Localizing a Game

I just finished going through and adding Japanese localization! I'm working with Yuta Kurosawa (@blackstream001) who did the Japanese localization for One Step From Eden!

I used the I2 Localization plugin which I've also used for One Step From Eden's localization.

Basically there are two types of localization you have to look out for. Standard and script.

Standard would be a button that says "Play" and never says anything else.

Script would be hardcoded, with the text set by script. For example, when you clicked a "Play" button that switched to say "Pause." These require manual updates, which I do by triggering a callback whenever the in-game language is changed.

It's a bit tedious, but you have to go to every text element (or the prefab which makes it much faster) and add the localization component if it's not Script type.

You also have to add every "term" to the localization sheet, which can be categorized by tab.

Currently, all the Japanese is auto-filled by Google translate as a placeholder

Gotta change fonts, make sure the other translations fit into the relevant boxes. Google Fonts has a ton of free fonts to choose from. You can also set backup fonts so that if there's a character that doesn't exist in the current font, the game will switch to a backup that does contain the character.

I'm choosing only one language because it's a hassle to localize into so many different languages every time you make a design change that needs rewording. One Step From Eden was localized to Polish, Spanish, French, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish Latam, Portuguese, and Turkish! It was kind of a hassle to update all of them, so I ended up not changing the cards too much after release aside from numerical adjustments.

Duelists of Eden will probably require more balance changes and it's important that changes are localized properly.

In the settings menu it's important to have iconography next to the "Language" option so that players who can't read the current language can locate and change it easily.

Of course if the game does well, and once the game is in a balanced state, it may be translated into more languages!