3D Language:Spain available for purchase

From the desk of Coccinella Development's mastermind David Dunlap:

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Coccinella Development, Inc. is proud to announce that our flagship product, 3DLanguage:Spain v0.8, is
now available for purchase through our website (click here).


Background:
3DLanguage has been a labor of love. I was working as an airline pilot and had the idea for 3DLanguage around 1999. I needed some help retaining my hard-won Italian language skills. The problem was that starting a software company seemed awfully risky. Then, on September 11th 2001, I was flying the only airplane from Boston to LA that didn't get hijacked. Let's just say that my ideas about risk-taking changed.

Doug Whetter, Jeff Gran, my wife Lori and I have been working on this for longer than I care to remember, and we feel we have something very special in 3DL. Our philosophy as a company is to try to over deliver and to really listen to the input and opinions of our customers. We have completed a series of rigorous market validation surveys and have interviewed over 100 language learners, teachers, and linguists. We will continue to listen to the input of our customers, and are excited that the first release of 3DLanguage will expose us to a much broader audience.

The Problem:
Our market validation survey uncovered three major sources of pain for language learners:
No place to practice
Stage fright
Let me learn my way

Our Solutions:
No place to practice
There is no good way to practice a language short of going to the country. We wanted to bridge the gap between existing software and materials (some of them quite good) and a visit to a country. We, as gamers, know the immersive power of a good game environment. And for our first release we tried to model a village in Spain as closely as possible I even went so far as to live in Sevilla for a time to gather ideas. Think of 3DL as a flight simulator for language.

Stage fright
The number one fear most people have is public speaking (death is a close second!) Our market validation subjects told us in no uncertain terms that the ability to practice in a safe environment was one of the major draws of 3DL. We give you an opportunity to close the door, shutter the windows, and make as many stupid mistakes as you need to before venturing out into the real world.

My way
We made 3DL extremely flexible and configurable. Our goal is to let you learn what you want to learn the way you want to learn it. That's why you can turn the phonetics on and off. That's why you can turn the characters or user dialog boxes off, or move the dialog box to different parts of the screen, or turn the walking speed up, etc. We want to give you the tools you need and then let you customize them.


Business model:
Our market research showed that when people make a commitment to learn a new language, they are making a commitment of time more than money. The average language student buys 4-5 products to help them master the language. (Interestingly, most of those products proclaim that they are "all you'll ever need!") We've designed 3DL to play well with other products, so if you have a book or a DVD or another piece of software, 3DL will be even more valuable to you.


Thoughts on pricing:
We've set the launch price of 3DLanguage artificially low. We want to get 3DL in the hands of early adopters quickly so that we can hear and respond to their feedback. We will also show our gratitude to the first thousand customers by giving them everything from this version all the way to version 2.0 for their initial $20 investment.

What to expect in the future:
We have some very cool stuff that will be released in the near future. First out of the gate will be metrics feedback (a record of your scores and progress). After that will come more dialogs, new stores, more animation, new characters, a schoolhouse mode, etc.
We are also thinking about opening our authoring tools to users so that they can create and sell dialogs through our web site (similar to the Garage Games' content model).
We want your opinion about all of the above!

Company culture:
We like our customers. No, really! Shocking I know, but we actually want to hear your opinions, complaints, and compliments. Do not hesitate to contact us by email or phone:
ddunlap@3dlanguage.net or 520.245.4879.

Be a part of the team:
If you feel you have something to contribute to Coccinella Development, whether it's language or programming related, contact us at the above numbers.

We would like to thank the Garage Game community for it's continued support! We'd also like to thank the many GG beta testers, I would like to personally thank Jeff Tunnell for telling me I'd be "an idiot" for using the Quake engine. And finally I'd like to thank Pat Gunderson; a GG member and our first paying customer. He was a Beta tester and a great booster! Pat, you're the man, Thanks!

Dave Dunlap
President
Coccinella Development, Inc.

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Happy New Year!