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THE CYNICAL POP DUNGEON FANTASY: MEIKYUU KINGDOM Hello, folks! This is the thread to talk about this game that has been quietly in localization hell for some time, but now that we're in the process of finalizing the finer details with the content creators, we are the de facto official localization team for this game! The designers schlepped a demo we slapped together for them to SPIEL, which you can read about in Engrish here. What is Meikyuu Kingdom? Meikyuu Kingdom (sometimes referred to as Make You Kingdom) is a pen and paper game designed by Adventure Planning Services of Japan. It is a game with anime art and a light tone focusing primarily on old tropes popularized in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons. It has some parody elements, but has very simple rules. I'll just copy the teaser stuff I wrote up for SPIEL and put it here for a fluff taste of the game: spiel flyer posted:A catastrophic event in the distant past known as the “DUNGEON HAZARD” has changed the entire world into an ever-shifting labyrinth full of bizarre inhabitants. Only a select few called Landmakers can create bastions of stability and safety called Kingdoms for people to dwell. What are the rules like?   The game features several novel elements seen in other Japanese RPGs such as d66 - Roll or Choice, but it also has a Kingdom Management system and a streamlined Dungeon Exploration system. Rules are based primarily on 2d6+Stats for conflict resolution. Ability scores directly translate into bonuses to die rolls and derived stats like HP and such. The best way to explain it would be like "Actraiser/Simcity/Dungeon Keeper/etc." for the kingdom part, and "Wizardry/Etrian Odyssey/Might and Magic/etc." for the dungeon part. For more information, I need not mince more words; Bitchtits McGee has been doing a bang-up job in his way over in the FATAL and Friends threads regarding the game. If you'd like to know more about the nitty-gritty (he also has ripped some of the book art from some raw scans) check it out here. How does it play? In general, a session consisting of 4 brand new players on IRC took about 4 to 5 hours for a sample adventure I had whipped up, but it could have certainly gone longer. In a live scenario, you could easily fit a full session into that same timeframe, or setup for a multi-parter with plenty of leeway. Going through the paces of the game is fun and you never really quite know what to expect. There are a lot of tables in this game, which is not to say that it's swimming in them quite like Rolemaster, (in)famous for entire splatbooks dedicated to effect tables and critical hit charts. Because of its presentation and relative obscurity, many people don't know what to expect, and find themselves delightfully surprised by things. How does it run? On the other side of the screen, a lot of the game plays itself, really. Gameplay is structured in such a way that players are encouraged to take the lead in a variety situations (dictated by their Class choice). As a result, the GM will more often than not want to prepare stuff in advance, such as dungeon maps, encounters in the dungeon, traps, etc. - they can wing the adventure however they want to get the players to the actual dungeon, though.  When can I play this game? We have not fixed a solid release date yet since we are juggling a lot of balls, but if you like, talk to me and maybe you can be part of the playtests. Expect more announcements regarding the release timetable as we start pinning down other things. (Secret recruitment techniques!) Wasn't this game being translated by- - some goons in the past, yes. BitchtitsMcGee and Mikan were part of an older fan translation project that was left to the wayside for a variety of reasons. There was also another guy who was working independently, then I tried to get him to work together with the others, then everything stalled. I had tried to get it restarted and even offered to help out in various ways, but ultimately, there wasn't enough support for it. What about your part in this? I was seriously considering ponying up cash in order to get a private translation copy to use, however someone who works professionally as a translator approached me regarding this and we started seriously looking at the game for an official release. We agreed and started formal talks with the content creators earlier this year. I guess I am the lead project manager for this? Something like that. Can you translate this other game I heard about that was from Japan? Maybe. This is our first project and to date no other official localization team has made a serious pass at it (not for lack of trying, though) - once we have this game completed and fulfilled to everybody that wants the books, then we can talk about future projects. I heard about this other translation that is out there right now. Yes, someone did an unofficial translation that's out in the wild. We've reached out to them and they are pretty amicable since they had the same intention as me - get a translated copy and play the game. It's missing a lot of things that make Meikyuu Kingdom really special; all the fluff is missing, for example. All of it. It's a mostly complete but rough translation of the major rules of the game, which serves fine as a reference point. I can say that they have agreed to let us use their translation work, which will help speed things up a bit in the editing process and re-translation. Questions, Comments, etc. Feel free to ask whatever you want to ask in this thread about this game. I'll be updating this stuff as new information becomes available! If you are in Essen, Germany for SPIEL, by all means go play this game in person.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:29
