Hey everyone!
Happy New Year, first of all! How have you been these last few months?
I moved to Japan back in October, and I've been having a lovely time over here in the big city (when my good ol' brain has been letting me do so). I've been touching up on python again lately, improving my Japanese fluency by talking to every person over 50 in the neighborhood, and squishing my brains dry trying to conceptualize the plot for the sequel.
It's getting there, but also, I realize that after 11 years in the industry I'm burned out on making games like you wouldn't believe. I'm still unemployed, and every day I feel like creative work is something foreign that I managed in a different life—my brain isn't braining quite as well as I'd like it to. I'll get there, I'm sure. The concept for the sequel is already awesome, and I just need to hammer it into place.
Since the last update back in July my husband Alex and I have been working tirelessly on the Spanish translation for chapter 4. It should hopefully be ready in the next couple of months! Which leads me to the first problem we'll be facing in 2025:
So far, the French and Japanese localizations were carried out by two close friends: Benjamin Beziat (French) and Shion Otsuka (Japanese). They offered to provide these translations voluntarily all the way back in the first chapter and chapter 3 respectively, and that was all good and well— except that The Hayseed Knight got really freaking long over 7 years of development and they both have lives that take priority over this project. Their situation has changed, and so I'm without a translation team at this moment.
I'm writing to let you know that the French translation is currently indefinitely on hold, and the Japanese translation will take a long time to resume.
I've worked as a translator for many projects, and I love localizations with all my heart —the fact that Ader's story can be read in different languages, that more people can laugh at the translators' choices and marvel at the way Ader's accent was localized— however, the truth is that even if I were to add all the sales for both the French and Japanese markets since the game was first released on steam I'd have a grand total of 125 sales.
THK hasn't even hit a total of 4,000 sales globally yet and that's a tiny figure in comparison all the same (3,3% as of now), but I'm Spanish and I know how it feels to be part of a market that only focuses on English releases. I truly wanted to offer The Hayseed Knight in as many languages as possible, so that we didn't have to play in someone else's language.
Localizations, beyond my friends' good will, are a cost that I cannot afford for a story as wordy as this (220k words total). With about 100k words remaining for French (chapters 4 and 5) and 160k words remaining for Japanese (chapters 3, 4 and 5). Assuming a rate of 0.07 per word in French and 10 yen per character in Japanese, completing the localizations would cost over 25,000 EUR. That's a cost I can't justify to fully translate the game right now.
The only way I see forward for localizations, short of finding a team that would be willing to assist the original translators, would be a publisher picking up the game for some form of re-release. There is definitely a TON of space for optimizations by people who know what they're doing better than me, and for release in consoles as well... but that's a pie in the sky sort of talk, as the industry is kind of in shambles right now.
No matter how and how long it takes, I promise I'll find a way to continue the translations.
I want to give one more thank you to Benjamin for being one of the first people ever to support The Hayseed Knight and for his determination to get the French translation out there (check out his channel SireRed so that I can keep on teasing him for being a youtubeur fameux); to Shion for being my friend and working in her spare time always to get the Japanese translation sorted out whenever I needed something for a new update, and to my husband Alex for always being willing to help out with the Spanish translation.
Thank you as well, for your patience and trust in me and my passion project. I hope 2025 brings you nothing but happiness.
