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Just to clarify, the cards in MK are not actually required, they are just a convenient way to combine the stats and artwork for things. I think D&D4 did the same thing for player powers? There's no CCG element to the game, and you don't draw or have a hand of cards or anything like that. It's just easier to say "OK here's the item you found" and toss a card down in front of the players than it is to have them copy down all the rules or look it up in the book every time they want to use it. That being said, they are definitely useful and the original artwork is really good. I would like for players to have some easy way to either buy a card set or print their own, and I'm not the only one on the team who feels that way, so you can at least know that we will absolutely look at our options when we get closer to publishing.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:32
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aldantefax posted:Also if you looked at the Meikyuu Kingdom books (you as a general non-specific you in this case) take a look in the monster section at Lamia, Thumbelina, and Apsara for examples of things that initially made me go "uhhh I dunno maybe we should change this"; there is also a facility (Zenana) which is just like, here's a lady in a negligee! Oh, wait, that negligee has the boobs cut out. Well, that Facility is actually a brothel. Not saying that changing the artwork isn't the way to go, mind, just... sayin'. aldantefax posted:For reference, the Wikipedia entry for Zenana: A euphemism? 
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Oct 30, 2013 16:46
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Randalor posted:So... wait, people on 4chan are throwing a hissy fit because you want to look into changing some of the art to make it appeal to a wider audience and because you're worried that it may stir up some unnecessary controversy, and openly talking about just pirating the game because of that? In general 4chan is like Reddit or for that matter Something Awful in that it's big enough to encompass such a wide variety of people and communities that it's hard to make generalizations about. With Maid RPG a friend of mine promoted it through /tg/, which got both a lot of interest and a bunch of people who seemed to be angry that a game other than D&D or Warhammer 40K was being discussed.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:30
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Bitchtits McGee posted:Well, that Facility is actually a brothel. Not saying that changing the artwork isn't the way to go, mind, just... sayin'. There's another type of building that they were probably going for; while zenana is synonymous with harem, the historical/accurate definition is the same as what was mentioned above in the wikipedia entry. I'd have to look at a translation of the kanji + the flavor text - if it's supposed to be actually a brothel (note: harem is actually another facility) vs. something else. I'm thinking of a specific building, not boudoir or bordello (maybe bordello?) that this is actually supposed to be. It was featured as a building type in the Alhambra boardgame, and since I don't have that game anymore, I don't even remember what it's called. Gosh!
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Oct 30, 2013 17:55
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aldantefax posted:That does get me wondering though - possible Kickstarter reward tier "localizer snobbery" - also get a copy of the original books so you can gloat about how 'the original text didn't translate like that at all'? "Make A Kingdom" coming to you from 4kids with a remastered theme song sung by Arsenio Hall, Martin Lawrence, and Glenn Danzig. I will buy that tier if you put it in and I have the funds (I don't know the price of the original book, but I'm guessing that the two books together would be more than $100 and less than $200?). I mean, I don't doubt you guys will do a good job, but I have wanted the original for some time, and convenient packaging is always nice.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:57
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aldantefax posted:I'm thinking of a specific building, not boudoir or bordello (maybe bordello?) that this is actually supposed to be. It was featured as a building type in the Alhambra boardgame, and since I don't have that game anymore, I don't even remember what it's called. Gosh! A serlagio?
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Oct 30, 2013 18:01
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realbrickwall posted:I will buy that tier if you put it in and I have the funds (I don't know the price of the original book, but I'm guessing that the two books together would be more than $100 and less than $200?). I mean, I don't doubt you guys will do a good job, but I have wanted the original for some time, and convenient packaging is always nice. We ended up purchasing copies for ourselves for around that price point to use for localization (making decisions that make sense for english-speaking audiences is significantly helped by having immediate access to the original context as well as just the words, 4chan's complaints about us destroying everything aside!) including shipping, so you can probably source them already if you look!
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Oct 30, 2013 18:08
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Mystic Mongol posted:A serlagio? thank you. this was the thing. e: looking back at it maybe it's all the same and I was remembering things with the same cultural inaccuracies as the other stuff! Oh well. aldantefax fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 18:14
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Mystic Mongol posted:A serlagio? Alhambra proves its useful knowledge yet again.
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Oct 30, 2013 20:48
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Ewen Cluney posted:In hindsight there are a lot of things I would've changed or toned down in Maid, but there are also plenty of things some people found objectionable that are too central to the game to really take out per se. OTOH the tiny handful of naked monsters and such in Meikyuu Kingdom are in no way essential to the game. Please do. I really want to actually play Meikyuu, and that would be vastly easier if it doesn't become known as That Lolicon Game or whatever.
