CASE STUDIES
For those intrigued AND engaged
CASE STUDY of plus
The thin line between…
Quality over everything
Localization and translation… Which one sounds closer to home? It’s even in our name! And in our hearts as well. Everyone can imitate a translation, but when it comes to localization, well, it requires the exact willpower and experience to match an already existing text. And it’s no easy task, we are looking at you AI! All things aside, as Plus Localization, our main goal is always to put a big PLUS to your LOCALIZATION experience. That’s why we dedicated this page for our case studies, go on, read them to get some insights about our workflow. We are more than happy to see you here!
Case Study #1 – Survive the Fall
Developed by ambitious minds at Angry Bulls Studio & Brought to players by Toplitz Productions
This case study wasn’t written by the project manager, but by one of our most valued translator.
How and Why Survive the Fall Needed to be Localized?
Survive the Fall is set in a post-apocalyptic world and combines elements of both exploration and base building mechanics. The tactical pause feature during real-time battles allows players to make strategic decisions. This is an important Plus, especially for Turkish players who love strategy and tactical games. We began our research by reviewing some of the leading works on post-apocalyptic literature and cinema such as Mad Max and The Road. We also examined games of a similar genre to familiarize ourselves with the setting and the narrative language used in the genre.
This helped us to provide the most accurate localization for the Turkish audience.
What Was Translatıng Survive the Fall Like?
Translating a post-apocalyptic, tactical and story-driven game like Survive the Fall requires not only language skills, but also the ability to understand, feel and inhabit the universe. Such projects require the translator not only to get the words right, but also to breathe the atmosphere, to internalize the pain, hopes and conflicts of the characters. The intense story and emotional depth of the play made me feel like the main character during the translation process. Empathizing with the post-apocalyptic difficulties experienced by the characters, thinking about what words they would say in their shoes, and localizing it in accordance with Turkish culture, actor expectations and the nature of the language required serious care and intuition. In this process, only terminological knowledge was not enough. The tone of the play, the personalities of the characters, the emotional breaking moments of the plot and the atmosphere the actor wanted to feel… Paying attention to all these, it was necessary to think like a villain and produce sentences from his dark mind, and sometimes speak with justice and sacrifice like a hero.
During the translation process, I laughed with the characters, I got angry, I questioned their decisions. As I translated each line, I felt not only like a linguist, but also like an actor and a storyteller. Because in such projects, translation is not just about conveying meaning; it is about making the actor feel like a part of the universe.
My Final Words
Our job as translators is not only to convey words, but also emotions, context and experience. Sometimes we come up with creative solutions, sometimes we reconstruct sentences in Turkish to accurately reflect the spirit of the game. We make the translation more impressive by aligning each word with the meaning it is meant to convey and, when necessary, making adjustments to improve fluency.
In short, localizing Survive the Fall was not only a technical task, but also an experience that required empathy, imagination and a wholehearted commitment to the story.
Case Study #2 – Cloudpunk
Developed & Published by beautiful minds at ION Lands
How and Why Cloudpunk Needed to be Localized?
If you have even the slightest interest towards cyberpunk atmosphere, well, there’s a high chance that you’ll love Cloudpunk. And it’s what happened with our community too. Cloudpunk was released a tad before Cyberpunk 2077 (around a year), thus it got a good amount of spotlight from the fans of the genre. Developed by ION Lands, we talked and talked with the head of studio (Marko Dieckmann) during the localization process and we finally brought Cloudpunk to our community.
At first, only French, Italian, German and Spanish were included in the list but since we really wanted our community to enjoy the game with Turkish from day-one, we worked day and night and localized tens of thousands of words in only 14 days! And in the meantime, we ran a couple of LQA sessions as well!
What Was Translatıng Cloudpunk Like?
There were lots of technical and “cyberpunk-esque” (don’t know if that’s a word but, yeah) terms in Cloudpunk. And one can’t expect less from a game that takes place in a cyberpunk city, Nivalis. We first went ahead and prepared a thorough glossary in which we included items, locations, NPCs, etc. Then came the hardest part… Adapting the language to Turkish. Yes, its language wasn’t THAT heavy but it included some eccentric items or sayings that are special to the world. All of these things were more than enough for our brains to run in overclocked mode.
