How Kanji Fortress teaches Japanese
Kanji Fortress is a tower-defence game in which the troops you fight with are earned by answering Japanese questions. This guide explains how the study side works, what the game asks of you each day, and what you can play without an account, so you can decide whether it suits the way you learn.
Questions earn your army
Before each wave of enemies, you answer questions. Every right answer earns a unit, and the kind of question decides the kind of unit:
| Track | Unit | What you answer |
|---|---|---|
| Kanji Dojo | Archers | Readings, meanings and writing: pick the kanji read 「か」, or the reading of 山 |
| Grammar Castle | Walls | Fill the gap, put a sentence in order, choose the right particle |
| Listening Tower | Traps | Listen to spoken Japanese and choose what was said |
| Reading Aloud | Heroes | Read a sentence aloud, and the game checks your pronunciation |
Answer quickly and the unit arrives reinforced, stronger than usual. Then you place your troops along the road, start the wave and hold the castle.
Spaced repetition decides what comes back
Every kanji and grammar point you meet goes into a spaced-repetition schedule. Each time you answer an item correctly, the gap before it comes back grows: a few hours at first, then days, weeks, and eventually months. Miss it and it drops back a couple of steps, so you see it again sooner.
Two details keep the schedule honest. Reviewing an item before it is due doesn't move it forward, so drilling the same few kanji won't make them look learnt. And a review tries not to ask about an item in the same way as last time, so you learn the kanji rather than one question about it.
Due items turn up both in battle and in your daily study, so wherever you play, the game brings things back just before you would forget them.
Lessons teach before they test
Lessons are an ordered course of kanji and grammar sets. You see each item taught before you are asked about it. A kanji card gives the meanings, readings and stroke order, plus example words, a mnemonic and a "Don't confuse with" list of look-alikes where the kanji has them. Grammar lessons explain each point with examples, in English or Japanese.
There is also a dictionary, where you can look up any kanji or grammar point with examples and mnemonics. In all, the game covers 2,457 kanji and 947 grammar points across every JLPT level from N5 to N1. The kanji and grammar pages on this site, starting with the N5 kanji and N5 grammar, come from the same study data.
Today's Study: a short daily session
Today's Study is a short daily session made of the reviews that are due and a few new items. You choose how many new items you get each day in Settings, so the session can stay small during a busy week. You also pick a daily goal, from Ashigaru (足軽, foot soldier) up to Shōgun (将軍).
The Progress screen shows your beacon, upcoming reviews, mastery by level and your accuracy over time.
Combos reward accuracy
Right answers in a row build a combo. Three in a row starts one, and a longer run raises it further, increasing the XP each answer earns. A wrong answer doesn't wipe the combo out. It cools by one step, so one hard item never costs you the whole run. In battle, your combo also powers Fury, a damage bonus for your units.
The beacon: a daily streak that forgives
The beacon (狼煙, のろし, a signal fire) is the game's name for its daily streak. You light it each day with a little practice, and any practice counts: a lesson, a review, Today's Study or a battle. A lantern on the watchtower in your fortress town glows once today's beacon is lit.
A missed day doesn't have to put it out:
- An omamori charm (お守り) guards your beacon through a missed day.
- After a short gap, you can rise again (七転び八起き, "fall seven times, get up eight") by practising twice your daily goal, or by paying coins.
- You can choose a weekly festival day (祭りの日), on which the beacon keeps burning whether you practise or not.
Once a week you can also make a daruma vow to practise on four, five or seven days. Making the vow paints one eye of a daruma doll, and keeping it paints the other and pays coins. Nothing is staked: a vow you don't keep simply lapses.
Darumascot, the game's mascot, will nudge you when the beacon needs lighting, but it doesn't nag once you have practised for the day.
Coins and the fortress town
Practice earns XP and coins. Coins buy upgrades and cosmetics at the Market in your fortress town, and a supply cart delivers something each day you light the beacon. There are also weekly edicts (高札) to complete and a campaign with ranks to climb. Coins are earned only by playing and studying; nothing in the game is sold for real money.
Five worlds
The battles take place across five worlds: Beginner Forest (初級の森), Vocabulary River (語彙の河), Grammar Mountain (文法の山), Reading Castle (読解の城) and Kanji Storm (漢字の嵐).
Playing free, and what an account adds
You can play the first world, Beginner Forest, free, without creating an account. Free play saves your progress on the device you are playing on, and the other four worlds need an account.
An account keeps your progress across devices, so you can study on your phone and pick up the same reviews on a laptop. To get one, you sign up with your email address and verify it. Requests are approved by the Kanji Fortress team, and once yours is approved you can sign in on any device and your progress follows you.
What it doesn't do
Kanji Fortress is a practice tool, not a complete course. It won't replace reading real Japanese or talking with people, and Reading Aloud checks your pronunciation of a given sentence rather than holding a conversation. It works best alongside a textbook or a class, as the place where your daily reviews get done. If you want a plan for the first kanji, the six-week N5 plan works with or without the game.