Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Mar 22, 2014

  Ok, so this game seemed great at first glance. The whole concept of studying language while playing a videogame probably seems fantastic for every gamer like me, who also likes to broaden his knowledge everyday. However, Influent isn't what I expected it to be. I didn't do much research before buying, just a short review by someone who generally praised the game but mentioned lack of insight on japanese "kanji", which immediately put japanese pack off my to-buy list. Therefore for starters, I picked up french pack. After a bit more than 1 hour of playtime, I can pretty much say that for me the game is a large disappointment. The whole game is situated in a small condo which contains about 400 different objects that you can interract with, and consequently learn more about them in order to improve your vocabulary. Those consist mostly out of basic household items. In French, gender is of crucial importance, and although the game tells you which gender a certain object is, when you actually learn them, gender pronouns or indefinite articles are excluded from the actual word. For example instead of "une lampe" or "la lampe" you'll study "lampe", which means you'll still need to study gender separatly. Furthermore, the game doesn't cover one bit of grammar. The game itself isn't particularly fun either, since one is as already mentioned, trapped inside a small condo. If the game would include also some other everyday areas like playground, trainstation, gym, school etc. it would vastly improve the vocabulary covered, but I'm afraid this will either never be available or will be purchasable as a "dlc", for which I honestly wouldn't waste a cent anymore since I don't consider the 400 foreign words to be worth of 10€, while you can learn them for free in (in a sense of content) much better covered "game" called Duolingo, or Anki. Summary: I love the basic idea, but it lacks a lot of content. Although it is obviously considered as a supplement to your language studies, I still believe that it could've included a lot more than just bare 400 words.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 30, 2014

  GREAT CONCEPT BUT LACKING CONTENT First off you must understand this is a vocabulary learning game and nothing more. If you dont have another form of learning the language this game is pretty much useless. I got this to brush up on french I had learned in high school. I paid $5 for it on sale and even at that price felt slightly disappointed. I had no idea you would be restricted to a one bedroom apartment with access to only learning 400 mundane names of household items. If this game was expanded to a small town type environment where you could go to say the store, a trainstation, etc. This game would be 5 stars, If a DLC was released with at least an equal number of new words in a new environment i would consider paying another $5 for it.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 21, 2014

  Influent is a great idea. Though it does need some refining, it's a very helpful and affordable option for begginer to intermediate language learners. If your only goal is to verbally pick up new key nouns and verbs for a trip abroad, Influent will suffice. However for more in-depth learners who wish to read it's best paired with good old fashioned studying. A primary example of this is that it won't help you understand how to actually read any languages that use non-roman-based characters (e.g. Russian, Chinese, Japanese). Note that you can enable english readings of any language if literacy isn't your primary goal. I'm very excited to see a real game for language learning, instead of tedious and very over-priced software (Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, Rosetta Stone). I sincerely hope to eventually see DLCs or updates that will allow users to explore the world outside of the small apartment, add more unique yet commonplace items for each culture, or perhaps interact with NPCs to practice dialouge...crossing my fingers and keeping and eye on this game ;) Pros: Playble area is filled to the brim with hundreds of everyday objects to study, DOES include verbs that will unlock as you learn nouns that they're relevant to, affordable, a highly customizeable and unique learning experience. Cons: Small environment, UI is almost too minimalistic (can't cycle though word details; have to return to vocab list), and you can only learn commonplace North American items (useful but limited).
• gamedeal user

  Apr 7, 2015

  Influent is the best 'gamification' of vocabulary learning I have come across. I have spent over 10 hours with the Russian edition, I hesitate to call it a game so I'll say "application". Reading the negative reviews I am dissapointed with the community. You are simply a fool if you think you can just 'play' this and somehow become fluent or even remotely competent in your chosen language. Even a basic level of comprehension takes at least a year to develop with a lot of hard work involved in that year. Influent will not teach grammar, it is simply and audio/visual application that softens the monumentual blow of learning hundreds of foreign words. Personally I have found it incredibly useful. It works by giving you control of an avatar in a typical apartment, you can swap between third and first person to explore and click on items to have a native speaker exclaim what the items is and you're also given a textual display of the item. You can then choose to add the item to a vocab list and once you add 10 items it completes the list and allows you to come back at any point to attempt a 'Time Attack' where the items in the list are randomised, the native speaker announces what item they want you to find. I highly recommend Influent as an AID to your language learning, not the only source.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 10, 2020

  I think this game is great. However, would love to see dlc content of expanded areas like being able to open the front door to the front yard or backyard in that case. Maybe other areas can be created as well. For example, a restaurant, a gas station, grocery store, etc.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 21, 2014

  So far, 30% of the words have been loan-words (katakana). The rest are alternatives to the same word; verbs, which losely apply to the nouns they're tied to; and maybe 10% are adjectives which are the only thing I can imagine being useful in everyday speech. You're confined to a tiny apartment and although you can open cupboards and drawers you find mostly duplicate items of what's laying around. There are no ways to look out into the world beyond the apartment and nothing to offer beyond basic vocabulary that you can get for free at a site like Memrise.com
• gamedeal user