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Oct 31, 2013 00:38
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There's basically zero chance of that, even if no edits were made whatsoever, so don't worry.
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Oct 31, 2013 02:00
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Looking forward to dungeon-diving with friends Meikyuu style.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:27
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twinight posted:There's basically zero chance of that, even if no edits were made whatsoever, so don't worry. My fears are assauged, sir!
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Oct 31, 2013 04:42
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Amongst communities with people who heavily consume Japanese pop culture media, botched localization jobs is kind of a PSTD-style trigger so I'm really not surprised at the response. Without any context, going "Man, I gotta change things that won't fly in other countries" basically just triggers memories of stuff like Persona 1, Cardcaptors, Yu-Gi-Oh or Vision of Escaflowne, which are some examples of some of the most ill-conceived attempts to appeal to a different audience. And really, just about every online community have triggers like this so I don't see the point of "man, 4chan people are all bad." That being said, and I assume you've probably already done some research or at least are planning on it, it might be helpful to decide exactly how wide a target audience you're going to try to market to. Consider something like Persona 1 and Persona 3. Persona 1 had a localization job that basically tries its best to pretend that the game was somehow set in America, despite the fact that they weren't able to change graphics so America apparently now has Shinto shrines, up to the point where it literally turned one of the characters African-American. To this day, this is still one of the most mocked changes in the entire history of localization efforts. Persona 3, on the other hand, actually did things like use honorifics in its scripts, which even most Fansubbing groups don't do nowadays unless they were intentionally trying to be "ironic." The exams quizzes in-game have questions that the average Westerner would definitely not be able to answer without the help of Wikipedia or an FAQ, the characters partake in Japanese festivals and cultural events and so on... And guess what? It was a massive cult hit that raised awareness of the SMT series and Atlus as a company. People wanted the "fantasy" of consuming a uniquely Japanese product and while I find some of the translation decisions made questionable, there's no doubt that Atlus capitalized on those expectations. They knew eactly what kind of people would buy the product and they tailored it directly to them. Meanwhile, not only did P1 not attract a wider audience as they expected, it put off many people who consider the changes made to be insulting to their intelligence and removed a lot of the game's personality. The end result is a worst case scenario where no parties are satisfied. After all, if they wanted to play a product tailored for Westerners, they might as well play an actual Western-created game, wouldn't they? (Note: I'm simplifying things a lot, because I know they did make localization changes in P3. For example, the original P3 used completely different honorifics that aren't as ingrained in public knowledge. Also maybe P1 isn't popular because gameplay wise it was crap.) So bringing this back to Meikyuu, is the appeal of the game simply based off the fact that it's a Kingdom-Building RPG, where the rules are the "key" and the setting is "fluff"? How much of the game's appeal is based off the fact that a lot of the humour/aesthetics are based off Japanese RPGs/culture? Like, a lot of the art and in-jokes reminds me of the old goofy days of things like Dragon Quest, something that a hardcore Tolkien gritty medieval fantasy Warhammer fan would probably not approve of but even if you reskinned everything to appeal to them, would they buy your product anyway? Anyway have a good discussion amongst whoever you need to, I suppose.
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Oct 31, 2013 05:36
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Davzz posted:Also maybe P1 isn't popular because gameplay wise it was crap.
