Slime Forest Adventure

Feel the power of my mighty kanji!^[1]

Fight slimes. Save a princess. Learn Japanese.

—Tagline

Slime Forest Adventure, or "Project LRNJ," is a retro-style RPG for PCs. To win, you must learn the Japanese Language. Not your character; you, the player.

Enemies attack by throwing Japanese at you. You have to respond by typing the correct meaning or pronunciation (whichever is asked for). If you make a mistake, you lose health, after which the correct answer (usually with a mnemonic) will be displayed.

You can download the free demo and buy the full version from the Project LRNJ website.

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Tropes used in Slime Forest Adventure include:

• Three Quarters View
• All Just a Dream: If you die, it will turn out that you dreamed everything that happened since you "woke up" that morning.
• Anti-Poopsocking: Studying anything is best done in short, frequent sessions. You learn faster, and retain the knowledge longer. This game has several features to encourage you to do this:
  • You can fully restore your health by eating a meal in your home. You only get three meals per (real time) day.
  • Sleeping in a bed saves and exits the game. It will also restore your health if you wait long enough before continuing.
  • If you wait too long before playing again, the inn will charge you extra for overstaying.
• Broken Bridge: NPCs in inconvenient spots block off most of the castle.
• Character Level: There is rudimentary level system in place, included mostly because it's simply expected of an RPG. The real leveling that takes place is in the player learning more Japanese.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Green slimes teach kanji meanings (usually; sometimes the identifiers aren't strictly a valid translation)
  • Bright blue slimes teach katakana.
  • Red slimes teach hiragana^[2].
  • White slimes teach romaji pronunciation.
  • Dull blue slimes teach kanji on'yomi readings.
  • Whales teach kanji kun'yomi readings^[3].
• Critical Existence Failure
• Disc One Nuke: The game becomes really easy if you already know Japanese.
• Dronejam: Pretty much unavoidable with the grid-based world map.
  • The whistle speeds up the random movement of NPCs for a short time, so that they get out of your way faster.
• Edutainment Game
• Escape Twine
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Pirate.
• Excuse Plot: It's something about a potato farmer and a kidnapped princess, but really, if you're playing this game for any reason other than learning Japanese, you're doing it wrong.
  • A stated goal of the developer is to eventually make the game fun for anyone, even those with no interest in Japanese. But it still has a way to go in that regard.
• Get on the Boat: After you buy it from The Pirate.
• Graphics Induced Super Deformed: Just look at the page image.
• Improbable Weapon User: You start the adventure with a hoe as your only weapon.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests
• Kleptomaniac Hero: There's a woman in one home who will tell you that she has just enough money to feed her six children for the winter. If you open the chest next to her, you get 200 gold from it.
• Level Grinding: Complete with a "Summon Monster" item, so you don't have to wait for random encounters.
• Money Spider: Justified, the slimes are attracted to gold. It's why they attack you, and why the local economy is going down the drain. The gold you get for killing them is just the gold they took from someone else. Somewhat less justified with the sharks and whales.
• Monsters Everywhere: Well, except for the hills.
• No Hero Discount: Averted in an interesting way. You're not actually a hero, you're a potato farmer, so there's no real reason for anyone to give you a discount.
  • Also inverted by the king. If you bring him some evidence that you've actually got a shot at rescuing his daughter, he'll just give you an axe to replace the hoe that you've been using.
• Obvious Beta: But it's OK, because by the time you learn everything that's in the current version, the next update will be out.
• Only Smart People May Pass: It's the whole point of the game.
• Palette Swap: See Color Coded for Your Convenience.
• Save the Princess
• Save Point: Beds. Inns will charge you for the use of their beds. Other beds (such as the one at your house) are free, but while you sleep, slimes will steal more than what the inn would have charged.
• Self-Made Orphan: The Pirate's father killed his mother, so he stole his father's pistol and "sent him to apologize."
• Shout-Out: The kanji 奇, meaning "bizarre", is written with the radicals "big" (大) and "able" (可). The hint given for it: "'Embiggenable' is a bizarre word".
• Take Your Time
• Talk Like a Pirate: The Pirate.
• Talk to Everyone
• There Are No Tents: And the inns are also save points.
• Thriving Ghost Town
• Trauma Inn: But only if enough real time passes before you load the game again.
• Video Game Geography
• Wallet of Holding
• Welcome to Corneria: Oh, so very much.
• With This Herring: You start out with a hoe, and the clothes on your back.
• Wrap Around: But only after you get the boat.
• You All Look Familiar

1. ↑ The symbol in the image is a kanji character, and it means "power."
2. ↑ Unless you are playing one of the kanji-first modes, in which case, sharks teach hiragana
3. ↑ Not really a color code, but worth mentioning