This localization too took almost as long as Dante's comedy...

The latest edition of LocJAM celebrating ten years since the first edition has just concluded, and it is with great satisfaction that I am here to present my third entry of this localization marathon.

Mindful - and jealous - of the Trentino localization done by my partner during the last Jam, I had thought of attempting a localization in Roman dialect, complete with references to places, customs, and traditions of the capital city. However, the idea didn't convince me enough to bring it into reality, so I continued to ponder until...

Eureka! Let's do it in rhyme!

It's a pity that the idea came a bit late, and that to do my best to reach the end of the translation (failing to do so), I hardly got up from my chair for the entire Sunday, but it was definitely worth it!

Long posts need images. I am sharing some of my fav. This hilarious rhyme is one of those provided by my partner. Love this!

As with previous attempts, I am providing a link here to directly read the texts in Excel format in case you don't feel like or have Not Enough Time to play - perhaps for the umpteenth time - this delightful mini-adventure proposed for this LocJAM6.

If you're about to tackle the game, you most likely understand Italian, so I'd like to share a small disclaimer:

💠 Since I was rushing to proceed as much as possible to complete the texts, I neglected the proofreading: the game was published as it was at 11:40 pm on Sunday, 20 minutes before the deadline. During my first run, I already found a typo and a missing word, my apologies!

💠Also due to the absent editing phase, some rhymes that I'm not very proud of ended up in the final version, resulting in almost cringey sentences, but they were parked in my CAT tool waiting for a better inspiration that obviously never came. 

💠 There are also some strings that stayed in non-rhymed version, because I was lacking time and inspiration. They should be no more than a bunch, except for the epilogue which is entirely in simple Italian.

💠 Since I approached this version as a personal challenge, I decided to find rhymes even for single words, such as the objects in the inventory or the elements you can interact with. It's clear that this extreme case is unlikely to happen in a professional translation, but it's always good to be prepared for every eventuality, and it was still a constructive and challenging exercise.

💠 When possible, in addition to rhymes, I tried to maintain a meter that, while not perfect, could sound at least pleasant when reading. Appearance Sound matters too!

I have to admit this timeless quote from a pop song got stuck in my head ever since I was working on the MT version!

To sum up, I can only highlight the obvious: 

🔹 Taking breaks allows you to have a more rested and reactive mind to quickly come up with rhymes when you get stuck. For example, after the first few hours of Saturday night I started to stagnate real bad, but when I resumed on Sunday, everything felt so smooth! (and same after the rare breaks I took on Sunday 😋)

🔹 For a similar reason, but linked to adrenaline instead, when I went through the last pending rhymes half an hour before the deadline, solutions for phrases that had blocked me for endless minutes suddenly came to me in no time.

But then again, even at school, I was always one of those who performs better under a deadline-induced panic! (As I always say, I wait until the very last minute because I will be older and therefore wiser 🤣)

This must be my favorite. I had forgotten I chose this, and when I saw it in game I almost chocked 🤣

Soon, I should be able to share some considerations on timing and perhaps some comparison with machine translation, stay tuned!