Grimrock

With a lot pf others I did Dutch translations for Crossover (Wine with a nice gui), but it's not easy to get a proper translation. Sometimes a word means something else in a different context and some words you don't want to translate as some English words are commonly used in Dutch. If you look how Lords of the Rings or Harry Potter were translated you know what I mean.

For example "greataxe" can be translated as "grote bijl", which is a translation from "great axe". But a "horseman's axe" translates in "ruiter bijl" which sounds weird. So, if you decide not to translate horseman's axe, only partly or use a completely different word, you have to be consequent in similar translations. "Aks" or "aaks" is old Dutch for axe, but never used.

So, for some translations you really have to dig into the past, but use modern rules. If it's a name don't translate unless the name has a common translation. You have to assign moderators that control the flow of multiple translations as each contribute a part.

Thumbs up for your work on Crossover.

But if the translations for LoG2 were done by the community, they would be for free - so don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
You also wouldn't blame AH for poor custom dungeons or Youtube for bad fan made subtitles.

I would love to see a german translation.
For someone who has english only as his second language it's often hard to understand complex or old terminologies (often used in fantasy RPGs to enhance the setting).
That leads straight to another problem. Puzzles can be very hard to solve, when you don't really know what a needed item exactly is.

I could work with you on the language pack. I didn't study anything (yet), but my English and German are fine and I am a big grammar nazi. I also worked as a fan subber and I was told that my translations are very good. And if more than one person works on a translation, it will be more accurate.

Translation is a very tricky problem. There are languages that have other grammar than English and it will be tricky to handle that.

Let me give you a specific example:

English: 1 key, 2 keys, 5 keys.
Polish: 1 klucz, 2 klucze, 5 kluczy.

Note the different suffix. There is no single rule that you can follow here. It may vary depending on the language.

And there will be mods. Lots of them. Most will be in English.

As a non-native speaker, I strongly prefer games and movies in English, rather than translated. There's always something lost in translation. Even in multi-million dollar productions that have high profile translation studios under hire.

Some things are just not translatable. Think about puzzles based on words for example.

thomson wrote:There are languages that have other grammar than English and it will be tricky to handle that.

The devs are Finns. Why do you think the game is in English only? =)

LOL
Really!?

Neikun wrote:LOL
Really!?

Yes.

Plenty of those forms are pretty convoluted though.. like "Koirassako" is a form that's likely to be used ("In the dog?") while "Koiranammekokaan" (uh... "not even if acting as our dog?", or something in those lines).. but still legit.

petri wrote:Localization is a pita, especially for a small developer like us. At least the following todos come quickly to mind:
- gathering and marking all text to be localized
- translation work
- unicode support
- adding all needed glyphs to fonts
- replacing text painted in textures
- UI layout issues
- keeping all localized text in sync when the game is further developed

For Grimrock 1 we decided it was too much work for a single programmer We haven't decided yet what to do with Grimrock 2...

What's your decision for Grimrock 2?

petri wrote:Localization is a pita, especially for a small developer like us. At least the following todos come quickly to mind:
- gathering and marking all text to be localized
- translation work
- unicode support
- adding all needed glyphs to fonts
- replacing text painted in textures
- UI layout issues
- keeping all localized text in sync when the game is further developed

For Grimrock 1 we decided it was too much work for a single programmer We haven't decided yet what to do with Grimrock 2...

This is very simple decision (ONE programmer): http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014 ... continues/ and http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/2014 ... -kit-beta/

Just make support for fanmods and I'll and my team translate your games on russian language...