[game_edu] Localisation

[Kathleen Harmeyer]

I suspect we have the most fortunate way to work Localization into a project. Anibal Menezes' students at The Image Campus in Buenos Aires and we at University of Baltimore are developing jointly a 3D XBox game using XNA Game Studio. In this project we have split art, audio, and programming tasks to develop the game during the various semesters at the two institutions throughout 2008. We will have Level 1 completed of Ancient Axes December 21 and will do the remaining levels in the spring 2009.
 
Anibal's students are handling the Spanish text and voices, our folks are doing the English. They have learned how to develop and link in XML files to swap, based on the optional selection of language. 
 
It has been an exciting and sometimes difficult co-ordination task, but we are working successfully as a team from both institutions. And this has forced us into studying Localization. A lucky happenstance for all of our students.
 
Kathleen Harmeyer, D.C.D.
Director, Simulation & Digital Entertainment Program
School of Information Arts & Technologies, 
Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts, University of Baltimore
AC113, 1420 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Voice mail: 410 837-5473 email: kharmeyer at ubalt.edu <mailto:kharmeyer at ubalt.edu> 
Website: http://iat.ubalt.edu/harmeyer <http://iat.ubalt.edu/harmeyer> 


________________________________

From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org on behalf of Tom Dowd
Sent: Sat 10/25/2008 11:42 AM
To: 'IGDA Game Education Listserv'
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Localisation



I completely agree with Ian's perspective on this. We cover it as an aspect of our fundamental game development course, primarily as an information point, and then it comes up again a time or two again in other classes. I know that the current Little Big Planet incident was discussed in multiple classes, not only from the perspective of technology, but of music licensing, content vetting, and cultural considerations. The requirement to localize the current senior capstone project into Spanish was part of their project spec this year, but we have four concentrations of students working on the project - design, programming, art/animation, and sound - so I think it is more feasible for them, as per Ian's comments. 

 

That said, and don't tell them this, but given that they are already having to deal with a somewhat overscheduled project I expect it to be dropped as a feature at the last minute... or maybe not. A couple of them are already working on a string management tool for the designers to ease the pipeline. So, we shall see...

 

Tom Dowd

Columbia College Chicago

 

From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Ian Schreiber
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 8:14 PM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Localisation

 

I actually do mention this in my classes (in the same category as saving/loading functionality and audio pipeline) as things that tend to get forgotten or neglected early on and end up being a serious pain to shoehorn in at the end if the team hasn't been on top of them for the entire time. My students go off to the industry fully aware that these are issues that their first project is likely to get burned on :)

 

In practical use for student projects, all three of these are difficult to fit in the schedule at all, simply because they are a bit of work and take time and focus away from the essential core gameplay. For student projects, just getting a single working game in their native language is challenge enough, and having multiple languages, the ability to save the game and having interactive audio are things that just aren't in the cards most of the time.

 

In a curriculum where students have the time to work on multiple projects and multiple teams (which is rare -- in many cases, students get maybe one or two shots at this), I could see the case for devoting one project slot to a "maintenance" class. The idea would be to take a working project from a previous project that a totally different group worked on, learn the code, refactor it, and add this kind of functionality. The benefit to students would be exposure to real-world tasks, as well as experience working with someone else's code (which it's extremely likely that they'll be doing in their first job).

 

- Ian

--- On Fri, 10/24/08, m.bernal at roehampton.ac.uk <m.bernal at roehampton.ac.uk> wrote:

	From: m.bernal at roehampton.ac.uk <m.bernal at roehampton.ac.uk>
	Subject: [game_edu] Localisation
	To: game_edu at igda.org
	Date: Friday, October 24, 2008, 3:15 PM

	Hello everybody,
	 
	I am glad to see that there is an important group here trying to improve
	standards in education by suggesting curriculums, modules, topics and the
	branching and pacing of the content delivered.
	 
	I would like to participate with modules/sessions on game internationalisation
	and localisation. I believe this part of the globalised game industry is often
	neglected in development and production, creating more problems than it should.
	Just recently the issue with SCE "Little Big Planet".
	A bit of planning and team awareness in time would eradicate such issues and
	smooth out localisation, as well as save time and money in testing, etc.
	 
	What do you guys think?
	 
	 
	Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino
	Lecturer in Media Translation
	Roehampton University London
	Roehampton Lane, Putney
	SW15 5SZ
	LONDON
	Tel: (00 44) (0) 208 392 3799
	 
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