I have developed a word game for iPhone/desktop machines and am interested in finding out how well it would transpose over to Japanese.
The game centers around a grid of interlocking words, a little like the arrangement of words you'd find in Scrabble or in a UK-style crossword grid. In "Western" languages like English, French, Spanish, German this works quite well: the writing system provides enough combinations that you can take, say, the 10,000 most common words in the language and generate thousands and thousands of possible grids very easily.
But I wondered how this would work in Japanese where-- as I understand it-- the writing system is syllabic. How do Scrabble-type games work in Japanese?
To give a more specific idea of the concept, you actually like to download the game and try it-- the game is called LetterMeister and is currently free in the iPhone App Store (App Store - LetterMeister) and a free desktop version is also available here.
So... any feedback would be appreciated on how well the game might work or not work in Japanese! Mamy thanks!
Neil
The game centers around a grid of interlocking words, a little like the arrangement of words you'd find in Scrabble or in a UK-style crossword grid. In "Western" languages like English, French, Spanish, German this works quite well: the writing system provides enough combinations that you can take, say, the 10,000 most common words in the language and generate thousands and thousands of possible grids very easily.
But I wondered how this would work in Japanese where-- as I understand it-- the writing system is syllabic. How do Scrabble-type games work in Japanese?
To give a more specific idea of the concept, you actually like to download the game and try it-- the game is called LetterMeister and is currently free in the iPhone App Store (App Store - LetterMeister) and a free desktop version is also available here.
So... any feedback would be appreciated on how well the game might work or not work in Japanese! Mamy thanks!
Neil