With it being the holiday season, I've been pretty busy, so I'm sorry about the lack of posts recently. But wow, I got a lot of response to the card game post, so I wanted to post more about it! I thought that today I would write some more about the additional functionality I am building into the game.
I am designing the game to be playable with a group but also for solo play. With solo play, I figured you could use it to generate a random language, or you could put up the cards that would mostly describe your own conlang, and then be able to play around with the language by substituting, adding, or taking away some of the cards. Also, you could more easily understand other conlangs by putting up the cards that create that conlang. After doing this a few times, you would sense patterns between the cards for how certain languages sound and behave. If you an amateur linguist (like me), developing a recognition for these patterns could be really helpful to wrapping your head around and learning linguistic principles.
In addition to all this, after I'm done making all the cards, I want to make a flash game which you can play, and make it even easier to play with language, being able to click and drag cards around and such. Also, I want to make it so that you can develop a conlang in the game, and have it spit out a long code which you can copy and paste. Then you could post about your language online, include the code, and others would be able to paste the code into their flash game and see your conlang pop up on the screen! I think could work much more quickly than having to write out your entire phonology, morphology, syntax, grammer, etc. Especially if the code is in a file that can include a lexicon and notes on the language. It could make Conlang Relays a smoother process and more fun! But thats probably a couple years away still.
Please comment if you have any helpful ideas or if you think this can't be done. I'm interested to hear your opinion either way!
I am designing the game to be playable with a group but also for solo play. With solo play, I figured you could use it to generate a random language, or you could put up the cards that would mostly describe your own conlang, and then be able to play around with the language by substituting, adding, or taking away some of the cards. Also, you could more easily understand other conlangs by putting up the cards that create that conlang. After doing this a few times, you would sense patterns between the cards for how certain languages sound and behave. If you an amateur linguist (like me), developing a recognition for these patterns could be really helpful to wrapping your head around and learning linguistic principles.
In addition to all this, after I'm done making all the cards, I want to make a flash game which you can play, and make it even easier to play with language, being able to click and drag cards around and such. Also, I want to make it so that you can develop a conlang in the game, and have it spit out a long code which you can copy and paste. Then you could post about your language online, include the code, and others would be able to paste the code into their flash game and see your conlang pop up on the screen! I think could work much more quickly than having to write out your entire phonology, morphology, syntax, grammer, etc. Especially if the code is in a file that can include a lexicon and notes on the language. It could make Conlang Relays a smoother process and more fun! But thats probably a couple years away still.
Please comment if you have any helpful ideas or if you think this can't be done. I'm interested to hear your opinion either way!
Comments
That said, I think you should absolutely work on this, for bringing new people into the world of conlanging and making difficult concepts more easily understood are both goals well within the reach of your aspirations. Even if you couldn't compile a complete snapshot of something as complex as a language with your game, you could outline the basic framework which would make understanding the roots of a tongue more accessible.
I am very interested in seeing how your progress goes, and hope to hear more about it in the future. You have a wonderful idea here, and I hope to see it grow.
- Baalak Nalzar-aung.