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Oct 31, 2013 05:47
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Mystic Mongol posted:Maybe four hours between save points is too long. Also, as much as I hate half of P3's cast at least there was someone likable in it! P1 is empty of any interesting or likable characters.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:57
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I think the game's designed to be easy to play and attract people with easy rules and a unique premise with the Kingdom aspect of it; the fluff, however, I'd call pretty important to elevating it from just a regular game with good ideas to something more enjoyable beyond the rules. As far as how much of it is specifically based off of Japanese culture, there is some stuff there that will require some consideration, but we haven't gotten to that point yet where we had to straight drop stuff. At this point, I'm not very worried about reaching a wider audience or attempting to appeal to a broader one; it's making sure that this game doesn't get shut down before we can get the copies out the door. Whatever might be potential blockers, I have to put my brain power into thinking about it now than when it becomes an actual problem. Does that mean I'm going to take a cautious route at first? Sure. When you have a project that has the potential to set a precedent for getting more games like it into English, it's important to consider every aspect, including the ones people take on a personal level. One of the things I never really felt was accomplished well historically speaking from a lot of localization projects except for like, fansub groups who were really gung ho about it, is the fact that there isn't any context at all for why something is the way it is, especially if the meaning could be interpreted very differently from the source material. Adding an extra layer of accountability that people will be able to see is something that I think was lacking. Of course, in an ideal situation we would be able to come up with a 1:1 equivalent for all the expressions so you don't need these kinds of notes; however, there are definitely going to be times where something isn't going to make sense. Let's take a practical example for the sake of one of the more pertinent ones that came up in the first pass for Items. This being an example, this is just what we came up with while coming up with the demo materials for SPIEL; as anything else, it's subject to change. --- In the attachment at the very bottom you'll see the picture, game text, kanji, and an interpretation of the kanji in English from the original creators. The flavor text has been omitted for the time being, but the game text is as follows from the fan translation (edited a bit for clarity): quote:You may use this item whenever you roll on the Kingdom Change Table, Kingdom Change Failure Table or any Wandering Table. You may increase or reduce the result by 1. If a Eunuch uses this item you may spend any amount of MG and increase or reduce the result by an additional amount equal to the MG spent. This item disappears when used. In this case, the English is actually very accurate from "yamabuki-iro no okashi" - snack + color + yamabuki, the color of a yellow flower. You have the iconography of gold coins, the game text implying usage of MG, which is the game's currency, and the resulting effect of using said currency to manipulate what you want. So there's a couple of ways you can go around localizing this: - leave the English as-is, possibly rearranging the words - attempt to come up with an English equivalent for a poetic way of saying "bribery" - retain the 'snack' portion but go for a localized expression instead In this case we sat around thinking about it, but then a thought came to mind to call it "Payday" in English. Does this work for the Item itself? Let's check: - makes an implication of significant sums of money - when combined with the game text, it makes sense to the reader - it's a snack - Payday is a candy bar (pretty tasty too if you're not allergic to nuts or chocolate) - easily turn it into a pun of some kind Does this work? Would leaving it "raw" instead of localized be better, or worse? Are the mechanics of the item changed in any way? Is it consistent with the rest of the setting (is it intended to be)? Subjectively (to me) it seems like a fine localization. Whether or not it's going to even be noticed by the majority of readers is something to take into consideration. If the kanji was left on the card, if someone knew Japanese they could see the localization joke (if they liked candy bars). So that's the thought process for one outlier. It's a lot longer to write out than it is to discuss over voice chat, but it could be seen as a significant enough change that warrants explanation. --- One of the most challenging things about this game's translation is that everything is very tightly designed so there are a lot of interlocking parts, references to things that may not turn up in regular research, and the need for the entire game to fit well together. In terms of fluff, it is the same way! All those questions listed above in the example are ones that can be applied to anything that seems out of place. "Resident Library" can be changed to "Census", since that's what it is and sounds less awkward. "Dungeon Hazard Gear" instead of "Dismaze Gear" (Dungeon Dive Suit would also work, but Dungeon Hazard is more thematically appropriate). And so on. I guess this week is talking about localization week! I should add that I literally have no idea what I'm doing but I feel it's important to show the kind of thought process that goes into even changing one term in the game. To some people, it's inconsequential - to other people, it means a lot. So, for me, everything means a lot for this game! I have a headache. I'm going to sleep now! e: further reading about the plant and its symbolism can be found here at this handy link - Yellow Rose (yamabuki) aldantefax fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 07:57
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I have exactly never heard of a Payday bar. I mean, sure, Finland is probably not your #1 target, but had you not explained the joke, I'd been super confused what "a Payday" was. Is it a bonus paycheck or what? Ironically, I nonetheless love it when I spot a meme or a pun in a fansub or Phoenix Wright game or whatever. (Incidentally, the localized Ace Attorney series is apparently set in LA. Which makes absolutely zero sense when you think about it, but I don't think anyone cares.)
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Oct 31, 2013 08:29
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aldantefax posted:Localization stuff. On the bright side, I don't think I've once ran into anyone complaining about those being localized.
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Oct 31, 2013 08:37
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Davzz posted:Ouch, it's the translator's nightmare mode: Japanese puns and symbolism. They make honorifics positively tame in comparison. At least you could leave those in and it makes some kind of sense. Puns and symbolism either get localized or you wind up with the raw text and then two pages of translator notes. Each.
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Oct 31, 2013 08:49
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Why not call it a 'Fortune Cookie'? Fortune cookies are yellow, snacks, related to money (and chance), and are also way more common in the English speaking world than the very American 'Payday' bar.
