translations

[Leisure Suit Harry]

Hi Britney,

a little questions: Do you plan to translate Al Emmo?

To be honest, I would never play a fun adventure game (like Al Emmo, the Larry or SQ series) in German (my mother tongue) because there is an extremely high danger that those great games lose their pun (which they are living from...) when translated.
There is also the difficulty of the various dialects in the German speaking world...
So far I remember only one adventure game that did not suffer from its translation (Monkey Island 3 - because I did not manage to get an english version... In earlier adventure days this could not happen. Cause the games simply were not translated at all).

So, will you do it?

Greetings from Austria (that one without -al- therefore no kangaroos) - Harry

[lailahaillallah]

kangaroos are a pain.  they make good eating though. i live in the capital city of this country (canberra and not sydney - a common misconception) and you cant even back out of your driveway half the time without almost hitting one. (in some suburbs anyway).  in a lot of places kangaroos are considered pests and they have to cull them. did you know theres  more kangaroos here than humans? or at least there was last time i checked.  *random triva*

[Leisure Suit Harry]

Yeah, there are 2 countries which are perfect candidates for this capital misconception. Besides Australia I am thinking of Canada. Typical question in a quiz show...

I did not know that you had a kangaroo problem. Well at least this time it seems that this problem is not caused by man as I believe that these animals always lived there and were not "imported". But then again maybe we killed there natural enemies...

I was once eating in a restaurant where they offered cangaroo meat as special attraction. I did not order it cause I had pity for these exotic animals. I might have reconsidered it if I had known that they were causing troubles in your countriy  

At least you definitely do not have troubles with bad translations of games or movies...

Cheers - Harry

[lailahaillallah]

they're not a pest in most places, largely because most of the population base here is confined to the coastline however some places they need to cull. kangaroo meat is quite different. try it

yeah we dont have trouble with translations, but half the world outside australia thinks we all look/act/talk like crocodile dundee or steve irwin or something.  the southpark sendup of steve irwin was particularly degrading to watch as an australian.

[Leisure Suit Harry]

yeah, well, that's the thing with clichés. And I guess almost every nation has to live with them.

I personaly do not want to know what the world thinks about Austria(ns). Some people, and that's why I mentionned that in my initial post, confuse it with Australia, Americans think of "The Sound of Music", a movie or something hardly an Austrian (including me) knows (therefore I have no idea why they associate it with my country), others believe that we are all Nazis,...

Or do people meanwhile believe that we are all badly acting bodybuilders who exclusively listen to Mozart and are nuts on skiing?

Anyway, I guess in some cases Crocodile Dundee is the better choice!

P.S.: Do not worry, I have never watched Southpark (did not even hear about it before I read your post)

Harry

"Let's don't and say we did"

[GameDevBrit]

Speaking of bad mix-ups in regards to countries, when Chris and I went to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, most people I spoke with upon our return asked what it was like on that little island just beneath Australia (Tasmania)!!

As for translations, we are considering having the game translated into a number of different languages (i.e., German, Italian, Russian), yet understand that it will be difficult to bring the humor across in another tongue.  Therefore, for people who are not comfortable speaking or reading English, they can still play the game in their own language.  For those who do understand English quite well (such as yourself), they have the choice of purchasing an English version.  We will ship an English version internionally if you order via our online store.

Hope this information helps

[haradan]

Speaking of bad mix-ups in regards to countries, when Chris and I went to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, most people I spoke with upon our return asked what it was like on that little island just beneath Australia (Tasmania)!!

Well, ignorance is way too common, unfortunately. I did a round-the-world travel some years ago and a LOT of people I met had no idea where Mexico was (most thought it was in South America).

I think the way to go with translations is to include the english version in ALL versions. That way, people who prefer the original can play it in english, but you don't cut off your market (cut off??? is that correct? Uhm, I think I should buy the spanish version, my english is getting pretty lame).

I remember Sierra did this with many titles, they included both versions to guarantee everybody would be satisfied.

