Hello everyone!
This week I continued working on the art and fully dove into the lewd scene. As always, animations take up the lion’s share of the time. Every time a long period passes between them, it feels like I’m learning everything from scratch again because I just straight-up forget how to do certain things… Though it’s still way better than it was a year ago, let alone two years ago. I’ve learned a lot, picked up some useful tools, and even though I still spend a ton of time studying them and going through trial and error to get a good result, it’s much smoother now.
AI is also evolving fast, and I can finally use it in my workflow to speed things up and even improve the quality while keeping the original feel. Not everywhere and not always, but it’s already been a huge help. Although, learning how to use this correctly isn't as easy as it seems. But I'm trying to study and test it whenever I can.
This week I also spent a lot of time preparing the game for localization. I’ve finally finished adapting all the old game files and did a deep dive into different localization methods. Basically, there are two main paths I can take now.
The first is to pay translators and hope their work is good enough. It’s probably the simplest option, but also the most expensive, even with the relatively budget-friendly translators I found. And I only managed to find translators for a few major languages, so some languages would still have to go the second route anyway.
The second path is community-driven translation/proofreading using AI. I’m leaning heavily toward this one. First, because the latest models do an incredibly high-quality job, preserving tone, character personality, and overall integrity. This isn’t the old clunky machine translation anymore. I ran several tests and was genuinely impressed with the results. Second, it gives anyone who wants the chance to contribute to localizing the game into their own language and help their people enjoy it better. Naturally, everyone who helps with the translation will get rewards, like a Steam key, credits in the game, and possibly a few extra bonuses I’ll talk about later.
This approach also has almost no limitations. It’s basically free (or at least way cheaper than the alternatives), and I can add as many languages as I want.
I even started preparing files for Crowdin.com, bought API access for the latest high-quality AI model, connected everything, ran tests, and was excited about how smooth and convenient it was… until reality hit me. To translate and run the full public editing project for the entire game, even for just 5 languages, Crowdin wanted 12,000 euros from me. That’s insane. And even that might not be enough for the total word count of the game across all the planned languages. My game has a lot of text, and their pricing is based on word count. Still, paying that much just for text strings is crazy to me.
After a couple more sleepless nights thinking it over, I came up with a third option, a middle ground between the two.
I will use AI to translate the game into as many languages as possible (base minimum is 10, but I'd like to extend it to 17). Then I’ll prepare the files for public editing using simple Google Docs instead of the extremely expensive Crowdin, so anyone who wants to can help edit and refine the translations in their language. I’m currently setting everything up for convenient work, progress tracking, and reporting. I’m trying to make the whole system as simple and user-friendly as possible for everyone. I’m also planning to reward the most active translators/editors (or possibly even everyone) with cash bonuses. So this won’t just be volunteer work, it’ll be properly rewarded work with Steam keys and $ bonuses. I’m still thinking about the best way to do it: reward only the most active contributors or split the reward fund equally among everyone? I’ll decide on the exact amounts later. Tracking progress in Google Docs isn’t the most convenient, so splitting the reward evenly might make more sense, even if it’s less rational, considering some people will contribute more than others.
Anyway, I’m actively working on this, and as soon as I have concrete news or need help, I’ll let you know and ask for your assistance. For starters, I still need to generate AI translations for all the files in all the planned languages. Even though it’s semi-automatic, it still requires a lot of manual work. Plus, I haven’t fully figured out yet how much the API for the latest model will cost me for this volume and for each language. It can also get quite pricey.
Also, I recently posted some new previews. Check them out if you missed them. Next week I’ll be working on April’s wallpapers and special renders, so expect them toward the end of the week.
Anyway, I'll continue working on posing and rendering the lewd scene next week, as well as prepare the translations. That's the plan.
Have a great week, and take care! 🤍
mr.moonmi