Pingu Jisho
A downloadable game for Windows
“Pingu Jisho” is a 2D puzzle platformer game. Players control the titular cartoon penguin, Pingu. Across the game’s 25 levels, the objective is to get Pingu to reach the exit door. However, an array of obstacles including logs, hay bales, pools of water, and endless pits make this a challenge. Over the course of the game, players are introduced to Japanese Kanji and add it to Pingu’s magic dictionary (dictionary in Japanese is 辞書, or Jisho). When activated, the assortment of kanji tiles set in each level will provide different magic functions that interact with the world.
This game is part of an ongoing research study on Japanese Language Acquisition at the University of Central Florida. After playing the game, if you are interested in providing additional data for the study, then you can click this link to fill out a Google Form. The form is a 3-5 minute post-test on your kanji skills and inquiring about your experience playing the game.
If you are already in the study, do not use this link. A separate form will be provided.
Thank you so much!
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Credits:
Game by Caden Henderson
Level Thumbnail Art by Christine Medina
Design & Idea Support by Dean Kazusa Handler
Faculty Mentor and Project Guidance by Yukari Nakamura-Deacon
This project was developed over the course of 7 months.
:)
Download
Install instructions
Download the game from this page.
Navigate to the downloaded file and right click to Extract All (or unzip with 7zip).
In the unzipped file folder, run Pingu Jisho.exe (with the purple penguin icon)
If Windows Defends pops up, Click “More Info”, then Run anyway.
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Start with level 1-1 (in the top left)
There are 25 levels in the game. Feel free to reference the in-game dictionary/Jisho to see your Kanji.
You can also Skip Levels via the Pause Menu, and all levels are accessible to begin the game.
Mac Users: A MacOS build is under development and should be available by 3/28/2025.
Comments
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On the level "Fairwell Plains" it is not possible to complete the level because the sunflower disappears after the dialogue box for 雪 ("snow") and so you drop down and can't get back up (this is assuming the solution involves interrupting the fire with a rain to get back up, if not we can't find any other solution other than skip level, this ignores the use of water as we don't get a chance to use the last one since the sunflower disappears (it doesn't shrink as normal, it just disappears and gravity reasserts itself on "us", the penguin.))