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Here's some stuff I've pulled from this thread and putting in the second post. I'll also be going through the 4chan stuff so I can put all the pertinent information here too. About Lanternworks Unlimited We are a company that was formed initially so that we could take on the project of officially localizing Meikyuu Kingdom. Our translator lives in Chiba and is fluent both in English and Japanese; he has been professionally translating for a long time! I'm the guy who does everything except the translating. This includes editing, localizing, task assignment, organization, market research, promotion, you name it, it's me that's doing it. It's not at all an exaggeration to say that I've been dragging this project behind me for the last nine months organizing meetings and laying the groundwork to hit the ground running. This is going to be my first localization project, but I have communication with plenty of other people like the translator/localizers for Golden Sky Stories, Tenra Bansho Zero, and Shinobigami to turn to for advice. Aside from the translator and myself, there are also a few other people who are contributing to the project on an editorial level answering to me; UberJew and Lynx Winters here on SA are leading the charge by being on the ground floor to help out (thanks, by the way). Potsticker is also around, and he has actual real world localization experience working at Sega of America localizing PSO Portable Ultimate (2, I think?). In his spare time he has taken up doing some manga scanlation stuff with some other guy. About the Release Malek Deneith posted:Are there chances this will end up available in pdf format, or will it be released dead tree only? We'll be releasing in print for sure. As far as PDF goes, we're beholden to the content creators, but we are trying to make a case for it. Ratoslov posted:So do you have a kickstarter page or something so I can give you moneys for promises of books? Not yet - I believe the current plan is to possibly run one in the future if we actually need the money, and to get a better idea of how many units we need for a print quote. In talking with the original designer for the game, he was really excited about the idea. We don't want to run one and have people waiting for a year or more while we finish the localization! If/when we do run a Kickstarter, it means "we are almost done but we need money to actually fulfill the game to people". Randalor posted:Any idea how much the MSRP will be if you do release it commercially? I've wanted to play this ever since I read about it. We're going to try and keep it somewhere around the same MSRP as the Japanese books are, adjusted for the work we are doing and what's fair for the market. You can expect it to be decent value for both books, but the actual prices are subject to change so this early in the project I don't want to throw things out I can't take back later. Randalor posted:When you release the game, will it be as stand-alone books, or will it be as a set (ala Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition)? The Kingdom and Dungeon books will be separate. We want to keep things similar to the Japanese release to make layout and organization easier. This means, for example, that we'll try and retain A4 page layout, page count will be roughly the same, and there will be two books at a reasonable price point. About Localization We want to make this the authoritative edition of the game that's coming out that is as faithful to the original Japanese edition as possible. However, it is worth keeping in mind that this is a localization, so some things may not translate over well (if at all). Thus far, our practice has been to make gender role changes where it makes sense to take a neutral stance ("Ruler" instead of "King" or "Queen", for example) and some minor changes that don't impact overall gameplay (altering a background mission to allow getting married to anybody instead of someone of the opposite gender). Aside from that, it's subjective and always under discussion. We'll be reviewing the text and also the artwork in order to make sure there isn't something that's going to come back to us in the form of a lawsuit! Please don't make me get arrested by trying to make this game happen. About the Artwork A very large portion of the art is just fine - it's a huge selling point for the game. There is some card art that has frontal nudity or other content that can be called into question, but my current stance (this is a backpedal from my initial gut reaction) is to leave as much of the art in as possible. When all comments are taken into consideration, if there is something that does need to change, there must always be a specific reason to make a change. It will go under active discussion in the actual team and we'll probably loop in the content creators as well. We will have clear documentation as to the rationalization of why something actually required a change. Thus, if there's no valid reason to make a change, it will be left as-is. There is a possibility that certain art assets in the original game may not be available because the artists will not release the assets for international distribution. In the event that art needs to be replaced for any reason, there are two main avenues of recourse: getting the original Japanese artists to redraw their work or acquire new assets by commissioning work from other artists.  Playtesting Laphroaig posted:I'd love to playtest it. Misandu posted:If you are looking for anyone else to play test this I would be very interested! Davzz posted:I would be interested in the playtest (although I believe time zones will probably hinder me). twinight posted:I spoke to some friends in my little group (5 of us) and they're interested in play-testing too, if you end up needing more bodies. 10/29/2013 - This space will be updated in the future with more detailed information! Playtesters, sit tight! People are asking me about this a lot here and elsewhere and I figure I would put a section here. We are working on ironing out the details of what needs playtesting in addition to preparing the materials. aldantefax fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 26, 2013 04:30
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Ratoslov posted:
Not yet - I believe the current plan is to possibly run one in the future if we actually need the money, and to get a better idea of how many units we need for a print quote. In talking with Kondou, the original designer for the game, he was really excited about the idea. We don't want to run one and have people waiting for a year or more while we finish the localization. Re: Laphroaig, sounds good, dude! I'll get you some information via that PM you sent me in the next grip of days, since you have a bunch of people that want to play it.