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Oct 31, 2013 09:33
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Ratoslov posted:Why not call it a 'Fortune Cookie'? Fortune cookies are yellow, snacks, related to money (and chance), and are also way more common in the English speaking world than the very American 'Payday' bar. Presumably because Payday sounds like a bribe, which is more important to the card that squeezing in a food related pun.
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Oct 31, 2013 09:43
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Money, Shut Up, take, etc. Seriously, of all the possible games to be translated into English, this is the one I'm most excited about.
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Oct 31, 2013 12:19
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Ratoslov posted:Why not call it a 'Fortune Cookie'? Fortune cookies are yellow, snacks, related to money (and chance), and are also way more common in the English speaking world than the very American 'Payday' bar. Fortune Cookie was on the table, as were Chocolate Coins and one or two other options. And hey, if we find out that we could get legal attention from Big Candy we might end up changing it back to one of those! Nothing is set in stone yet and I hope you all realize this is still really early in the localization process. There's big big chunks of setting info that hasn't had a chance to be translated yet and everything we change now is constantly under review to make sure it matches up with everything else as closely as possible.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:57
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I actually think Payday is super clever, and since I have the best taste ever, there ya go.
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Oct 31, 2013 17:29
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Lynx Winters posted:Fortune Cookie was on the table, as were Chocolate Coins and one or two other options. And hey, if we find out that we could get legal attention from Big Candy we might end up changing it back to one of those! Nothing is set in stone yet and I hope you all realize this is still really early in the localization process. There's big big chunks of setting info that hasn't had a chance to be translated yet and everything we change now is constantly under review to make sure it matches up with everything else as closely as possible. Payday is actually inspired as a way to keep the food aspect. That's kind of a big thing about localization. You have to pick somewhere as a reference point for the 'local' part or you end up with a kind of bland translation in an attempt to only use the most generic terms. Or you go the ultra literal way like you guys mentioned!
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Oct 31, 2013 17:55
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I'm guessing that "100 Grand" is a bit too on-the-nose, huh?
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Oct 31, 2013 22:55
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realbrickwall posted:I'm guessing that "100 Grand" is a bit too on-the-nose, huh? "Payday" sounded better when I shouted it over the mic at the translator and Lynx Winters.
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Oct 31, 2013 23:33
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Personally, I think that "Payday" is good if you want to keep it largely a money thing with a sly in-joke deeply hidden, but "Chocolate Coins" is better if you want to make it obviously silly and want the snack aspect to be apparent. "Tasty Gold" is a bit of a compromise between the two and is a nice Avatar: The Last Airbender reference to boot.
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Nov 3, 2013 07:40
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The art doesn't really say "Coins" to me either, although if the name involved coins it'd be more obvious.
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Nov 3, 2013 07:44
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Japanese coins used to be that funky rounded oblong shape way back in the day. Also guys guys it's obviously a Golden Treat.
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Nov 3, 2013 10:44
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The past few times I've tried to post this, I've gotten all tangled up in the story and bailed out. If you're reading this, it means I've finally managed to straighten it all out (more or less) and you are about to learn the shocking facts of For starters, yamabuki-iro are an actual product. The box displayed at the upper left of the linked page contains nine cakes, an example of which can be seen on the plate next to it. The crust is flavored with sesame, the filling is sweet red bean paste, and each individual container is made to resemble a stack of gold ryo coins. A single box will run you about $30 USD, plus S&H. Why are they worth so much, I hear myself wondering aloud so as to keep the post going? That's a fine question, and I'm glad I asked. Let's dig a little deeper. On the right side of the page, below a bunch of words and stuff, you can see a small picture in the old sumi-e style. In it, one man is hunched over bowing with a box very much like the one being sold open on the floor next to him, while another man sits up straight, looking vaguely amused. What we're seeing there is a depiction of a stereotypical scene from any one of the thousands of feudal/samurai period pieces that have been the most popular genre of fiction in Japan since at least as far back as they would have been considered contemporary. This particular one is called the "You're-As-Wicked-As-Me Scene", and it goes a little something like this: The man with his back to us in the picture is the Shady Merchant, and the comfortably seated man is the Corrupt Magistrate. Merchant has come to Magistrate's mansion just as night is falling to obliquely request that a blind eye be turned to their shadiness. As a "gift" for the "inconvenient visit", Merchant has brought a fine, black lacquered wood box. Magistrate opens to box to find it filled with stacks of gold coins, at which point he smirks down at Merchant and delivers the line for which the scene is named. It is a venerable old cliche, like the gunfighters facing off in the middle