作者：Michelle Zhao

在这篇文章中，来自Sillywalk Games的独立开发者Arman Kayhan和Levon Sebuhyan将讨论他们从面向全球市场创造《脑力魔矩》所获得的一些经验教训与挑战。以下便是我们的访问内容。

Michelle：大家好。我是Michelle Zhao，是LAI Global Game Services的全球发行总监。今天我们的客人是来自SillyWalk Games的Levon和Arman。他们是总部位于欧洲的独立团队。《脑力魔矩》是他们面向全球市场所创造的最新手机益智游戏。他们已经克服了许多困难并准备好面向全球市场发行游戏了。他们也投入了许多努力面向亚洲市场进行游戏本土化。我相信他们进军东方市场的故事一定会吸引许多西方观众的兴趣。现在让我们欢迎Levon和Arman和我们分享他们的经历。

Levon和Arman：你好Michelle。很高兴来到这里，感谢你邀请我们来分享我们的游戏。

Michelle：现在让我们从第一个问题开始吧：

1.你们是如何想出这个概念？

Levon和Arman：那时候我们玩了许多形状填充益智游戏。随后我们发现其实每一款游戏都是一样的。它们都在提供给你一个待填充的形状，并且这里只存在一种解决方法，所以结果便是你找到解决方法或者你不能找到解决方法。这只是关于时间和更多的尝试。

因为我们都很喜欢益智游戏概念，特别是关于形状填充，所以我们便决定将其作为主要游戏概念，并且我们决定对其作出一些改变而将玩家带向该类型游戏的全新层面。也就是在那时候我们开始创造《脑力魔矩》。

2.Michelle：比起其它益智游戏，你们的游戏有什么独特之处？

Levon和Arman：Women创造了一款玩家可以在每个关卡都找到属于自己的解决方法的游戏。尽管你是第4次或第5次玩同一个关卡，基于你解决谜题的选择，你的解决方法也会不同。正是因为如此《脑力魔矩》的玩家可以进一步发挥自己的创造性和视觉化技能。

3.Michelle：作为独立游戏开发者，面向全球市场创造一款游戏并不是一件简单的事。在开发过程中你们是否遇到过哪些困难？

Levon和Arman：当然有了。作为一支独立开发团队我们需要面对各种挑战。首先我们是一支小型团队，这便意味着我们每个人需要承担更多工作。而最大的挑战还是有限的技能树，即这是一支只包含3,4个人的团队。每个人都拥有独特的技能，但如果出现一些新想法，你就不得不去学习新技能以完成该工作。这需要花费更多时间并因此延长项目的完成时间。

4.Michelle：当你们在决定发行市场时为什么对中国市场特别感兴趣呢？

Levon和Arman：我们知道中国是一个拥有许多潜力的巨大市场。随着时间的发展这个市场也不断地壮大着，所以我们希望融入其中。

Michelle：你们说的没错，根据来自Newzoo和TalkingData的挑战，中国的手机游戏市场的收益在2015年已经达到65亿美元，这在全球的301亿美元的总收益中已经超过1/5了。如此中国自然成为了世界上最大的手机游戏和平板游戏的最大市场，甚至赶超了美国（游戏邦注：在2015年的收益为60亿美元）。而最受欢迎的手机游戏是像MOBA那样的硬核游戏或者休闲游戏。

脑力魔矩（from Gamasutra）

5.从本土化来看，为了让游戏在其它市场上发挥吸引力你们做了哪些尝试？

Levon和Arman：我们必须让玩家能够开心地玩游戏，而这就必须从适当的本土化做起。我们希望玩家觉得《脑力魔矩》就像当地的一款游戏。

所以除了翻译工作外，我们还要了解目标国家的历史和神话。我们还根据中国文化重新创造了过场动画，吉祥物，颜色和音乐。

Michelle：关于本土化我们第一个想到的似乎总是语言和区域，而你们好像更多地关注于当地玩家的习惯，喜好和游戏玩法。根据我们的经验，我们知道在短时期内中国玩家比西方玩家的韧性更强。但是在面对游戏难度时他们也是最快退出的人。

6.在进行本土化时你们是否遇到了任何难题？你们从中学到了什么？

Levon和Arman：我们的确遇到了许多困难。而最主要的一个便是关于亚洲字体。因为我们已经习惯于拉丁字体，所以如果文本中出现多种字体，我们便很难马上发现。同样地，布局与可读性也不是个简单的工作。一些图像效果可能适合西方字体，但却并不能与亚洲字体有效融合。所以这便是我们所面对的难题。

Michelle：我听说在LAI的亚洲游戏本土化专家的帮助下你们在测试阶段便已经解决了许多问题。这真的是个好消息！

7.说到测试，在测试期间你们有发现其它文化的玩家有什么不同吗？

Levon和Arman：我们发现中国玩家总是希望在游戏中看到更多提示。比起西方玩家这里的玩家也更加熟悉较为繁忙的窗口。发现这点真的让我们非常惊讶。

在测试阶段我们还发现玩家拥有不同的喜好并会留下不同的评价。我们会认真听取他们的看法但却不会百分之百完全接受。

8.Michelle：你们可否提供给其他想要面向海外市场发行游戏的开发者其它的一些建议：

Levon和Arman：首先，与本土化公司合作真的很重要。这是必要条件。因为你将很难去承担任何有关文化和语言的错误。发行一款游戏本身就足够困难了，如果游戏中的某些元素会对目标文化玩家造成冒犯，那该多可怕啊！

Michelle：非常感谢你们的分享！希望《脑力魔矩》大获成功！

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Making Mind Mould Available in Global Markets – Interview with Indie Developers from SillyWalk Games

by Michelle Zhao

In this podcast, indie developers Arman Kayhan and Levon Sebuhyan of Sillywalk Games discuss the challenges and lessons learned from taking their game Mind Mould to global markets. Below is the transcript of our interview content. Click here to listen. Enjoy!

