Welcome to the ideation-sketch of a little web-game I wrote for myself to help learn touch-typing on a Japanese, Kana keyboard!

First-and-foremost, remember... I'm a painter, not a programmer. :P
I made this little app for myself.  If it can be of help to you too, awesome!
(If there's problems, bugs, frustrations, whatever... I'm sorry, but painting must be my first-and-foremost-focus in my life now.
Drop me a note if you'd like, but I'm afraid that the chances of my having time to make any changes/updates is pretty small.  ごめんなさい。  )


This minigame is designed to work on a desktop/laptop system, but it should also work on a phone/tablet if you've got a bluetooth/wired keyboard, (or now with the new, on-screen "Flick" Keyboard when this page is viewed in Portrait Mode -- see below).
It should work with most physical keyboards: Japanese keyboards or standard western keyboards with Kana stickers.

If the app isn't working properly, try changing browsers, or re-loading the page (see below)



*NOTE Click the word "CHANGE" under "PRACTICE MODE" to switch between Practice and Game modes


PRACTICE MODE
In Practice Mode, choose the group/s of Kana you wish to study  (eg:   あ ...いうえお,    か ...きくけこ   etc.)  from the buttons on the left, and the game will queue-up Kana from those groups for you to test your skill.

Just type the key that corresponds with the character in the center of the screen!
If you get it wrong, you'll see what you typed to the left of the active character.




REMAPPING KEYS
Not all keyboards are the same, (and not all browsers interpret the same keyboard the same way)!

In PRACTICE MODE, If you know you typed the correct key and the system mis-interprets it three times in a row, you have the option to remap that Kana to that key!
Key-Mappings are saved on most browsers by Unity's PlayerPerfs (cookies?) so they should persist between sessions.  :)
(If you get the "This app uses cookies" screen on subsequent runnings, your PlayerPrefs didn't get saved.)





ON-SCREEN "Flick" KEYBOARD     (NEW!)
If you rotate your mobile device into Portrait Layout (or otherwise make your Browser window significantly taller than it is wide), the game will display an on-screen "Flick" Keyboard common on some mobile phones for Japanese input.

Press and hold on root-key of this Keyboard and up to four other keys appear around it:
The あ key yields:  い　う　え　and  お  (clockwise from left)

Release while a Flick-Key is highlit to "type" that key!

('Cause I have other things to do than fuss with making the content perfectly fit every screen, when the Flick Keyboard is active, there's a little slider on lower screen-left while in Practice Mode, that lets you zoom-in to get the best fit for your screen's aspect ratio.)






HIRAGANA,  KATAKANA and ROMAJI
In OPTIONS, you now can choose to have the display of characters to type shown in Hiragana, Katakana or Romaji.
And, if your device is in Portrait Mode (see above), you can choose to show the Flick Keyboard in Hiragana or Katakana.






GAME MODE
Once you've made sure that the Kana in your groups-of-choice are all correctly mapped to your keyboard in the browser you're using (see below), test your skill and best your previous high scores in GAME MODE!

You get three "lives".
You gain life for every correct keypress... but...
You loose life for every keypress you get wrong!
*
Point Bonuses are awarded for difficultly level...
How quickly you answer... and...
For the number of Kana Groups you're working with.
*
Challenge yourself with HARD MODE where every wrong-answer costs a life!






SOME BROWSERS LOOK AND WORK DIFFERENTLY
This game was built for desktop/laptop systems, but if you've got a physical keyboard for your phone/tablet, it might work there too!  Go ahead and experiment!  If it doesn't seem to be working well, try another browser!  :)

(...our tests so far...)

* Navigating away from the browser and back to it often disables audio.  (The fix is to just re-load the window & sound works again.)
* The game runs fine on my desktop PC in Chrome, Firefox... though Firefox maps け incorrectly (so one must first re-map that key in Practice Mode -- but, since preferences should be saved on most browsers, it should only have to be done once per browser, if not in private/incognito mode).
* I've tested this on my Galaxy Tab and it looks great -- it runs great under Chrome, but choppily under Firefox.
* on my old, iPhone 8, it works great on Safari, but it devours battery like it's going-out-of-style.
* On my iPad all browsers always show the "Flick" Keyboard, regardless of orientation.  On Chrome it runs smoothly but doesn't look great, but Safari refuses to feed the game input from my bluetooth keyboard.
* Chrome on our old, test Macbook looked and worked great, but in Safari it didn't look good and didn't store mappings/scores. (The app didn' run at all in Firefox on our Macbook.)





Why is this app?
My old, super-cheap keyboard was falling apart, so when I got a new keyboard I decided to take my study of Japanese to the next level and get a real, imported Japanese keyboard.  But... looking at the keys the first time made my eyes swim!  I couldn't see any rhyme/reason/logic to where the Kana were placed!  (It took me like a full minute just to find the わ key! )

I was turned-onto a similar app by a mentor... but that version was really limited and didn't account for different key-mappings.  So, rather than grouse or wait for someone else, I decided to see what would happen if I tried to make the kind of tool that would inspire me to want to keep getting better at this!




Why is it free?
First and foremost, this is something I made to help me on my own journey.
If it can help you too, we may be cut from similar cloth.
In which case the idealized visions I feel pulled to put into canvas and oil may inspire you as well.




No ads?   No Analytics?
I'm not fond of the real-life-MATRIX into which behavior tracking, analysis and manipulation has transformed the 'Net.


So...


If you like this tool, if it was helpful for you...

Buy some art
...or...
Order a print, a mug, or something fun from my RedBubble store