Localization of the game Vikings: War of Clans
The success of any game depends on many parameters: bright and catchy graphics, user-friendly interface, interesting plot, thoughtful balance. If the developer plans to submit his project to the markets of other countries, then it is worth thinking about localization, which must be of high quality, otherwise the application will only alienate potential users.
Initially, the project Vikings: War of Clans was developed in Russian, and then translated into English, which, in turn, became the basis for other translations. Today, our game is available in six European and two Asian languages: Russian, English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Korean, and Japanese, but we are not going to stop at this and we are planning to increase the number of languages in the game over time.
The localization department was created in the Krasnodar studio Plarium from scratch. Initially, it numbered only a few people, but then expanded to a full-fledged department. Localization for us was a completely unexplored area, so first of all we plunged into the study of its subtleties that are applicable in game dev. We were interested in the organization and storage of documents, quality control of translations, the choice of fonts for texts and much more.
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The next task was the formation of a team of translators and proofreaders (proofreaders). These requirements are:
Based on the above criteria, suitable candidates are selected. After the successfully completed test task, an online interview is held, during which the working conditions are discussed, the human qualities of the applicant are evaluated: teamwork, sociability, reaction to criticism, and so on. After that, the final decision is made to continue cooperation with the translator.
The longest we were looking for were Japanese originators. For some reason, the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun reluctantly responded to the vacancy, and the Korean translators, on the contrary, pleased us with active answers to the job offers sent out.
Of course, it is not always easy to manage a large multinational team, but it is a great pleasure to communicate and work with people from many countries with different cultural backgrounds. We try to protect ourselves as much as possible from force majeure situations, so we prescribe in detail the tasks for each specialist and provide all possible information on the project:
True, it is not always possible to avoid unforeseen circumstances, sometimes quite funny ones. It is remembered that one day our proprietor did not send the document within the stipulated time. He came closer to the next day’s dinner, and to the question: “Where are the texts?” - we received an unexpected answer: “I’ve been lost”. The guy said that he went to a new huge park for a run and barely found his way back. They asked him not to run there anymore.
There are many nuances in the work on localization in the gaming industry: the translation should be aware of the limitations on the number of characters in the text fields, tooltips and buttons. Not all windows of the game have scrolls or additional lines. Despite the fact that the interface is designed with a margin for texts, sometimes translators sometimes have a hard time - sometimes the text needs to be shortened and be able to convey its original meaning.
After translating a specific text array, it is imperative to conduct localization testing: check whether the texts are displayed correctly on various devices, do not go beyond the limits assigned to them, whether their contents correspond to this window, whether untranslated elements remain and much more.
In the example below, the testing of the German localization showed that the text for the window combining stones and runes “Nicht genügend Edelsteine / Runen zum Verschmelzen” did not fit into the allotted field. Then we replaced it with “Nicht genügend Edelsteine oder Runen”.
Here is another example: in the French locale, the original name of the external map of Carte du Monde went beyond the button. As a result, we had to omit the preposition du and leave the name Carte Monde.
In such situations, we try to rephrase the text, reducing it to the required volume, while maintaining the uniformity of style and not distorting the original meaning and content. We also try to avoid abbreviations of words, since the text with abbreviations is inconvenient for reading and repels users.
When it came time to introduce Asian languages with a syllabic type of letter into the game, we had a slight hitch with the text displayed on the devices: some parts of words and punctuation marks that could not fit in one line were transferred to the next. Then our programmers, using their magical knowledge, decided this question.
When writing texts, it is important to take into account the cultural characteristics of a particular country. What sounds neutral to some nations can be regarded as an insult to others. When we introduced the Invaders into the game, the copywriters had the task of giving them the names. So we got the working names Irish, Scot and Bavarian. However, such names could hurt the feelings of the representatives of the peoples inhabiting the relevant territories at the given time, so it was decided to replace them with alternative and adjacent from a historical point of view - Kelt, Caledonian and Ute. Medieval tribes have long sunk into oblivion and are unlikely to make claims to developers. Perhaps they would even be proud that they were bravely confronting the Vikings in the battlefields of the game universe.
We can give some simple but important tips for those who are only going to do the localization of their project.
Localization of the game is a long and painstaking process, and if the application is constantly updated, it is also continuous. But it's worth it. It helps to expand the presence in the global gaming industry market and win the favor of a larger audience: users are more loyal to applications whose developers have paid attention to high-quality translation of the game.
Initially, the project Vikings: War of Clans was developed in Russian, and then translated into English, which, in turn, became the basis for other translations. Today, our game is available in six European and two Asian languages: Russian, English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Korean, and Japanese, but we are not going to stop at this and we are planning to increase the number of languages in the game over time.
Creating a localization department
The localization department was created in the Krasnodar studio Plarium from scratch. Initially, it numbered only a few people, but then expanded to a full-fledged department. Localization for us was a completely unexplored area, so first of all we plunged into the study of its subtleties that are applicable in game dev. We were interested in the organization and storage of documents, quality control of translations, the choice of fonts for texts and much more.
