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Thanks for your insight! I'm not sure if it's just a niche on itch.io - it does seem like a niche everywhere else as well. The upside to it being a niche means that it's usually sought after by folk who are specifically and actively looking for it. I feel that if more niche audiences know that itch.io houses Wuxia/Xianxia games, they would visit this platform and we'll have more developers making them since they also share the same niche. But if we're looking to get a lot of views and plays on the get go.... that's not going to happen. It'll take some time before it catches on.

You bring up an interesting point about translations and origin languages. To be honest, I had thought of using simplified English words such as "Master", but they don't always fit the context - "Shifu" doesn't always translate directly to "Master", since "Master" can also mean one from the household or an employer of a servant, and it's a very different thing if it's a martial father ("Shizun"), because it's more clan-based than technical-based ("Shifu"), but like "Shifu", can also mean "Master". As it is, I'm already taking a risk by using the general term, "young master" instead of the more specific "gongzi" and "shaoye", which have different meanings but both can translate to "young master".

If I'd used generalized words for all of them, it'll alienate the ones who are already into the genre as it would confuse them. It would also unfortunately confuse me, since I'm directly translating it from my head to English with these specific meanings. Therefore I'd left some of them directly untranslated - they're shorter, easier to manage, and keep an original flavour that makes Wuxia, well, Wuxia. It's a bit like "-sensei", "-kun" and "-san" suffixes in English-translated Japanese games, novels or comics... swap them out and it'd feel weird to a native English reader who's been exposed to anime translations for a long time. That said, I ultimately chose to write for the native English reader and not the peripheral audience who aren't natively English-language consumers; sometimes you need to choose between a rock and a hard place. That's the  challenge of producing stuff for a niche - you tend to need to pick one and stick with it.

Getting into Wuxia is mainly about prolonged exposure, I feel. There are times when I think it isn't so much about educating the audience, but rather inviting them to stay and learn and explore at their own pace. What this means is to make it as enticing as possible, whether it be in character design or humour. This will draw them in, and then they'll figure if they want to know more about the genre or if they don't.

The only thing I can say is that Chinese names don't necessarily require a meaning either - we're sometimes named by our parents without that much thought. There's literally an uncle in my family named "Small Dog" because my grandpa liked dogs, and I'm literally named after the fact that I came out of the womb ass-first. So I wouldn't really worry about names were I you.

The only thing you might want to worry about are the oufits, though. It can look pretty jarring if we don't understand the components and layers of the outfits before tweaking them. The idea is to make them look less like costumes and more of something that fits into the world it's from. But if your consumers are mostly Westerners I don't think it's something to worry too much about either. I can't speak for other Asians, but... where I come from I don't really think it's our culture to call you out on that sorta thing. In turn, the Westerners haven't really called me out for getting anything wrong about Western culture either. I feel we're quite alright on the give-and-take bit.

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Yeah, I do understand  that the right way to translate  is the hardest part  that prevent me from actually  try to write one. Many words are without alternatives  either: the puplpil who came under the master before you and after you have specific  noun to show their seniority  etc. 

It's  the same thing as senpai, kouhai, sensei, nii-san etc in Japan. I noticed  in official  translation of manga etc they often  ommited  those titles  and replace with characters  name. It make sense for westerners  because  they don't  call their sibling " big brother", the stranger lady who is older than you "sister". For Asian, they would consider calling name out rude, and I wouldn't  be able to take it seriously  if Alphone Elric start calling his brother " Edward". So yeah I understand  your concern  about confusion  it might cause. 

I recommend  "master" because  that words was a favorite  in manga translation  and Japanese  isn't  less varied than Chinese  when it come to pronoun, I believe  most English  reader could interpret  the difference  between  "master"- teacher and "master" -owner. The prerson who make the round medicine thing ( what is that called in English  again) would be weird to be called potion master tho.

