Mato Anomalies developers on the challenges of bringing a chinese RPG to the west
We sat down with Arrowiz developers to discuss Mato Anomalies ahead of its March release.
Mato Anomolies is an upcoming turn-based JRPG developed by Arrowiz and published by Prime Matter. The studio is based in Shangai, and the Chinese influence is all over the style and story of the game. Bringing it to global audiences creates a new set of challenges for the developer, and Arrowiz discussed them in a recent interview with Shacknews.
Shacknews head of video Greg Burke spoke with Will Corona Pilgrim (Narrative Advisor) and David Giltinan (Narrative Designer) about their work on Mato Anomalies. It’s here that the duo talks about the difficult task of bringing the Chinese-developed game to western audiences. “It was a balancing act,” Pilgrim said. “It was not wanting to rip apart what’s there… and it being a Shanghai-set game, we didn’t want to say ‘oh well western audiences aren’t going to get this.’” The developers wanted to make sure the game was enjoyable by a global audience without compromising its cultural identity.
Interestingly enough, the developers stated that the actual localization of the games, particularly syntax, was the most challenging part of adapting Mato Anomalies for more gamers. “Making sure that when you’re writing… you don’t want to have them have to go back and redo the animations,” Pilgrim explained. “I jokingly say that it’s been like this bizarre writing sudoku.”
The full interview with Pilgrim and Giltinan is an insightful look at the game development process when it’s time to bring a product to a global audience. We’ve had a lot of informative chats with developers, which you can check out over on the Shacknews and GamerHubTV YouTube channels.
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