G.L.Y.P.H.A.E.

Game-based Learning Yields Phonetic Hieroglyphs of Ancient Egyptian

📜 Description

GLYPHAE is a prototype of an Android mobile game designed as a part of my bachelor's thesis to make learning Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs fun and engaging. Inspired by the Tamagotchi-style gameplay, players raise an Egyptian god from an egg to their godly form by fulfilling their various needs: hunger, health, joy, and energy.

Each need is met by playing games that teach the player hieroglyphs through a Leitner-flashcard-inspired memory system. As you progress, the difficulty increases and new mini-games become available, reflecting the five steps of second language acquisition described by Stephen Krashen.

Side note: Glyphaea is an African plant, so the name is spot on ;)

🔨 Features

• Up to 4 different creatures to unlock and take care of, each with their own set of hieroglyphs to learn.
• At least 25 basic hieroglyphs to learn, with the potential for hundreds in later updates.
• 5 evolution phases with different effects on need changes.
• Increase complexity of games and unlock new ones as your pet evolves
• 3 Different overall difficulties that alter the gameplay a bit
• Engage in 8 different mini-games (so far) to fulfill your pet's needs: hunger, health, joy, and energy
• Receive notifications when needs drop to low, and by fulfilling these requests evolve your creature

🎯 Gameplay

💗 Needs

• Hunger: Feed your pet hieroglyphs to still its hunger.
• Health: Engage in a game to heal your pet by matching hieroglyphs and letters in the correct order.
• Joy: Play various mini-games to entertain your pet and learn new hieroglyphs.
• Energy: Read a magic lullaby-spell to boost your pet’s energy, so you can play on.

When any of these needs drops below a threshold, your pet will notify you. Each notification serves as an opportunity to learn new hieroglyphs and evolve your pet to the next stage.

🐣 Evolutions

As your pet evolves, the following will happen:

• The difficulty of the mini-games will increase slightly
• Their needs will increase / decrease in a different manner
• Their appearance will change to show growth
• New games for the "Play" activity will become available
• These changes reflect the five steps of second language acquisition:
  1. Pre-production
  2. Early Production
  3. Speech Emergence
  4. Intermediate Fluency
  5. Advanced Fluency

💾 Installation

1. Play a demo version here in the browser.
   But some functions may not work, as it is intended for mobile use.
   or
2. Download & install the APK from here.
   or
3. Download the APK file from the releases page.

📱 Usage

1. Open the GLYPHAE app on your Android device.
2. Select an egg to begin raising your god.
3. Fulfill your pet’s needs by playing different mini-games.
4. Evolve your pet by meeting its needs when it calls you.
5. Learn hieroglyphs in a playful manner along the way.

🙏 Credits

Ancient Egyptian Desert Music - Tyler Cunningham @ Unity Asset Store

Desert Theme - ProjectHelmet @ OpenGameArt.org

Fantasy Wooden GUI - Black Hammer @ Unity Asset Store

Link Handler Script - ChristinaCreatesGames @ GitHub.com

Horus Symbol & Sobek Symbol - Jeff Dahl @ Wikimedia

Wadjet Symbol & Nekhbet Symbol - EternalSpace @ Wikimedia

Emoji Icons by various artists @ OpenMoji.org

👥 Contributing

See https://github.com/n-c0de-r/GLYPHAE for more instructions.

⚖️ License

This project is dual-licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 for the software and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license for some derivatives for the created or edited assets based on originals from Openmoji or Wikipedia.

• Software Code: Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPLv3). See LICENSE-GPLv3 file for details.
• Assets: Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). See LICENSE-CC-BY-SA file for details.

GNU General Public License v3.0: See the file for details. CC BY-SA License: See the file for details.

📧 Contact

Feel free to open an issue or contact me at n-c0de-r_contact@e.mail.de.