas for at this moment. Maybe somehow raise the prestige, someone (I'm not implying renai.us, nor am I thinking about me ^_^, although a place in the encyclopedia I maintain is basically certain with any project like this..) could make a website or similar.

Perhaps donations of art could be made? A set of artworks people have no use for and a set of backgrounds from people who'd donate (I could definitely support with some pictures. Something like Lemma's photopack and little things like that - it would mean that some of the games would probably use the same sets of materials, but maybe that's a challenge in itself - if the project is good, a change of art (in Ren'Py) is simple.

Anyway, this feels strangely offtopic here ^_^. Well, we can start a new thread in case people think it will be helpful.