Here’s the deal:
Basically, we are hardcore Detective Conan fans who really want to see some games localized. If you are interested in joining us, this page explains all the roles involved in translating the games.
Here some basic general requirements:
- Join a Discord server and integrate well with our international team. We collaborate using English.
- Have a google account to work with Google Drive and Google Sheets.
- Stay around for months or years!
Because translating games is a very long process, patience is capital. You might need to wait months or more likely years before the patch for the game you are working on gets released.
Wanted
Translators
Your role as a translator is to translate the dumped game script and other strings (e.g. menu strings) from Japanese (mostly) to the target language.
We are looking specifically for:
- Japanese to English translators (individual or team)
- Japanese to any translators (individual or team)
How typically the translator work:
- Play partially or fully the game in its original language
- Watch private or public recorded plays (let’s plays) while taking notes
- Translate collaboratively the dumped game script on Google Sheet
- Report to the team all translation difficulties
Challenges the translators encounters:
- The amount of lines to translate might be huge and overwhelming.
- Maximum number of lines, number of characters per line might be fixed to fix in a dialogue box.
- Might need to fit the audio rhythm or timing. This is true in Playstation games.
- The context of a line might not be known but we have to translate it anyway
- Some dialogues might be re-used by multiple characters and thus have extra constraints like be gender neutral
- Sometimes the game needs to be fully re-translated because the hacking improves.
- The script can be unsorted or partially sorted so the need for game knowledge is high.
Editors and proofreaders
As an editor, you will edit the translated script to improve readability and make the dialogue seems more natural while limiting the loss in accuracy of the translation.
How typically the editors work:
- Play the game fully and multiple times in the target language
- Rewrite dialogues, partially or entirely to make the experience smoother
Testers
Hardware and STABILITY testing
As a tester you will test the hacks/roms to guarantee that the release will be stable from start to finish. The testing is done at all stages of the translation process to ensure that no bugs are introduced by our hacking.
If you have hardware you will verify that the release works on real hardware and identify difference of experience between real hardware and emulators.
Translation testing
As a tester who were not involved in the translation you will play the release candidate from start to finish, possibly multiple times to confirm the translation and hacks deliver a smooth experience.
Rom hackers
Other names for this role : Reverse Engineer, Game hacker
As a rom hacker, you will:
- Dump the game script to Google Sheet for the translators and automate a successful reinsertion of the sheet into the game
- Extract all the game assets and strings that need to be edited and translated (graphics, videos, etc…)
- Solve technical issues to help translators and document all technical limitations for all the other roles
- Make builds regularly for the team to review the latest changes
- Create the patch or patcher that will be released.
Fansubbers
Other names: subtitle editor, subber.
As a subber you will time and create subtitles in the extracted FMV files.
Cleaners, graphic editors, pixel artists
Translation AND EDITING of STRINGs in graphics
As a cleaner you will edit the extracted graphics to remove japanese characters included in the graphics.
As a graphic editor you will insert the translated strings in the cleaned graphics while preserving the font effects of the original graphics.
Pixel artists
As a pixel artist you will draw entirely or partially a font, draw stylized graphics in place and work on a title screen.
