12 years of SBT Localization
SBT Localization marks its 12th anniversary. Let’s celebrate with a new fundraising initiative and a giveaway.
Greetings to all fans of Ukrainian localization!
The Autumn brought cold, rains and melancholy. And coronavirus finds ever new ways to foul it all up for us. But epidemics aside, we have a work to be done! That is why SBT Localization team doesn’t stop its crusade for Ukrainian localization not even for a minute.
So what were our achievements in September and October?
These months saw an official Ukrainian localization of Streets of Rage 4 fighting released. We are confident that you’ve known about it already and even bought a copy or two at Steam market. Developers also promise to let know when Ukrainian will be added to other platforms. They swore to Verminko that we’ll see the localizations for PS4 and Xbox very soon, while Nintendo Switch version may require some time. We look forward!
P.S. Don’t forget to thank developers for Ukrainian language in game reviews. You’ll not only help the SBT localization team, but will support Ukrainian localizations in general.
Game-Labs studio released a new game featuring Ukrainian localization too — This Land Is My Land. Actually, the translation was provided by the developers themselves and the SBT Localization team’s task was just to proofread it and pretty it up. As of now, the original translation is available, while the refined version is ‘coming soon’. We look forward for updates to appreciate our work. We hope after this the game experience will be even more fun.
Our by far the most ambitious and massive volunteer project, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is, quite fittingly to the season, on a stand-by mode.
We’ve completed the translation including all released DLCs, but, due to circumstances that are not always dependent on the team, proofreading goes much slower than we anticipated. Overall transaltion progress is now about 38%. Proofreading is performed by our editors with an assistance of volunteers at Discord, who help to track all the bugs and flaws that happen to appear in the transaltion.
Yet, we confidently state that despite all the misfortunes the work goes on and quite soon all those willing to play the game in Ukrainian, and not only testers, will be able to so. As we said before, the localization will be an official one, and it will become available with a game update.
Another our project stuck in ‘work in progress’ state is our Banner Saga. It’s not listed among high-priority projects (we all know a sad story of developers suddenly deciding on not adding any new localizations), so the work is done slowly, but restlessly and relentlessly by one editor. But he gets his job done! With the speed Yuriy Bisyk puts into the project, we can be adamant about a bright future of the project. One another thing we would need is a skillful programmer capable of putting all the text into a Ukrainian localization pack and releasing in a workshop. But now… We work on what we can. The other problem are to be solved afterwards.
The current proofreading progress of Bander Saga 3 is 53%.
From epidemic stagnation we move towards the lively and smooth translation progress of Armello project. The translation of this doubtlessly gorgeous and quirky game is steadily moving forward under a keen supervision of the SBT Localization team. We carefully expect it to be quite soon that this Australian-crafted, grim in its essence but colorful in its look universe of re-told fables will be able to speak Ukrainian. For, I guess, everyone would agree that it is Ukrainian the animals fighting mercilessly and gorily for the throne should speak?
The most active translators of these months were Roman Hardashuk and Taras Korzhyk, let them be praised.
The translation progress by the end of October was 77%.
Let’s not forget about our long-term project — a continuation to the Baldur’s Gate saga, telling about adventures of an offspring of Bhaal, God of Murder in the world of Forgotten Realms. The game has a plenty of text and a lot of slippery traps for translators. And what did you expect? That it is only hard to play it? It’s a hell of a quest to translate it too. An it is not really possible to turn to other projects, since the Gate is a mistress herself. She keeps you doesn’t let go. You’ve just translated a chunk and right after you reach for another one… But what’s that I’m talking about? Ah yeah, the translation progress. I must mention that thanks to Iryna Makovska, Tetiana Khvastova, Roman Hardashuk and ceaseless proofreading of Sofiya Shul we move steadily towards famous Drizzt Do’Urden.
Thanks to translators’ restless work, we passed 60% of text, which is about 720 thousand words!
This project has a long story. Our representatives contacted the developers about a year ago and had a discussion of bringing Ukrainian localization to Atom RPG. Yet, by that time we didn’t have room for this project, which, it’s worth mentioning is quite big — about 870 thousand words. This time we saw the developers were in distress: woe upon us, no-one is willing to translate our game, the SBT localization team being our sole hope… Thus we decided to give it a try and pick up this project too, despite the scarceness of our resources.
Since the original language of the game is Russian (which is worth noting is very unusual), we decided to ask for help willing volunteers. If you’re interested in the project, know both Russian and Ukrainian (and distinguish the two of them), be sure to contact us. The project is coordinated via Telegram, so it’s a requirement to have a respective account.
As of the end of October the translation is 8% done (73K words). Yuriy Dragon is a project manager.
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We also continue to work on a certain secret project to be released the next year.
This October saw one of the most beautiful art-books, ‘Art of Ghost of Tsushima’ released by MAL’OPUS publishing house. Ghost of Tsushima creators intended to make the game not only interesting, but to give it genuine Japanese feel. One can feel it vi the art-book: exquisite beauty of flawless illustrations, consistency and clearness of materials, a delicate touch of personal drama. Add here sketches of various characters and locations and even… comics!
About the translation progress: Art of Ghost of Tsushima: a Ukrainian art-book
If you haven’t bought the art-book yet, be sure to do so. You’ll appreciate it even if you did not play the game and not even planning to.
Video reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV2NmVuoIkg
An incredible Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla game universe art-book is coming very soon soon! MAL’OPUS publishers know how to do their job, don’t they?
A pre-order of the art-book is open now. Hurry up, and you’ll get a chance to win an official main character figurine!
