shé nián 蛇年 (Full version)

She Nian is an update on the old classic snake game and is designed to help people practice and learn Mandarin Chinese. To enhance the learning the game uses a spaced repetition algorithm that determines which character is to be found. At the end of each level the learner is presented with a summary of their performance.
The user can select from 5 different play scenes and 23 levels containing over 600 words. Choose what you want to practice from the settings menu. Be prompted in English, Pinyin or by the sound and the find either the Pinyin, Simple character or Traditional character. Each time you get it right you'll hear a native Chinese speaker say the word to help you learn correct pronunciation.
There are separate leaderboards for each level and each language selection, how many can you feature on?
But be careful, obstacles are scattered around the play area and any crash will result in damaging She Nian's health. If you crash three times you loose a life. Getting the wrong answer is an immediate loss of life.
From time to time bonus characters appear, but be quick you only have 30 seconds to find it and get the extra points. If you manage to frighten one of the hidden rats out of it's lair and catch it you'll get an extra life.
Register at www.monkeygrange.com to create your username.
We hope you enjoy our first game and have fun learning and practicing your Mandarin.
Please send any comments or feedback to padoyle@xlnglabs.com so that we can respond directly and don't forget to leave a review.
Have fun and try and beat the high score.