A Beastly Devlog: Achievement Labyrinth
[p][/p][p]Welcome to our 5th Beastly DevLog! Where we give a little sneak peak into our process of localizing this game into English, and introduce a few of the extra guest characters you might meet as you hop around town. Today we’re talking about achievements with DocOliver… psst our first game with Steam Achievements![/p][p][/p]
[/p][p]Achievements are not the easiest to localize, there’s often little to no context with short descriptions, can be unclear where in the game they unlock, what they relate to, and might make references that make no sense or are too vague in English. There’s also strict letter-counts dictated by text boxes made for Japanese character lengths which make things more interesting. I’m also not fluent in Japanese, I can speak and read a little but I’m not a translator (I write like a kindergartener lol), I come from the game industry side as the resident game designer and spreadsheet-obsessor.
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First we had to find a list of all the achievements, which thankfully the Japanese developer, Tokinokogiri wrote a Strategy Guide back when the game was originally released in 2021. From that, one of our translators went through and wrote up a rough translation for me to work off of. Some were straightforward, you aren’t gonna get confused by “Collect 100 Soulcoins”. Many though had multiple possible interpretations, and that meant finding them in-game to see exactly how they work. I also wanted to make sure that the hints and unlocked descriptions were clear and easy to understand while still leaving some secrets to find, as well as give a bit more consistency to the title naming so they clearly fit each achievement.
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[/p][p]ALL THE SPREADSHEETS! If you notice, the Hint and Unlock descriptions are the same in the original game. The different states already existed in the code though, so I added a little more fun, descriptive charm to the descriptions you see once you’ve unlocked an achievement in-game. [/p][p][/p][p]Figuring out the unlock conditions to edit the Hints was a bit of trial and error. “スコア50点以上を取る。” for example, is about scoring a certain amount (50) points, but that could be interpreted as over 50 points (so 51 plus) or at least 50 points (exactly 50 still counts). Then does the achievement trigger when you hit 50 points? Or when you complete the study date and get your final score? We even found some unlocked when you went to the Album menu from the title screen, without having to finish a day. We didn’t have an exact reference for how many points every action gives, so I had a bit of a guessing game trying different thing then finishing the day to see what the total score would be to create a guide. After testing, I ended up with the final hint wording of "Complete the day with a score of at least 50 points.”[/p][p][/p][p]Others were so vague I had to poke our programmer to check on Wolf RPG exactly how they were coded (we’re on opposite time-zones, so I try to figure out what I can on my own then send him a list for when he’s awake). Like we only realized there were more music tracks when we saw the achievements, then had to go on a hunt for them both in-game and in the code to even translate the track titles.
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[/p][p]A useless fortune
May awaken one’s soundtrack.
Three to eleven. [/p][p][/p][p]As for the titles, many were re-written as they were often either very literal descriptors or didn’t translate well. I also created consistent naming for achievement sets that were clearly connected. The points were like a test score, so the set of score-specific achievements all have school-based titles - Unsatisfactory, Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Summa Cum Laude. The Mini-game achievements were my favorite I think, like the Lust Maze ones all relate to mazes - the highest level achievement for this one directly translated to “Ariadne’s Heart”, which I love being a huge mythology nerd (Ariadne being the one who game the ball of thread to Theseus to get through the Minotaur’s Labyrinth), so I re-worded the lower level achievement to better connect to the maze theme, using the idea that Ariadne is the master of the mythological Labyrinth while a Surgeon is the master of the body’s labyrinth, keeping the heart reference, to get “Heart Surgeon”. [/p][p][/p][p]![]()
