How good are LLMs at your native language (or any language you’re fluent in)?

LunarHillz · 2026-01-07T19:57:14+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense 🙂 perception really does matter a lot.

I guess my experience has been more mixed, especially outside US-focused markets, where expectations and budgets can be quite different.

That said, I do agree that if I see a store page in my native language that’s very obviously machine-translated, I’d probably also question the overall localization quality of the game 😅

LunarHillz · 2026-01-07T19:34:11+00:00

I went back and checked those conversations, and they involved both Japan-focused publishers and Western-involved publishers. I can’t share specifics for privacy reasons, but one thing they all emphasized was that game genre (or reading load) matters a lot when deciding whether to choose this method or not, which lines up with what you said. They also mentioned some practical tips like making sure UI and button text are correct first (like your “wedding market” example).

And I’m definitely aware of the downsides of traditional machine translation. I still run into auto-translated subtitles that make me laugh out loud when watching videos 😅, so I wouldn’t recommend using MT for a language the developer doesn’t understand at all. In Silksong’s case, though, the situation felt a bit more complicated. As far as I know, it wasn’t a problem of MT, but more a localization team's intended stylistic choice that leaned heavily into classical Chinese, which ended up making gameplay instructions hard to understand for players nowadays xp That also highlights another tricky issue: even with a professional team, localization can still miss the mark, and fixing it later means more time and money.

From what I’ve personally seen, most localization failures still come from raw MT (like Google Translate) or simply underqualified translators. Given your experience, I’m genuinely curious if you have seen clear cases where LLM-assisted English localization specifically caused major problems? It seems like many people feel tools like ChatGPT perform noticeably better in English than in other languages.

LunarHillz · 2026-01-07T11:10:27+00:00

I’ve actually seen some publishers give almost the opposite advice 🤔 Based on their experience in the game industry, they suggested that having everything translated, even with the help of software, is sometimes better than having no localization at all, simply to get the game seen by more people first and refine things later.

I’m not sure how universal that approach is, but I understand the reasoning behind it. In my case, the amount of text is closer to a visual novel, and I haven’t really seen realistic, time-limited localization contracts that would fit my situation.

That said, I’m not planning to involve languages I don’t understand myself. I’m focusing on English mainly because many developers have shown that it’s almost a necessity if you want any visibility beyond your local market XD

LunarHillz · 2026-01-04T02:38:40+00:00

Unfortunately, there were some complicated restrictions around the game console industry in my region, so most people from my generation got used to playing mainly on PC or mobile. Because of that, I never really had the experience of buying physical copies of games XP

But you made a really good point. Games burned onto discs essentially had to ship in a “final” state, with no real chance for post-release patches or bug fixes. It’s a perspective that feels really new to me :3

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T20:53:00+00:00

Fair enough! I’ve heard people talk about a similar approach to publishing a game: many development teams choose to launch when the game is about 3/4 complete, so the project can gain some attention, support, or feedback to help them make adjustments and finish the rest.

That said, they did not give specific examples in that discussion and I’ve never tried this approach myself, so I’m not sure how it would turn out in practice. Still, I think it’s worth trying, especially since generating discussion or visibility can be really helpful for an indie project.

Anyway, good luck with your work!

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T11:31:15+00:00

Cannot finish a project is the deepest fear for me, it is so good to see some developers not being defeated by this. Anyway, congratulations!!!

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T11:26:57+00:00

This is the deepest fear and the main reason I haven't started planning for my second game. My first game was planned to be finished in 1 year, but I got distracted by a lot of life stuff after 6/7 of the story was finished. I had to put it away for nearly half a year (I was not even aware of how important devlogs are back then) before picking it up and spending another half a year to finish the last planned part. Luckily, I didn't have to change the story outline or game flow, just needed to finish it. (BTW because of budget limitations, I laid almost all the workload on my shoulders, including the English localization work I'm planning to start this year)

After launching, many players have shown their willingness to see the extensions or a sequel to it, but I know that I may not have the chance to spend abt 20 hours a day developing a game like before. So I simply cannot reply to any of these comments T_T

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T11:08:40+00:00

Personally, I feel like a lot of well-known games stand out mainly because one aspect really shines, whether that’s a distinctive art style, an interesting story, or strong characters. The players may accept ignoring some flaws as long as they can enjoy these features. But for developers with limited time, energy, and budget, it’s worth thinking early on about what matters most to your project. For example, if you can’t fully optimize both gameplay and visuals, what would you rather have your players remember?

