I have a nasty sinking feeling.

The intro for my game features a building in the EU with little phrases popping out of it

"Oui"
"Si"

and a few others.

Each one has a flag beside it showing the country that is supposed to be chattering.

The words do not need to be understood by the viewer, its supposed to be just a bit odd.

I was planning on providing a list when I put it in for review, of every foreign language word/phrase, its country of origin and meaning.
(the list would be about 10 items long)

based on this > http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/36495.aspx?PageIndex=6 it looks like I will need to rejiggle things. (I am at work, so I can't chuck a version up for playtest right now)

(The game is Flite if anyone remembers it)

The game is only in english, but with a few non-english words in it (with flags beside them)

Anyone have any thoughts (mods, if you feel this is an unneccessary dupe, I will understand a lock being slapped on this)

Cheers

J.

Kathleen has laid down the law. It doesn't matter what the reason is, any language used in a game must declare that language. I guess you should note where the languages are used for those speakers so they know exactly what to look for.

Ok, I will go have a look over the weekend, I will have a ponder and look through its use of foreign languages
(I appreciate the need for firm guidelines)

Thanks for the reply, this thread is now fini.

J.

ps. have a nice weekend all.

Got a question... more likely this developer will change or remove those foreign words in order to avoid declaring that his game has more than one language. Now, could he replace those words with made up words that are not real words at all? Could he a go a step further and do something like Simlish? Could any of those changes be failed? I'm just curious as to what the developer's options would be. Yeah, yeah I know, edge case, but here's a perfect example of a real developer who has a real concern.

Tommy McClain

Hrmm... this makes me consider getting rid of the VERY sparse amounts of German in my game's cutscenes. It seems like this would confuse reviewers though, having a game marked English and German, but then the German reviewers not finding any german (the first sign of German happens about halfway through the game, after someone has likely been playing over an hour) they may mark the game as not supporting the languages they claim.

I would be happy with simlish or similar in audio or writing. As long as nobody in the world can be offended then you are fine.

Joopsy:

Ok, I will go have a look over the weekend, I will have a ponder and look through its use of foreign languages
(I appreciate the need for firm guidelines)

Hi,

be careful to one other "little" thing: the sole EU languages allowed are: Spanish, French, German, Italian and English. You cannot use any other language in your game because that would produce an automatic fail. I don't know what you are doing, but those 5 languages do not represent the EU, not even close, so you need to ponder this.

Cheers,
Pino

AzBat360:

Got a question... more likely this developer will change or remove those foreign words in order to avoid declaring that his game has more than one language. Now, could he replace those words with made up words that are not real words at all? Could he a go a step further and do something like Simlish? Could any of those changes be failed? I'm just curious as to what the developer's options would be. Yeah, yeah I know, edge case, but here's a perfect example of a real developer who has a real concern.

Hi,

this matter is discussed also in the Japanese forum right now, and I do agree with the more cautious position which is the fallowing. To invent a language is not that simple. Just take these example:

Kagato in Japanese means "heel", but in Italian means "defecated", but it makes no sense at all to an English speaker.
Sorca in Irish is a female first name (standing for Sarah), but in Italian means two things: 1) female rat and 2) slang for the female genitalia, still it makes no sense at all to any English speaker.

Therefore you could easily "invent" those words, so offending an Italian and puzzling a Japanese and an Irish.

Problem is that you (or me) cannot afford a team to work on a systematic fictional language to avoid words having actual meaning in some language (or at least the languages spoken in the LIVE countries).

So I will fail such a language because I cannot tell how many people would be possibly offended.

Cheers,
Pino

Yes avoid using roman/latin characters randomly...  but Simlish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simlish doesn't do that... its probably a lot of toubel to go to the lengths they did but possible.

How many languages do you speak Pino?

Thanks Zman & PinoEire for the responses. I was mainly concerned about made-up gibberish language not something based on an existing language, but that does bring up a great point. If it even looks like it's based on a real language I could see that being failed. I can also see how fictional languages like Elvish or Klingon could be failed for too. Interesting stuff.

