LoL News Archive

Hunting for Tote Bags

We’re developing a new non-book product for Legends of Localization! We aren’t going with any of these tote bags, though. Half of them feel rough and scratchy and the other half are too weak to carry heavy books.

The search continues!

LoL: EarthBound Named Tofugu’s Best Japanese Learning Book of 2017

Well, this was a nice weekend surprise! Legends of Localization Book 2: EarthBound was chosen by Tofugu as the Best Japanese Learning Book of 2017 :O That’s really weird because we never meant to teach anyone Japanese with this book, haha. But Tofugu’s reason makes a lot of sense:

As we talked it out on the podcast, we realized that everything in this side-by-side analysis of the Japanese game Mother 2 and its English iteration, Earthbound, just had too much information on language, translation decisions, Japanese history and culture, as well as fantastic design. We couldn’t help it… it just wins. There’s something incredibly powerful about being able to see and understand the translation decisions that went into an entire game. And the game is focused more on conversations and puns than fighting, so it will really help your Japanese skills shoot into the stratosphere.

It’s a honor, thank you Tofugu! They wrote a big article on other Japanese learning resources like shows, websites, games, and more. Read the whole thing here!

LoL Prizes at Awesome Games Done Quick 2018

We’ve donated handfuls of Legends of Localization books as Awesome Games Done Quick prizes! You can be entered for a chance to win one if you donate during these runs:

  • [Wednesday] Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga – LoL Book 2: EarthBound + MOTHER 2 Passport
  • [Thursday] Awful Games Done Quick block (Arabian Nights to Deadly Towers) – This be book bad translation, video games!
  • [Saturday] The Legend of Zelda NES – LoL Book 1: The Legend of Zelda + Zelda Passport
  • [Saturday] Final Fantasy IV – press start to translate
  • [Saturday] Zelda: Breath of the Wild – LoL Book 1: The Legend of Zelda + Zelda Passport

The days up there are based on timezones within the US, and definitely check the AGDQ schedule to see when the games will be run in your timezone. Fangamer and their partners have donated even more prizes, so you have plenty of chances to win some free stuff all while donating to the Prevent Cancer Foundation~

I also think it’s funny that the only Final Fantasy game being run is FF4, which was perfect for our “press start” book as a prize 😀

LoL at MAGFest 2018!

Are you at MAGFest this weekend? Every single Legends of Localization book is there too! Stop by the Fangamer booth to pick up a copy or two, if you desire.

I was planning to go to MAG to work at the FG booth, but some things came up, so I’m actually not there. I’m kinda glad, too, after seeing what the weather’s been like on the east coast this week. x_x Stay warm, my MAGFest friends!

New LoL Book and Bookmark!

Fangamer’s Black Friday sale started early! Out today is press start to translate: This is what happens when you let a computer translate a video game? and a swanky new bookmark!

press start to translate is better known as the Funky Fantasy IV book. You can get it at Fangamer for $22! The Legendary Bookmark is 8 buckaroonies and you can get that one right here. Also, a special promotion just for the Black Friday sale (Nov 21 – Dec 1) : buy 2 LoL books (over $10, so excluding the passports), and you’ll get the bookmark for free!

I also wanted to share this video of Fangamer’s mailroom getting ready for the upcoming tidal wave of BF orders:

Please Excuse Our Mess

The main Legends of Localization site is finally getting treated to a spiffy redesign! There will be broken links and plenty of weird coding issues for the next few weeks. Mato and I, along with Fangamer’s web dev wizard, are working hard to iron out the kinks. So if you see something that looks weird on the site, please ignore it for now!

LoL Featured in Polygon’s 2017 Gift Guide

AUGH! I guess it’s already time to start thinking about Christmas gifts. Polygon’s 2017 Holiday Gift Guide is out, and they feature quite a few Fangamer products! Two Legends of Localization books are on their list:

Those two LoL books were released this year, and we have another one coming in a week or two! press start to translate, our book about Funky Fantasy IV, should be releasing around Black Friday. DANG! We’ve released 3 books this year…

Anyway, big thanks to Polygon for featuring us!

Back to the HTML Mines

Now that the latest book is done and out of our hands, it’s time for me to get back to something I’ve been meaning to do forever and ever: continue the main LoL site redesign! Tony the designer did some great mockups and our pal Brian C. has been implementing it in HTML, but it falls to me to do all the WordPress magic to work with my custom site voodoo I’ve made over the years.

It’s not a very exciting process of course:

I expect there’ll be a time in the coming weeks when the live LoL site will have the new design but be broken in many places. I’ll probably need help finding all the broken stuff when that time comes…