Presentation for the Barcelona Workshop of LocJam 2014

1. Barcelona workshop - Carme Mangiron
10th April 2014

2. 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

3. 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

4. COMPETITION
• Only one entry for participant
• Amateur vs. Pro categories
• Several prices, including collaborations with agencies and
one-year license for translation tools

5. THE GAME

6. THE GAME
• Flash game
• Less than 1,800 words
• CVS format -> Excel/LibreOffice

7. LOCALISATION PROCESS
• Familiarisation
• Glossary and style guide
• Translation
• Editing
• Integration
• QA
• Submission

8. FAMILIARISATION
• Playing the game
• Theme
• Game mechanics
• Documentation
• Newspapers, tabloids
• Papers, please! (prequel to Republia Times)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EovlUrlaOus

9. 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].nn
• Parody, irony
The government cannot control the weather yet.
Butt Within Spec!

10. LANGUAGE AND STYLE
• Three characters: Government, Rebel leader
(Kurstov), player
• Way of addressing: tú vs. usted
• Need to be consistent

11. TERMS
• Place names
• Republia, Democria, Antegria, Cherrywood, etc.
• Institutions
• Ministry of Media, Republia Times
• People
• Great and Honorable Leader, Kurstov,
CrevyCrevy

12. 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.

13. TRANSLATION STRATEGY
• Preservation or adaptation/transcreation?
• Mumpit Mush children’s book
• HugginBoyz
• Translation of humour: play-on-words, alliteration
Tanking Tanks!

14. TRANSLATION STRATEGY
• How to make your translation stand out?
• Idiomatic language
• Creativity
• Correction

15. 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?

16. 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.

17. 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]

18. 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

19. 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

20. EDITING
• Review the translation thoroughly
• Read it aloud to make sure it sounds natural

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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.

25. Useful resources
• Madrid workshop - Pablo Muñoz
• http://www.slideshare.net/pmstrad/locjam-workshop-in-madrid-with-p
contest
• Tokyo workshop – Richard Honeywood & Alain Dellepiene
• http://www.slideshare.net/gloc247/loc-jam-april-2014
• Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5617301247/1015236215701
6248/
Video tutorial:
http://www.localization.it/video-tutorial-game-translation/

26. Questions and discussion