Tommy McClain

The ZMan:

Yes avoid using roman/latin characters randomly...  but Simlish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simlish doesn't do that... its probably a lot of toubel to go to the lengths they did but possible.

Yep, I know that language because I have to hear it every day here (family members Sims, Sims2 and Sims3 addict!) but that was developed by a multilingual team, people working hard to get that result (excellent result if you ask me). That's why I sayd that we cannot afford to do that... is out of range for any indie wallet ;)

The ZMan:

How many languages do you speak Pino?

Well, in my opinion I barely speak my own language, Italian :) Because I do have a way with classic studies and languages I've learned to communicate in Latin and some proper Doric Greek when I was in high school. That, along with French and German as school subjects for five years, pushed me to this love for languages. The cases of life made me learn to communicate in Japanese many decades ago, I never let down French (I've been a few years IT Director in France) and Spanish (which I lernt along the way working closely with Spanish people). My studies about religions and magic brought me in years of study of ancient Hebrew and obviously some Aramaic. I do read Portuguese but I'm unable to speak it because I could never actually use it to communicate. My Doric Greek studies (back in the '70s) brought me to learn some Russian too, and the knowledge of those (and Latin) made me able to understand basic Romanian. Ops... I forgot to mention English here :) Well I'm in Ireland so I'm learning Irish too :)

So... how many? I don't actually know because once you got properly Latin, Greek and Italian all the other come to you very easily... actually you start to see the common structures and what happens is that a new language will also improve the knowledge of the ones you know already. At any rate, the only languages I'm comfortable with are those I need everyday to communicate, so they are just Italian, English, French and Spanish. Which one I actually know very well? None... barely Italian ;)

Cheers,
Pino

OT:

Andy,

answering to your previous question made recall something, an anecdote that can explain why I’m not comfortable with languages I don’t use every day:

A few years ago, in Ennis, I was with my family at the post office. A German man approached me asking for some info about how to send a parcel, this speaking German. I answered “I’m very sorry, but I don’t speak German. If you go to the Customer Service Desk you’ll find leaflets explaining that also in German”. Then to my wife: “Pity that I’m no more able to communicate in German”.

The man stared at me quite puzzled and went to the Customer Service Desk, still looking back to me, staring in a strange way. I noticed that my wife and my children were staring at me the very same way… My wife asked me: “Pino, do you realize that you spoke in German to the man?” Ops! NO! I didn’t… Recalling that episode today I’m still quite positive that I addressed the man in English!

Cheers,
Pino

I see a problem with these interpretations. Text and speech are not the only mode of conveyance of ideas, words, or phrases. How many people know which hand signals are offensive to which cultures? What about pictorial symbols? Even more directly sign language can be converted directly to other languages. It's a minefield of potential offenses just moving my arm!

Indeed there is, if you see an animation that offends then feel free to fail it just like you always have been.

I hear that some numbers are bad luck in some cultures, and also some animals... so make sure to avoid nubmers and animals too.

Stegersaurus Games:

I see a problem with these interpretations. Text and speech are not the only mode of conveyance of ideas, words, or phrases. How many people know which hand signals are offensive to which cultures? What about pictorial symbols? Even more directly sign language can be converted directly to other languages. It's a minefield of potential offenses just moving my arm!

Not quite ;)

as I wrote above our main concern should be the countries covered by XBLIG, so those are well represented through the languages (in %). The body language among those countries is almost the same and the reviewers can understand it. Not quite the same for spoken communications: try to say curva out loud in Italy, Spain, Brazil, Portugal... it means "bend"... so people will stare at you not understanding why you say that. Try the same sound in Poland... it means "whore"... better run!!!

Cheers,
Pino

The ZMan:

I hear that some numbers are bad luck in some cultures, and also some animals... so make sure to avoid nubmers and animals too.

Kissy Poo will never make it through review due to pink monkies...

Offending is not, in itself, a reason to fail. Look at the "mature language" section of the rules. It has to be more than moderately offensive to be a fail reason, as long as it's marked up for mature language.

