Gorod Slov

A Russian learning game I built for my girlfriend in one day, with phone audio, offline lessons, saved progress, and a room to decorate.

About Gorod Slov

I built my girlfriend a Russian learning game in one day

My girlfriend is learning Russian. I decided it was time to help her learn something other than swear words, so I spent a day building her a game.

It's called Gorod Slov, “City of Words.” All the art is AI-generated, and the whole thing runs in a browser. It opens in Thai, teaches everyday Russian, and gives her a little room to decorate as she gets through the lessons.

Gorod Slov on desktop and mobile, showing the illustrated town and Thai lesson interface.

Russian we can actually use

I started with things around us: a cat, a cup, a door, tea, food, shopping, going for a walk. There are six chapters and 30 missions, covering 114 words and short expressions. The vocabulary starts with people and home, then moves into ordering food, asking about prices, finding your way around, and talking about your day.

The instructions are in Thai because that's her first language. There's a Russian interface too, but understanding what a button does shouldn't be an extra lesson.

Each mission introduces a few words and then mixes reading, listening, and building an answer. Stress marks show where the emphasis belongs. The alphabet has its own section, with all 33 letters, examples, and pronunciation explanations.

Three mobile screenshots showing a Russian word card, a reading exercise and the Cyrillic alphabet.

The homework is deliberately personal. Ask Niko for tea. Point to something in the room and name it. Invite him for a walk. I wanted the words to leave the screen and end up in an actual conversation between us.

A cup for your room

The game sits inside a small illustrated town. Finish a mission and you get an item for your room: a lamp, a cup, a plant, or another small reward. There are 30 to collect, with space to display six at a time.

I liked the idea of seeing a room fill up with things connected to the lessons. A cup makes sense after learning words for the table. Tea for two makes sense after learning to ask for a drink.

Desktop and mobile screenshots of the decorated room and its collected rewards.

Words also return for review. Reading, listening, and building answers are tracked separately, and an answer revealed by a hint doesn't count as independent recall. Getting through a lesson and remembering it later are different things.

Her phone does the talking

The audio comes from the phone itself. Tap the speaker button to hear the Russian word, or use the slower playback button to hear it again at a gentler pace. It uses the device's available Russian voice for both words and example phrases.

I wanted her to be able to stop at one unfamiliar word and listen as many times as she needs. There's also a recording button, so she can say it herself and listen back. That recording stays in the current session.

Save the game, take it offline

There is a button in settings to save the game for offline use. It keeps the lessons, alphabet, and pictures on the phone and tells her when they are ready. After that, she can work through them without a connection. Russian voice availability and offline speech depend on the device.

Adding it to the home screen gives her a familiar place to open it again. Her progress saves automatically, and she can resume a lesson she left halfway through. There's also a downloadable backup that she can restore on a different phone or browser. The words she's practised and the things she's collected can come with her.

Screens from Gorod Slov showing Russian word audio, offline saving and progress backup controls.

It's all plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with no account to create. The same game works on desktop too.

One day, one first version

The one-day build gave me a working first version: lessons, an alphabet, review, rewards, and a way to keep progress. AI-generated art gave the town and room a look I wanted to spend time in, and keeping the app small made it possible to finish.

Now I have something made specifically for her. Her homework is asking me for tea in Russian. My part is making the tea.

Release history

Version 1.0.114 Oct 2026

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