Korean and Swedish Translations

For the past few months, I have been talking with a lovely person I met on Reddit (of all places). She had seen a post I made about the game and wanted to contribute. She volunteered to translate the game into Korean and Swedish. We've done Korean first and are just finishing Swedish now.

The system I have for localization is quite simple, but it allows me to add new languages with ease.

The process is just a few steps:

1. I have a spreadsheet for all the strings. That includes basic terms like "PLAY" and "OPTIONS", but also texts for a confirmation popup like "Are you sure you want to erase your saved data?". In one column I have a key value, and each subsequent column represents one language. Adding a new language involves first adding a new column.
2. I export the spreadsheet as a JSON file and place it in a specific folder in the game project.
3. The game loads that up on start. In the Editor I can already see the loaded strings and if there are any issues like missing translations.
4. For my localization system to know which languages are expected, I have to include them in a settings file.
5. I update the UI to allow me to choose the new language.
6. That's it, I run the game and can now choose a different language.

Closing

The past few months have been a roller coaster. In late January, I was put through a redundancy process that would last until April. Since I need to be employed to continue living where I am, this caused a lot of stress. I decided early to find another job as soon as possible instead of waiting to understand my situation.

At first, I tried to keep working on the game as usual. I thought that if I scheduled time properly, it would all be fine. Interviews started coming in and some were looking promising. But as time went on I got rejection after rejection. So, I made another decision: postpone the game's participation in the Steam Fest and its launch.

It was a hard decision. "Am I doing this because of the situation I am in, or am I pushing the game deadline again?". Could I have prepared for interviews and released the game? Maybe. But I am glad I didn't.

I did end up getting a new job. It was almost mid-March when I got the offer and in the end, things turned out well.  I am glad I didn't continue doing the game because by April I was burned out. I am still not quite sure if I was burned out, or if I was depressed, or if I was just exhausted. Maybe a mix of it all. The reality is that now, on May 3rd as I write this, I am not fully recovered, but I can finally get back to the game properly.

The plan is simple now: polish the game in May, participate in Steam Fest in June, and release it in July.

As I said in the last devlog "My failures and successes in this game are all learnings and will propel me forward to my next project."

Thanks for reading my long story short. I'm giving my all to make Yurei the best it can be. If you are interested in this type of game please wishlist it on Steam. It helps this and future projects.

If you wanna reach out and say hi, please do.

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Thanks for reading all the way. Keep an eye out on Twitter @brightflask.