Post by Michael Brough in Any chance for English language support?

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Michael Brough6 years ago (1 edit) (+6)(-2)

i'm learning portuguese because i'm living in portugal, and i thought it would help if i wasn't switching back to english all the time for work!

i don't think it matters a lot because no matter what the text says people learn games by experimenting and observing. when i write game instructions in english people usually skip them anyway. but if it's challenging for you: welcome to my life - this is a challenge i face all the time! and i think it's been good for me to learn to accept not understanding everything. i know it makes some people uncomfortable but maybe it's a good kind of uncomfortable? i don't know for sure but i like having the freedom to try it out INDIE GAMES YEAH

NextZenMechanics6 years ago (2 edits) (+2)(-5)

By this logic, doesn't it give a subpar experience to people that can read Portuguese? It's like they are getting baby mode.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be hard about this, but the logic doesn't make any sense to me. And usually your games are filled to the brim with functionality.

Also, why isn't this whole conversation in Portuguese then for work purposes? Man this whole thing makes little sense to me.

playlinesgames2 years ago(-1)

They really aren't. You can play this game entirely without text. You will figure out what each effect does very quickly, the first time you see it for many of them because the effect is so obvious. The game reveals what the effects are WHEN the effect has applied. Therefore by observing the game you will understand the symbols.

Misery6 years ago(+5)

Hey there! I'm actually one of those indie friends mentioned above. Originally the language thing turned me off as well, but with some convincing I decided to dive into the game after all. Not like I havent played confusing-to-learn games in this genre before, really.

And honestly.... after quite a number of hours with the game, I gotta say... the language bit stopped mattering almost immediately. Partly due to how well you did with making the ability icons descriptive, I find that honestly very impressive. I went into this expecting to have alot of trouble remembering what each one does (my memory is bloody horrible... with something like Isaac for instance I constantly have to check the freaking wiki because even after 400 hours I still cant remember what half the items do) without the ability to get a tooltip description, but... no, the icons honestly do the trick.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to say: This game is absolutely fantastic. You've done an incredible job here. I've really enjoyed your previous games and they're all things that I constantly come back to, but I honestly think this might be the best one you've made. I'm very impressed with the depth and creativity on offer here. The more I play it, the deeper and more challenging it seems to get. I'm currently on an 11-streak run (score of about 280... alot of room for improvement, yep), have some artifacts and even reached the secret room, and am loving every moment of it.

I cant wait to see whatever you might make next!

NextZenMechanics6 years ago (4 edits) (+3)(-3)

I still think there are droves of potential players that are turning away because of the language thing. It's the most common (actually the _only_) response when I try getting anyone other than you, Misery, to try it.

But I give up on trying to promote this dudes game. It'll fall between the cracks like all his other titles do, unless he actually cares enough to try to get in the right hands.

Misery6 years ago(+1)

To be fair though, even if the language thing was changed, it's still just very difficult to get games noticed these days. Even devs with alot of know-how and resources have trouble getting anyone to see that their game even exists. And then getting people interested in trying them is the other half of the problem. Particularly with games this unique. I mean, I point out stuff like 868-HACK to friends all the time, particularly since that hit Steam, but it's hard to get anyone to try it because they think it looks "weird" or confusing since it's just so different from everything else. There's no language barrier there but still the game seems to intimidate people somehow. And finding these games on your own is tough. The only reason I even know about any of them is from stumbling on HACK a couple years back on TouchArcade... some article or something mentioned it, and I gave it a try and loved it.

NextZenMechanics6 years ago(+3)(-1)

No argument there. But boy it sure does feel like Michael is swimming upstream with this title. Again, even my friends won't try it. Now that takes something *really* off, let me tell you (I think you would appreciate that Misery, seeing as we share many of the same indie game friends). I have plenty of Steam friends that own and play 868.

I still would like an answer as to why it couldn't just have a non-language. Problem solved in one fell swoop. Anyways, I've moved on to other games and discussions, so I won't be back to this forum. Thanks for the discussion, folks.

Swordfishtrombone6 years ago(+2)(-2)

It's an experiment, as outlined above, and I think it's pretty offensive for you to start accusing the dev of not "caring enough" just because he's done something you may not agree with. Give him a break - the guy's an artist.

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