My editing services for videogames exist on a wide spectrum, and I tailor my approach to each project depending on what the text needs. First, I always address clear errors in punctuation and syntax. Depending on the conditions of the text and the overall situation of the project, I often also look at and revise word choice and general flow of the text, one clause, paragraph, or sentence at a time, as needed— all while remaining as close to the original text as possible.
Having your text edited by a trained professional lets you spend your time on the core development tasks you and your team are experts in. The knowledge that someone else looked over your text to ensure it’s clear and user-friendly lets you rest assured that ambiguous tutorials and documentation won’t be a source of player confusion. Don’t spend hours repeatedly scouring over your script for errant commas and typos or falling down an internet rabbit hole trying to figure out if a sentence is grammatically correct or not. Check out the information on this page to learn if the things I do could be helpful to your dev cycle.
Depending on your project and your needs, my work may involve…
- Editing of dialogue, narrative, item descriptions, documentation, UI— all player-facing text, or only certain elements.
- Editing your studio’s web copy, your game’s description in marketplaces, and your recurring devlogs
- Basic proofreading
- Line-by-line editing
- Deeper revision of promotional materials to include enticing details and stronger imagery
- Cleaning up in-game typographic hierarchy
- Monolingual translation revision
- Semi-native editing of strings in XML, CSV, and many other markups
Correct but never over-corrected
Clarity and tone are my primary considerations for game text; I want to ensure the text is functional and not unintentionally challenging for players to engage with, and I want to ensure that the text fits naturally into the larger environment of the game. Essential to both of these goals is considering project-wide style decisions such as capitalization, italics, or other forms of simple visual hierarchy. I don’t rigidly apply the “rules” of language, and I never forget that mechanical style in videogames is unique compared to static text because in-game text has to fill multiple roles at the same time. The particular features of game text that make it different from traditional text media are the first thing I look at with each new project; you can find out more about my process here.
Re-localization
I work frequently with game devs from all around the world. As such, my services may also involve ensuring the text is properly idiomatic and matches the intended tone of the game, on top of simply being grammatically correct. In my experience, editing is a frequently missing step in the localization process. Hired translators have different priorities and commonly lack a truly detailed knowledge of punctuation and syntax, resulting in English scripts that still read awkwardly or contain common errors.
Strings and other things
I am not a programmer, but I am comfortable working in a variety of technical environments, from simple text documents to spreadsheets to well-organized strings wrapped inside a codebase. I have experience with CSV, XML, XLSX, and JSON markups, and I am working to continue to build my familiarity with others. I am comfortable with Git workflows, direct email-to-email file swapping, or whatever else might work for you. Please note that the state of your files will impact my turnaround times and pricing.
~Aliyah