Please fix the font.

[Junnn]

Hi team,

I'm a Chinese player. I changed game language from English to simplified Chinese, and the font look like ****.

The characters are in different sizes, bad kerning, and traditional Chinese characters in simplified Chinese game menu. All the western fonts are stylized to fit the look of the game. All the Asian fonts looks like those free font packages downloaded from internet. There are good fonts in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean out there. Please, be professional, and use a proper font. Btw, the "free font package" is inventing characters I have never seen in my life.

best,

RJ.

 

[Ecu]

If this is actually a problem with understanding what things are, this should probably be moved to a bug report instead.

However, if this is just you not enjoying the stylization they chose to use for a given language, it probably won't be changed.  Most likely all the alternative languages are handled via translations and not designed specifically by people that regularly use that language.  I cannot be sure about this but I just doubt that Klei staff actually personally know all languages offered.

This is generally pretty common in modern games, when translating, they will not actually reformat the layout of windows or sizing of fonts specifically to make it more representative of the target language and instead it will just be replacing one set of text with another.

[Arlesienne]

3 minutes ago, Ecu said:

This is generally pretty common in modern games, when translating, they will not actually reformat the layout of windows or sizing of fonts specifically to make it more representative of the target language and instead it will just be replacing one set of text with another.

I can confirm it's translators who have to fit into the text box, not the other way around (just own experience, no association with Klei bar my worship of the games). Given how elaborate kanji already are, having them stylised would probably make it impossible. You have thousands of them, mind you. Belissa Plumilla, on the other hand, supports only a limited set of Latin letters. It doesn't work with Slavic languages and I don't recall success using it for Spanish writings. I honestly see no chance to make kanji fit the style more.

[Junnn]

This is not a bug issue. This is typography - a basic skill for design things....

The game makes money in the Asian market, thus should be designed properly for that market as a product. To Western audiences, there are well-designed interface and fonts, so less good looking Asian font will not negatively affect the gaming experience. However, to Asian audiences, these bad looking typography is all they gonna get from this game - a huge part of their gaming experience. 

Translator only translates the language, as for how it will look on the screen...that's design. In addition, if I speak Chinese and use google translator to communicate with you guys, the language must make no sense. Hire a Chinese, Japanese or Korean intern even an international student and buy a good font should not be too hard a company.

I guess I should give some possible solutions, I'm no pro but..I made these 2 versions below...

 

[Ecu]

2 hours ago, Junnn said:

The game makes money in the Asian market, thus should be designed properly for that market as a product. To Western audiences, there are well-designed interface and fonts, so less good looking Asian font will not negatively affect the gaming experience. However, to Asian audiences, these bad looking typography is all they gonna get from this game - a huge part of their gaming experience. 

Just because a game offers a translation for a different market, does not mean it was designed specifically for said market.  The amount of effort that would be required to individually customize the visual and typographical layout for each individual language style would just reduce the appeal to support other languages all together.

3 hours ago, Junnn said:

Translator only translates the language, as for how it will look on the screen...that's design. In addition, if I speak Chinese and use google translator to communicate with you guys, the language must make no sense. Hire a Chinese, Japanese or Korean intern even an international student and buy a good font should not be too hard a company.

You're asking an Indie company to pay to hire individual interns for every language they support.  Do you actually understand how unreasonable that is?  Especially when the difference is a minor visual improvement for a specific language (as the current issue does not impede gameplay, since you say it is not a bug).  Honestly, this feels like an absolutely absurd request.

[Junnn]

1 hour ago, Ecu said:

Just because a game offers a translation for a different market, does not mean it was designed specifically for said market.  The amount of effort that would be required to individually customize the visual and typographical layout for each individual language style would just reduce the appeal to support other languages all together.

You're asking an Indie company to pay to hire individual interns for every language they support.  Do you actually understand how unreasonable that is?  Especially when the difference is a minor visual improvement for a specific language (as the current issue does not impede gameplay, since you say it is not a bug).  Honestly, this feels like an absolutely absurd request.

 

 

 

I can't agree with you. SuperCell did an awesome job when Clash of Clan first launched in the Asian market. Their Asian character fits the style just like English does for the game. This is not a request, it's a suggestion, and it's absolutely not an absurd one. This game is a piece of art, every little detail should be considered.

[Trenix]

I've seen plenty of online games from different countries provide unappealing text when translated which does ruin your immersion from the game. If they're targeting other countries and languages, they need make appropriate text and improve it if necessary. That is how you improve business. If something looks like crap or is hard to read, that is going to turn people away. I can't say anything about this situation, because English is my language, but I can understand the frustration.

[Ecu]

12 minutes ago, Trenix said:

I've seen plenty of online games from different countries provide unappealing text when translated which does ruin your immersion from the game. If they're targeting other countries and languages, they need make appropriate text and improve it if necessary. That is how you improve business. If something looks like crap or is hard to read, that is going to turn people away. I can't say anything about this situation, because English is my language, but I can understand the frustration.

The question is whether it is actually hard to read, or if it is just a style issue.  When I asked @Junnn if it was causing problems playing the game, they said no.  Which means this is just that the style chosen bothers them.  Asking the developers to spend additional time perfecting the stylization of every translated language to better match similar styles used in that culture, is asking too much from an Indie development company.

If it does indeed cause actual problems playing the game, then this should reported as a bug instead.

[Junnn]

On 12/17/2016 at 11:15 PM, Ecu said:

The question is whether it is actually hard to read, or if it is just a style issue.  When I asked @Junnn if it was causing problems playing the game, they said no.  Which means this is just that the style chosen bothers them.  Asking the developers to spend additional time perfecting the stylization of every translated language to better match similar styles used in that culture, is asking too much from an Indie development company.

