First off, the Living with Britney expansion is in testing! Not all the features are in yet, but it is in a playable state. It should be out sometime early next month, as long as nothing goes horribly wrong...
Now then, Claire.
Writing properly in my native tongue is hard enough, writing for someone who doesn't natively speak it is even more so. The problem is, I can't write with ahn outwagious aczent zat mahkes ze vords unriedable. That's no fun for the reader, and it's no fun for me either. More so with this current game, since the previously mentioned Quick Time Events (QTE's) require the player to absorb the relevant information and then make a prompt judgement call. Choosing poorly is damaging, not choosing at all can be damning...
So how do I handle writing for foreign characters? It's actually not as hard as it seems. In this case, I draw from personal experience with dating a girl who was "fresh off the boat" in college. Even though she had been taught English in her country, there were still many inconsistencies with how we speak it over here in America. For instance she constantly added "is it?" to the end of almost every sentence. Basically, she was confirming what she was saying. While there was nothing technically wrong with that, since you could understand her, it was still something the locals would never say. (Also, it was kinda annoying!)
My key trick is something I learned from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. There is a character on that show who has the appearance of being a human but is, in fact, not. The writers for the character Data came up with a few simple rules to make it seem as though there was something off about him from the rest of the cast. One of those rules I've used for most of my foreign characters starting with Vladimir from Sisters. And I use that again here with Claire, combined with a much more subtle version of "is it?". In this case, Claire will, on rare occasion, end her statements with "yes?" or "no?". The trick to use it just enough that it seems odd, but not too much that it annoys the player. (I'm actually curious if anyone would've picked up on that if I hadn't written about it here.)
I'll continue working on this game throughout the week, hopefully finishing up on the... WHEN IT'S DONE!! *Ahem.* The story is coming along nicely! I'd say the hardest part, so far, has been judging the timing needed for the QTE's but that will tuned in testing as well.
Yes, it will work until a native speaker sees it. And I think that's the reason it worked in Star Trek.
ReplyDeleteRussian is my native language, and Vladimir annoyed me with his "occasional" and "subtle" nonsense, because it didn't fit either for English or Russian speech. As you've said, there was nothing technically wrong with it, except the locals don't speak that way. (And I doubt anyone speaks that way unless they're trying to talk about something they're not very familiar with or just trolling you.) But then again, who gives a fuck about a remote snowy shithole where bears play balalaykas and dance on the streets after they drink vodka, yes?
Haha! I think there are many people who'd love to dance in the street after drinking Vodka. But you are right. I wrote this for English speakers, and obviously anyone who has spent time, or lived with people in the non-English nationality I've portrayed, would find fault with how I wrote them.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't mean to offend when I do this, I'm just trying to play up their stereotype to an extreme level. I do this with most of the secondary characters I write for, finding their quirks and exploiting them as much as I can.
If we had an unlimited budget and the resources, we could hire native speakers to improvise their parts based on the script, and then rewrite everything as subtitles reflecting how the actors portrayed their character. Unfortunately, we're not yet at the position where we can make porn movies.
Again, if I offended anyone with my writing style, I didn't mean to, and I apologize. This is meant to be all in good clean (sometimes) sexy fun!
No need to apologize, that was sarcasm. I guess I should not have removed the "8-P" smiley at the end, I just thought the use of the tag question "yes" you mentioned in your post will be enough for you to detect it. My bad. I know you didn't mean to offend anyone.
ReplyDeleteActually, the main thing I like in LoP games is the dialogues and the stories - they look and feel natural (not just "-Hi, beautiful! -Hi, handsome! Let's fuck!"), with The Heist being the only exception so far. But it is messed up on so many levels, that it even begins to be funny: I had to restart the game a few times trying to understand who the heck he (or the narration) is calling the Chief of Security (or something) because a girl in a blouse unbuttoned THAT much and a skirt THAT short looks to me more like a Chief of Sluttiness or just a stereotypical secretary. :) I don't know, maybe the action takes place in some distant future and her outfit is nothing special - the absense of an intro didn't help much to clarify that. Alright, enough of offtopic.
I knew by your last sentence that you weren't too horribly offended. I'll try harder next time, нет? 8-P
ReplyDeleteAs for "The Heist" I disavow any and all knowledge about that game! But if you do feel that strongly about it, and I admit you do have legitimate reasons, don't be afraid to talk to Leonizer or Agrippa as they worked on it. I myself enjoyed the characters, even if I felt the game should've gone through some more testing, especially the intro. Just understand that, what's done is done, and everyone is working on new projects right now. But feedback still helps us with future projects.
Now you do sound like Vladimir. :))) Because "нет?" was inappropriate there. 8-P A Russian speaker would use "ладно?" or "хорошо?" ("okay?").
ReplyDeleteBTW, thanks for the unexpectedly positive image of Vladimir. I almost expected to see a drunkard in a ushanka sitting on the floor in a room full of garbage. :)