Practically every piece of IF I ever made or read was in a foreign language to me. I’m a native Polish speaker. Sure, I used to write in Polish until I realized that I don’t think anyone would really read it, not to mention that most of works I could find in Polish were simply translations of English versions, and I’d rather engage with the original whenever I can. Compared to non-English languages like Spanish, Portuguese or let’s say, German, Polish is quite niche, I think, and it really doesn’t help things. So, English it is for me, and it will probably stay this way.
I learnt English playing Level 9 games. I also played and create a remake in Spanish. I helped adding Catalan to ngPAWS and started translating a game (that will have to keep in a drawer)
I played a few IF games in French during my youth. Beyond that, I picked up some basic English by playing wargames, role-playing games, and video games. Currently, I’m working on an Inform 7 WIP written in English, with the added challenge of introducing new lore-specific terms and reworking my texts to avoid anachronisms. This means I need to surround myself with tools to learn and progress. It’s difficult, but that’s precisely what makes it fun, isn’t it?
More seriously, I’m aiming to reach the widest possible audience (along those lines, my game likely won’t need trigger warnings and doesn’t promote any ideology. Although it has a radically subversive aspect in two ways, it’s designed not to offend or shock anyone). English offers the dual advantage of being widely spoken in both the real world and the gaming world in general. And it’s a sensual language that stimulates the imagination and helps me to remain concise.
M. Huet, for avoiding anachronism, esp. if your work is setted pre-1924, the best solution is the Infocom one, that is, a thick dictionary/thesaurus of the era. A solution now viable worldwide, thanks to the Internet Archive.
on the topic, yes I have played many, no, countless english-language IF, on having written “english” language IF, well, no comment.
Yes, indeed, using old dictionaries is helpful. Fortunately, my project has no historical—or philosophical—pretensions. It remains a game; its purpose is to inspire dreams and present engaging puzzles for the player to enjoy solving (it’s not a toy either: the mystery or problem to solve is the player’s opponent, one they must defeat to win). The game also, optionally, invites the player to consider the implications of the social models depicted, but only if they wish to, and without directing them.
When I mentioned anachronisms, I was quite imprecise: my concern mainly lies in avoiding terms or expressions that feel natural to us but are intrinsically linked to our contemporary production modes, the resulting social structures, and how individuals view themselves in relation to their reference groups. For example, working in the fields as a late 19th-century agricultural worker in Western Europe versus as a farmer in a pseudo-medieval, self-managed, semi-utopian society with no apparent coercion cannot be expressed with the same words. So I’m dealing with two main challenges: finding language that fits the setting’s “time” period and aligning it with the unique worldview and assumptions of this fictional society. It’s remarkably mundane, actually, for a game ultimately based on written language.
There sure is a German-speaking IF scene. It’s tiny, but very much alive.
In fact, at least three of this year’s IFComp entries have been written by German native speakers: Dust by IkeC, The Master’s Lair by Stefan Hoffmann, and When the Millennium Made Marvelous Moves by Michael Baltes.
The original German release of Dust is the winner of this year’s IF Grand Prix, the German equivalent to IFComp, which has around five entrants per year.
During the commercial era, most German IF was very primitive, more like programming exercises. But there were exceptions: The closest to German Infocom or Magnetic Scrolls we had was a studio called Weltenschmiede that made a series of pretty solid (and beautifully illustrated) fantasy and horror games.
Have I written IF in German? Yes, decades ago I wrote a full-length, in-joke-laden text-adventure for my girlfriend at the time, in BASIC. I actually replayed it last year while working on Citizen Makane, and it held up better than I expected. It even featured characters from classic German literature, like Faust, Woyzeck and Leutnant Gustl. All of it was smoke and mirrors though; there was no real parser, just a limited verb set and LOTS of “if then” statements…
The Reverend, I’m under impression that during the late 16-bit era, the german commercial IF scene was all but primitive (aside weltenshmiede, there was der stadt des lowen (or is der lowen ??), for example.
M. Huet, we mean the same thing on anacronism: my favorite example remain “computer”, a word which until circa 1950 has a totally different meaning
also, I known the issue with wording within fictional worldwiew in fictional world; coupled with my “english” is the main issue in my WIP development.
Yes, Die Stadt der Löwen (meaning The City of Lions, meaning Singapore). That was part of the Artventure series from publisher Software 2000, which the Weltenschiede games belonged to as well. All of those had elaborate graphics and packaging, and definitely fell on the more ambitious side.
Years ago I was browsing some old numbers of a technical journal, from 1910-1912, and came across an ad for a company that said “we now have installed computers in all of our offices”.
You can imagine I was totally baffled for a moment and had to read the sentence several times, until the penny dropped and I realized what they were really saying. That same sentence would have meant something totally different in 1990!
That they had put people in the role of “computers” in all their offices.
Computers were, of course, people that had as a job to do calculations, usually doing and checking sums. Usually either by hand or assisted by tables, mechanical calculation devices or other means. It was the use of the word “installed” to mean “put in a position of”, when coupled with “computers”, that had thrown me off, but it is perfect English. Context is everything, isn’t it?
Yeah, “installed” threw me off too! Plus, I assumed offices meant in each room, but now I think they meant they had one computer-person per “office” as in per department. Otherwise, that is really weird…