itch.io

Hey everyone!

I’m Lianna, I’m a professional freelancer in the localisation and translation business, and I’d love to participate in LocJam this time.

A huge part of the game jam appeal is cooperating and getting to know others in the field, so let’s work in a team!

Since there hadn’t been a German team yet, this is my attempt to build one.

LocJam is a hobby jam and not a paid project, so I’m open for going a bit wild or eccentric with our localisation if y’all are on board. Perhaps we could attempt a localisation beyond Standard German into, say, one of our many dialects, or into subculture or youth language varieties! That’d be an interesting challenge, and a good practice run for when some client actually comes around with such a request. :P

If you’re interested, feel free to reach out here. We can organise via any messenger out there, including Matrix, XMPP, Signal, or Discord.

super adorable bunny puzzle game! played through it in around 20 minutes and found a funky little secret area. <3

Just a heads up since this is your first game jam – if you don't get any ratings, it's probably because your game isn't playable in the browser and very few people rate games already, much less even if they're download-only.

that's so awesome!

woah, this is really cool!

i still can't get past the staircase... haha

The game is gorgeous and well-designed, but the GenAI thumbnail "art" drags the whole thing down a notch.

Also, there is a bug where you can lead the first "shadow" enemy outside of its screen into the previous rooms and it glitches out in the air.

I am not sure what exactly the rules are.

I understand that the paddle rotates around the ball and you pause it at the right time to hit the ball. If the ball leaves the arena, you lose (the screen goes red).

But why does the screen sometimes go yellow when I hit the ball? What does yellow mean? Have I lost or won? When I hit it thrice, the screen also goes yellow, so I assume I won; but sometimes the screen goes yellow even on the first hit.

The core concept of a round-robin Pong where you freeze an ever-changing paddle looks really fun, but I am unsure what the rules are.

Really cool game despite the silly concept, and super addictive! Just during the rating queue time I already prestiged it twice.

I wonder what the caps are for the different shop upgrades. I've maxxed out the spawn rate at .03, but I haven't hit any of the other caps.

Really cool entry to start off my review queue with! It was surprisingly addictive for such a silly concept, I prestiged it twice.

Hey there,

I am Lianna (she/her) and I am currently breaking into the localization and translation field. I offer translation and localization services for the language pair German <> English. :) 

# Qualifications

I am currently finishing up my Bachelor's degree in linguistics at a large German university; after that, I would like to enter the localization industry professionally.

I have also been working as a volunteer on the German translation of various open source projects, especially in the GNU/Linux world. I am most familiar with the Weblate platform, but I am willing to adapt to whatever translation pipeline you would like to use for your project.

I am a native German speaker and have been actively learning and speaking English since early childhood. I am familiar with many German dialects and sociocultural communities, so I am able to localize with language aspects such as youth slang, dialects, age, subculture and such in mind. No real person speaks perfectly standardized German, so subculture and identity have a huge impact on authenticity. This is something that I put a particular focus on and that LLM approaches to translation cannot offer.

Let's address the elephant in the room: while machine translation is not a feasible replacement for a human adept at localization yet, there is no denying that it keeps getting better with the advancement of large language models.

That is why I consider it one of my top priorities to focus on culturally aware localization over pure translation. I take into account your target audience, cultural differences and norms. I am especially interested in natural-feeling localization that relies extensively on the kind of cultural knowledge and people skills that "AI" does not possess.

# Some notes on how I intend to work

If needed, I would like to stay in close contact with you to ensure that the style is in line with your vision; for example, whether we address the user formally or informally in the interface, whether to use gender-sensitive language in the German localization or not, how to handle dialects and individual speech styles, and similar issues that you might want to give input on.

I will maintain a glossary of important terms in your game and interface so that the translation stays consistent across individual strings.

If applicable and wanted, I can give input on specific internationalization issues that often crop up in German <> English translations. I am decent at programming myself, so I know most of the common pitfalls such as missing support for special characters in your typefaces, the average longer length of German strings compared to English, or the difficulties with grammatical gender.

# Availability & Rates

As I have a family and am still finishing my degree, I am available part-time. Specifics may be discussed.

My rates are 0.05€ per word in the source language.

I am willing to provide up to 100 words in custom sample translations for free beforehand, so you can easily "try before you buy". I encourage you to seek feedback on said samples from other native speakers to judge whether you think I am a good fit for your project

I can work with a wide variety of tools and formats; no matter whether you're an indie developer who just needs an XML or JSON file translated or someone well versed in computer-assisted translation tools like Transifex or Weblate.

You can reach me either here on itch.io or via e-mail (lianna@tutamail.com) Looking forward to hear from you!

One of my favorite fonts ever!!

Is this one of those games that turns into a horror game half way through, like Doki Doki or whatnot? I really cannot stand horror, so I'd like to know in advance.

The ability to empathize for another viewpoint is a skill that most people have, Kevin.

Punching down, I see.