Animal Mystery

Updated November 2022 - let me know if there are any problems.

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About

The aim of this game is to help students learn English - specifically ESL (English as a second language).

This game is useful for practicing animal related words and phrases. While it is good to know the words for animals, it is not really all that useful in everyday life. So I wanted to make a game with animals that was more constructive and actually practiced making phrases. At the same time, I wanted to make a game that could practice basic verbs question forms such as 'how many', 'is it', 'can it' and so on. Animals and animal guessing gives a context in which using these verb phrases can be meaningful. The general idea is that you have to guess the mystery animal. In order to do you must narrow down the possible choices by asking questions which, hopefully, provides context and meaning for the question phrases.

The object of the game is to guess the eight hidden animals that are presented, one at a time, behind a question mark. Possible animals are display above the mystery box and are eliminated as questions are asked. The user can guess which animal it could be at any time by making a "I guess .... " phrase.

Some of the items may seem a bit ambiguous or strange; it is quite hard to think of enough forms that can be used to describe a range of animals. This is why there are questions about dragons eating meat and other such things that may not be immediately obvious. At the same time, sorry if there are any answers that are wrong or probably wrong - dolphins eating fish and so on.

I hope that this game can be useful practice for forming questions with matching of question words and auxiliaries. At the same time, hopefully it will re-enforce the meanings of the forms through practising them in a contextual way. While vocabulary for animals may not be the most useful for everyday life, constructing basic question forms is a lot more applicable.

The background image was drawn on the basis of a photo I took in the mountains in the south of China, with a few other Chinese type elements added in to make it look more interesting. It was supposed to be quite China themed with the long wall and Chinese style roof; I really hope it looks appealing.

This game should work on mobiles and tablets but please leave a comment if it does not do so. And please leave any comments on what you think or if there is anything that could be improved