XPLingo - Play Your Language is a
start-up in its very early stage founded by Ingo Ehrle and Jose Freitas. In early 2014, Ingo Ehrle, a business developer who
had worked for six years in Barcelona building up a subsidiary for a German
software company, was looking for a technical co-founder to start a business in
language learning.
Passionate about languages, Ingo met Jose Freitas who was jumping
to a new life from Brazil to Germany to open an indie game company. At that
point, they spent a lot of time talking about language learning and adventure
games, realizing that they shared the same beliefs.
In spring 2014, Jose and Ingo joined forces to work
on the XPLingo - Play Your Language project, targeting people who
learn a foreign language for passion – people who fall in love with a country as
they travel there for the very first time, or want to connect with locals, or
this language just sounds so damn good to them that they want to speak it.
Believing in the power that storytelling and fun
experiences can have on one’s motivation to learn a new language, XPLingo
was created to bring your country of choice directly to your mobile device and
learn the language though playing and involvement.
Starting with Spanish, with more languages to be
added soon, Play Your Language immerses players in an interactive
adventure story abroad, creating moments which one could only experience while
being in the respective country.
Ever
wondered where the Camino de Santiago starts? Learning Spanish with XPLingo
will bring you to the Camino de Santiago where you will meet the mayor of a
little village in the Pyrenees.
The
Game Layer
Here is where your country experience will take
place: you will walk through different scenes (for example in the old town of
Barcelona), discover new objects, take items that matter to
you because you need them so that the story can go on, and talk to
other characters.
The Small Antiques Shop
The
sun is almost gone outside, but it still fights to throw its last rays through
a wooden window into the antiques shop, lighting up the dust that has not yet
found its place on one of the thousand objects that Francisco keeps in his
shop. Francisco wants you to solve a mystery on the Camino de Santiago. He
gives you a mysterious object that he holds for years in a locked glass vitrine
in his shop, on a dark piece of cloth…
The Mysterious Music Box
This
mysterious object, known as “Las Tres Puertas” (“The Three Doors”), is an
antique Music Box with three sealed doors that can give mysterious powers to
whomever can open all three of its doors. The indications are that the keys to
these doors can be found on the “Camino de Santiago”.
The
Help Layer
Whenever you need help in understanding what is
being said in the story: just click on the word and the help layer will come
up. You will not leave the game, it is just a quick help so that you can keep
going with the story you are in and the experience you are having.
