English learning game

Have you ever image a world that people can communicate with each other withour barriers? Here I want to develop an English learning game for non-English speakers to learn English through interactive gamification.

About me
I am a grad student of University of Florida, major in mechanical engineering of master. So why a mechanical engineer would like to develop an English learning game that is irrelevant to his major? The answer is that I don’t like mechanical stuff like I used to, and gamification and language are more attractive to me since I found it’s too difficult for non-English speaker to learn English. Right now, I am taking my courses relevant to my mechanical engineering major. Also, I use my spare time to learn Unity from YouTube so that I may contribute to game design in the future. The higher education not only teaches me mechanical courses, but also gives the ability to learn whatever I want to learn because I know the pattern to acquire knowledge.

To get more and more people interested in my idea, I attend entrepreneur events held by University of Florida. Most importantly, I share my idea through Internet such as Cofounderslab, LinkedIn, angelist, etc. I also make flyers by myself and put them on the bulletin board on campus. All I want to do is get more people involved so we can create this game.

About the idea
I believe language is a powerful tool to convey our thought, emotion, even image to other people so that they can understand us. It’s the very beginning purpose to create this game – let people understand each other.

We’ve been thinking that computer game is for entertainment, but what if it can also help people learn language through intensive interaction with other people in a computer game. I believe a new field of computer game combined amusement and education should be created in the next few years. I want to design a game for people to learn and communicate with each other without barrier which can make people understand each other. It's not a translation software, but a software that can profoundly impact people's life by learning while playing the game.

This game is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game which will give players instantaneous feedback while playing the game, just like the games called League of Legends or DoTA. The advantage of this kind of game is that it can replace the human-to-machine pattern with human-to-human pattern, and this pattern will make people play with enthusiasm.

About the mechanism of this game(preliminary thought)
As you know, the nature of game is all about defense and attack. The key to tackle this problem is through interaction. Take fruit for example. Supposed there are two teams, one for defense, and one for attack. If the "apple" guy click on the "苹果“guy first, then the defense team gets one point for dodging the bullet from "苹果" guy, and vice verses. The first team gets 3 points will win for this term, there will be 15 terms in one round. When each round finished, there will be feedback for each player so that they can know the mistakes and achievement they made in this round. However, this game is more than that. By implementing a matching algorithm, the more they win, the higher they will be, and then they will be matched to stronger players who help their peers make progress by understanding more difficult words. In order to help you understand how the mechanism works, I made a picture for you.



I know that people will make mistakes when we learn something new, but these mistakes will ultimately contribute to the progress. That's the meaning of this game. This is just the beginning of my basic idea, and I need someone who is good at game design to develop aesthetic and interesting features for this game. I wanna launch this game in China and U.S.A first for target customers of Chinese high school and college students who already understand basic English.

The reasons why this game will be successful
1. As you know, there are so many big game companies are making great games nowadays such as World of Warcraft, League of Legend, Dota, etc. They’ve already done so well that makes them almost impossible to beat because they already had talent people and fund. You can either go to their companies and join them, or use another way to create a remarkable game. That’s why I am here to offer you the “another way” which combines entertainment and education.

2. It tackles the problem of loneliness in humanity because few people can truly understand us based on different background, experience, faith, and etc. That’s why we need friends and family. This game will contain teammates when you play it, which means you will not feel alone while playing and learning.

A personal message to you
My parents always tell me what to do is good for my future, but this time I want to do what I love. I don't make up this idea suddenly, I've been planning on this project from day one I entered University of Florida in January, 2017. After planning all these for a long time, I believe it time for me to start the business, but I know I can not do this alone. That's why I need to hire people to work for me so the game can be created. After the game is done, I will make it free for everyone to play. My company will only charge players for what they want to pay in the game.