Oh god you have to play this

[Thrasher]

Games can capture average cultural sentiments that appeal to their countries of origin.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

For fuck's sake, getting a good translation nowadays is an investment of about 2-3 thousand Euro (for one language pair - at, say, 0.10€ per translated word it'd be 20.000-30.000 words. Anyone knows the wordcount of the game? Still, only if they'd hire an independent translator, not through an agency). If they can't be arsed to invest such an amount (probably more, but not much more) into their game, they shouldn't even think of trying to sell internationally.

 

[Serus]

The Eastern Euro's seem to have some good ideas, I just wish they could nail down the execution. The Witcher was probably the best executed to my mind. So far that is.

The ideas behind the games are much more refreshing than the mainstream game developers in the West. This makes it hurt even more when the game is released and...many, many flaws apparent.

I agree with you - just one thing - Poles (or Bohemians, Hungarians, etc...) prefer to be called "central" european. :wink: Eastern is everything ex-soviet union/russian.

 

[entertainer]

No shit.

 

[Thrasher]

Funny how that changed after the end of the iron curtain...

 

[Darth Roxor]

mostly because he will attempt to play it for FUN, and the game is ultimately NOT about fun at all... while still managing to be brilliant.

Pretentious bullshit detected.

 

[DraQ]

Does anyone know how bad/good is the version available in Poland and what version is it? Might try it if it isn't too atrocious.

 

[JarlFrank]

Apparently the developers are making an improved re-translation. Probably going to take a year or so until it's out, but they're working on it.

 

[xantrius]

For fuck's sake, getting a good translation nowadays is an investment of about 2-3 thousand Euro (for one language pair - at, say, 0.10€ per translated word it'd be 20.000-30.000 words. Anyone knows the wordcount of the game? Still, only if they'd hire an independent translator, not through an agency). If they can't be arsed to invest such an amount (probably more, but not much more) into their game, they shouldn't even think of trying to sell internationally.

Around 1200 pages IIRC (no idea about the average word of each the page though... )
... and I only think 800 pages where translated in the initial current English translation, Oo


This Game is really intriguing to me, but I'lll probably wait for the improved translation.

 

[Raapys]

Tried this a year ago or so. Really is an interesting game( as is Tension/Turgor, their new game ), but I seem to remember getting bored of it eventually because of all the walking around.

 

[Rosh]

Apparently the developers are making an improved re-translation. Probably going to take a year or so until it's out, but they're working on it.

I look forward to it, the setting and gameplay sound pretty interesting.

 

[Murk]

I've had the game for a few months after hearing about it here and reading about the premise - the current in game dialog is like a really bad spoof of Dostoevsky at times. I was willing to go through it and deal with it until I found that my reactions to the game's text didn't make sense. That is, I was making the wrong choices not because I meant to but because the text was too ridiculous to understand what the situation even was.

A professional retranslation is much more appealing than a fan made one, hopefully it'll be well done.

 

[asper]

Discussing Pathologic again? It's a very unpolished and rough gem.

How about some opinions on the new game from these guys, TENSION / TURGOR ? There must be some people here who played it.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=22192

 

[poocolator]

In Soviet Russia, boy molests you!

 

[Jaime Lannister]

It has more stats, loot, better stat-driven combat and explorative adventuring than most RPGs, really?

poor mondblut might have to close his excel spreadsheet and play the game

 

[Lesifoere]

It has more stats, loot, better stat-driven combat and explorative adventuring than most RPGs, really?

poor mondblut might have to close his excel spreadsheet and play the game

No, no. He'll have to pretend that the game is filled with elves, dwarves and dragons. Nothing else is playable, see. Too artsy and unrecognizable.

 

[Wyrmlord]

No shit.

Baltic peasant detected.

 

[sqeecoo]

Ok. Just finished the game. I must say, in games that are incredibly weird and atmospheric, it's hard to come up with an ending that is even weirder and quite satisfying. I honestly didn't expect one, but I must say I got one. I'm officially blown away. In addition to being awesome, the ending is a direct slap in the face to the gaming industry. Recommended for all codexers.

Up till now I'd include only PST into "the games that are 'real art' category", but now Pathologic is added to that list.

Again, the game has absolutely no bugs, only a shitty translation. I really recommend that you play it once the improved translation comes out, but I must say I didn't find the bad translation jarring. In a normal game, bad translation is an issue, but this game is about mystery and the uncomprehensible and alien. I must say that in a way, the bad translation *adds* to the game, except in the very few instances where it is totally incomprehensible.