Translating The Game’s Humor and Dialogues
Why do I hear boss music you ask? Well, you are about to work on the parts in which there are lots of puns, idioms and jokes. Yup, if there’s one thing that scares the translators the most, it is the “humor” parts of the lockit. Yeah, it gave us a hard time too, and I should say it was the part where most of our time went. However, there’s a reason why we have a PLUS in our name. We carefully worked through all of the wordplays and knitted every sentence with utmost attention. As Marko Dieckmann stated in his testimonial, “Our game has futuristic terms, technical slang, long conversations, and item descriptions. They managed to translate it quickly and flawlessly.” Well, enough said!
Humor things aside, in a world such Nivalis, where anything can happen anytime, dialogues play a crucial role too. And as one knows, dialogues are the heart of any localization project. Without a proper adaptation, it’s like wearing a sock made out of plastic, it works but does it do the job? (We just came up with the metaphor).
Last Words
Cloudpunk was our very first official project so it’s not just a localization project. We see it as a door opening to the many different opportunities. It’s our loc baby, if you like? (Yes, this one is also made up on the spot). We are more than honored to team up with ION Lands and hope to work again in the future.
Case Study #3 – MADiSON
Developed & Published by craftful hands at BLOODIOUS GAMES
How and Why MADiSON Needed to be Localized?
With an intricate collection of riddles to complete and no shortage of jolting jump scares to startle you with, solving MADiSON‘s grim fundamental mystery is a little like attempting to escape an escape room while also attempting to avoid the vacuation of your intestines. MADiSON expands on the ingenious usage of a Polaroid camera for puzzle-solving and exploration with continuously intriguing results, taking evident inspiration from Hideo Kojima‘s outstanding 2014 Silent Hill teaser demo, P.T. It may not be as perfectly designed as Kojima’s twisting, psychological horror halls, but MADiSON’s haunted home is surely frightening enough to be located in the same area.
In MADiSON, you take on the role of Luca, an adolescent who awakens in his family’s house covered in blood and plagued by a malevolent entity. In a structurally shaky farmhouse that changes and recalibrates around him in constantly disorienting ways, Luca’s only hope of escape is to solve a series of progressively difficult puzzles and complete the painful steps of a demonic ritual.
Knowing that the Turkish community loves the horror genre in general, especially as it’s one of the most preferred genres in gaming, according to the annual report from Gaming in Turkey, MADiSON was the cherry on top. As Plus Localization, we teamed up with BLOODIOUS GAMES to help them with their localization needs. From jumpscares to chilling moments, there were lots of compelling moments to be adjusted properly to really grasp player’s feelings. And as Plus Localization, we managed to achieve just that.
What Was Translatıng MADiSON Like?
Everyone can define the term “horror” differently; however, the very feeling that send chills to our spine is just the same. From its extraordinary gameplay elements, to its soundtrack, MADiSON is one game that surely got our heart rate went up. Fun fact, did you know that MADiSON is choosen to be the scariest game amongst known games such as Alien Isolation, Outlast 2 and Visage? It’s based on a legit research by Broadband Choices that included 200 participants.
“The scientific study by Broadband Choices had 200 participants play a random section of a compiled list of 45 horror video games and tracked their heart rates. The researchers not only recorded the players’ overall BPM (beats per minute) while playing each game but also the highest spike in their heart rate. Bloodious Games’ MADiSON, a video game about a teenage boy who receives an instant camera that once belonged to a serial killer, topped the list on both counts, scoring an average game heart rate of 97 and the highest spike in BPM of 131.”
Therefore localizing MADiSON was a wild ride for each and every one of us. And it’s rather motivating to see the game’s current sales data and seeing that our community really enjoys the game.
Last Words
MADiSON is a mainly exhilarating journey through the night, full of difficult riddles to solve and terrible mysteries to discover. Its excellent use of the camera’s light and creepy aural design created lots of nervous moments, so it’s doubly disappointing that all that suspense may occasionally turn to monotony owing to arbitrary inventory constraints and monotonous backtracking. Nonetheless, MADiSON is a scary journey through a twisted haunted mansion with enough true out-of-your-seat horrors to leave you shook like a Polaroid image, even with these rare momentum-stalling diversions.
Case Study #4 – Highrise City
Crafted by the talented team at FourExo Entertainment and brought to the public by the dedicated individuals at Deck13 Interactive/Spotlight
How and Why Highrise City Needed to be Localized?