If it does indeed cause actual problems playing the game, then this should reported as a bug instead.

 

Ecu, your statements do not make sense and it's not logical in the business perspective, design perspective as well as from player's perspective. The only place it would make some sense would be that "the English version is good, just don give a crap how others look, it's making money anyways." no offense, and I feel highly unlikely this is where you stand.

The point is, this game is good because of the artistic style it offers. It is very consistent, and not many indie developers can do that. Fixing the Asian font can keep the artistic consistency which is the dazzling part of the game.

On 12/17/2016 at 11:15 PM, Ecu said:

Asking the developers to spend additional time perfecting the stylization of every translated language to better match similar styles used in that culture, is asking too much from an Indie development company.

 

By fixing the font, it's not matching the Asian culture, it's matching the style of the game. Being the top few in Steam and App store, this should not be a "big problem" for them. 

This a suggestion that could improve the gaming experience. Therefore, please don't call it a bug anymore. It just makes me crazy.

Not a bug bro...sigh

[ExtollerOfTrolls]

This is too much to ask them. They made this font. Latin letters are easy. There's only 26 of them, plus a half a dozen punctuation marks. Still work, mind you, but simple enough.

Kanji would take an incredibly long time to design because there is just an overwhelming amount of them. Hate to break it to you, but Latin letters are much more practical than Kanji. Plus, they already have a ton of work to do with ONI, Hot Lava, and aNR. They have no time and money for this, and probably never will.

I don't complain when games are poorly translated, or some other reason. That's just the way it is.

Maybe there's a mod that can help you instead.

[Ecu]

11 minutes ago, Junnn said:

Ecu, your statements do not make sense and it's not logical in the business perspective, design perspective as well as from player's perspective. The only place it would make some sense would be that "the English version is good, just don give a crap how others look, it's making money anyways." no offense, and I feel highly unlikely this is where you stand.

The point is, this game is good because of the artistic style it offers. It is very consistent, and not many indie developers can do that. Fixing the Asian font can keep the artistic consistency which is the dazzling part of the game.

By fixing the font, it's not matching the Asian culture, it's matching the style of the game. Being the top few in Steam and App store, this should not be a "big problem" for them. 

This a suggestion that could improve the gaming experience. Therefore, please don't call it a bug anymore. It just makes me crazy.

Not a bug bro...sigh

I specifically stated that if it makes the game hard to read...then it is a bug.  If it doesn't, as you state, then I agree it is not a bug.

In such a case, the only issue is one of personal preference.  You feel it doesn't match their style.  They seemingly feel like it is good enough for production.  This means the only argument you could really have to really push for it to change is that is doesn't really visually look how it should given the language involved.

To do this effectively, would require the designer/artist in charge of this area to effectively know all the language stylizations, which is unrealistic to ask of a Indie development company such as Klei.

[TitanCat]

I don't think that this is a bug but I do believe that this is a Major Inconveniece

And you should really report this to Klei

This is great that you also happen to know how to speak english

Since some player that cant speak english would be forced to just ignore the bad translation

Don't Starve do have one of the largest Chinese speaking community

[Ecu]

3 minutes ago, TitanCat said:

I don't think that this is a bug but I do believe that this is a Major Inconveniece

And you should really report this to Klei

This is great that you also happen to know how to speak english

Since some player that cant speak english would be forced to just ignore the bad translation

Don't Starve do have one of the largest Chinese speaking community

If it is actually a bad translation and could cause problems when playing the game, it is a bug and should be reported as such.  However, @Junnn has stated that it is not so and instead is purely a stylization issue.  Which I really question, especially expecting specific stylizations for every language translated.

That isn't to say it wouldn't be an appealing change, especially for someone who's native language is said language.  It's just that I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to do so.  It would be a reasonably sizable effort to rework all dialogs to be more stylized for the individual languages.

[Arlesienne]

On 15.12.2016 at 10:01 AM, Junnn said:

Translator only translates the language, as for how it will look on the screen...that's design. In addition, if I speak Chinese and use google translator to communicate with you guys, the language must make no sense. Hire a Chinese, Japanese or Korean intern even an international student and buy a good font should not be too hard a company.

Firstly, as a translator, when I work on a game, I have no power over what you're asking for. None of the design guys ever expands the text box just because I'm translating into a language where monosyllables are scarce and most words have at least two, with many consonants clustered together around vowels. My men go into the game, take screenshots of how the default text is spread, and then I've got to fit right in. As far as games go, I'm typically the one directed to epitaphs, writings on monuments and the-like, because translating well, remaining true to the spirit of the original, AND fitting a limited space is incredibly hard. And nobody will enlarge the tombstone just because you're working with a different language. Translators have to fit the original game.

Besides hiring interns to translate things to go public is not a good choice. They are still learning. No respectable company leaves important things like that to interns. They are there to learn, and translations are as important as they get. Personally I find nothing wrong with the font, I also see the appeal of the first one @Junnn created, but I have limited ability to judge kanji. The issue is, I can't really say there's any difference between them other than the colour. And I doubt anyone would make a big deal out of something like that.

[HamBatter]

Klei could ask TGP for assistance.

 

The stylized tones appear to be along the lines of:

1. rigid, computer-standardized, impersonal
2. bubbly, playful, mischievious
3. creepy, desperate, "save me"

[Arlesienne]

Just now, HamBatter said:

Klei could ask TGP for assistance.

 

The stylized tones appear to be along the lines of:

1. rigid, computer-standardized, impersonal
2. bubbly, playful, mischievious
3. creepy, desperate, "save me"

They could, but there's little point in that. The font seems legible, which is a key in font design. And as the OP admitted it's just a personal preference.