[/p][p][/p][h2]Steam Achievements: How did we even…?[/h2][p][/p][p]When we first saw that the game had achievements we were excited. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to set-up Steam achievements for the first time. Then we took a look at Wolf RPG and the Steam api, and honestly thought it would never happen. The game engine is just not designed to work with steam like that. But our programmer, donutgrind, is a magician who apparently never gives up, and two weeks before the Steam release was like so “not sure if we still care about achievements, was thinking about having a wrapper program that launches the game and watches the save data for changes”... a few hours later… here’s a build with achievements set up for steam (if you look in the game folder wondering why there’s two .exe files, one is what makes the steam achievements work). [/p][p][/p][p]All that was left to do was fill out all the info on the Steam app admin page, make little icons for the locked and unlocked states, test that it works, and we could launch with them. In two weeks. We first talked to the image editor that worked on all of the English images for the game, but he was unavailable. With a week left, another artist we work with in Fakku and on some of the Orcsoft games, Aaryn, gave us a yes, and with a little back-and-forth managed to create all 100 icons using the game’s asset library (which thankfully had a lot to choose from) in a few days.[/p][p] [/p][p]![]()
[/p][p]All unlocked states are different images, mainly using character sprites and the massaging emoticons, and he had the fun idea of creating a mosaic-like effect for the locked states as a nod to how adult games get censored with little mosaic blocks. There's also different borders for Bronze, Silver, and Gold achievements.[/p][p][/p][p]That’s all from me on achievements. Hope you enjoyed reading a bit of my process, and have fun finding all the secrets hidden around Two Beasts or not To Beast. Come find me in our discord if you need any extra hints!
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[/p][p][/p][p]The “other-worldly” Tome-san simply wishes to help your restless heart relax for a good night’s sleep. Will you be able to peel your eyes away from her… or will you succumb to your isekai dreams?[/p][p]
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[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for reading, see you next week![/p]
Achievements: To Achieve Or Not To Achieve
[p][/p][p]Heya, DocOliver here. I’m the Production Manager at Fakku Games, and QA Testing Lead for Two Beasts or not To Beast. I also wrote the final translations for all the achievements, which while they drove me a little crazy, were pretty fun to write.[/p][p]Achievements are not the easiest to localize, there’s often little to no context with short descriptions, can be unclear where in the game they unlock, what they relate to, and might make references that make no sense or are too vague in English. There’s also strict letter-counts dictated by text boxes made for Japanese character lengths which make things more interesting. I’m also not fluent in Japanese, I can speak and read a little but I’m not a translator (I write like a kindergartener lol), I come from the game industry side as the resident game designer and spreadsheet-obsessor.
[/p][p]
First we had to find a list of all the achievements, which thankfully the Japanese developer, Tokinokogiri wrote a Strategy Guide back when the game was originally released in 2021. From that, one of our translators went through and wrote up a rough translation for me to work off of. Some were straightforward, you aren’t gonna get confused by “Collect 100 Soulcoins”. Many though had multiple possible interpretations, and that meant finding them in-game to see exactly how they work. I also wanted to make sure that the hints and unlocked descriptions were clear and easy to understand while still leaving some secrets to find, as well as give a bit more consistency to the title naming so they clearly fit each achievement.
[/p][p]
[/p][p]
May awaken one’s soundtrack.
Three to eleven. [/p][p][/p][p]As for the titles, many were re-written as they were often either very literal descriptors or didn’t translate well. I also created consistent naming for achievement sets that were clearly connected. The points were like a test score, so the set of score-specific achievements all have school-based titles - Unsatisfactory, Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Summa Cum Laude. The Mini-game achievements were my favorite I think, like the Lust Maze ones all relate to mazes - the highest level achievement for this one directly translated to “Ariadne’s Heart”, which I love being a huge mythology nerd (Ariadne being the one who game the ball of thread to Theseus to get through the Minotaur’s Labyrinth), so I re-worded the lower level achievement to better connect to the maze theme, using the idea that Ariadne is the master of the mythological Labyrinth while a Surgeon is the master of the body’s labyrinth, keeping the heart reference, to get “Heart Surgeon”. [/p][p][/p][p]
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Guest Character Spotlight
[p][/p][p]Say hello to Haruki’s secret crush. Can you create the perfect study date and complete the game with a perfect score (hmmm… I wonder if there’s a secret award for that)?[/p][p][/p][p]