Today’s verb of the day: leer Translation: to read
“Leer” is beautifully irregular and exhibits 3 exceptions to the standard conjugation pattern:
1. The participle is “leído” therefore, composite times conjugate as follows Example: perfect past / pretérito perfecto yo he leído tú has leído él, ella, usted ha leído nosotros, nosotras hemos leído vosotros, vosotras habéis leído ellos, ellas, ustedes han leído
2. Simple past tenses conjugate with a “y” in the 3rd person yo leí tú leíste él, ella, usted leyó nosotros, nosotras leímos vosotros, vosotras leísteis ellos, ellas, ustedes leyeron
3. Based on the 3rd person simple past, the imperfect subjunctive is “leyera” leyera o leyese leyeras o leyeses leyera o leyese leyéramos o leyésemos leyerais o leyeseis leyeran o leyesen leyeras o leyeses
Today’s verb of the day: teatralizar Translation: to dramatise
“Teatralizar” is a straight forward verb to conjugate: follow the standard pattern and in those tenses, where the “-ar” ending changes to “-e” simply adapt the “z” and change it to a “c” to keep the sound the same.
Example: yo teatralizo (present tense) yo teatrilicé (simple past tense)
Alpha is ready. Unfortunately, due to some administrative hurdles, we’re not able to make it available to you today. We are working hard on dotting the i‘s and crossing the t‘s and will have it out to you as soon as practical.
In the meantime, we’re polishing the interface. To give you a feel of what it looks like now, here is the new home screen:
We’re very happy with our new wood textures. It gives it the friendly, rustic feel we’re aiming for. What do you think?
UPDATE: The game is life and you can download it here:
Whilst working hard on fixing the final bugs, the DOMA team indulged in a quick round of the board game Scrabble. Given we are working on a Spanish Verb Conjugation game, we chose the Spanish version which is called Intelect in Spain due to licensing laws.
My Spanish is not yet perfect, and I wanted to double check the spelling of the past subjunctive of “oír” (to hear). Our game allows you to search for verbs using the infinitive. There isn’t much I could spell incorrectly with “oír” – or so I thought. Still, the game didn’t find “oír”. We were flabbergasted. What had happened?
It turns out that the search insisted on the accent above the “í”!
What is the size of the issue?
Of our game’s over 3,600 verbs, there are only 9!
They have one thing in common: they have a hiatus. What is a hiatus?
Spanish has strong vowels and weak vowels. The“a”, “e” and “o” are strong vowels. The “i” and “u” are weak vowels. When a strong vowel and a weak vowel are combined they can either form a dipthong or a hiatus. In a dipthong, the vowels are combined to be pronounced as a single sound. In a hiatus, the vowels are pronounced separately. To indicate that the vowels should be pronounced separately – a hiatus – the weak vowel is accented. In the example “oír”, you pronounce it “o-ír”, and “reír” is pronounced “re-ír”.
The full list includes:
desleír
to dilute
desoír
to ignore
engreírse
to become conceited
entreoír
to half-hear
freír
to fry
oír
to hear
reír
to laugh
sofreír
to sauté
sonreír
to smile
This issue is now fixed. You can now search for “oír” by typing “oir”. However, once this issue was fixed, we realised there may be other potential, similar issues. Fortunately, there are no verbs with “ú”, but there is the “ñ” character. You may want to search by just typing “n”. And, guess what? We have 53 verb infinitives with the “ñ” character. So, we’ve fixed that issue too. You can now search for “bañar” by typing “banar”.
In other news: our new design is being applied as we speak and our first Alpha version should be released next week! Go team DOMA!
If you want to sign up for the Alpha version, email us at info@doma.games or enter your details into the early access form below.
What are you waiting for?
Sign up today!
UPDATE: The game is live and you can download it here:
Yes, you read that right: We only have two more bugs to fix before we can put it all together and show you how the Spanish Verb Conjugation game will play like!
We’re all set up to put in the graphics and make some videos, which you’ll be able to watch on our YouTube channel or on our Google PlayStore.
If you want to sign up to play it before the official release, use the subscription form or contact us directly on info@doma.games.
UPDATE: The game is live and you can download it here:
On our Spanish Verb Conjugation game, we have implemented a speed slider; so you set the speed of how fast the verbs move across the screen! We also added scroll buttons to the revision section; so, if you have more than 10 verbs to revise, you can scroll through them rather than having to pick them off one by one.
The settings section is also updated to make it easier to understand your options and choose between them.
Most importantly, we have added a section where you can review your progress and visualise your learning streaks. You’re in control of what you set as your goal and that is what you’ll be measured against – nothing more, nothing less. Get in touch to be on the early user list to try it out for yourself!
My favourite update though is that the first version of our mascot is ready. It’s Georgy, a little bull who is happy to see you and will smile when you get a word right.
What do you think?
UPDATE: The game is live and you can download it here:
First step in our journey to go public is to share our logo with the world. Here it is.
We wanted it to be colourful and show diversity whilst staying simple and being readable even at small size. It looks like blocks since all games should still be fun if you remove the graphics and use blocks as characters. If you think it’s a crazy idea, have you ever played Tetris?
After 2 long years of working towards starting a small, smart, indie games company, we have arrived! Yes, at long last, we have arrived at the start.
Our name, logo and purpose are agreed upon and we are ready to start making games. YEAH!
Now, being ready is great but that also means that the vast world of games to be made is now open to us and that is somewhat scary. What will be fun to play? Who to work with? How to publish our games? Will we like our own games? Where to start?
Let’s start at the beginning. We are a 2 person game making team with an eclectic mix of skills which complement, overlap and at times confront. Hardly any of the skills relate directly to making games which makes you think: how nuts are we exactly? We don’t know and we are sure to find out.
We hope you come along the journey and play our games, enjoy them or tell us what you want changed. Bring on the fun! And meaning… and purpose… and different ways to look at the world.