of Main Street while the townsfolk scurry out of sight, or the true love bursting through the chapel doors just as the reverend asks for any objections or forever hold your peace, and here a small gift company has capitalized on the people's desire to recreate it for themselves. And that's where the inspiration for the card came from. Neat, huh? Well, buckle in, the ride's only just crested its peak. Behold the flavor text: the flavor text posted:A legendary confection that most commoners will never even get to see. Extraordinarily expensive, and with a lower drop rate than some Rare Items. Because of its scarcity, it is most often given as a momentous gift, or used as a bribe in the same manner that ancient documents tell us Echigoya expanded into wholesale. Incidentally, the author has never seen one, either. That brings the last of the suspects into the drawing room, so now it's time to run through the motives. What we've already established is that the card is a reference to a particular novelty item, and that that item is in turn a reference to a specific piece of trivia from Japanese popular culture. The flavor text then elaborates the joke by establishing the cakes themselves as having become so valuable that they are being used for the same purpose as the 'gifts' that inspired them. And it STILL isn't over! The "Echigoya" that's mentioned was the default name given to the Shady Merchant character (most likely as a jab at Edo's first omnipresent corporate giant, but I digress) in the kabuki plays from which all aspects of the modern period pieces are drawn... including the "YAWAM Scene". To summarize: this one card is not only a cultural reference to another cultural reference, it also end-runs around that reference to reference the reference that it was referencing, then goes the extra mile to reference the reference that THAT reference was first made in reference to!  tl;dr - "Payday" works, sure.
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Nov 3, 2013 12:17
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Once you have a big list of these items, have your playtesters show them to random people. Make a google documents form with the items in question, and have them record the responses. Get someone with a basic understanding of polling and statistics to assemble the form, and your playtest is already better than D&D Next's. But really, the only way to know if the joke translates/the intent is clear is to ask people.
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Nov 3, 2013 15:58
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That is amazing, and really speaks to the level of cultural references that make anything hard to translate, but holy moly.
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Nov 3, 2013 16:20
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Captain Foo posted:That is amazing, and really speaks to the level of cultural references that make anything hard to translate, but holy moly. There's that and the other big minefield can be puns. Japanese puns most often rely on the fact, since they have several writing systems, a person's name or another word can be written out phonetically with completely different characters to make it up. If you've ever watched Lucky Star, Kagami actually explains how that works with her own name in the first or second episode. Another great example comes from One Piece and Zoro's special attacks. One Piece Wiki posted:Hyakuhachi Pound Ho (百八煩悩（ポンド）鳳 Hyakuhachi Pondo Hō?, kanji meaning "Phoenix of the 108 Earthly Desires"; furigana meaning "108 Pound Phoenix/Cannon") Incredibly difficult to do justice to in a localization because most other languages simply aren't capable of succinctly doing something like that, or at the very least probably can't replicate it for that exact thing. So yeah, crazy respect for anyone nuts enough to take on the job of localizing Japanese stuff.
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Nov 3, 2013 18:23
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Fax, will there be local games?
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Nov 3, 2013 21:50
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Bitchtits McGee posted:To summarize: this one card is not only a cultural reference to another cultural reference, it also end-runs around that reference to reference the reference that it was referencing, then goes the extra mile to reference the reference that THAT reference was first made in reference to! Or maybe a seperate booklet could provide all the really finicky and cool - but not all that useful for actual gaming - references; an extended translator's guide to why these things are unchanged while these things are completely changed around or excised. A kickstarter goal perhaps?
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Nov 5, 2013 13:07
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I think, but can't quite be sure between the awe at level of cultural reference and the FFL2/SaGa2 flashbacks, that the whole point of the post was basically why they felt that Payday worked as the translated name. And why it was their initial idea for what was going to go into the text, as opposed to yamabuki-iro or Chocolate Coins, or Golden Chocolate, or Coin Silver, or Bananas.
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Nov 7, 2013 11:01
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Bitchtits McGee posted:tl;dr - "Payday" works, sure. Okay, I'm convinced. 
Ratoslov fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Nov 7, 2013 |
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Nov 7, 2013 12:00
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VacuumJockey posted:As someone cautiously interested in MK thanks to the F&F thread, this blows my mind. I applaud you for taking this effort instead of just googlating the text. But as I am not particularily well-versed in japanese language and culture, I can't help but hope that the translation tends toward being a playable game first and a showcase of japanese culture second. Perhaps the sidebars may be used for highlighting especially subtle cultural context as the above? I would put extra money in if a TN booklet was made, just to be in awe of it all.
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Nov 7, 2013 22:56
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