Back to topic, when I was a beginner  in the genre, most of the book i read were beginner  friendly with detailed explanations  on how immortal  cultivation  works, so I still think some explanation  is still required. The specialize nouns, if you don't  want to switch them,  you might want to add a dictionary  system that highlights  the words when it first appear and show the english meaning of the text when player click on them (I might have heard of a Renpy code that does that). The advantage  of VN is that we could make use of programming  to our advantage. I understand  that it would be too much trouble  for short game xD.

About the clothes, yeah I'm totally not confident  to draw them. How many layer of robes, which side going in first, how does the inner layer looks like when they are taken off for a  H scene etc require a lot of research. And the problem  with Chinese  name is that it's  hard for a non-Chinese to name a character  in Chinese because  they are so language  specific.  It's  also hard for a non-Chineses to write something  in another ancient culture (though fictional  but based a bit on reality). Western  style VN is easier probably  because the whole world is modernized following the west, and there's  not as many hard rule (or if there  are, people broke them often enough  that the broken rule became the norm).

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Yeah, there's no real right way or wrong way to translate them - which can make it hard in its own way. If we neutralized everything and made them completely western, quite a number of westerners who're already very used to cultivation will find it odd or too dumbed down. And yes, your disciple brothers and sisters will all have seniority and junior names depending on ranking. "Senior Disciple Brother Yi" would be a mouthful compared to "Yi-shixiong". You can't run away from that in cultivation, unfortunately, unless you're making a story about a hermit...

Yeah, there's also the issue of it sounding rude if honorifics were dropped. Alphonse calling Edward by name wouldn't be odd at all since they're westerners from the start. But in an ancient Chinese clan/sect setting? Oh boy.

I don't know about "potion master" but fortunately the ones who make pills can easily be called "alchemists", "herbalists" or more accurately "pill forgers". If they can also make potions and decoctions, the easiest way is to simply call them "pharmacists". It's not so straightforward when making a distinction between "Shifu" and "Shizun" though. Using the latter usually highlights the cuteness of the disciple, after all. As always, the cuteness of a big wolfish clan disciple is a most important thing!

Mm, yeah, I think I know what you mean about footnotes and explanations. A lot of novel sites have modern footnotes (popup tags), that you can click at to find a glossary or explanation of the words. They definitely help newbies with the terms and teach you a bit more about the culture as you go without you needing to refer to a search engine. I write these footnotes when posting cultivation novels on regular sites. But like you mentioned, it's an absolute pain to program that sort of thing for a short VN - and a free one at that where we're not going to get much payout or much thanks for. The cons outweigh the pros, really.

But if it helps, think of it as something folk who already know cultivation can have as street cred! They'd be like, "here's how I can test my knowledge! I no longer need footnotes to understand the game!" In fact, if they're streaming it, they can work as a translator too to the audience and that might give show off their skills and knowledge. There's always a silver lining to doing things on medium to hard mode. We don't always need to spoon-feed our audience. Quite a number may prefer to learn to fish on their own, or show off their fishing skills. It might help to label it for advanced cultivation readers only, which may be what they're looking to be known as.

I see. It does make sense that non-Chinese folk are scared to start because of the naming conventions and cultural differences. Everyone's working hard to make a VN and the last thing we'd want is for folk to laugh at us or tell us off for getting something wrong. As it is, we're already mostly not paid for whatever we're doing... and then there's this additional stress! I totally get ya.

I know I've talked about making Wuxia/Xianxia games more available to others, but honestly, after some retrospective, there's nothing wrong with leaving it as a niche too. It's just that there's this misconception that making Wuxia/Xianxia BL games will get a developer views because The Untamed and Faraway Wanderers are popular. Wuxia/Xianxia's like K-pop; it looks big but not everyone's actually into it. If views makes someone happy, I don't recommend they do Wuxia/Xianxia unless they like the genre, or can market their games very well.

I'm only really making Wuxia/Xianxia games because I so happen to be Chinese and it's naturalized for me. The upside is that I don't really need to market it because people will be clicking on it out of curiosity anyway. It's probably pretty rare to see something ancient Chinese  pop up in BL adult games. Even if people are not interested, they would click to see what it is.

But now I find out why Wuxia is rare here. People are too scared to make them.