Translations

Did anyone at Telltale think about translating the games in foreign languages?

I am Italian and I understand English reasonably well, but leaving the games in mothertongue would cut off a big slice of the market, especially if we're talking about adventuregames.

I really hope TellTaleGames get what they deserve for their creative efforts. :)

Dom
(Italy)

Comments

  • edited February 2005
    Sometimes fantranslations are made of games. If they don't have the time or energy you could always help them in that respect after the game is released with their permission. ;)
  • edited February 2005
    Sometimes fantranslations are made of games. If they don't have the time or energy you could always help them in that respect after the game is released with their permission. ;)

    Hmmm...you're right. I've already done that for "It Came From The Desert" (the great oldie from Cinemaware, eheheheh ;) ).

    Ok, if Telltalegames needs a 90% professional translation of their games into Italian I'm here to help FOR FREE!!!! :D :D :D
    Oh, sorry for that 10%...nobody's perfect.

    Diduz
    (Italy)
  • edited February 2005
    As a sidenote on translation, I'd like to say the following :

    My mothertongue is french, and when I was younger, I wasn't able to understand english, at least not a the level necessary to fully enjoy a game, so I played the official french releases of the games.

    Later, as my english skills improved (but it is still far from perfect, as you probably noticed ;) ) I replayed my favorite adventure games, but in english this time .
    I realized that many jokes and subtle references were lost during the translation (often due to a lack of understanding of the whole picture from the translator, plain lazyness, or impossibility to translate a joke properly (mainly jokes made on words))
    I am not going to give you a full list of those mistakes here, but as an example I will just mention that in MI3, during the naval sword fight, the insults have been translated straight to French, hence losing the Ryhming part which is so amusing.

    Too bad foreign distributors often see a translation as a marketing benefit and do not put into it the same dedication that the creators of the game did...

    All your base are belong to us...
  • edited February 2005
    My ancestors are French Canadian and I can speak a bit of French, not enough to do a really good job translating though. All those tenses confuse me. o_O
  • edited March 2005
    All your base are belong to us...
    :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) The ultimate "bad translation" classic!

    For those who might not understand ... The Story of 'All Your Base'
  • edited June 2005
    And I can make the Spanish translation :D.
  • edited June 2005
    I think it was some interview that Telltale said it would want to bring Bone to as wide an audience as possible given its international appeal.
  • edited July 2005
    Regarding to Bone:

    If they are going to make translations, wouldn't those who translated the comic in that country translate the game as well? I got the collection from the 1-6 in Norwegian (for only 1$! Too bad it's rare here now... But I have to get my hands on the rest!), thanks to TellTale. And now Bone tops my list. (THANK YOU!)

    But back to topic, I've read some in English too, and I can at least say that the Norwegian version translated it quite well. Kept the humor and everything, and if that's the case in the other countries as well, we wouldn't have much to fear :)

    I still hope Norway gets the english version, if translations will be the case.
  • edited July 2005
    but leaving the games in mothertongue would cut off a big slice of the market, especially if we're talking about adventuregames.

    I absolutely agree with you, Diduz but as SCUMM Master said, translating into another language (in this case latin base language as french or italian) could be very hard.
    Moreover I suppose TTG will never entrust translating job to fans because of several reasons but mainly because of business contracts, reliability, timelines and so on... And it is of course understandable.
    So we will first play english version (it will be cool I know) then localized one. But TTG know how important is translating and distributing games and TellTale Now is (or better will be?) there to remind us it!

    P.S. Italian COMI version had the rhyming part and the voices and the translation were done well (... just to quote: ARGH ...and bring me more cabbages! They don't put many cabbages in these cheap menus!...)
    Please TTG make us remember those fabu-tastic days! We need them!
    P.P.S. For TTG team: Will bone have english subtitles?
    P.P.P.S. Could someone quote here the little Smiley song? I can't understand the start well.

    Bye
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