Last summer, I pumped out a card game in about 80 hours of work. Since then, things have spiraled. In addition to hosting marketing events like a Twitch stream and joining a Nimdzi Live session, I also managed translation of the product into traditional Chinese and Mexican Spanish, did DTP QA after the assets were localized, and took steps towards creating a digital version of the game, including creating a specifications form with concept art, generating a price estimate, designing sponsorship marketing materials, and reaching out to LSPs about fundraising.
Growing this game was especially interesting, because I was there for every aspect of the project. Everything from the paragraph styles in the Indesign booklet to the placement of the freckles on the Pear character were created by me. Most work experiences aren’t like that. You usually collaborate with a large team. If you’re on the vendor side of localization, you might not have a connection to the creator at all. Because this product was my baby, I new it inside and out and could provide newcomers with anything they needed.
My biggest takeaway from a year working on Fruit Vendor is this: Making something is easy. Maintaining it is hard. Growing it is even harder.
Do It Right the First Time
Here’s an example of how one small change spiraled. In the game design process, Alaina asked for the Bad Apple cards to allow users to steal all the judge’s cards. I felt like this was a little too powerful, so in an early draft, I changed it so that you can only steal one. Alaina disagreed, so I changed it back. Fast forward to the spring semester when MIIS students played and tested the cards, many people gave feedback that the Bad Apple cards were indeed too powerful. Alaina and I circled back and decided to change the rules so that the Bad Apple cards only let you steal one card. Implementing this change meant going into the assets again, editing the cards, editing the instructions pamphlet, editing the images inside the instructions pamphlet, changing the instructions on the website, and changing the images on the website, and changing the images in the Game Crafter listing. That’s a lot. And that hassle might have been prevented if, back in that early design stage, I’d pushed back more and done more testing.
Priorities Are Weird
There’s a funny online joke of a passage in a book writing the line, “The curtains were blue.” A literature professor asked their students to analyze the deep metaphorical significance of the color choice of the curtains. When the author was asked why the curtains were blue, they replied, “I don’t know, man, I just like blue.” I felt like that author a lot in this project.
While the translators were overly concerned with meaning, I prioritized tone. The game’s translators, Ruby Lee for zh-TW and Grizelda Ambriz for es-MX played it too safe at first in the translation process. The titles of the English cards, for example, are catchy alliterations like “Speedy Strawberry,” “Bookish Banana,” and “Justice Jackfruit.” Stuff like this is hard to localize. When they asked me what to do, I told them to go ham. I genuinely couldn’t not have cared less about preserving the meaning. The titles didn’t change the function of the cards at all, they just needed to be cute and catchy.
A similar sentiment was echoed in the design of the cards. Grizelda once told me they felt “represented” by the cards because I’d chosen to include tamarind. Tamarind an unusual fruit for the US, I guess, but it’s common in Mexico and was one of Grizelda’s favorite childhood foods. I smiled and nodded and didn’t tell Grizelda the reason I put tamarind in the deck was because it’s an easy fruit shape to make in Photoshop and I am lazy.
Conversely, I was extremely concerned with brand consistency in ways my two colleagues weren’t. Ruby is a talented artist, and was eager to add her own illustrations to the branding. She’s a much better artist than me, but the style was not consistent with the assets I’d created which made them unusable. Likewise, I found myself sounding like a broken record at times in my insistence of adhering to the style guide. Is anyone really going to tell if the blue used in a poster is a slightly different blue than the one used in the project cards? No. But I will.
Fiver and Upwork Leave Something to be Desired
I originally planned on outsourcing development of the digital version of the game. I made a 16-page specifications form, complete with 13 concept art files that outlined exactly what the project needed. I wrote a precise but succinct posting on Fiver and Upwork and reached out to people who I thought might be a good fit. The developers who replied or reached out to me on their own left something to be desired. The messages were rude, had typos, and didn’t acknowledge the project’s specifications at all. It took a while to draw out a semblance of a price estimate from these users, and I don’t feel like any of them were a very good candidate.
Instead, I think Fruit Vendor should pivot to an in-house model. There are a few localization students at the Middlebury Institute with strong tech skills who could be a good fit. Instead of continuing to spiral down the rabbit hole of finding someone to make a complicated web version, maybe we should just make a discord bot. Doing so would be simpler, but it could also be better because we could easily host games on the Institute server. We could even make the bot open source on github and let other companies adapt it for their own work training.
Fundraising Takes More Time Than You Think
I don’t know why, but for some reason I assumed fundraising was more of an, “if you build it they will come,” scenario. It takes a lot more effort. I created a fundraising proposal with a project overview, proof of concept, explanation of the games applications and target audience, benefits of sponsorship, a project timeline, essential costs, gifts and benefits for different levels of donors, instructions for how to pledge, an overview of the long-term maintenance of the game, and conclusions and annexes. I then talked with some companies in the localization industry.
My biggest observation is that no one likes being first to sponsor something, but they do like bandwagoning. Companies were hesitant to pledge especially at the beginning because there is always a risk that projects may fall through or not go well. Momentum did eventually pick up, and I’m hopeful that the new students I’m handing the Fruit Vendor project off to will have the funding they need by next year to finance the digital version.
What’s Next
Next year I will be saying goodbye to Fruit Vendor and handing the game off to other students. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m a little nervous (what if they don’t follow the style guide). The bumps we encountered this semester, however, provided lessons that next year’s team members don’t have to learn the hard way. There are tentative plans in the works for a Simplified Chinese and Japanese translation of the decks!