Wow, I was worried that I wouldn't get any comments, or they would be something unhelpful like "this sucks" or "this is alright".
Instead I received a lot of very helpful ideas and thoughts.
Sapphi
I'm kind of hoping that when you get voice actors for the Japanese speech, you will use kana instead of romanji in the text window.... or at least alongside the romanji somehow.
I'm planning to have an option to choose between kana and romanji in the final version.
At this point I'm making a lot of changes, so having just romanji makes it a little easier to do corrections.
Sapphi
Uh oh, I can't progress further than the pay phone
That is a bit of a worry. I may just cut that part out and show coins being put into the phone instead. Even if most people don't have the problem, I want everyone to be able to play smoothly.
Kinjo
Are you going to be using 2D sprites in the final version?
Not really sure at this point. I wanted to see what other people think.
I did find someone who was interested in doing 2D sprites, but I haven't heard from them in a while.
@Victoria Jennings
Thanks. Believe it or not, I'm an English teacher, but still made those mistakes.
I hope the people here who speak English as a second language will feel better about their English abilities after seeing mine.
Sharm
Having some sort of one month pause before leaving isn't necessary for me. It's a game, a little suspension of disbelief is fine.
I was a bit worried that it would seem like the game is jumping all over the place. I don't want to player's to get confused. Also, later the dates will become more important.
Sharm
Why were you invited but not your sibling? It sounded like they wanted to come.
Well, at the start there is only one space in Steve's company. I don't want to spoil it too much, but there may be a chance for the sibling to come to Japan later...
Sharm
It's odd that your mail has no address. It would be less jarring if it had illegible text.
I thought about that too. The blank envelope was just me being lazy with the placeholder art.
Sharm
Will you have more options for filling out the visa? I really like this idea for customizing your character.
Arowana
Nice touch having an actual visa application to set the character stats! I’m assuming more of it will be customizable in the final game? It might be nice to emphasize the area that players are supposed to fill in (e.g. by darkening the rest of the screen, using an animated arrow, etc.) for each step, since the screen is quite busy.
Hmmm, I didn't think about that. One problem that keeps coming up a lot is the main character's country. My plan was to leave it a mystery, but it would be possibly for the player to choose the country and city while filling out the visa.
For the visa and many other interactive screens there will be a hidden timer running. If the player hasn't progressed in a certain amount of time, something will happen to help guide them, for example have the main character think to themselves "Hmmm.... I guess I should tick one of the boxes."
Sharm
I'm not sure I see the point of having someone wander around looking for someone. Unless this is going to be a common game play mechanic, or unless you have a purpose for it besides what I see, I think you should drop it and let the narrative do the work there.
I wanted the player to experience getting lost in a large train station, because it happens to a lot of non-Japanese people when they come to Japan.
Personally I have a lot of experience getting lost in some of Tokyo's monstrously huge train stations. Also, in the real version of the game, I will try to use the real layout of Tokyo station, and give the player opportunities to do different things, such as ask people for help, use a payphone to call the uncle, try finding a map, etc.
So yeah, I wanted to add it because I think it will be useful for many people who come to Japan.
Sharm
I'm looking forward to hearing Dave voiced, I really enjoy the New Zealand accent.
I'm probably going to do the voice of Dave myself (If he is voiced). Although I am a NZer, I haven't lived in NZ for about 5 years, so my accent is not very strong anymore.
Sharm
I wanted to order the stake too. You should make the other guys order off of the menu so I don't get jealous.
Haha, don't worry, that menu was just a quick one I through together. All the menus will have more options, plus Japanese text. Some will have English too, some will have none.
I'll add prices too, and try to keep them realistic. I want people who play this game to be able to come to Japan and know if what they are buying is a good deal or not.
Arowana
Hahaha, my character seriously didn’t learn any Japanese before going to work in Japan?
Yeah, it is a bit unrealistic, but I needed to keep in mind that some people who are playing the game will have no Japanese ability at all. For them, controlling a character that already knows some Japanese may become frustrating.
Arowana
Overall, the beginning is a bit slow imo. If the mom and sibling do not reappear in the game, perhaps it would be more interesting to start after you’ve already accepted the invitation from Uncle Steve.
When I put out other mini-demos in our own forum, the biggest complaint I heard was "it's too much at once", and "I felt overwhelmed", so I had to slow things down a lot on purpose.
I am trying to find ways to make it more interesting without an information overload, but a lot of that comes down to writing ability, which is not my strong point.
