Abel García Plaza:

Machaira:

Game development boards (the place where most people find coders and artists) usually don't have translators.

Well, then that's a bad thing that should be corrected by the game development industry ;-) Developing a game is more than coding it...

This isn't the game industry, that's the problem. We're talking indies here. It's not something that can be corrected. It's just the way it is.

Abel García Plaza:

Machaira:

Usually translators are only paid to provide the translation, they don't usually get a copy of the game nor get paid to do testing.

Yet another error that might be corrected. I just understand the Oblivion case... :D

I don't think that's something that should be corrected. It's two separate things.

Personally as an indie, I wouldn't worry about this until Microsoft or a publisher has shown interest in the game AND wants to release it globally. I might try to keep text out of the game in a config file, but I don't see the benefit of the extra work until its actually "signed".

my .02

Machaira:

This isn't the game industry, that's the problem. We're talking indies here. It's not something that can be corrected. It's just the way it is.

I thought you were talking about game development, in general, not only here. Anyway, there should be indie translators too. And, yes, I think it can be corrected. For example, if anyone knows people who can and want to help others by translating their work, he could say that people "hey, enter here!, there are many people you can help!". As an advertisement said, "impossible is nothing" :D

Machaira:

I don't think that's something that should be corrected. It's two separate things.

Really? There are also enterprises in which marketing people only know how marketing works. They sell unfeasible things because they don't know how the product is made (for example, they aren't developers) and have no communication with technical people. The latter haven't got decission capabilities on the marketing area. After all, they're two separate things. On the other hand, there are enterprises in which marketing areas have technical people selling the product and, curiously, they usually work better than the first ones ;-)

Knertified:

Personally as an indie, I wouldn't worry about this until Microsoft or a publisher has shown interest in the game AND wants to release it globally. I might try to keep text out of the game in a config file, but I don't see the benefit of the extra work until its actually "signed".

my .02

For me it's knowing that I've made a better experience for the user. My current game idea only has text for a couple of menus and a tutorial level, so it should be easy to get translated. Others (RPG makers for instance) aren't quite so lucky.

Knertified:

I wouldn't worry about this until Microsoft or a publisher has shown interest in the game AND wants to release it globally.

As far as I know, Xbox Live! Community Games will be released gobally.

Knertified:

I don't see the benefit of the extra work until its actually "signed".

What did you mean with "signed"?

Signed as in a contract has been given to you and you have signed it.

Like I said, this is just how i see it. I see both sides of the point being made. This is just personally how I feel. I think companies are ran the same way in the USA. Start nationally first, then go global if it works out. Maybe its just the way we all think :)

I personally plan for my game to have as much multilanguage support as possible.

As a result I plan for all of my displays to be intuitive images (Like, for example, so people in Iseal or other cultures who read numbers and text right to left, instead of using a number based timer, I'm using a piechart based timer). Also, the tutorials will be "intuitive" real time movies (I.E, instead of just showing text for how to do something and having the player do it, it will show the game doing it and the button presses it's doing. There will be text to explain it, but it will be minimal and not required for the game to be understood).

There will be a story mode, but that will be handled with text as concise as possible, with as few characters as possible (also, the most attention given to only a few characters, if done right, will give the best character developement).

JohnWestMinor:

so people in Iseal or other cultures who read numbers and text right to left, instead of using a number based timer, I'm using a piechart based timer.

Hmm... what a good idea!

JohnWestMinor:

the tutorials will be "intuitive" real time movies (I.E, instead of just showing text for how to do something and having the player do it, it will show the game doing it and the button presses it's doing).

Walaber's Gymnast implements the same idea. I think it's very useful and, as you said, reduces the amount of text to be read (and localized) while incrementing the expresivity.

As unfortunate as it is, many people mathematically minded enough (at least in the Indie sect) to do well in programming aren't as well read as they should be to understand some simple writing principles that apply to programming (y'know, the whole "engineers suck at language" thing that people always say).

The most simple of these is: Show, don't tell.


This, in programming and game design in general, is a good piece of advice to follow. As you said, it makes tutorials more expressive. Also, if people can gain information on the fly (piechart timer, for example), they're likely to enjoy the game much more than if they have to read and comprehend something (a paragraph on the state of the character would be bad, as opposed to just showing a picture of where the character is injured).

A couple of others are:

Be as concise as possible (I.E, simple HUDs. Making sure the player doesn't feel cramped by stuff that could be more efficiently done)

And

The story matters little if the characters aren't well done (In a gameplay based game, this means the mechanics. The game Chrono Trigger, for example, isn't as good as it is with the music by a long shot. Another example is the Devil May Cry series. On 1,3, and 4 the camera angles were done supremely and added to the feel of the game).

If programmers do their best to take these things into account, many things, including localization, will be much easier to implement.

I thought I would just chime in quickly to explain how I got the translations for Gymnast.  I posted about the game on a physics games enthusiast forum (fun-motion.com), and got lots of feedback on the game, and created many fans of the game there.  Later I asked for translations, and it turned out that there were many users interested in helping (and ALL of them came from that forum).

Because they liked my game, they were much more willing to help out.  Although I have no way of verifying the quality of their work, I think it's better than nothing.  Anyway, looking to fans of your game is definitely a good way to find people willing to spend time to make the game better.

JohnWestMinor:

If programmers do their best to take these things into account, many things, including localization, will be much easier to implement.

Agreed.

Walaber:

Although I have no way of verifying the quality of their work, I think it's better than nothing.

Agreed too, BUT if you provide a way for setting the English texts (as you did in Gymnast)  if the player don't like the translated ones, for any reason.

newclyusinju:

I plan taking a strict approach to localizable assets & making sure all text is organised & read from an excel sheet (probably put a VBA macro button in their to write out the data to language specific text files before running a buildprocessor on the files to create the final localized string banks..) This should keep the process relatively clean & it also means that all text translation can be done remotely (by even multiple sources) without any requirement of the engine's source assets..

Hey newclyusinju,

what you describe here is exactly what I need to do for a multi-language learning game I've been contracted into to make, it will consist of 10 mini games that teach kids vocab and grammer in 4-5 european languages. I have all the translators and they are all ready translating text for the games, and have been doing so long before I was brought in to code it. I just don't have the foggyist how to do what you described above. Is there any tutorials on that excel approach, preferably C#/XNA. I really need to get this framework in place before I can get going with all the game logic and scoring system and other fun stuff.

Cheers,

Mark.

www.markdunne.info