[navynuke04]

The English version just barely fits onto one CD. The companys that want to distribute the translated versions are talking about rerecording the actor's lines in the other language. Having both recordings would definately push the game onto 2 CD's, thus making it more expensive...

Out of curiousity, would you be willing to pay an extra amount for a translation if it included both the English and whatever other language?

[NightShift]

Memory brings to mind "Dumb and Dumber."

Lloyd climbs into the back of the limo he's driving and pops his head out to say hello to a beatiful woman at a bus stop.  So she speaks with a thick accent, and Lloyd asks what her accent is and she tells him, Austria. So he gets it confused and makes a fool of himself (of course) by saying, "Good day, mate!"  "Let's put another shrimp on the barbie!"  Of course she answers back "Let's not."

Thought I'd throw that out there.....

[haradan]

Oh, I thought it would be translated subtitles only, not the whole speech. I would definitely NOT buy the translated version in that case, since spanish versions usually suck. If you do it with spanish actors, latin americans find the accent odd and vice-versa, even within latin america an argentinian accent has nothing to do with a colombian or mexican accent, so it's difficult to please everybody. I tried a translated version of Syberia and hated it, although I like the game quite a lot.

So no, I woudn't pay more money for a translated version, I wouldn't even buy it, I'd stick with the english version

[GameDevChris]

Whenever I hear "Austria" the first image I have is of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The second image I have is of Bill and Ted nabbing Sigmund Freud and pushing him into their phone booth/time machine. And the third image I have is of Sir Elthil, the animator from the hero6 project who shocked everyone by announcing that "he" was really a "she" after several years of working amongst us!

Memory brings to mind "Dumb and Dumber."

Ha! Dumb and Dumber is one of the stupidest yet funniest movies ever. Ever since I first saw it, I wanted a car shaped like a sheep dog.  

As for translations, most versions would probably be a localized release in the relevant country and there would probably not be enough room to fit the English version on the disc unless a DVD was used. The English version will always be available directly from our website store, though.

[Leisure Suit Harry]

Whether you will translate the game or not, I will definitely play it in English.

But I know that I am not the typcial German speaking player. I fear that the typical player requires a German version because the english skills of an average German (or Austrian) are quite poor and the language in your game is not piece of cake (However, I love it and will abuse this game also as english learning material. What I love most is the way the narrator speaks, well known from the SQ series - hilarious)!

As I said it is difficult to translate the game without losing too much of its humor. But I know it's possible! Hollywood movies are translated only once for the whole German speaking world and not for specific regions. And it works perfectly fine (and not just because it has to for financial reasons)! Because it's well done (e.g. by using no dialect at all) . And this finaly leads me to my question:

How will you do it (the translation of the dialogues, and then the speaking)? Who will do it for you?

I once played a (maybe quite nice) Sierra game (Laura Bow 2) for only 5 minutes. Then, after having read a sentence that contained 2 pseudo-German words (words that are not at all German but which I understood because I could figure out the original (english) word) I felt taken for a ride, quit the game and never restarted it anymore.
This game was obviously translated by a non German native speaker. A mistake, I suppose. I guess a German native speaker with acceptable English skills, understanding of how adventure game humor works and (preferrably satire-) writing skills would have been a much better choice...

But I guess the first sales figures will influence your decisions a lot. They will show if this game will be excl. accepted by old fashioned adventure freaks (who would always play the game in its original english - just like me) or by a much greater market (which I really wish you so much).

Harry

"Finally, FINALLY, F I N A L L Y - nothing happens"

[GameDevBrit]

We are working with publishers who wish to localize the game into the native language in their region.  For instance, if the game will be released in Russian, we will work with a Russian publisher to localize the game.  So, I think the translations will be created by native Russian speakers.

[aspid]

As a Russian speaking person I can assure you that even translations created by native Russian speakers working for big Russian publishers can be really awful. Sometimes publishers even have to relocalize the game after they recieve too much bad words about the localization from players. So be carefull! ;-)

[haradan]

Yeah, I agree. Check carefully who are you working with, try to look for reviews of their translations first, because a bad translation can ruin the reputation of your game.   IOW, mantain the QA until the very end of the process!