Barcelona workshop - Carme Mangiron10th April 2014

LOCJAM 2014• Non-profit videogame translation contest

• Coordinated by team GLOC (Alain Dellepiane) for the Localization SIG of the IGDA and the IGDA Japan Chapter.

• Spread the word about game translation and localisation

• Open the door for translators wanting to specialise in this field

COMPETITION• 5th to 13th April at 23.59 (Greenwich Mean Time)

• Do not leave it to the last minute to avoid problems with the website

• Languages: EN, FR, GE, IT, JA, SP, LA SP

COMPETITION• Only one entry for participant

• Amateur vs. Pro categories

• Several prices, including collaborations with agencies and one-year license for translation tools

THE GAME

THE GAME• Flash game

• Less than 1,800 words

• CVS format -> Excel/LibreOffice

LOCALISATION PROCESS

• Familiarisation• Glossary and style guide• Translation• Editing• Integration• QA• Submission

FAMILIARISATION• Playing the game

• Theme• Game mechanics

• Documentation• Newspapers, tabloids• Papers, please! (prequel to Republia Times)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EovlUrlaOus

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

• Propaganda like messages from Government

The war with Antegria is over and the rebellion uprising has been crushed. Order is slowly returning

to [GOV].\n\n

• Parody, irony

The government cannot control the weather yet.

Butt Within Spec!

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

• Three characters: Government, Rebel leader (Kurstov), player

• Way of addressing: tú vs. usted

• Need to be consistent

TERMS

• Place names• Republia, Democria, Antegria, Cherrywood, etc.

• Institutions• Ministry of Media, Republia Times

• People• Great and Honorable Leader, Kurstov, CrevyCrevy

TERMS• Cultural references: gallons

• Journalism: Editor-in-chief, news feed, readership, readers

• Government: Loyalty, rebels, rebellion, defect, etc.

• Weather: blizzard, hurricane, showers, cloudy, etc.

• Sports: weight lifting, baseball, etc.

TRANSLATION STRATEGY

• Preservation or adaptation/transcreation?• Mumpit Mush children’s book• HugginBoyz

• Translation of humour: play-on-words, alliteration

Tanking Tanks!

TRANSLATION STRATEGY

• How to make your translation stand out?

• Idiomatic language

• Creativity

• Correction

TRANSLATION – PRACTICAL ISSUES• The graphical headers "The Republia Times" and

"Ministry of Media" cannot be translated.

• What to do with Ministry of Media when it appears in the text?

TRANSLATION – PRACTICAL ISSUES• Check length of cells with Excel formula

=LEN(cellnumber) if your OS is in English

=LARGO(cellnumber) if your OS is in Spanish

• Try to stick to the original character number as much as possible. Check your translation on the screen every now and then to see how you are doing.

• Do not edit variables or tags.

TRANSLATION – PRACTICAL ISSUES• Take into account the text that goes into variable [GOV]

• Change the position of variable [GOV] as required for a natural text in Spanish

• Young [GOV] atheletes dominate track and field. [sic]

TRANSLATION – PRACTICAL ISSUES• Stricter space restrictions: buttons, short news headlines

(newsitem_constructX_2)

• Use shorter, more simple forms

• Check longest text string in the original to have an idea of a safe limit: up to 35 characters in the original short news headlines

TRANSLATION – PRACTICAL ISSUES• Keep an eye for blank spaces at the end or the start of

sentences and make sure you maintain them in the translation, as these are sentences that can combine different strings

morningstate_getfamsg1 Your family

EDITING

• Review the translation thoroughly

• Read it aloud to make sure it sounds natural

INTEGRATION• Use the Save function (not Save as)

• Reload the readme.htm page on the loc kit and your translation will come up on screen

QA• Play the game several times, to make sure you view all

the text on screen.

• If you can, get somebody else to play it as well and take their feedback on board

• Check for truncations, spelling mistakes, style issues, inconsistencies, etc.

• Correct any issues in the file, save it and load the game again

QA• Check any errors that you corrected, to make sure they

appear OK

• Copy and paste your final translation onto a word processing tool in order to spell-check it.

• Upload the final file. Only one entry for participants. Good luck!

• Winners will be announced in June, picked by a jury made of specialised game localization agencies

KNOWN BUG• News item "New fall TV programming will focus on

[GOV]'s rebuilding" (newsitem_construct63_1) will appear on the newspaper as "Stars Dance For Vets!" (newsitem_construct62_2) instead of "Fall TV Revealaed!" [sic] (newsitem_construct63_2).

Please ignore the issue and translate normally.

Useful resources• Madrid workshop - Pablo Muñoz• http://www.slideshare.net/pmstrad/locjam-workshop-in-madrid-

with-pablo-muoz-game-localization-contest

• Tokyo workshop – Richard Honeywood & Alain Dellepiene• http://www.slideshare.net/gloc247/loc-jam-april-2014

• Facebook group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/

5617301247/10152362157016248/

Video tutorial:http://www.localization.it/video-tutorial-game-translation/

Questions and discussion