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Oct 26, 2013 17:50
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I see there are more people asking about playtesting stuff, which is great. I'll be setting up a separate mail account to handle Meikyuu Kingdom related stuff so that we can route accordingly in the next week or two.Randalor posted:Any idea how much the MSRP will be if you do release it commercially? I've wanted to play this ever since I read about it.
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Oct 27, 2013 08:32
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I can relate to what they're talking about (since I was actively engaging that discussion for awhile) but I think some of them have made up their mind to illegally obtain and reverse engineer a PDF that has changes to put it into their own method and put it up somewhere. A PDF which doesn't even exist yet and may possibly not exist! I think it's pretty flattering that they're that passionate about the game, though. Other things that I talk about in that thread are some ideas that have been kicking around for value adds; a Meikyuu Kingdom roll or choice app, for example, or jumbo physical cards for player characters / skills / etc. If you want to view the thread in question (as far as I can tell it is worksafe) you can see it here - I'll be updating the OP here later this week with some of the other info that you may or may not want to know about! aldantefax fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 00:34
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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? Sure, that's the nature of a forum like that though, so I shan't begrudge them too much about it. It doesn't do any good to lose any sleep about it; as stated, things are subject to change and it only serves as a useful guidepost when considering a variety of things that come up in localizing. quote:When you release the game, will it be as stand-alone books, or will it be as a set (ala Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition)? Have you thought about how to incorporate the cards into it? (There are cards right? Or am I just misremembering jRPGs again?) The Kingdom and Dungeon books will be separate. We want to keep things similar to the Japanese release to make layout and organization easier. This means, for example, that we'll try and retain A4 page layout, page count will be roughly the same, and there will be two books at a reasonable price point. Cards do exist in the books but they are not die-cut; in order editions, there were such things, but they were greyscale anyway. The pages with the cards are organized so you can make scans or copies and print and cut them out at your leisure in order to keep things cheaper for the end users.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:15
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I've added some junk to the second post of this thread about some questions that have popped up. If I see them pop up again I trust people will be educated by reading the words I typed!
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Oct 30, 2013 07:15
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twinight posted:Here's a question though, while I've got the post open: Given that the names of monsters and et cetera are 'dual language' on the cards, do you plan to actually keep the names in both languages and just adjust the English or replace them outright? Was just remembering the Kanai Factory Edition of Love Letter that came out recently and thought about that. It bears some thought, sure, and I haven't really figured out how we're doing the card layout just yet. Most of the kanji on the actual cards for the titles themselves are one to five characters long (the associated furigana is also there, too). It depends on how the layout goes, really, since while leaving the text in is a cool idea, the question is: does whoever we find for the layout know how to leave it in (in terms of text insertion)? Can they do it and also cram in the localized English title? Aside from that thing you just mentioned (others can see the product here) I can't think of any other games on the market that have original kanji in addition to the name. For Love Letter? Pretty simple, lots of space to work with. 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. For reference, the Wikipedia entry for Zenana: quote:Zenana (Persian: زنانه, Urdu: زنانہ, Hindi: ज़नाना). The literal meaning of the word zenana is "of the women" or "pertaining to women".[1] It contextually refers to the part of a house belonging to a Hindu or Muslim family in South Asia which is reserved for the women of the household.[2][3] The Zenana are the inner apartments of a house in which the women of the family live. The outer apartments for guests and men are called the Mardana. A lot of the Engrish names for card entries in the raws are actually fairly accurate, or they have very specific references that are somewhat obscure in nature like Ogg. 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.
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Oct 30, 2013 15:38
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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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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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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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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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Xelkelvos posted:I would put extra money in if a TN booklet was made, just to be in awe of it all. There's talk about it, of course. Offering a "Localizer's Package" which includes our translation, the original books (so you can point out the flaws, of course) and translation liner notes is a fine idea and I'm sure all of the people who are gettin mad huffy that the game is not being translated on one to one parity in the image of their patron saint Haruhi Suzumiya or what not can enjoy the originals in their native language. A short update - we're working on updating the raws (for the mechanics portion) so expect some updates soon regarding playtesting. I will also need to whip up an NDA and a variety of surveys that I'll need to get set up. Probably another week before I start throwing things at people.