')
The next task was the formation of a team of translators and proofreaders (proofreaders). These requirements are:
- Be a native speaker.
- Have relevant education and experience in the field of game localization, especially strategies and RPGs.
- Have a rich gaming experience.
- It is advisable to be a member of local translator associations.
Based on the above criteria, suitable candidates are selected. After the successfully completed test task, an online interview is held, during which the working conditions are discussed, the human qualities of the applicant are evaluated: teamwork, sociability, reaction to criticism, and so on. After that, the final decision is made to continue cooperation with the translator.
The longest we were looking for were Japanese originators. For some reason, the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun reluctantly responded to the vacancy, and the Korean translators, on the contrary, pleased us with active answers to the job offers sent out.
Effective team management
Of course, it is not always easy to manage a large multinational team, but it is a great pleasure to communicate and work with people from many countries with different cultural backgrounds. We try to protect ourselves as much as possible from force majeure situations, so we prescribe in detail the tasks for each specialist and provide all possible information on the project:
- Graphic content.
- Detailed description of the game.
- Glossaries with the accepted terminology of the game.
- Style Guides are manuals that set standards for the use of punctuation marks, capitalization, degrees of respectfulness when addressing players, which is especially important for Asian localization, limits on the number of characters and other nuances of translation.
True, it is not always possible to avoid unforeseen circumstances, sometimes quite funny ones. It is remembered that one day our proprietor did not send the document within the stipulated time. He came closer to the next day’s dinner, and to the question: “Where are the texts?” - we received an unexpected answer: “I’ve been lost”. The guy said that he went to a new huge park for a run and barely found his way back. They asked him not to run there anymore.
Features localization in gamedev
There are many nuances in the work on localization in the gaming industry: the translation should be aware of the limitations on the number of characters in the text fields, tooltips and buttons. Not all windows of the game have scrolls or additional lines. Despite the fact that the interface is designed with a margin for texts, sometimes translators sometimes have a hard time - sometimes the text needs to be shortened and be able to convey its original meaning.
After translating a specific text array, it is imperative to conduct localization testing: check whether the texts are displayed correctly on various devices, do not go beyond the limits assigned to them, whether their contents correspond to this window, whether untranslated elements remain and much more.
In the example below, the testing of the German localization showed that the text for the window combining stones and runes “Nicht genügend Edelsteine / Runen zum Verschmelzen” did not fit into the allotted field. Then we replaced it with “Nicht genügend Edelsteine oder Runen”.
Here is another example: in the French locale, the original name of the external map of Carte du Monde went beyond the button. As a result, we had to omit the preposition du and leave the name Carte Monde.
In such situations, we try to rephrase the text, reducing it to the required volume, while maintaining the uniformity of style and not distorting the original meaning and content. We also try to avoid abbreviations of words, since the text with abbreviations is inconvenient for reading and repels users.
When it came time to introduce Asian languages with a syllabic type of letter into the game, we had a slight hitch with the text displayed on the devices: some parts of words and punctuation marks that could not fit in one line were transferred to the next. Then our programmers, using their magical knowledge, decided this question.
When writing texts, it is important to take into account the cultural characteristics of a particular country. What sounds neutral to some nations can be regarded as an insult to others. When we introduced the Invaders into the game, the copywriters had the task of giving them the names. So we got the working names Irish, Scot and Bavarian. However, such names could hurt the feelings of the representatives of the peoples inhabiting the relevant territories at the given time, so it was decided to replace them with alternative and adjacent from a historical point of view - Kelt, Caledonian and Ute. Medieval tribes have long sunk into oblivion and are unlikely to make claims to developers. Perhaps they would even be proud that they were bravely confronting the Vikings in the battlefields of the game universe.
Tips
We can give some simple but important tips for those who are only going to do the localization of their project.
- Use an encoding that supports an extensive set of characters: from Cyrillic to Chinese characters.
- Do not include punctuation marks in the code, as they are used differently in languages. For example, in French, quotes are separated from words by spaces, and in Japanese, these same quotes have a completely different appearance - 」. The same goes for numbers. In some languages, decimals are separated by a comma, in others - by a space, in one language dots and commas are used, and somewhere there are no divisions at all.
- Choose fonts that can display all the languages into which you are planning to translate.
- Always leave 20–30% additional space for texts when designing the interface, since the width, height of characters and line spacing in languages are different. In addition, for individual languages more space is required due to the peculiarities of word formation. For example, German words take up much more space than compact English.
- Use programs and cloud platforms that have Translation Memory, a glossary, and other useful localization tools. They allow you to effectively control the quality of the translation, keep track of what stage it is in, maintain a uniform style of texts in the game. Here you can also communicate with freelancers, attach graphic materials and set limits for each line of text.
Localization of the game is a long and painstaking process, and if the application is constantly updated, it is also continuous. But it's worth it. It helps to expand the presence in the global gaming industry market and win the favor of a larger audience: users are more loyal to applications whose developers have paid attention to high-quality translation of the game.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/302816/
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