Subterfusion

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1. This, in true Alec fashion, was an innovative game. I haven’t taken Spanish for years so I was awful at it, but I could see it being fun for the language I do know.

   The premise of having two people who need conversational practice in the same room playing the game is a bit far fetched, but I could definitely see this turned into an online game, where players can match up with complementary players, and then give advice on the others’ translations. This could be turned into a whole social site, too, where people who receive good feedback could give kudos to the other person. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that the computer doesn’t give you feedback here, so human interaction seems necessary, but it’s unlikely to happen in person, it seems…

   As for the actual gameplay, I skimmed the instructions then the scene went on for several minutes while I typed subtitles. About 3 player swaps in, I was worried I was doing it wrong. And in fact, I was transcribing the English audio into English, because I forgot that you were supposed to translate, not transcribe. So some more suggestion to the user of what to do rather than just the up front instructions might help. Because transcribing is a totally valid language exercise, as is translating, the intent of the game might be unclear.

   Finally, a small point – typing in a subtitle, then clicking the mouse felt like a waste of hand movement. It’d be nice if a tab or esc or something would start/stop the playback. Maybe I missed what key would do that, so if it does already exist, making it more obvious would help.

   Comment by Kai Johnson
   December 2, 2009 @ 1:17 am

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