The world's first Aboriginal Australian-language video game is being developed in a bid to preserve traditional language and culture.
The endless runner game is titled Tjinari, meaning "someone always on the go" in the Western Desert language Ngaanyatjarra.
"It's very important to make sure that our young people continue to speak our languages because all languages are important," Ngaanyatjarra linguist Elizabeth Marrkilyi Ellis told 666 ABC Canberra's Drive program.
"So we're hoping with this new game app that we're working on, we'll bring some of the old words back into circulation."
The game is being created by a team of linguists, artists and programmers from the Australian National University (ANU) and ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL).
"Kids in remote communities have all got mobile phones, they're playing games, but all of those games are in English," linguistic anthropologist Dr Inge Kral said.
"We [wanted] to develop a game that's about fun — not didactic, not language teaching, but about fun."
Ngaanyatjarra students provide game voiceovers
The star character in the game must find the correct plant to give to a traditional healer to save the life of a young girl, facing many obstacles and giant animals along the way.
The entire game is spoken in Ngaanyatjarra and features the voices of students from Warakurna Campus of Ngaanyatjarra Lands School in Western Australia.
"We have recorded the children's voices for the game so when they go to play the game, it will be their own voice or a friend's voice that gives the warning 'palayi', meaning 'watch out'," Ms Ellis said.
"And when they successfully complete a task or navigate the obstacle they will hear their own voice saying 'walykumunun' meaning 'excellent'."
Western Desert flora and fauna provide backdrop
The game is set in Western Desert landscapes — from creek lands and woodlands to spinifex plains and mulga scrub.
"Within those landscapes you have certain flora and fauna that are peculiar to those areas," Ms Ellis said.
"The flora and the fauna are in the game so the children are learning the words for the habitats and the animals.
"A lot of the animals are extinct now ... so we are using the words so the children will be able to say the words of those animals that they haven't seen.
Leading the way for other Indigenous languages
The game is being developed for mobile and tablet play.
"It will be open source ... and it will be an open template that other Indigenous languages in Australia and potentially overseas can use," Dr Kral said.
"We're hoping that the concept will take off.
"Ancient languages can transfer into this modern environment; it's not something that's just for English."