  Mar 22, 2014

  This is a 'made for kickstarter', junk game. The game raised enough money to be profitable before it was available, so it was released without content and doesn't do anything but look good on an advertisement. There is no talk about increasing the functionality or vocabulary of the game on the product website, and it's not even worth the small price on steam. The entire game can be boiled down to this: Hear and/or read a word, and then click on the thing that the word is associated with. I have nearly completed my first entire language pack in about two days (there's like 5 words I can't seem to locate). I don't feel like I've actually learned anything though. The 420 words available are not enough to order dinner, let alone take a vacation in a foreign land. This game does not teach a person how to begin to communicate in a new language, which is the only thing the game had to deliver after getting over twice the requested amount on kickstarter. They got their funding though, so the only news is that they intend to release more language packs. Other problems: -This game takes way too much video card effort for the type of game it is, and it will begin lagging to death after playing for an hour or so. -Does not understand multiple monitors, so it tries to plaster the game centered on total composite screen (hit F11 to get windowed FS on main monitor) -The spaceship mode is completely stupid, and is there simply for marketing purposes. It's the same as FPS mode, except you have to hold the mouse button for a while instead of doubleclicking, and you can't stop to aim (since you're flying). Some of the targets are tiny though. -The game was designed so that new language packs could be made in a day, with fill-in-the-blanks labels and audio snippets, but little effort was made to do a good job. There is often two words for an item without an explanation for which word to use when. The spoken words are often poorly pronounced and with anomalous noise artifacts. I suspect they found their voice actors on craigslist. -Sloppy positional audio often makes words hard to hear when it should really just be monaural (since you're effectively listening to a voice in your head). -Stripped down settings and options. Doesn't even have volume control, and doesn't remember major settings (like window placement and windows audio mixer settings)
• gamedeal user

  Dec 13, 2015

  Influent is not useful for learning a new language. Walk through a landscape and learn a smattering of nouns for household objects and nothing else. No grammer rules, no other words, no cultural context. Can you guys even understand how useless that is? Learning how to say random words for objects you will probably not need to talk about without ever communicating anything about them whatsoever? Hell, you wll never need most of these nouns as a beginning student of a foreign language anyways. It would be far more useful to simply learn how to say "How do you say this?" in whatever language you are learning so you can learn words that are actually useful to you. I learned way more useful information on youtube videos in an hour than I ever did with this. The only good thing about this is the soundtrack by Lifeformed. It is the soundtrack from the game Dustforce and it is truly excellent. I have no idea why it is in this product. You will not learn how to communicate a single complete thought or simple sentence with this software .
• gamedeal user

  Jan 15, 2020

  It's a neat idea, but falls short... way short... First off any game that touts to be like Shenmue in some way has pretty big shoes to fill. The idea of being able to roam around your place and interact some what with objects, including opening your fridge is a neat idea. But only having about 400 words is not that helpful. In one of the videos it says to test your mastery of the language... You need no less than 2,000 kanji and then some to be able to read a Japanese newspaper and you need a vocabulary of over 10,000 to be able to speak in normal (admittedly to advanced) everyday conversation and this game simply does not provide that. It may not even get you on par with a young child. You could point out objects, but have no way to know how to form a complete sentence. A big issue is the home you dwell in is simply too small. Like really small. It can only hold so many objects. That and they will have the same object in different locations. It teases you with the front door, but no way to exit. If this at least taught you all 2,000+ kanji or at least all of N5 I would say without a doubt go for it, you do not even need to wait for a sale. If it had the rest of the levels of Japanese all the way to N1, even if in bite sized chunks for DLC I would be running around screaming at the top of my lungs to buy it right now to everyone! But there are no such options. You are stuck with only 400 or so words that can be learned using a dictionary online or off. Get some sticky notes and start pasting them to objects in your home and you just saved about $10 and writing it down is half of the learning process to begin with. Free apps are a dime a dozen and there are a few really good ones I can name in the comment section, but I wont do it here in the review itself. If interested let me know. At the end of the day it is a neat little game/teaching tool. What's impressive is that it went out of it's way to offer so many languages. But that was also it's downfall instead of just concentrating on one or two. But with the way the game was made, it was to be just for a handful of words and then just keep translating to other languages. If he had a bigger budget, more help, more inspiration and patience, this could of been a no brainer for language learning. Imagine going outside and interacting with your neighbors in Japanese, little by little at least. Unfortunately as I stated in the beginning it fell short. I would still recommend it to anyone that needs that extra push and quite a few of us do from time to time, especially starting out. I'd suggest getting it on sale though and be aware of exactly what you are and are not getting, but it for sure can help people, even if only a little. Good luck to you in your language learning and never give up. And good luck to the developer as well.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 23, 2019

  I love games and simulations that can teach me things as I find it to be an effortless way to learn things. Therefore I have to give this credit for being that kind of game. Sadly, I was expecting way more from it and am disappointed. This is a Great idea and it's very fun to play, but there aren't nearly enough words.. I guess I can't even leave the house. If you could learn verbs easier, leave the house and walk around a city and do things while learning thousands of words.. perhaps having conversations with npcs, it would be completely awesome. As it is, it's Way too basic as it only teaches about 400 words for household items. If you can get it on sale, it's worth supporting it for the sake of supporting more educational games I suppose, but don't expect too much from it. If you're happy to use it just to expand your vocabulary when it comes to household items, it will probably be worth it to you.