Is the German translation any good?

[ceres]

I am really looking foward to playing Darklands for the first time, however I am not sure which language to choose - I have no problems with playing the game in it's original language, but I am considering to choose the German version for the sake of authenticity and atmosphere.

Yet this could really backfire, since the German version is not the original one - so, does anybody have any experience with the translation, is it as good as the original version or would I play a stripped down version of Darklands, ulimately robbing the game of atmosphere instead of adding to it?

[Yasha]

Microprose hired a translator to come over from Germany, spend a few months at the company, and help up create the German version of the game. She spent many weeks of long days working with me over the meaning of the sentences and words (she was a language expert, not a historian), and with the engineers to get things working right.

The in-game text was not formulated well for translation, with too many "variable substitutions" dropping into the middle of sentences, which in German caused havoc, because other words change depending on the gender of the word dropping in. There is also a problem with subbordinate phrases, which are structured differently in English and German, which can make it difficult to structure the various text menu choices. This resulted in code changes were needed to support the German version. Fortunately, it doesn't appear to have significantly affected stability, probably because the code changes are in the simplest areas of the code

My German is not good enough to pass judgment on the final result, but overall I think you could say the German version is fully equal to the English version. However, the game was originally written with English in mind, so if you're a bilingual purist, you could pick English as the "source" language.

In addition, I don't think we ever did a clue book in German - you'll need to find the English version of that. Most people find the clue book VERY helpful, because it provides lots of data charts, and a multi-level help system to get you into and through some of the very arcane quests and puzzles.

Ultimately, the cost of the translation was so high that the company decided it wasn't worthwhile to do any other langauges, like French, Spanish or Italian.

[ceres]

Thank you so much for this infinitely more help- and insightful answer that I could have hoped for. Nice to hear about the respectful treatment the translation got, I think I understand the cost, labour and love that has been poured into the German version - having a professional translator on site working with the devolpers directly surely is not the easiest, yet best path a company could have taken. Quite a shame that this kind of translation is often not deemed profitable enough by publishers.

I've already played a bit into both versions of the game (I own it on gog which also comes with the cluebook, thanks for heads up) and was actually already pleasantly surprised by the quality of the German writing - my concerns started due to some hotkeys that were mapped according the first letters of the English options in some German menus, which could have hinted at other technical issues. If I understand the second part correcly, there are no major technical hick-ups beyond that, which is nice to hear, especially form somebody who was involved in the making of the game.

e: Oh, and since you mentioned that you couldn't pass judgement due to your German being not good enough: Beyond aforemented minor technical issues the parts of the German translation I've already seen are beautifully written, with a clear understanding of German pragmatics and semantic subtleties. They are also really likeable, funny at times, which makes for a nice read.

[Beelzebubble]

I played the English version as a kid, and now the German version (learning German at the moment). The hotkeys are those of the English version, which takes some getting used to, but the language seems to be ok (as far as I can judge, at my level).