It’s a pity for sure that the Cyberpunk 2077 game encyclopedia release is postponed each time together with the game, but, c’est la vie, and we can’t do much about it. We look forward politely for a moment we’ll finally get our hands on it and be able to appreciate the skill of artists, translators and Vovkulaka publishers. And now it is still possible to pre-order the book, since the number of copies will be limited. And we guarantee that the quality will see the book to be out of stock pretty quickly.
Alex Lukyanov is working steadily on an Outsider web-comic. It’s thanks to his efforts we have a totally open access to this gorgeous Jim Francis’ web-comic in Ukrainian language. Look for new parts on our web-page, don’t pass by!
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In addition we worked on several other literary projects you’ll surely appreciate. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, LinkedIn and Instagram for updates!
The last month saw the second episode of Pets On Their Own cartoon released. We assisted Peven Factory studio with a translation and voicing.
Share this cartoon to your English-speaking friends. And you’re welcome to watch the episode in Ukrainian.
Slowly but steadily we continue to work on RetroArch. It’s a front-end for emulators, game engines, media players and various other apps. Project is in open access for everybody willing to try on Crowdin. Yuriy Dragon is the project manager and chief editor.
Developers add new chunks of text from time to time, so it is hard to track progress. But as of now, we have 36%.
As always, SBT Localization team won’t stop in its educational activity. In September-October we brought the light of Ukrainization not strictly translating games.
Creating A Market For Ukrainian — is a podcast in English, hosted by Andrey Zito featuring Tetiana Cherednychok, the editor of our SBT Localization team.
Tetiana also gave two online lectures for students and all willing: ‘Localization of videogames: How to Try Everything in Translation’ and a social project ‘With Kyiv and for Kyiv: Videogames Localization Basics’. Thanks to all attendants.
After consideration, we’ve created a Telegram Ukrainian Localization Witnesses Preparatory Battle Group. It’s a place for enthusiasts willing to take part in Ukrainian localization. Here we share experience, answer your questions, run polls, and offer projects. We prioritize official initiatives and open projects. Join us!
We run weekly give-aways on our Facebook page, giving games of all kinds and flavors (and sometimes even branded items). Of course, not everyone receives gifts, but everyone is free to try. Somebody even wins several times a month. It’s all luck, guys!
In September we gave away the following gifts: XCOM® 2 + 2 DLC, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, Rising Storm 2: Vietnam, Horace, The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters, Outward, State of Mind, Distance, Train Valley 2, My Time at Portia, MOTHERGUNSHIP, Basingstoke, Forager, We Were Here Together, Streets of Rage 4, Boundless, WARSAW, EARTHLOCK, Wargroove.
In October: Age of Wonders: Planetfall — Deluxe Edition, Felix The Reaper, Void Bastards, Metal Unit, Verlet Swing, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius — Relics of War, Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, Overload, Niche — a genetics survival game, MO:Astray, The Art of Ghost of Tsushima art-book, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Streets of Rage 4, Yuppie Psycho, The Shapeshifting Detective, GRID Ultimate Edition, Rise of Industry, NEOVERSE, The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse, Don’t Escape: 4 Days to Survive and 5 branded buffs,
Yuriy Dragon always comes up with something interesting to stream. Check out our SBT Localization Twitch channel and watch game livestreams. You can also find the recordings on YouTube.
Welcome Taras Korzhyk, now an official member of ‘SBT Localization team’ NGO.
We sincerely congratulate him and wish him successful translations, infinite inspiration, interesting projects and decent paychecks.
On behalf of SBT Localization team we sincerely thank all those who worked the most on volunteering projects for ad majorem gloriam of Ukrainian localization:
We also thank active SBT Localization team members who put their effort us in many other ways.
SBT Localization team always welcomes talented and enthusiastic people willing to try their best in games localization. Be sure to contact us via a contact form or follow SBT Localization pages and chats in Facebook, Twitter and Discord.
If you don’t have enough time to ukrainize games yourself, but are still willing to help bring Ukrainian language to games, you can support us in a way you like:
1) You can become our Patreon patron.
2) You can transfer any amount of money to 5169 3305 1649 7846 (PB Ukraine, recipient Ivanov Oleksiy) or 5357 4115 0001 2666 (monobank, recipient Yankovyi Oleksiy) bank accounts. Be sure to include your name and surname so we’ll know whom to thank.
3) Support us on Epic Games, using our author code sbt-localization when buying games.
We sincerely tjank to everyone who supported SBT Localization team in September and October on Patreon. We wish them and their close ones to be healthy and wealthy!
Volodymyr Pohrebniak, Yurii Brehman, Pavlo Donchenko, Oleksandra Kutsan, Oleksii Ivanov, Maksym Khvastov, Andrii Kozhushko, oebouiu, Tetiana Cherednychok, Kurdyshmyak, Roman Lysenko, Andrii Malakhov, Ivan Dziubyshyn, Taras Kovtun, Oleksandr dordaderabar, Yaroslav Urbanevych, Taras Korzhyk, Yaroslav Patalakha, Anton Bubnov, Andrii Krasnychuk, Oleksandr Lukianov, Iryna Makovska.
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Tetiana Kaliuzhna, Jarlaxle Baenre, Volodymyr Zhuk, Stas Makarov, Andrii Ilkiv, Kseniia Kozhushko, Eduard Spirkin, Nazar Kompaniiets, Vasyl Nabochenko, Kirito Kadzuto, Dmytro Kyrychuk, Stepan VoronXVI, Olesxander, Bohdan Rutylo, Oleksandr Bohomaz.
SPECIAL THANKS GO TO CROWDIN TEAM FOR ITS SUPPORT!
UKRAINIZATION OF THE UNIVERSE GOES ON!
It will be published after moderation.