Have you ever wanted to play a game that takes you away from the fast paced, money hungry 9-to-5 world that we live in? Well… here’s a game set in a fast paced, money hungry 9-to-5 company where you are at the helm. Imagine Pokémon but you can hire and fire your little companions at will if you don’t feel like paying them. The game also features colourful 8-bit sprites akin to Pokémon Silver and Gold acting as a loving homage to the genre, an “adventure” mode that essentially has you being tighter and tighter when it comes to starting salaries and even a Work-dex. Gotta hire them all!
Platforms and Language – 6/10
Workemon is free to download on both android and apples app stores. There are in-game purchases for money and energy as to be expected but there is no content adding DLC. The language can easily be set from the options menu and comes with 16 possible options.
Glossary
Usability – 8/10
Workemon is an effective game for studying for many reasons, the predominant one being that it is set predominantly in a grounded and relatable setting. The vast majority of us has had a job at one point or will do in the future. As such vocabulary based around salaries, the hiring process and company terminology will come in useful in day to day life. Luckily, there is still the outlandish style and character that will keep you engaged and coming back for more but this serves as more than just comic relief, it serves as added variety to the language and scenarios.
First things first, what is a company without its employees. You, as the goldens spoon’s new CEO, must interact with job seekers throughout the land and coax them into working for you. For this you’ll be brought into a fight screen with multiple displays for your actions and the results of them. Here you can see the headers for important aspects throughout the fight and the rest of the game. You also have a selection of skills with descriptions of what they are and what they do. These fights are relatively brief but can hold a lot of useful vocabulary. Due to the high rotation of staff and need to unlock more Workemon it is well worth learning the vocab from these events as you’ll be revisiting and revising the words frequently.
Once hired (or captured, realistically) each Workemon will have a breakdown of their parameters, individual characters and stats. This changes between Workemon, even of the same type, so you can be sure to find a variety of personalities to read through, each of which will have a direct influence on the gameplay. Below this, each type of Workemon will also have a scathing description of their reason for being unable to get a job. These descriptions are possibly my favourite aspect of the game as, much like Pokédex entries, they hold the bulk of interesting vocabulary. Entries like this are the stories of the game in my opinion. Language here will be less instructive or simple and tends to need a bit of deciphering in order to get the humour behind it.
The moment to moment gameplay of Workemon is a clicker game that runs in weekly and monthly cycles until each year is complete. As the end of each month comes about you will receive a monthly report from your secretary and one of many humorous achievements with a funny snapshot representing your peformance. Each month comes with scenarios based around the seasons and weather as well as interactions with your staff should they have any grievances against you. Managing your team against these altercations requires you to read, understand and resolve multiple issues without missing a beat.
In order to better improve your management skills you have all manner of tools in your room. Here you have your secretary who will offer advice and support, your collections of items with their individual effects and the company menu where you can use your hard earn skill points. All of these menus have plenty of reading material and if utilized correctly can also make your gameplay less intense. The tools in particular, although they break frequently, can help you earn more money per month meaning. My recommendation above all else is to advance through the adventure as a priority in order to unlock some additional features and get yourself more access to dex entries and stores. Areas like the gym and the department store come with beneficial features but also their own vocabulary and with each being a real life setting it adds to the useful terms and phrases you can learn.
One aspect of Workemon that works against an environment of study is that the day to day requirements progress so quickly and your actual company progresses so slowly. The early stages of this game require a lot of your input in order to earn and save enough money to progress anywhere. The goal and overall incentive to reach the late stages of the game is to find more affordable Workemon, negating the need to put so much of your effort in. This is in keeping with the company-centric growth but trying to read when days only last a few seconds can get a little stressful. If you need to there is a pause feature that allows you to review any of the menus for as long as you need, which being honest, if the game didn’t have this feature I probably wouldn’t recommend it for learning at all. Even with this pause feature the games readable content only starts to get vast once you have made it through a lot of the adventure locations so I would argue that balance and self control is key here to ensure you don’t slip into muscle memory play.
All in all, I’ve really enjoyed my time with Workemon. It’s been my commuting game for a few months now and using and thinking in the terms I’ve learnt from Workemon exclusively has proven infinitely useful in the office. It’s one of the harder games to play and study so the pause button is an absolute must if you actually want to sit down and take in language however if you just want to play and brush up or passively take in words and kanji then it’ll definitely help. I think this is an interesting take on what has already been perfected so for a nostalgic person like me, especially an office worker, I can find very few faults.
Challenges and Methods – 7/10
The Workedex
By far the most extensive aspect of the game is the Workedex. As stated above this comes with a descriptive breakdown of each Workemon’s reason for not having a job and even why they look and act the way they do. This normally comes with a comedic punch or a low blow to the unemployed youth of today. When I come across data entries like this the challenge that always comes to mind and has proven effective for me is to read through the dex entry until I find a word I don’t know, look it up, start again and repeat. This method works well as you retain the word while you read, encouraging multiple layers of thinking and adds emotional weight for the more progress you make.
If you want to make the challenge harder then do the same for multiple dex entries. In total there are 151 Workemon to read through (about half are repeat entries) so as you unlock more you can restart the challenge and see how much vocab you’ve maintained. The same method can be used for the tools menu but you’ll find this is significantly easier as almost all entries are 3-4 lines and use much more similar vocabulary.
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