Originally published on Indie Stash
This post was inspired by a publication by Vlad Magdalin of Webflow.
Unlike web designers who now can build websites from scratch visually, without a line of code, video game localizers still work in the black and white of their translation tools, without visual clues.
Hopefully, this post will inspire someone to create a WYSIWYG or visual translation app.
First, let’s take a look at how other creatives work.
Web Designers
Can see their design, real time
Webflow
Web Developers
Can see right away the violin is white where it needs to be brown
Dreamweaver
Digital Magazine Designers
Can read a magazine at work
InDesign
Copywriters & bloggers
Markdown on the left, live preview on the right
Ghost
Modern Bloggers
Need to have a basic design sense and see their design preview
Medium Series (art: Guardian of the Bountiful Spring by Kunkka & Leo by genicecream)
Sound Designers
Can hear audio output, they don’t guess how that beat feels in a song
Flux FX
Vloggers, YouTubers
Use their cameras’s front/flip screen to keep their handsomeness in check (and shoot a crisp picture for us)
Game Character Designers
Know their character’s inner thoughts and even can see it in context of the game
3D Animators
Can make a timid eye contact with their furry character
Autodesk Maya
3D Modeling Artists
Will know right away if one eye of the lizard is missing or something hasn’t been transl… created
Cheetah 3D
Architects
First build computer models, then construct buildings (because any reworking would be way too costly)
AutoCAD
And…
Video Game Localizers
Have no clue how long their translation is allowed to be, nor whether “psychic attacks” requires following plural rules, nor what “perfect size” refers to:
SDL Trados
In the best of cases, their tool allows to see where the original string appears in the game (but no way to see the translation):
Source: Sony’s LAMS
Concept Visual Localization App
In the mockup below, it’s clear to the localizer that the cat-boy speaks about the hat. Now, they can play with this string (the impersonal “it” can be replaced with “the hat”) and make it the sweetest line it can be — since clearly there’s plenty of room on the screen
Looks like regular subtitling software… But it’s so much more — it’s that futuristic, hi-tech, yet to be invented visual localization app
Today, it seems only back-end devs, unicorns (designers who code), and game localizers are forced to work in the spartan beauty of their text-based UIs.
Dev’s code soup vs. localizer’s tag/placeholder soup
But the real problem being the strings that are taken out of context: Localizers are never fully sure about the success of the whole effort — until all the job will be compiled for a test run (and more reruns) and debugged.
Visual video game localization is not genome sequencing. The technology is there, somewhere, one needs to simply start building