The mother, sibling and Dave will all reappear in the game later. There will be a lot of characters in the game, but they will be spaced out, and I'd like to re-use characters where I can.
I'm sure the players don't want to spend half the game trying to remember who they are talking too, and I'm too lazy to write extra characters if I don't need to.
Arowana
As far as I can tell, switching my current Japanese level has no effect – my character always acts like a total newbie who doesn’t know any Japanese words/culture regardless of what I pick. I’m assuming you haven’t programmed in different dialogues yet? When you do, it would be nice to give the player the option to acknowledge when they already know certain words (like you could pick between "I have no idea what that means" or some suitable reply, but add the word to the vocab list/notebook either way).
I'm thinking a lot about this. I do need to adjust the current content to change more depending on the player's Japanese ability. A tricky one is that they could know some common words, but may not know others. There will be ways of finding out the vocabulary they know later, but you are right that I need to do some of it sooner.
I have also been thinking about having symbols pop up during conversations that the player can click if they want to ask questions, say something in Japanese, or whatever else.
I'm not sure if that would be annoying to some players though, but it not, I could have them appear, but the conversation would still continue if they player doesn't choose to click any of those icons.
The next scenes will be the player getting the alien registration card (I'm hesitating on finishing this part yet until I learn the next system that was implimented a couple of weeks ago), opening a bank account, and then getting a new phone.
Originally I had planned having a notebook that the main character will automatically write now Japanese with definitions into. There were some problems making it look realistic (keeping in mind there may be 2,000 or more words plus definitions for all of them), and how to search the notebook.
In the end I decided to use a smartphone instead, that way I can change the vocabulary lists easily, and scrollable word lists would look more realistic.
Not only that, but there are a lot of other features that can be done through a smartphone.
Arowana
It might also be nice to give the story more of an initial “hook” – a goal our character wants to accomplish or something they want to find out, to drive the story forward. Perhaps Uncle Steve is an eccentric guy no one else in your family knows much about, so there’s a bit of mystery to his character and company? Maybe the MC has an ulterior reason for wanting to go to Japan that they aren’t revealing quite yet? Maybe you run into a Japanese person having a strange problem at the beginning, and you regret that can’t communicate well enough with them to help or even know what is going on (they could potentially turn into a reoccurring character, and you eventually learn more and more about them as your Japanese improves)? Lol, I’m just making up tons of random scenarios in my head now.
Originally people in our forum said it was a bit strange getting an invitation to Japan from someone they don't know well, so I decided to make Steve be someone they know quite well instead.
There are ulterior motives for the trip to Japan, but that will be revealed much later.
Please feel free to share as many scenarios you think of. Learning a language is a long process, so I need a lot of interesting scenarios to keep the player from getting bored.
Maybe we can use your ideas, or modify them for what we need.
Arowana
I quite like the suggestion of putting Japanese characters over the romanji, though this might require you to move the text out of the textbox to have enough space. Hmm, maybe a speech bubble screen would be useful? Maybe you could even show romanji/hiragana/kanji/katakana on different lines in the bubble, or have buttons people press to see the different ones (and possibly a “cheat sheet” English translation button haha)? Ooh, or you could put buttons like that on the side of the textbox. Then depending on what button is currently selected, the romanji in the textbox is replaced by hiragana, etc.
To be honest, I'm not sure how to do some of that.
I do like the idea of having a small button on screen to switch between kana and romanji though.
Arowana
The scene menu is a nice idea!
Originally I put it in just to make testing faster, but I could tidy it up for players.
Arowana
When are the Japanese people and girls coming? Hmm, it could be interesting to meet and try to communicate with a Japanese character who doesn’t know much English. Kind of the opposite of the MC, you know. And we could learn from each other! Right now, I feel so n00b in comparison to the other characters lol – my MC is constantly talking about how much better all the dudes are haha.
There will be some conversations in Japanese on the train to Tokyo station, and in Tokyo station the player can *try* talking to Japanese people.
Fairly soon the player will be introduced to their future workmates, many of whom will be Japanese.
I find that a bit hard to believe, especially since she presumably had a month or so. Was she really busy or lazy or something? 
Hmm, it could be interesting to meet and try to communicate with a Japanese character who doesn’t know much English. Kind of the opposite of the MC, you know. And we could learn from each other! Right now, I feel so n00b in comparison to the other characters lol – my MC is constantly talking about how much better all the dudes are haha. 
Good luck with the final version!