Highrise City... yes, it’s a city-building game you guessed it right. BUT, hear us out. Highrise City is no ordinary city-building game. It has all. From managing the economic ecosystem to production chains, you need to pay attention every little detail about your city. As Plus Localization, we joined forces with Deck13 Spotlight and FourExo Entertainment to bring this gem of a game to our Turkish community. Knowing that our community loves both playing AND watching city-building games, it was no-brainer for us.
Turkish wasn’t on the languages list during the Early Access phase; however, with our hard work it is included in the game. It took us 16 days to finish the translation and LQA process. It WAS an ambitious work, yes, but we are honored to be able to deliver it in time for Turkish community.
What Was Translatıng Highrise City Like?
Highrise City‘s localization posed some hardships for us in that it was our very first experience with this sort of vast city-builder simulation. Though, it was, of course, nothing but another hill for us to walk through. We had to make sure that everything was clear for our community including terrain details, building descriptions, the production chain system, sandbox mode, and the user interface. The Turkish localization had to be easy to understand for new players to the genre, and also need to be at that level for seasoned players. Highrise City had no dialogues yes but there were carefully localized tutorial notifications, mission briefings, and help sections, all translated into Turkish with great attention to detail.
Last Words
Throughout the process Michael Hoss was quite helpful with various things. He helped us with our questions with quick turnaround time and as we always say, healthy communication is the key to anything. Highrise City is one great game to pass time, it offers tens of hours of fun with its complex production systems but it also has a hint of feeling of uneasiness due to having to administer everything of a city.
We would like to thank both FourExo Entertainment and Deck13 Interactive for choosing us as their partners for Turkish localization.
Case Study #5 – Sengoku Dynasty
Developed by skilled hands at Superkami, published by passionate people at Toplitz Productions
How and Why Sengoku Dynasty Needed to be Localized?
We worked together with Toplitz Productions on Sengoku Dynasty and we had so much fun making it. Localization was a fun adventure. There’s so much rich history and culture in the game that we had huge amounts of content to localize. And we couldn’t resist making this happen. Indeed, that richness was what made it all so rewarding. With the localization of Sengoku Dynasty, we were given a precious chance to be inside of the world of feudal Japan.
Throughout the project, we were struck by the developers’ dedication to authenticity. Every element, from environmental design to character dialogue, was crafted with care and historical respect. Being part of a project that merges culture, strategy, and storytelling so effectively was a privilege.
What Was Translatıng Sengoku Dynasty Like?
Handling the cultural and historical terminology in the game was one of our top priorities. For a title such as Sengoku Dynasty, we had a responsibility to reflect its world as faithfully and respectfully as possible. Our former experience with similar historical titles and our familiarity with the Sengoku period, helped us make the localization feel natural and intuitive.
We knew it from the start that this project would require a high level of attention to detail, especially dealing with in-game terms (item names, weapons, armor, and real-world locations). However, thanks to careful planning, two different glossaries and a well-organized workflow, we managed to overcome this challenge with clarity and confidence.
Dynasties Are Kind of Our Thing
From Medieval Dynasty to Sengoku Dynasty, and even Wild West Dynasty, Plus Localization has been fortunate to work on many of the titles in this franchise. Over time, we’ve developed a deep bond with these games and proudly embraced them as part of our identity. Nearly four months after the release of Sengoku Dynasty, Toplitz Productions shared community feedback showing that %95 of Turkish player reviews were positive. It was more than enough to make the whole team proud and excited for what’s next
Furthermore, we systematically analyze the reviews in the languages we support at regular intervals. After thorough data gathering, we compile a report with charts, providing our customers with valuable insights into players’ perspectives on the present state of the game and their desire with feedbacks for its future.
Last Words
We believe that a game as carefully developed as Sengoku Dynasty deserves to be presented to the gaming community with the same level of care and quality in its localization. This belief is what pushed us to do our best throughout the project. It was important to us that Turkish players truly felt immersed in the Sengoku period and could experience it in their own language. We kept that goal in mind every step of the way.
We’d like to thank Toplitz Productions for trusting us with this project. Seeing Turkish players react so warmly to our work really encourages us to keep improving and to carry on with the same passion.