Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

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Cavesa
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Cavesa » Tue Nov 08, 2016 3:54 pm

There are new sales on gog right now, so I've decided to try a few new games (should I find bits of free time, but I will). And I've got a few adventures on my gog shelf, waiting to be properly played. If only my processor wasn't more suitable for a museum exposition than using. (Compared to that, it means nothing that my laptop is adorned by some duct time at the hinges and the ancient battery, not worth to replace anymore, is basically sabotaging the whole "portability" issue). I am in mood for some adventures, so I'll let you know.

Unless I remember very incorectly though, I can add one game already:
an old and great point'n'click adventure Simon the Sorcerer has a very good German dubbing. But the subtitles don't work, despite the official info on the gog website. But subtitles without dubbing are available as well in French, Italian and Spanish

Simon the Sorcerer 2, based on the gog info as I haven't bought it et, should have both dubbing and subtitles in German available, and in French as well.
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There are tons of games like Criminal Case in the apple appstore, judging from the screenshot. But it is sometimes hard to get them in your target language, even when the version exists, I get tons of stuff in Czech, which I don't want, despite having switched the ipad language lots of time ago, and getting a mix of apps in several languages seems to be very hard. The games are great for vocab, in my opinion, but they are unfortunately using the most annoying kind of business model-you wait a lot of time (gradually more and more) and pay to avoid that. I prefer the traditional demo and paid full version model.
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To the database: it is a great idea and I am sorry I cannot help with the technical side. As far as what all should be there, I think we should keep it as simple as possible. But to the proposed format: sometimes you don't get both sound and text in the language. It should be visible somewhere.
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Btw do you know other selling platforms like GOG or Steam to get games in various languages from? Even those still on cdroms are not that easy to come by sometimes.
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Thanks Teango for taking such a care about our subcommunity of language lovers-players!
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Not sure whether I already mentioned this game I loved as a kid: Dračí historie. THere is an English version as well but the Czech one is really good and might please some learners. It is a point'n'click adventure. You are a small dragon, on a quest to save your dad from an evil magic wand.
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And Dreamfall (sequel to the awesome game The Longest Journey) has audio and text in English, German, and Norwegian (was already suggested on the Norwegian list). I haven't played it yet, just the original adventure.
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And again for Czech learners: there is an old series of comedy adventure games Polda (slang for policeman). I haven't played it yet, but some people I know loved it. The first and oldest game can be downloaded for free here (without piracy) http://bonusweb.idnes.cz/Download.aspx? ... 104_623227 and it was liked as well for dubbing by well known czech actors and comedians. Subtitles are available, I think. This first game in the series was published in 1998, Polda 7 should appear in 2017.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Serpent » Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:18 pm

About Criminal Case, yeah hidden object games are common, the main thing here is that there's also a lot of dialogue about solving a crime, with the investigation team, suspects etc. And yeah the forensic analysis takes time unless you pay, but honestly the only times I ever wish I could get the results sooner are due to being impatient to know what happens next. Otherwise by the time when you can't progress without waiting or paying you've generally played so many times in a row that you're fine with taking a break (and if you have some energy left, you can gain more stars and use them later).

As for the list, the main reason to use a database is to keep it sortable by language (and platform). Not worth the fuss otherwise, imo.
Also language lists like En Es Fi etc are hard to browse, I would write it properly like English Spanish Finnish and with only one language per line.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Cainntear » Tue Nov 08, 2016 4:25 pm

Alphathon wrote:Huh, I was just thinking about this in terms of reformatting the forum post; I didn't even consider other options. Hosting issues notwithstanding I believe that storing it in a MySQL database or similar would be a good solution, if only on the backend (it needn't be publicly accessible). The frontend of it could simply be a dynamic webpage (hosted on the static site) in that only relevant games are displayed, so if you, for example, check off English and French for languages and Windows and Android for platform only those would show up.

Is it really going to be a big enough list to need a full database? I can imagine just using a spreadsheet as a single table, then using CSV to import into a Javascript-enabled webpage that lets you filter and sort at will.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Alphathon » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:59 pm

Cainntear wrote:
Alphathon wrote:Huh, I was just thinking about this in terms of reformatting the forum post; I didn't even consider other options. Hosting issues notwithstanding I believe that storing it in a MySQL database or similar would be a good solution, if only on the backend (it needn't be publicly accessible). The frontend of it could simply be a dynamic webpage (hosted on the static site) in that only relevant games are displayed, so if you, for example, check off English and French for languages and Windows and Android for platform only those would show up.

Is it really going to be a big enough list to need a full database? I can imagine just using a spreadsheet as a single table, then using CSV to import into a Javascript-enabled webpage that lets you filter and sort at will.
I'm just used to working with databases so that's what popped into my head. I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done in a CSV.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Teango » Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:01 pm

Thanks for all your input so far, everybody! I've now changed the language abbreviations used throughout our list to conform to standard ISO 639-1 codes, and I'll take a look at putting all the info into a basic HTML table shortly. I'll keep you posted...
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby rdearman » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:02 pm

Teango wrote:Thanks for all your input so far, everybody! I've now changed the language abbreviations used throughout our list to conform to standard ISO 639-1 codes, and I'll take a look at putting all the info into a basic HTML table shortly. I'll keep you posted...

Also, it might be easier to just share a csv file on Google Drive or similar with global read only.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Tati » Wed Nov 09, 2016 9:14 pm

AR-K and indie graphical adventure from spanish developer Gato Salvaje is on sale at Steam right now (0.79€).
Audio, subtitles an UI texts available in both Spanish and English.

Randal's Monday is another graphical adventure developed in Spain. Six languages available: Spanish, English, German (full language support), French, Russian and Italian (just UI texts and subtitles). There's a free demo at Steam.

I've played tons of adventures, so I'll try to gather as much info on those games I know that haven't been mentioned here.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Teango » Thu Nov 10, 2016 10:17 am

I've updated the front page now so that our recommendations are presented in a more accessible table. I haven't added everyone's computer game suggestions yet, but will try to do so shortly.
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby arthaey » Sat Dec 31, 2016 6:43 am

Quick comment: Fieldbook is a good compromise between the power of the database and the user-friendliness of an online shared spreadsheet. Best of all, it's free!

(Full disclosure: It's also a friend's startup, but as Fieldbook is free for basic use, I don't feel like it's "wrong" to share their info when it's relevant. :))
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Re: Dialogue-rich Computer Games in Second Languages?

Postby Teango » Fri Mar 31, 2017 2:57 am

Having completed "The Inner World" in German, I've now set my sights on "The Longest Journey" (and am in the process of installing it on my iPad right now). I loved playing these type of computer adventure games in English when I was younger, and consider it a really fun way of learning new words, consolidating receptive skills, and immersing in memorable and engaging content. This is especially the case when there's a generous supply of funny or captivating interactive dialogue which you can follow, and you can get hold of both the audio and captions in your chosen target language. Of course, learning through computer games is not for everyone, but for me at least, the hours seem to fly by when I'm into a new game. And as a happy bonus, I find my language skills level up nicely with little or no discomfort! :D
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