[A.Russell]

However, based on what I know, role playing (violent or non v.) is definitely more for guys. I don't know of too many girls that play video games myself (well, there is a Barbie game where girls dress (and undress) Barbies all day long and have a blast doing it.

You are absolutely right. Most games appeal to boys (and are made by boys for that matter). Dress-up games and sim type games are popular with girls. Take a look at Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com). There is a game that is popular with women. The demographic for second life conists of an unusually high number of ladies in their 20's and 30's for a role playing game. Then take a look at the type of role playing it is. Players get to fiddle with their appearance, change their clothes, go shopping, decorate houses, go to dance parties and chat with people. Everyone is outrageously dressed and always having conversations while dancing with each other. I met a lady there who called herself "BloodlustErotica", who appeared in an outfit that looked like she had wrapped herself sparsly in electrical tape. After talking in dance mode with streaming 80's music in the background (a typical way to have a conversation in Second Life) she excussed herself because in the real world she had to go and pick up her kids from Sunday school. A lot of ladies love that sort of role playing! Perhaps some of the quests could be to decorate a house, or find a dance party? Or to get some gold coins to go shopping for a new outfit? What do you think? Orc bashing for the boys and dressing up and shopping for the girls?

This is a screenshot of a Japanese Ero-geh, or 'love affair simulation game for adults'. Some of you might be laughing by now, and yes, it is despised by many sane people, but has its niche in Japan. (and exclusive in Japan!)

Japan is quite open with such things. They don't censor a lot. This is something I like about Japan. This issue about what I can show in the way of violence wouldn't be such an issue in a country with Power Rangers on TV. North Americans are less thick skinned than Europeans and Japanese, but it pays to cater for them since that is where the biggest market is. A lot of video games that are exported to America from Japan have to go through a face lift first, to cover up scantily clad lady models and remove all the stuff that might offend American sensibilities.

The game comes with full voice for almost every dialog, and one very neat thing about the game is that it comes with this 'history' feature, where you can browse through previous dialogs and when clicked on the small voice icon you can listen to it as many times as you need.

I like this idea very much. Are the voices in this game recorded or synthetic? My game will use both, however it will make heavy use of text to speech, as a lot of the dialogues will be arbatrary.

By repeatedly listening to parts of dialogs on which learners want to focus they can not only improve their listening comprehension but their overall pronounciation also.

I will also provide listen and repeat practice for pronunciation.



I really want more votes as to who thinks this game is useful. Let's try to get at least 20!