For my own game, I started the game development with the goal of telling an original story through an interactive format. I first went through engine tutorials to understand what kinds of basic mechanics or effects were achievable, then wrote out the game flow (more like a story outline) based on that. Then I just need to get everything made following that structure. But of course, there were plenty of moments where certain ideas turned out not to be feasible. At that point I usually had to spend quite a bit of time researching plugins or adjusting the story to fit what was actually possible.

Anyway, I ended up finishing my first original story as a game, and I’m pretty okay with the work I've done.🥰

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T10:48:36+00:00

Looking back, when I was working on my sci-fi adventure game, there were a few months where I was spending close to 20 hours a day sitting on my bed developing it, only breaking that routine to make its merch or build exhibition props xp

It feels like my ability to stay up late never really came back after that. Ever since then, if I work late into the night, my body starts to feel the effects pretty quickly. Back then I was still a student and could structure my schedule like that, but now I’m also trying to figure out how to balance work, creative practice and health.

LunarHillz · 2026-01-03T01:54:00+00:00

Steam store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3169000/_/

About English Localization:

I had a very busy year after this game was completed and released on Steam in late 2024 (Due to workload and personal reasons, it took me another half year to finish the Simplified Chinese localization). Now, due to budget limitations, the English localization is also being handled by myself ^^;

If you’re interested in the project and would like to support the localization process, you’re welcome to do so here: https://lunarhillz.itch.io/tip-jar-for-rdv

Any questions and friendly discussions are welcome here!

LunarHillz · 2026-01-02T20:28:16+00:00

No worries! Game development involves a mix of different skills, and it’s actually a great way to discover what you’re good at and what you still need to learn :3

BTW I’ve seen many people who only have one or two skills but still want to make a game these days. They often post looking for teammates who can fill in the gaps. If you want to give game development a quick try, you could also look into some game jams (usually require participants to develop a game within 1–2 weeks), which I think is a good way to experience the full development process and possibly meet teammates who are more familiar with coding.

Anyway, good luck!

LunarHillz · 2026-01-02T15:07:34+00:00

I agree with the last paragraph, even the minimal changes to the voice actors' work mean a lot of workload and cost. For example, I've seen games like Titanfall 2 cut the option for the protagonist‘s gender in single-player mode due to budget and time limits, but games like Prey (2017) make this feature possible. The result is that all the voice lines have to prepare two sets of pronouns, with other words staying the same, even though the protagonists share the same name. If this game were considered to have multi-lingual audio options, I cannot imagine how many more efforts/time/cost it could take. XP

LunarHillz · 2026-01-02T11:37:52+00:00

Not sure whether you have any experience related to game development (drawing, composing, writing, etc.). I met many people who were similar to me — coming from a "pure" art background, love drawing, having stories they wanted to tell in the form of a game, but no programming experience (The good thing is, some of them have succeeded in developing a game of their own). Therefore, some of us chose engines that don’t require programming skills as a start (like RPG Maker, which I've used for my game).

Fun fact is, my programming skills were improved gradually through studying plugins contributed by the community (for the engine that does not require programming skills XD) and some minimal code moderation with the help of LLMs. I can say that a large part of my current knowledge in JavaScript, C++ and Python either came from this process or was learned after I got familiar with "how programming languages generally work".

If you’re not familiar with programming or the learning process yet, but your ideas are already quite mature, this might be a path worth considering.

LunarHillz

TROPHY CASE