Michelle: Hello, everyone! Welcome back to LocaLAIse this. My name is Michelle Zhao, and I am the Director for Global Publishing here at LAI Global Game Services. Our guests today are Levon and Arman from SillyWalk Games. They are an indie team based in Europe. Mind Mould, which is also called Nao Li Mo Ju in Chinese, is their newest mobile puzzle game designed with a global interest. They have overcome many difficulties to solve their own puzzle of getting the game ready for a global launch. They have expended quite some efforts to localize their game especially for Asian market. I believe their journey to the East story will particually interest our western listeners. Now let’s welcome Levon and Arman to share their experience with us.

Levon and Arman: Hi, Michelle. It’s nice to be here. Thank you for having me on to talk about our game.

Michelle: OK, let’s begin our interview with the 1st question:

1. How did you come up with the concept?

Levon and Arman: We were playing a lot of shape filling puzzle games in that time. After a while we figured out that, every single one of it is actually same. They give you a shape to fill and there is only one solution for it, so either you find it or you fail. So it was a matter of time and more tries.

Since we were in love with the puzzle concepts, specially the shape filling ones, we wanted to hold on to the main concept but make some changes to push players to the next level on that genre. That was the time we started working on Mind Mould.

2. Michelle: Comparing to other puzzle games, what makes your game unique?

Levon and Arman: We created a game in which players can find their own solutions for every single level. Even though it’s your 4th or 5th time with the same level, you wonder how solutions will vary with your choice of filling the puzzles. Because of that, Mind Mould players should push their creativity and visualization skills.

3. Michelle: As an indie game developer, it’s no easy job to develop a game for the global market. Any struggles you met during development?

Levon and Arman: Yeah, of course, of course. Being an indie developer team has many struggles actually. First of all you are a small team and that means that there is more and more work to do per person. The biggest struggle is the limited skill tree, I mean you are a team consisting of 3-4 people. Everyone has his unique skill set, but other than that if something new comes up, you are forced to learn new skill to get the job done. That takes time and makes your project go slower. But that is just how it is as an indie developer.

4. Michelle: When you are looking into the market to launch, why are you particularly interested in Chinese market?

Levon and Arman: We knew China is a huge market with a lot of potential to go. Year by year it’s pace of growth increased and we wanted to be part of this.

Michelle: You are right – according to a few research institutes like Newzoo and TalkingData, China’s mobile games market would reach $6.5 billion in revenues this year (2015), more than one fifth of the $30.1 billion generated worldwide. This positions China as the world’s biggest market for smartphone and tablet games, ahead of the US with an anticipated $6.0 billion in revenues this year (2015). And the most popular mobile games are among either really hard-core games like MOBA games, or extremely casual games.

5. In terms of localization, what have you worked on to make the game more appealing in the other market?

Levon and Arman: Players must have fun playing your game, and it starts with the proper localization. We wanted them to feel Mind Mould like one of their own.

So other than classic translation work, we started to read about the history and mythology of the country. We re-created our cut-scene, mascot, colors and music to be closer to the Chinese culture.

Michelle: Exactly! While the first touch of localization is the language and locale, it seems that you have put a great deal of thoughts on the habits, favorites and gameplay of local gamers. From our experience, we knew that Chinese users normally stick to a game more than Western gamers within a short time period. But they are also early quitters in front of difficulties in games.

6. Next question is a follow up to this: any difficulties you meet when localizing it? What lessons have you learned?

Levon and Arman: We face with many difficulties actually. Most significant one was working with Asian fonts. We used to work with Latin fonts, but Asian fonts are something new for us. Like, if there is a mix-up in the texts, we wont notice it immediately. And also the layout and readability is not easy to check for us. Certain graphic effects will work fine on Western fonts, but will mess up on Asian fonts. So that was the difficulty we face.

Michelle: I’ve heard that later on, you’ve worked out the issues during the testing phase with the help from LAI’s Asian game localization experts. That’s great news!

7. And talking about testing, what have you found out from the gamers in other cultures during testing?

Levon and Arman: We figured out in China, players expect to see lots of tips in the game. The players are more familiar with a busier window comparing to western gamers. That was a real surprise for us.

Another thing we learned from testing phrase is that gamers will have different preferences and leave very different comments. We will listen to their ideas but can’t integrate all, of course.

8. Michelle: What are other tips you could give to developers looking into publishing their game overseas?

Levon and Arman: First of all, It is important to work with a localization company. It is a must actually. You can’t afford to make big mistakes regarding culture and language. Publishing a game is hard enough by itself, imagine what would happen if elements of the game would be offending to people in those culture.

Michelle: Thank you very much for sharing your story with us, Levon and Arman! Hope Mind Mould a global success!

Levon and Arman: Oh, thank you, Michelle.

Michelle: Back to our listeners, hope you enjoy today’s discussion with our friend Levon and Arman from SillyWalk Games. And as always, if you have comments, suggestion or questions for us here at LAI Global Game Services, please feel free to email us at podcast@lai.com, or you can even twit us at LanguageAutoInc.（source：Gamasutra）