das Boudicca

(The Promotional Image for the "American city" in Civ 7)

There's something strangely comforting about Civ 7 being a messy little mess on release.

Like my government is a mess and probably getting messier.

But my Civ game is a mess and will almost certainly get better.

As long as I tie my mental health to Civ improving, my mental health will be well.

Foreign Language Game Review: Stacklands (2022) It's a short game full of tension.

Narrative review here:

And my game for this week is Stacklands and I do recommend it for early language learners: it's cheap and will teach vocab.

It's also my first zero-star rating ever (for advanced students), but if anything that's an endorsement of how accessible the language in the game is.

My gaming the last few weeks has been disturbed by the *general vibes* since 1/20 so I didn't post last week and I forgot to share yesterday, but I am still playing videogames and trying to learn German (for anti-nazi reasons, I promise!)

it hurts to see people lose their jobs. people who, against all odds and development hell, shipped a game almost bug free, with beautiful graphics and environments, with heartfelt companions and stories. they didn’t deserve this.

EA is a shitty soulless corporation that can suck a bag of dicks

Okay I didn't want to post yesterday because I was feeling the vibes a little hard,

but here's a review a day late.

I tried RTSs (which I love!) #AgeofMythology & #AgeofEmpires

Sadly, RTSs are paced too fast for effective immersion :( but the games and fun and (would) teach interesting vocab.

There are not enough video games in the world to get through the next four years.

bleghbleghbleghblegh

I want Growing Up to be a good game for language novices, but it’s best shelved until language competency Also… this game is surprisingly dark.

As always, full review here, but I should warn people it's a little *longer* than usual because I go into more detail on how I rate these games for language learning than I've done thus far.

I ended up bringing ranges back to my CEFR ratings, because I feel like this game will be especially polarizing to B1 and B2 readers, with low-B1 readers struggling to engage and high-B1 readers being the ideal player for this game.

This game combines day planner game mechanics with visual novel elements and the visual novel elements are too daunting for novice learners.

I'm somewhere between novice and intermediate and I struggled, especially since I got really tired of translating early on in the game.

I really hoped it would be a good experience for an early language learner, since Growing Up is a life schedule day planner game where you train skills like cooking and fashion design.

But I ended up conceded that Growing Up is much better for intermediate students instead.

Hallo zusammen, this week I played Growing Up by Vile Monarch, which I was really excited to do (it was a holiday present!)

I’m ready to recommend a farming sim to learn a foreign language: Studio Drydock's Wylde Flowers. That being said, it’s unclear if Skyrim has officially been ousted as the best farming sim to learn a foreign language

But okay, looks like I said a lot anyone, oops.

Full review here <3

As for cons, this game employs a trigger system which makes relationships challenging to progress, especially to language learners, and only B1 and above students will probably get much out of the dialogues and relationships if they're not playing with a wiki open.

Also, this game is fully voiced in English and features a very professional cast, including Valerie Rose Lohman and Erika Ishii....

Which is to say that this is an amazing game to learn English, especially because I imagine it'd be popular with teenagers.

In particular, this game features a non-binary character/potential love interest who uses pronouns besides he/she (er/sie auf deutsch) and that's not only great representation but great language exposure (they use "Xier" auf deutsch).

Text is clear and the world is beautiful. The characters are diverse (though player options are limited to a femme-presenting character with some romantic history) and many levels of language to engage with.

I felt bad giving Stardew Valley such a low rating so I tried to find a good farming sim that could double as a language practice and I feel pretty good about this one!

I have a sick pet :( so I don't have the energy to go in depth about my game of the week, but I thought I'd share my review all the same:

It's Wylde Flowers by Studio Drydock and there's a free demo on Steam if anyone wants to check it out!

I just watched a YouTube video about the application process to make Sprites for Pokemon Infinite, and it's soo much work and there's a lot of systematic criticism...

But it's just so wholesome to see how inclined humans are to self-govern. it's like, the theme of Survivor but with rattata-hypnos.

I think the most realistic inversion of 'all girls want bad boys' is both Elaine and Morgan want Guybrush. #MonkeyIsland

See you next week when I review Wylde Flowers from Studio Drydock :)

Tschuss!

The Guild 2: Renaissance can teach language novices pronunciation and language adepts historic vocab This is my first “deep cut” review. Hope you like it.

As always, here's my longer review:

And on the flip side, the game's medieval setting offers antiquated language like 'Beisasse', a term for non-resident aliens in pre-1900s Switzerland, which means it has something to teach foreign language veterans as well.

Overall, I feel that this game could be useful to large swaths of language learners.

There's frequent narration of major world events ('you now have a daughter', 'a family member is dying'...) and the repetition is super useful for getting the sounds of an language across to a new language student.

As promised! Here is my foreign language game review for The Guild 2: Renaissance, an old favorite of mine that is currently on Steam sale for $2.49.

It was an interesting game to rate because the game is medieval so the language is fairly historical.

Hey GAMER SPIEL readers ✨ !

I haven't played enough of Newcomer to formally review it on my blog yet, but I thought I'd share that it's on sale for less than $3 (because I love sales ♥️)

AND BECAUSE this is literally a videogame designed to teach foreign language & that's just my thing.

I woke up this morning and realized I said Duluth, Michigan instead of Duluth, Minnesota.

Oops :3 I too am cringe.

Those individuals deserve their emotional response to a colonial takeover [whether they choose to express that on bluesky or not] to be unclouded by memes...

especially ones drawn by artists who have never set foot in their homeland and, consequently, keep drawing Greenland like Duluth, Michigan.

Yes DT is threatening to annex territory of a NATO founding member by tweeting loudly and carrying a big stick, which is super cringe and embarrassing for Americans (like myself).

But also, Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) has a population of 56,000 (inc. 50,000 indigenous "Greenlanders")...