I have translated an enormous (almost 10k words!) interview made somewhere in summer 2019.
Link: https://shdwp.github.io/icepick-dtf-interview/
Observe English even worse than OG Pathologic localization had.
Disclaimer: interview was made post-launch, therefore it may not reflect how things are right now at IPL.
I was wondering if any of the other Ice Pick Lodge titles were similar to Pathologic's overall art direction, strangeness, story telling, or even play style. I really loved both the Pathologic games and am looking to hopefully find something similar to play if any of you guys know of anything!
Edit 1 - played through Knock Knock and LOVED IT. Thanks for the recommendation guys! Now I think I'm going to play Darkwood next!
The title pretty much sums it up. We're a Moscow-based game development studio that's been making games for more than ten years. There are nine people on our team now.
Our first game, Pathologicβa depressing story of three healers trying to save a plague-ridden townβhas become somewhat of a cult classic (whatever that means), but its Western release was spoiled by a botched translation and a lack of marketing. You have a better chance of having heard of our second game, The Voidβa surreal story of a translucent character getting to know the colourless and empty Void and its inhabitants (it was even featured in a Tom Tykwer movie). Our latest game, Knock-Knock, is a 2D horror where you're trying to guess what the rules of the game that the creepy Guests are playing with you are. It's also the first Russian game to have successfully been crowdfunded via Kickstarter.
We wouldnβt go as far as call ourselves artists, but our general philosophy is that games should give players food for thought, not just fun. We also seem to be the most well-known game development studio with a distinctly Russian identity.
Our current project is remaking Pathologicβa game that's sometimes described as a "flawed gem" with a heavy emphasis on "flawed". We do honestly believe it had some intriguing ideas, but the execution was deeply imperfect due to our inexperience. Well, we have the experience now.
Ask us anything.
(Proof that it's really us doing the answering: https://twitter.com/IcePickLodge/status/518055306421886976)
UPD: Thank you all for your questions! It was a fascinating talk. We're going back to The Town for nowβfollow our Kickstarter campaign or our Twitter for news.
Ice-Pick Lodge organizes an online-event tonight in the Russian "Facebook" Vkontakte: https://vk.com/event152806837
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Sunday Moscow time
12:00 PM Sunday - 2:00 AM Monday, Eastern Time
The participants:
-
Aleksandra "Alphyna" Golubeva
-
Nikolai Dybovsky
-
Ivan Slovtsev
-
Lu Sukhinina
-
Maria Khomenko
I'm not entirely sure what is going on, but I am loving it. It is unforgiving like their previous game, Pathologic (but a much better translation). The world is so alien and delicious with the whispers from the Sisters, and the Color sharing some of its secrets when you pick up the plants.
What has been revealed so far is that this world, called the Void, was once filled with Color. These Colors, taking the forms of gold, emerald, azure, crimson, amber, silver, and violet, each has their own attributes and affects on the world when used. Color is also the lifeforce of the beings of this world, the Sisters and their former caretakers, the Brothers. When Color disappeared the Brothers left and the Sisters started to die off. This is when the player character appears, and with him Color returns to the Void. And that is all I know so far about the game's story.
So far I've had to start over 4 times. The first couple of tries I kept running out of Color. The third try I opened up a third heart in Sister Death before getting the warning that doing so will piss off the Brothers, and then 3 Brothers appeared and start wrecking my Color gardens. Now on my fourth try I've learned using Color in a Sister's chambers can damage her realm, depending on Colors used in that Sister's realm, and now I've got scorpios destroying my gardens.
Has anyone here played it? Got any tips or interesting stories from your playthroughs?
In the recent episode of the podcast about game development (Russian language only), Nikolay Dybowski, head of the studio, said that now, after Knock-knock is done, they want to make a Pathologic remake. Everyone in the studio right now playing the game all-over again, writing down everything they want to change or improve. They have another project in mind, codenamed "Cold", but it's too ambitious (70 years span, 200 characters) for the team consisting right now of only seven people.
Verified? (This bot cannot verify AMAs just yet)
Date: 2014-10-03
Link to submission (Has self-text)
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| The English translation of Pathologic is pretty notorious. I've heard the studio was particularly upset with the name "Devotress". Are there any other terms used in the original translation that were particularly egregious? And for anything that was particularly bad, how did the names misinform the English-speaking audience? | Alexandra the translator here. I'll give you a couple examples, sure! |
| Β«ΠΠΎΡΠ½ΡΒ» (the Kains' mansion) were translated as "The Horns". Why? I honestly have no idea. Β«ΠΠΎΡΠ½Β» does indeed mean "a horn" in Russian (as in a musical instrument), but its most common meaning is "a forge". I'm not even delving into indirect associations (Β«ΠΠΎΡΠ½ΡΒ» also reminds you of an expression Β«ΠΌΠΈΡ Π³ΠΎΡΠ½ΠΈΠΉΒ» that basically means "heavens"), it's understandable that a commissioned translator can miss a subtler shade of meaning. But, like, why "The Horns"? Just because the Russian word looks like an English one? I've no idea. | |
| Another thing I've seen is "The Verbae" instead of "The Willows" (because Β«Π²Π΅ΡΠ±Π°Β» is a type of willow in Russian). Once again, lolwut? Are we using transliterations now? They make no sense. | |
| An example that I didn't use in my update on translation. "Gryph" is an alias; this character's real name is Grigory Filin, and Β«ΡΠΈΠ»ΠΈΠ½Β» is a nightowl. That's all sweet and fun, but the translator simply forgot the pun, so it turned out like "Gryph?.. Oh yeah, it's a nickname. He took half his name, Grigory, and half his last name, Nightowl, and became Gryph." | |
| Yeah, doesn't make sense. Also Β«Π³ΡΠΈΡΒ» means "a vulture" in Russian, so even the basic meaning isn't preserved. | |
| But the greatest sin of the old translation isn't making mistakesβa single mistake won't botch the whole thing. Its greatest sin is its half-heartedness and the amount of near-misses and imperfect word choices. Most of them, apart from the most straightforward ones, are questionable at least. | |
| (And my job is asking these questions. Isn't it cool? I think it is.) |
[Gryph always seemed bird-like to me because it sounds like the french "griffe", meaning claw or talon. Maybe that was the original idea.](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2i6yts/we_are_a_russian_game_development_studi
... keep reading on reddit β‘
Netflix : https://help.netflix.com/en/titlerequest - a simple form to fill out.
FX : https://fxnow.fxnetworks.com/feedback - a simple form to fill out.
Hulu : https://community.hulu.com/s/idea/0871L000000bqaLQAQ/detail
Amazon Studios : https://studios.amazon.com/contact-us (For Your Consideration)
[EDIT]: fixed up links.
