locatheart’s most important – and, chronologically, the earliest – specialisations include game localisation, and our portfolio abounds with both video and tabletop games. Still, a recent project for a Scandinavian client was one of the most demanding ones in our almost nine-year-long history.

Party games are now more popular than ever. They help break the ice at a housewarming party or when meeting new people at a pub. They’re somewhat more light-hearted than regular tabletop games, which often stress their competitive or story-telling aspects.

Our client, a renowned Scandinavian game publisher, approached us with a request to localise their hit party game into Polish. Players’ task is to guess phrases obfuscated with wordplays. We received the source English version of the game and, as a reference, Scandinavian-language versions. In each of the variants, the phrases to guess were related to pop culture, memes, fun activities, and even sexuality.

The first challenge, then, was localising topics – often specific to Scandinavia – in such a way that they would be understood by Poles. As a result, foreign jokes, memes, or celebrities were “swapped” for their “equivalents” recognisable in Poland.

Our main objective was to recreate the game’s main feature – wordplays – in Polish.

In order to carry out the project, we assigned translation and editing tasks to trusted internal linguists – employees with higher philological education and huge experience in the localisation industry, who at the same time are players themselves. Using their knowledge and skills, they managed to translate the game adequately, so that the target audience could play it exactly like the Scandinavians. Due to the requirement to adapt the phrases and invent native-language wordplays, the task was not mere translation but rather transcreation.

The editor reviewed Polish version, taking into account its accuracy and grammatical correctness. She also conducted internal company tests in order to verify whether the game works the same in Polish as in the original. It was also crucial to ensure that the difficulty level is adequate (not too high and not too low) and that the wordplays are fun to guess and not frustrating.

Having received the localised game content from us, the client also asked for a translation of the title. After an office brainstorming session, we suggested a few options, which we sent to the client together with back-translations. It was necessary because the Polish versions alone would say very little to the original’s creators – they had to be translated into English, so that the client could understand all their intricacies.

As far as game translation is concerned, this project was one of the most demanding in our history. While we have carried out countless large tasks demanding vast subject-matter knowledge, rarely did we come across products where wordplays – theoretically untranslatable – were so widely used.

We’re very curious as to what the reception of this wordplay-based party game will be and are looking forward to playing it – officially!