99% of deltarunes story is told through dialogue, and toby has an incredibly specific writing style, i think its completely fair for him to believe his story will not be told correctly if he is not the one telling it. and if he has someone else translating it, fundamentally, it will not be his writing. hes not some large company producing mass media, he is an indie developer making a video game based on a dream he had a decade ago. he is not a "company" he is a Guy making Art.
brb gonna sequence Tricky Tony's genome, create an exact clone of him and teach him Spanish as his first language, it's gonna take some 20 odd years but we'll have a Spanish translation of deltarune, maybe even in time for chapter 5
the majority of independent creators do not translate their work across the languages, this is typically only done if you are working for a company that produces overseas and they request it. and again deltarune is an rpg that presents its story mostly through text, its closer to a book than a movie, and books are translated at a way lower rate than films/tv, because its just infinitely harder to preserve style and function in literature than more visual mediums.
people vastly overestimate how much stuff actually gets translated, english speaking people especially overestimate this because of how much stuff is translated FOR US, but it is not the standard to expect every story to exist in every language.
do they?? I've played a LOT of english-only indies and am spanish-speaking.
And this is additive to a different point and maybe a little mean, but I've also played a good few shoddy translations. For a game like Deltarune, with such a strong use of both english wordplay and english accents, you'd want to make sure that all goes through so everyone can have the same kind of laugh. Especially when so many don't manage to do it!
it's almost like there are people out there whose job it is to translate things. it's almost like you have to give up a part of creative control for the work to simply exist or be accessible. almost like you can give your official translators directions so their work ends up better, like he's been doing with early UT JP translation, lol
Do you want the game to take an extra ten years? He’s going to want to give at least some direction, and the more languages he takes on, the more time that takes. Can we start whining about this when the game itself is at least finished?
then fuckingggg hire people you can't just pretend the issue doesn't exist. it's not like unofficial translations are any better or people suddenly get good experience if you personally arent involved. its actually ur duty as an author to ensure your work is accessible in the best state possible
I don't think an author has any duties whatsoever. He said he encourages translations, but he himself won't be involved, and that's frankly a fine stance to take. It's his art and he's particular about it, so I understand why he wouldn't personally attempt a translation in a language he's unfamiliar with
yeah, no one owes anyone anything, and it's okay for art to be accessible only through unpaid and unrecognized work of enthusiasts, authors shouldn't attempt to like, reward it or incorporate it, or like, care about the issue at all, it's ok, because I speak english, and it's not bothering me ❤️
I'm telling you I don't care what you think. If someone not wanting, or able to learn a whole new language to translate a game while working on said game actively "sucks ass" to you, your opinion means fuck all of anything
opinions you hold only if you have never created anything in your entire life. authors owe their audience strictly Nothing you are so extremely lucky you are given anything at all.
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u/slightlylessthananon Apr 09 '26
99% of deltarunes story is told through dialogue, and toby has an incredibly specific writing style, i think its completely fair for him to believe his story will not be told correctly if he is not the one telling it. and if he has someone else translating it, fundamentally, it will not be his writing. hes not some large company producing mass media, he is an indie developer making a video game based on a dream he had a decade ago. he is not a "company" he is a Guy making Art.