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Just heard about your new project - Great! I have pre-ordered the game right away.
Do you want to translate the game to German? I am your man (I am only looking for fun, not $) ! Interested?

PS: Al Emmo was a really good game. Congratulations! I enjoyed the sophisticated way to give hidden hints! And I loved your KQ 3 redux (the Sierra original was my very first adv game and made me fall in love with the genre...)

Greetings from Austria (yes, we do speak German here    - Harry

I totally agree with rtrooney. As long as there is a chance to get the game for free why buy it? (Sorry, but that's the way consumers, like me to be honest, think) Sure, I do not know the number of people who entered the contest. If it's just a handful forget about my comment. But if it is a relevant amount of people who are definitely interested in that game I would annouce all 50 winners as soon as possible. If I understand Eriq correctly you are now going to announce all 50 and not just 5 of them. Good decision!

Good luck to all the creative guys...

Excellent. Now please tell me that I won the contest  :rolleyes:

Well, Beiswanger is an easy one:
beissen = to bite
wange = cheek

A "Beiswanger" would then be someone who has taken a bite of someone's cheek.

Ask your Granny, maybe she remembers that incident...  :-)

Harry

"Don't mess with it!"

Whether you will translate the game or not, I will definitely play it in English.

But I know that I am not the typcial German speaking player. I fear that the typical player requires a German version because the english skills of an average German (or Austrian) are quite poor and the language in your game is not piece of cake (However, I love it and will abuse this game also as english learning material. What I love most is the way the narrator speaks, well known from the SQ series - hilarious)!

As I said it is difficult to translate the game without losing too much of its humor. But I know it's possible! Hollywood movies are translated only once for the whole German speaking world and not for specific regions. And it works perfectly fine (and not just because it has to for financial reasons)! Because it's well done (e.g. by using no dialect at all) . And this finaly leads me to my question:

How will you do it (the translation of the dialogues, and then the speaking)? Who will do it for you?

I once played a (maybe quite nice) Sierra game (Laura Bow 2) for only 5 minutes. Then, after having read a sentence that contained 2 pseudo-German words (words that are not at all German but which I understood because I could figure out the original (english) word) I felt taken for a ride, quit the game and never restarted it anymore.
This game was obviously translated by a non German native speaker. A mistake, I suppose. I guess a German native speaker with acceptable English skills, understanding of how adventure game humor works and (preferrably satire-) writing skills would have been a much better choice...

But I guess the first sales figures will influence your decisions a lot. They will show if this game will be excl. accepted by old fashioned adventure freaks (who would always play the game in its original english - just like me) or by a much greater market (which I really wish you so much).

Harry

"Finally, FINALLY, F I N A L L Y - nothing happens"

Sorry, the word was namesake (not namekind)

Wow, Brit, you (and obviously some of your namekinds) react really fast:

Brits steal carloads of F**king Austrian roadsigns.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/15/austrian_signs/

I see, guys, I managed to focus your attention on that small town which sounds a lot dirtier than it is.

Check out www.fucking.at and learn that a second sign (right under the town-sign) makes the combination of signs a perfect so-called Schildbürgerstreich (a folly; directly translated a prank of signs)

(I guarantee that this is no link to any filthy site!).

P.S.: A lot of names auf Austrian resp German towns end with -ing. So perhaps there are some other villages that can compete with the F-town.

yeah, well, that's the thing with clichés. And I guess almost every nation has to live with them.

I personaly do not want to know what the world thinks about Austria(ns). Some people, and that's why I mentionned that in my initial post, confuse it with Australia, Americans think of "The Sound of Music", a movie or something hardly an Austrian (including me) knows (therefore I have no idea why they associate it with my country), others believe that we are all Nazis,...

Or do people meanwhile believe that we are all badly acting bodybuilders who exclusively listen to Mozart and are nuts on skiing?

Anyway, I guess in some cases Crocodile Dundee is the better choice!

P.S.: Do not worry, I have never watched Southpark (did not even hear about it before I read your post)

Harry

"Let's don't and say we did"

Well, Brandon, Blume means flower while bloom rather goes into the direction of blossom (German: Blüte). But the difference is indeed minimal.

I guess sometimes it would be good fun to translate names with german origin into english... (not in your case of course)

On the other hand there is a name of a small town in Austria which sounds enlish (but is not) and should definitely not be translated into German. It's called Fu**ing! No joke, but certainly a good choice as English speaking tourists travel there just in order to have one's photo taken besides the sign that shows the beginning of that town.

cheers - Harry

Yeah, there are 2 countries which are perfect candidates for this capital misconception. Besides Australia I am thinking of Canada. Typical question in a quiz show...

I did not know that you had a kangaroo problem. Well at least this time it seems that this problem is not caused by man as I believe that these animals always lived there and were not "imported". But then again maybe we killed there natural enemies...

I was once eating in a restaurant where they offered cangaroo meat as special attraction. I did not order it cause I had pity for these exotic animals. I might have reconsidered it if I had known that they were causing troubles in your countriy  

At least you definitely do not have troubles with bad translations of games or movies...

Cheers - Harry

Hi Britney,

a little questions: Do you plan to translate Al Emmo?

To be honest, I would never play a fun adventure game (like Al Emmo, the Larry or SQ series) in German (my mother tongue) because there is an extremely high danger that those great games lose their pun (which they are living from...) when translated.
There is also the difficulty of the various dialects in the German speaking world...
So far I remember only one adventure game that did not suffer from its translation (Monkey Island 3 - because I did not manage to get an english version... In earlier adventure days this could not happen. Cause the games simply were not translated at all).

So, will you do it?

Greetings from Austria (that one without -al- therefore no kangaroos) - Harry