Kanji Apocalypse 4+

Great concept, unfortunately unplayable

Hello! Perhaps due to your optimizing it for the newer and thus larger devices, the screen size doesn’t actually allow me to see all the options on the kanji/kana wheel, meaning I only see the top of a そ or 水 or whatever it is, it’s sort of cut off at the bottom of my screen. Although I can sort of guess what’s down there it kind of defeats the purpose and renders the game unplayable. Shame though cause the concept seems really interesting!

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the notice. I’ll check and put out a fix within a week. Is it iPhone SE?

https://kanjiapocalypse.com/feedback/

Edit: new version has been released with a fix for smaller screens.

Interesting but ultimately confusing

This is the second time I have to write this out because the App Store crashed and lost my last review haha.

I was really looking forward to this app. The concept was interesting, the fact I could play it on my apple watch too made it enticing. I’ve been looking for a Wanikani substitute that’s gamified and this was it. Unfortunately, there are too many problems at this stage for me to make the switch.

Initially the rules were quite confusing. The tutorial added isn’t really well explained, just text that sometimes changes before I can read it, and vague explanations as to what you’re doing. The app doesn’t explain that you need to know hiragana and katakana before you start.

Learning in this game is quite difficult due to a few features. To gamify the experience and add value to successfully answering questions , a timer is added. If you run out of time, you lose all progress for that level. Every time you select a correct or incorrect character/kanji, the positions of the selectable characters changes, which is really disorienting. Overall, it’s a disorienting feeling where I feel like I’m struggling through. Tapping on the wrong character opens a menu where you can read about related meanings (used on its own or with other characters) but the timer decreases here too.

The bidding system for cards that help is somewhat confusing too as to it’s purpose. I’d personally prefer to buy the cards.

So in reality, you’re not able to learn at your own pace unless you use these cards, and even then it’s just a hassle.

In its current state, I can’t recommend it for people who want to learn from scratch.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the review! You make some
great points and I'll be looking into solutions. Your ideas of a store and less shuffling of kanjis seems to be a great start.

I'd like to explain the rationale for the timer in the learning/kanji-explanation part though.
I see it as ultimately a game that plays on long-term vs short-term goals, so you can spend your time on learning a kanji properly and sacrifice the current round or you can test different kanjis quickly which will benefit the player short-term instead (which can lead to new skill points to get over the hump). The reason it is like this is that players can sometimes struggle with the amount of effort to put into learning a kanji, draining their motivation. Keeping it challenging but without being too taxing also keeps it fun.

Thanks for taking the time to write a great review!

Interesting concept, but no iPad version?

The iPad has been around for over 13 years, and pretty much every app has shipped with iPhone and iPad versions for well over a decade.

This somehow does not. So while it's an interesting concept the lack of iPad support renders it useless. A shame.