 

[MetalCraze]

And do you think there will be an improved translation?
You're quite lucky to not know how shitty writing in russian games tends to be. Their next one Tension wasn't an exception (and even had too much "mature" in it) The only exception to this date was Space Rangers - though it isn't some super-artsy example of writing either and even then they released Knight's Bounty: TL which had atrocious writing.

 

[sqeecoo]

The developers pretty much promised they'd get it out, and some guy in the LP seems to be doing it on his own. Will get it once it's done. But again, I don't find the bad translation a problem.

Anyway, I don't know why these translations are so bad. I mean, I am not a native speaker, but I can take almost any Croatian sentence I understand and coherently translate it to English, though probably not too well. And I'd do it cheaply, too, especially for a game I like. I'm surprised they didn't find a guy with this kind of passable knowledge of English in Russia - I'm certain there are many. It would make the translations a million times better.

But honestly, I'm not sure I'd want a good translation here. Obviously, it's bad when the text is downright incomprehensible (which is not often), but I feel many things might sound much more typical and cliche in normal English, and a lot of strangeness and the uniquely Russian feel would be lost. For instance, two of the PC characters are called "Bachelor" (as in graduate) and "Devotress/Impostress". These names aren't proper English, but I wouldn't have them any other way - and not just because I've gotten used to them. The broken translation adds somewhat to the feel that something is wrong with the world in Pathologic, I think.

Of course, an absolutely brilliant translation would preserve all this, but such a translation is really hard to get. I'd say doing a great translation is quite a bit harder than writing a good (not great, but good) text.

 

[JarlFrank]

The developers pretty much promised they'd get it out, and some guy in the LP seems to be doing it on his own. Will get it once it's done. But again, I don't find the bad translation a problem.

Anyway, I don't know why these translations are so bad. I mean, I am not a native speaker, but I can take almost any Croatian sentence I understand and coherently translate it to English, though probably not too well. And I'd do it cheaply, too, especially for a game I like. I'm surprised they didn't find a guy like that in Russia - I'm certain there are many.

Yeah, but who would you rather trust?
The guy who likes your game and says "I'll do a translation for 100 bucks!" or the company who says "We might charge you at least 10 times as much as that guy, but WE ARE PROFESSIONALS! TRUST US!"

 

[sqeecoo]

Sure, but that's why you get a friend to do it (I feel many of my friends could do a better job than this) or have every applicant do a test-translation. I'm pretty sure they could just ask on their forums and find someone. Hell, that guy seems to be doing it for free, and by his English posts he seems competent enough. Remember, you wouldn't be aiming for a good translation, just a non-atrocious one.

I mean, the amount of free work fans are prepared to do on improving their favorite game often amazes me. I'm a bit surprised non-asshole developers (not many of them out there) don't make more use of this.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Well, that game certainly looks interesting. I may give it a go, though if the translation is as bad as some of you are saying I may have to wait. (For the record, I thought the Witcher was fine.) So sqeecoo, what about that bit that the reviewer was saying about the game being too much of a chore to play more than once?

 

[JarlFrank]

Sure, but that's why you get a friend to do it (I feel many of my friends could do a better job than this) or have every applicant do a test-translation. I'm pretty sure they could just ask on their forums and find someone. Hell, that guy seems to be doing it for free, and by his English posts he seems competent enough. Remember, you wouldn't be aiming for a good translation, just a non-atrocious one.

I mean, the amount of free work fans are prepared to do on improving their favorite game often amazes me. I'm a bit surprised non-asshole developers (not many of them out there) don't make more use of this.

Well, the problem in Pathologic's case surely was that they trusted the professional translator to do a good job, but they failed. It's unlikely they intended the tanslation to be crappy since they're now working on an improvement.

 

[cardtrick]

Well, that game certainly looks interesting. I may give it a go, though if the translation is as bad as some of you are saying I may have to wait. (For the record, I thought the Witcher was fine.

I'm only an hour or two in the game, so take this with a grain of salt. However, the translation is considerably worse than The Witcher's -- which I agree, was not nearly as bad as it was made out to be.

On the other hand, squeeco's not being a blind fanboy when he says that the bad translation almost seems appropriate -- it's just about as disjointed, broken, and bizarre as the game's setting, so all is well.

In other news, this game has a fantastic beginning. The "meta" aspect is a little pretentious, maybe, but it's also damn intriguing.