Press Kit
Factsheet
Developer: Two Brain Games
Based in: Texas, US
Release date: May 3rd, 2024 (PC)
Steam Page
Website: https://www.twobraingames.com/kagami
Current Price:
USD 9.99
EUR 9.75
GBP 8.50
Images
Logo and Icon
Art Assets
Kagami: An Odyssey in Japanese Language Learning Credits
K. Reddell:
Environment Artist
Justin Rodriguez:
Programmer
Writer
Game Designer
Cinematic Director
Zachary Helms:
Project Lead
Lead Artist
Animator
Writer
Game Designer
Level Designer
Composer
Audio engineer
Sound Designer
Social Media Manager
Description
Explore! Interact! Play minigames! Fight SCARY MONSTERS! Well... mostly scary... All while LEARNING JAPANESE?!?! Learn alphabets, collect vocab, and use what you learned to gain advantage when battling Yokai! Keep fighting until you unravel what is causing all this chaos and never give up in our Retro Topdown RPG Kagami: An Odyssey in Japanese Language Learning™
History
In Late 2022, while working on their first game “Witchbane”, the formerly Iconoclast team, now Two Brain team found that what they had been working on for the past year was not turning out as they had hoped. They learned a lot, but needed some time to find what was missing and to further develop their skills in making games.
The lead artist and programmer had always discussed learning Japanese on the side as a hobby, and one of the ideas put forth to get a grasp on the vocabulary was to cover everyday objects with post-it notes, but then your living space would be… covered in post-it notes! As people who make virtual worlds, or at least claim to, they decided to try making a little game where you would interact with objects and test your knowledge.
The concept seemed to fit well with an RPG style battle system with lots of text menus, and then a story and minigames began bubbling up, turning the initially small project into a full fledged game!
Features
Top Down RPG style gameplay forms the base of the game, inspired by classic RPGs from the 90s.
A cast of characters that join your party on your journey to learn Japanese and help the player as they continue the story, driving players to find out what happens next.
Hand drawn Pixel Art and animation inspired by beloved 90s RPGs and other classic Indie games.
Fight Battles in Classic RPG style fashion, Upgrading attacks by leveling up, but with a comedic flair based on the dev’s sense of humor (for better or worse).
The game teaches players Japanese starting at the basics of the language, teaching the alphabets and building on that knowledge to help them learn over 350 words!
Over a dozen minigames to help make the tedium of learning Hiragana, Katakana, and vocabulary words not only bearable, but downright enjoyable!
Players have access to all the “charms” or vocabulary words they collected and can study when outside of battle through your trusty Game-Buddy, who manages everything from inventory to vocab to saving your game file.
Game-Buddy also has a Hiragana and Katakana reference guide that include visual representations of mnemonics to help you retain all this new information and a sound clip of the kana being pronounced!
Players can also practice their vocabulary anytime without fear of death or loss of progress in “The Dojo”, which is a gamified version of flash cards with high scores and reward tokens that can be used to buy powerful in-game items.
Players can also learn 52 of the most commonly used radicals that make up complex Kanji.
If players are past the beginner stage in their Japanese Learning, they can try to play with Kanji mode enabled, which changes the vocab shown in battles and in the Dojo to Kanji instead of Hiragana.
Original Music composed and created to fit the retro aesthetic
Contacts and Social Media Links
Email: contact@twobraingames.com
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@twobraingames
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twobraingames/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@twobraingames
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/twobraingames.bsky.social
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/IconoclastGames/