Q: Why didn't you use real translation???
A: for a 60k words game estimate costs for each language were MORE than the whole game budget. I think we all agree that spending over $10k (EACH LANGUAGE) to earn "maybe" $500 more is not a smart business move
Q: The translation is horrible, bwarrgh!!
A: It's much better than using other translation systems (I used chatGPT). For the languages I could understand (italian, spanish, french) the result is not bad. Of course not as good as a "real" translation. But I plan to leave the translation files accessible in the game folder, so anyone who wants can fix the problems. It's much easier to fix some issues anyway than translate 60,000 words of texts
Q: I don't understand why you did this!
A: the game is written in English first. It should be played in English, like all my other games. However, since I often get people asking "why isn't available in <language>!!!?" I thought to at least offer this option. It's obvious that if you know English well, you should play it in English! But this is for people who don't know English but still would like to read the story. Simple as that.
Q: So all games will be translated now?
A: I have to see if it's worth it or not, even using AI, it still takes a good amount of time even for a small game. I don't think I'll ever translate games with male/female protagonist since in them I use systems like pronouns substitution on the fly and also name, profession, etc which make everything even more complex than it already is. For now I could translate smaller games only, or in any case with a fixed protagonist.
