200 mannin no kanken ~ Tokoton kanji nou : First impressions

[owlectomy]

My kanji Game Boy game-- this one-- has finally arrived.

After working my way through all the level 10 problems:

-So far, kanji recognition seems very good even when your stroke order's not perfect. One almost wishes it would force you to get it right, but, oh well. Kana recognition and arabic numeral recognition are, oddly enough, much worse; I know I don't write kana that well, but when it keeps reading my 8 as a 5, I have to wonder.

-There is a story mode. The main difference between story mode and regular mode is that the 'goddess of kanji' occasionally yells at you. Also, you collect orbs and points which supposedly trigger game events, but I haven't witnessed that yet.

-I wish the music was better, because it's too distracting to put real music on, but complete silence is too... silent.

-My main concerns are about how well it's going to scale up to the higher levels. Is 30 seconds enough to write a 20-stroke kanji? Will there be enough questions?

-One would think that the 'work on your weaknesses' section could be a little more sophisticated; it only tests you on the ones you got wrong last time you tried them, not ones that have consistently given you problems in the past.

-Can it really be true that the 'roof' parts of 右　and　左 have different stroke orders? Jack Halpern seems to agree, so I guess it must be, but it just seems wrong.

I quite like it so far! But the real test will be how well it works as I go up the levels.

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I didn't know that. Is it because on 左 the vertical-ish stroke actually goes down to the base, making it the first stroke, before the horizontal line, whereas on 右 it's the second stroke, before the line?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I did know that, dammit, because I can never get them right. I think it must indeed be because the downward stroke in 左 is longer than that of 右, so it follows the left-right rule rather than the top-down rule. The difference is easy to see in O'Neill, who has brush-written versions as his manin entry and the printed version smaller. If you write 左 often enough it stops feeling wrong-- for a while, until the next time you go to write it again.