Localization
The more languages you have available in your game, the more people will be able to play and enjoy it. Localization will improve engagement for players as they will be able to understand what is happening in-game, especially for any game that has text. For the Poki audience, as we are worldwide, non-localized text based games struggle in countries not localized so it's really important to think this through when creating your game!
Prepare early
Localization gets expensive when it's an afterthought. Keep all text in one place (a single .json file, for example) so translating doesn't mean hunting strings one by one. Make sure text fields and layouts survive longer translations.
Genres where localization pays off most: story games, clicker and idle games, quiz games, and anything where mechanics, items, or powerups are explained through text.
Which languages, in which order
- EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish): the broad base across Europe and the Americas. We recommend adding Turkish to this first batch; it's an increasingly popular locale.
- CJK (Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean): a huge market, but costlier to translate into, so invest when you're confident it's worth it.
- Brazilian-Portuguese, and Russian to cover the remaining bases.
You will have covered a strong base of widely-spoken languages with these, so you should have no issue with reaching a big audience.
Displaying languages
A simple toggle in the menu works. Better: detect the player's browser language and serve the game in it automatically, no toggle hunting required.