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Nov 8, 2013 04:20
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Honestly I like goofy terminology like "Bee" and would at least like to see that kind of thing noted in a terminology guide. I like some of the goofy terminology in stuff like Double Cross (Loises, wut), for example, though for all I know that's a particularly goofy terminology choice. Well, a Lois has a very specific connotation that they made up for Double Cross that is also reflected in other games after the archetype of a Lois Lane supporting character (KH explained it to me awhile ago during a get-together). "Bee" is probably a translation error or a pun that hasn't been revealed yet from the kanji/fluff text combo (Worker Bee, Busy Bee, etc). The original engrish text comes from the original design team sometimes not having an appropriate phrase or misunderstanding so they end up with something that doesn't make a lot of sense at face value; same thing with "Drone" (we might go with a Dragon Quest reference there of "Lazybones"). Since we don't have the fluff text fully translated yet we currently have "Best Guess" localizations but they may all be subject to change based on whatever make the most sense contextually for a given entry. For everybody saying "I will pay extra money for this!" that is cool, I like more money. We're not quite at that phase yet but it'll be noted down for consideration; considering that we'll be documenting a variety of things I'm sure that those types of notes will make its way in as some type of supplement if there's sufficient interest (if it isn't going to impact deadlines when we go to print, etc).
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Nov 8, 2013 22:27
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NinjaDebugger posted:You haven't given us any other bones to gnaw on, so this bone will be gnawed incessantly until you DO give us something else. You can ask mechanical questions, if you like. I'm going to be preparing the playtest materials for all the pertinent mechanical sections that need proofreading and testing this week, so hopefully between administrative business tasks and cleaning up the raws there will be some additional things to talk about. I hope I can get all this stuff ready to go by Sunday US time after our biweekly meeting, so here's hoping!
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Nov 11, 2013 16:37
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Spincut posted:I'd love to do some playtesting with my group. I already talked about the game when it got started in F&F and everyone was really excited about it. Yes! I am still based in the SF Bay Area. If you (or anybody else) would like to do a playtest some weekend, I recently had an idea storm of adventure ideas shamelessly ripped off of video games and other esoteric RPG things, but we'll need to plan that ahead. I know Humbug Scoolbus and Potsticker would want to play; Ewen Cluney might, also, since he's in the area. I'm intending to have a Playtest Roadmap up this weekend after the team meeting so that all playtesters will understand the various phases of what needs to be done. It's written down in my Secret Meikyuu Book, but I need to write it up and flesh it out for all you beautiful excited people. Please resume talking about candy! As a side note, I discovered that some of the nudity in the books have two versions - in one example, they just shave the nipple off and put in a darker pan tone, so I guess I don't have to worry about any weird censorship things - depending on the masters I get from the source, they'll have done the work for me! I need to go back and reread the F&F collected posts for the game so I don't retread ground that they haven't done yet.
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Nov 13, 2013 01:41
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Gasperkun posted:demon the descent kickstarter Not sure if that was meant to be in this thread or somewhere else, but okay! Thanks!
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Nov 13, 2013 07:00
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AccidentalHipster posted:Hey, uh, this thread still happening? Because I wanna hear more news about this game. Like, are there any big changes that you've needed to do with some of the items or mechanics? Most of the US team is currently head down into the holiday week. In terms of updates we're currently in the process of setting up another meeting with our translator as the liaison between us and APS. We're pitching some ideas about the development and waiting for some feedback for a couple of key points. Namely: - is there new material they want us to do for the English release - are there any changes they want to make for the English release - what changes do they not want *us* to make for the English release In terms of mechanics the system is pretty airtight from what I've seen so far. It hasn't gotten a lot of exposure so I can't say for sure if it starts falling apart at higher level or anything like that, but that will be part of the things to address in later playtesting rounds. I don't think it's lacking for content in any significant way, but it would be nice to introduce new items down the line. We have our hands full enough right now that we don't want to throw more ingredients into the mix, though!
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Nov 27, 2013 18:35
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Desty posted:Oh hey, this thread's back. Nope (much as I would like to announce). We're still working on that, and a bunch of other stuff. We'll certainly announce something if there's something to actually announce!
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Mar 21, 2014 15:49
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Covok posted:Has there been any major or minor updates on the project? We're in a very un-sexy part of the project where we're waiting for materials from the Japanese side of the equation but nothing is really being fabricated out of that. As far as "hard at work" is concerned, we are making sure that we have the appropriate processes in place to get the material in the right format for all the various bits that are important to getting the core set ready. However long that actually takes is mostly dependent on the Japanese publisher of the source material.
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Nov 26, 2014 10:48
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