Also, this sentence cracked me up: "As long as nobody in the world can be offended then you are fine."

It is not possible to create anything that won't offend at least a few people in the world. However, that's OK -- as human beings, we do not generally have a right to never be offended. Microsoft tightens down on this a bit, and says that things that are likely to be more than moderately offensive should be screened out through peer review. What, exactly, "offensive" means is still not defined (and please, please, let's not whine until they are forced to define it, because neither you nor me will like the definition, as it will be the narrowest intersection of all possible prejudice that a lawyer can dream up).

Note that proper nouns (names of persons and places) have generally been said to be OK, from a "foreign language" point of view, as well as borrowed words that are now part of the language proper. For example, "Chez Panisse" is a great restaurant in Berkeley (here, a proper name), and "laissez-faire" is one way of approaching market economics (or child rearing). Both are French derived, but could appear without ticking the French checkbox, because they can be found in a US English directory of restaurants, or a US English dictionary. As long as the name and person are credible for the setting, that is -- no making up new, novel or non-mainstream names!
(If you use the name of proper businesses, you have to be careful of IP infringement though.)

Finally, let me say that it's too bad that a few apples have totally poisoned the well when it comes to language use. I will not mention names. However, the rules are now much stricter than they might have had to be, because a few developers have chosen to argue in the extreme rather than to just follow common sense and (not so subtle) hints. While it might have felt good to make an argument at the time, I'm sure the end result is not what those well-poisoners were actually going for. Hopefully, we can all learn from this!

Stegersaurus Games:

Kissy Poo will never make it through review due to pink monkies...

You realize that Kissy Poo uses both the word "poo" (highly offensive to anyone allergic to ***) as well as "kiss" (highly offensive to anyone too prim for casual human contact), right? I'm preparing to shoot it down when it hits playtest, for sure. It's corrupting our children, I tell you! Think of the children! Won't anyone think of the children?

jwatte:

Finally, let me say that it's too bad that a few apples have totally poisoned the well when it comes to language use. I will not mention names. However, the rules are now much stricter than they might have had to be, because a few developers have chosen to argue in the extreme rather than to just follow common sense and (not so subtle) hints.

I'm pretty sure I'm not on the list :)

I have just reread heated discussion preceding cookiecups's comment. Actually, the page of history began and ended while I was sleeping.

In retrospect, we could have spent more time discussing definition of an unmixed language for each supported language. Of course, it would
require speakers of each. By doing so, we could have avoided letting speakers of language A decide, based on their cultural mindset,
 what it takes to be purely foreign words for language B.

I'm really confused as to why this thread is still going. The rules were clarified: If you use any amount of a language in your game, you must claim that language. If you cannot claim a language, you cannot include it in your game. This is very simple.

Nick Gravelyn:

I'm really confused as to why this thread is still going. The rules were clarified: If you use any amount of a language in your game, you must claim that language. If you cannot claim a language, you cannot include it in your game. This is very simple.

That's correct... partly :) AFAIK we are skipping mixed language games waiting for Andy (& C.) to lay down the definition of "if properly handled" given by Kathleen. We have been invited not to pass/fail such games till the Language FAQs are updated.

Cheers,
Pino

There's no reason to skip them. Kathleen's answer is perfectly clear. Updating the FAQ has nothing to do with it. The answer about languages has been given. End of story.

Jim Perry:

There's no reason to skip them. Kathleen's answer is perfectly clear. Updating the FAQ has nothing to do with it. The answer about languages has been given. End of story.

Jim,

Kathleen wrote that mixing language is ok as far as is properly handled: will the meaning of this be decided by each reviewer without any guideline? I'll be passing games that other creators will fail and vice versa. Without any guideline about that we'll have a lot of arguments among people passing/failing about this, each of them having their own POV about the meaning of "properly handled".

This is the final word from Kathleen:

"All Xbox LIVE Indie Game creators have the ability to publish multiple/mixed language games. When you submit these games you must declare all the languages in the game. No matter how many words or how common you think the word(s) is -- it must be declared when submitted for Peer Review."