iPhone Game for Studying Characters

[T-revor]

Hey guys!

I've created a game called "Trevor's Chinese Memory Game" for the iPhone (also iPad, iPod). It costs $1.99. It's a game like traditional "Memory" but with Chinese characters. It also makes use of a list of similar-looking characters that I put together last year. I'm really proud of it and am adding more features that will be out by the end of Feb. It's currently hobby numero uno and I'm having a lot of fun putting it together.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trevors-chinese-memory-game/id492019519?mt=8

If you have suggesions, or critiques, I'm open to them.

I will not, under any circumstance, get upset if you write a glowing review in the app store.

Here are some of the current features:

• Match simplified characters in a Memory-like game of 24 tiles
  
• Games are organized so you can start out playing with common characters and then increase difficulty
  
• Other games are organized by similar characteristics in the characters (similar-looking characters)
  
• As you play, add characters to a focus list for later studying
  
• Each tile you touch shows you (1) pinyin, (2) english, (3) words where that character appears
  
• Play games from your list of focus characters
  

Features to be delivered by end of Feb at latest:

• Match simplified to traditional, simplified to pinyin, simplified to english
  
• More flexible interface allowing you to restart game, or go to next game more easily.
  

Features I'm looking to add in the future, after the Feb release:

• Optional audio for pinyin and/or english when you turn the cards over
  
• Ability to create your own lists of games and characters and share with others
  
• Ability to dig deeper on any character and get a lot of good information about it (words, sentences, similar characters, etc)
  

[jasoninchina]

This looks like an interesting app, I may purchase it after the feb. release. In the meantime, I'm curious about one thing. How exactly do you organize by difficulty? In other words, what are my options when choosing difficulty? Easy, medium, difficult? Does it follow some kind of frequency list? Also, how many characters does it contain?

Sorry if you've answered these questions somewhere else.

Jason

edit: Ok, so I just thought of something you should add: the ability to play words. For example, you could add the hsk word list. A player could choose to play a random set of words from the hsk 5 worklist. Then, if need be, replay the same game. Just an idea.

[T-revor]

Thanks Jason! Yeah, there are different ways to get a "difficulty" list. There are tons of frequency lists out there. I used most of those that are available on the internet, plus my own frequency list of news sites that I got from scraping news pages, plus the order in which a character appears in a bunch of textbooks. Mix that up with some HSK, add a little salt and you've got something approaching a "difficulty" list.

When you play the app you'll see how things are ordered by difficulty. The characters are color-coded by "difficulty" as well throughout the app -- four different colors. I basically just split the characters I have in fourths. Blue, Green, Orange, Red (easy to difficult over about 3000 characters).

Playing words would be a nice addition. I'll add it to the list. My only concern is that longer words would be difficult to fit on a single tile. I may limit it to 2 or three character words which I think in a small font may work nicely. Thanks Jason and best of luck with your studies!

[Brad Patterson 包德]

Wow. Downloading now to check it out. Thanks for the heads up, T-Revor.

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

Sounds like an interesting app. Weeks ago I played a similar Chinese tile matching game and really loved it. Unfortunately the game only had about 200 words and I learned all of them already. Your app sounded like a more complex one (more vocab). Do you plan to port it to Android? (I have Android). I would be happy to pay for it as well. :-)

[T-revor]

I've just come out with a new version of the Chinese Matching Game. It's now called LingoSpring Chinese Memory Game and is in the App Store as of last Wednesday.

The big improvements are as follows:

--Game options to match simplified characters to traditional, English or pinyin

--Add your own study list of characters and play games with those

--"Study Mode" flips all the cards over at once and allows you to study the characters without playing the entire game

I am still working on some other features and am looking for suggestion as to what would be most useful.

--Match words, not just characters

--Play against others and add more game features so it feels less like studying and more like a game.

--Audio to pronounce the Character

--Ability to dig deeper on any character and get a lot of good information about it (words, sentences, similar characters, etc)

[bob24]

Hi T-revor. I like the idea of your app and was going to download it, but it looks like it is only available in the US app store (or at least it is not available on the French one which I am using). Would you be able to expand it to other countries? Thanks!