Influent, by Three Flip Studios, is a mobile game for learning a language — specifically vocab focused. This is achieved through a kind of immersion in which the player explores their apartment, clicking on different objects to learn what word each is, with the help of a sentient drone.
Player + helper drone
Influent seems to rely primarily on experience-based play to create an enjoyable learning environment. The player, who finds out that they have been locked inside their apartment, now has nothing to do except wander around learning vocab words. Nearly everything inside the rooms (bathroom, living room, kitchen, bedroom) is a clickable component. There’s no time pressure, so the player can take their time exploring each room and object at their own pace. There is also a slight competitive aspect against oneself, as the player can choose to engage in a “Star Challenge” at any point to see how many vocab words they can successfully identify, and receive a score. There’s not much cooperation, which seems fine given this is a vocab-learning game; neither does it feel particularly skill-based, as the main action is tapping on different mundane objects to add them to vocab lists. The game’s space of possibility also feels pretty limited, which is not an issue per se, but mainly concerns me because it relies heavily on the player’s intrinsic motivation to continue exploring and doing Star Challenges. As a player myself, I was initially interested in the game while I played, but got bored fairly quickly, and am not sure I would be really excited to return to it if I picked up my phone some other time. The game could possibly also force some more practice by limiting the player to certain rooms at a time, or working through pre-made vocabulary lists. When the player explores with such free reign, learning has the potential to become quite unfocused.
Process of tapping and adding a word to a vocab list
From a language-learning perspective, I would say Influent has pretty narrow application, and should just be used as supplementary material. Though it’s nice that the player is given free reign to explore, I don’t think the practice is structured, scheduled, or thorough enough to allow for real retention. This is especially given the fact that Star Challenges can be activated at any time, meaning the player doesn’t have to test themself at all if they don’t want to. The immersive aspect and music do a nice job making vocabulary more interesting, and perhaps help memory by linking the word with the physical object and its context; still, for relatively basic vocab such that can be found in a bedroom, I feel that basic flashcards might work as well (and also be faster). I did find the feature of linking related adjectives and verbs to the noun to be useful (see video below), but this was limited and I wasn’t able to see how that was expanded on (unless I need to get farther in the game to experience this).
Practicing words
Of course, regarding the MDAO framework, these assessments may change depending on the intended outcomes of the game. That is, if the designer’s desired outcome is simply to create an exploration space that can be gently and casually used by the learner, then it’s not ineffective. In fact, the Influent About page states that the game is “aimed at inspiring people around the world to pick up a new language by making vocabulary acquisition and proper pronunciation a fun and rewarding experience” and that it offers a “free-form, sandbox-style approach where the player chooses what to learn”; this doesn’t seem incompatible with the experience I had. However, because I’m also interested in assessing this from an efficacy standpoint, I do want to note that if the designer is hoping to encourage significant progress in language learning, then it’s possible they started too much from the mechanics, including aspects such as the immersive, exploratory aspect that, while cool, don’t move the player significantly towards the goal. This in turn is affecting the dynamics, which are a bit static and flat, since there’s nobody really to cooperate or compete with; the player kind of just exists in the apartment. Consequently, though I experienced aesthetics such as Discovery and Submission, which were enjoyable, I don’t think they were honed enough to support the intended outcome. Vocabulary is a major part of language acquisition for sure, but it needs to be further contextualized.
Adding new words
Engaging in a Star Challenge
